From the Publisher:
Written by the author of the best-selling HyperText & HyperMedia, this book provides an excellent guide to the methods of usability engineering. Special features: emphasizes cost-effective methods that will help developers improve their user interfaces immediately, shows you how to avoid the four most frequently listed reasons for delay in software projects, provides step-by-step information about which methods to use at various stages during the development life cycle, and offers information on the unique issues relating to informational usability. You do not need to have previous knowledge of usability to implement the methods provided, yet all of the latest research is covered.

Usability Engineering

The concept of an agent has become important in both Artificial Intelligence (AI) and mainstream computer science. Our aim in this paper is to point the reader at what we perceive to be the most important theoretical and practical issues associated with the design and construction of intelligent agents. For convenience, we divide these issues into three areas (though as the reader will see, the divisions are at times somewhat arbitrary). Agent theory is concerned with the question of what an agent is, and the use of mathematical formalisms for representing and reasoning about the properties of agents. Agent architectures can be thought of as software engineering models of agents;researchers in this area are primarily concerned with the problem of designing software or hardware systems that will satisfy the properties specified by agent theorists. Finally, agent languages are software systems for programming and experimenting with agents; these languages may embody principles proposed by theorists. The paper is not intended to serve as a tutorial introduction to all the issues mentioned; we hope instead simply to identify the most important issues, and point to work that elaborates on them. The article includes a short review of current and potential applications of agent technology.

/pdf/intelligent-agents-theory-and-practice-5dchj7p8pc.pdf

Intelligent Agents: Theory and Practice

From the Publisher: 
A Question of Identity 
Life on the Screen is a fascinating and wide-ranging investigation of the impact of computers and networking on society, peoples' perceptions of themselves, and the individual's relationship to machines. Sherry Turkle, a Professor of the Sociology of Science at MIT and a licensed psychologist, uses Internet MUDs (multi-user domains, or in older gaming parlance multi-user dungeons) as a launching pad for explorations of software design, user interfaces, simulation, artificial intelligence, artificial life, agents, "bots," virtual reality, and "the on-line way of life." 
Turkle's discussion of postmodernism is particularly enlightening. She shows how postmodern concepts in art, architecture, and ethics are related to concrete topics much closer to home, for example AI research (Minsky's "Society of Mind") and even MUDs (exemplified by students with X-window terminals who are doing homework in one window and simultaneously playing out several different roles in the same MUD in other windows). Those of you who have (like me) been turned off by the shallow, pretentious, meaningless paintings and sculptures that litter our museums of modern art may have a different perspective after hearing what Turkle has to say. 
This is a psychoanalytical book, not a technical one. However, software developers and engineers will find it highly accessible because of the depth of the author's technical understanding and credibility. Unlike most other authors in this genre, Turkle does not constantly jar the technically-literate reader with blatant errors or bogus assertions about how things work. Although I personally don't have time or patience for MUDs,view most of AI as snake-oil, and abhor postmodern architecture, I thought the time spent reading this book was an extremely good investment.

스크린 위의 삶 = Life on the screen : identity in the age of the internet

Erik Eriksen is a remarkable individual. He has no college degrees yet is Professor of Human Development at Harvard University. He came to psychology via art, which explains why the reader will find him painting contexts and backgrounds rather than stating dull facts and concepts. He has been a training psychoanalyst for many years as well as a perceptive observer of cultural and social settings and their effect on growing up. This is not just a book on childhood. It is a panorama of our society. Anxiety in young children, apathy in American Indians, confusion in veterans of war, and arrogance in young Nazis are scrutinized under the psychoanalytic magnifying glass. The material is well written and devoid of technical jargon. The theme of the volume is that it is human to have a long childhood which will leave a lifelong residue of emotional immaturity in man. Primitive groups and

Childhood and Society.

How to ... be a reflective practitioner.

This paper presents a "persistent chat" extension to the ePresence Interactive Media webcasting infrastructure to support real-time commenting on and discussing of issues that arise during a learning event, followed by ongoing asynchronous dialogue about these issues while viewing the archives after the event. We report encouraging results of a field study of use of the system by students and a teaching assistant in a computer science class on communication skills, which encouraged students to review, think critically about, and improve their public speaking abilities.

/pdf/webcasting-made-interactive-persistent-chat-for-text-5b6uo9cnbm.pdf

Webcasting made interactive: persistent chat for text dialogue during and about learning events

Proceedings of the 1992 ACM conference on Computer-supported cooperative work

Motion analysis is the systematic and usually quantitative study of the movements of humans, animals, organisms, cells, or other entities as recorded on movie film or video tape. Despite the utility of computer-aided motion analysis to many biological, social, and physical sciences, its role has been limited because it is so time-consuming and so expensive. Automated techniques can only be used on real images in very special cases; interactive techniques have involved laborious frame by frame operations.In recent years, Futrelle and Potel have revolutionized the process of interactive motion analysis by demonstrating how to digitize entire motions with a single sketch rather than with a sequence of operations on each constituent frame. However, their GALA-TEA system is applicable only to film and not to video tape records, and consists of equipment which cannot easily be engineered into a reliable and mass-producible laboratory instrument.The paper describes a prototype laboratory instrument for the interactive motion analysis of video tape records. The prototype includes a host PDP 11/45 computer, an experimental display processor called SPIWRIT, and a microprocessor-controlled video disk. SPIWRIT generates a computer-animated video representation of the phenomenon being analysed, and superimposes it on the actual video record being streamed from the video disk. SPIWRIT's bit-slice microprogrammable display processor produces true animation on a colour raster display by decoding segmented display file images into alternate halves of a double frame buffer.

Towards a laboratory instrument for motion analysis

Speech, language, and audition

This work was supported by AGE-WELL NCE Inc., a member of the Networks of Centres of
Excellence program.

/pdf/a-field-study-of-older-adults-with-cognitive-impairment-4nf1vs8ex5.pdf

Ronald M. Baecker

Papers

Webcasting made interactive: persistent chat for text dialogue during and about learning events

Proceedings of the 1992 ACM conference on Computer-supported cooperative work

Towards a laboratory instrument for motion analysis

Speech, language, and audition

A Field Study of Older Adults with Cognitive Impairment using Tablets for Communication at Home: Closing Technology Adoption Gaps using InTouch