INESC-ID

About: INESC-ID is a nonprofit organization based out in Lisbon, Portugal. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Field-programmable gate array & Control theory. The organization has 932 authors who have published 2618 publications receiving 37658 citations.

A computational approach towards conflict resolution for serious games

Abstract: Conflict is an unavoidable feature of life, but the development of conflict resolution management skills can facilitate the parties involved in resolving their conflicts in a positive manner. The goal of our research is to develop a serious game in which children may experiment with conflict resolution strategies and learn how to work towards positive conflict outcomes. While serious games related to conflict exist at present, our work represents the first attempt to teach conflict resolution skills through a game in a manner informed by sociological and psychological theories of conflict and current best practice for conflict resolution. In this paper, we present a computational approach to conflict generation and resolution. We describe the five phases involved in our conflict modeling process: conflict situation creation, conflict detection, player modeling and conflict strategy prediction, conflict management, and conflict resolution, and discuss the three major elements of our player model: assertiveness, cooperativeness, and relationship. Finally, we overview a simple resource management game we have developed in which we have begun experimenting with our conflict model concepts.

On Propositional QBF Expansions and Q-Resolution.

Abstract: Over the years, proof systems for propositional satisfiability (SAT) have been extensively studied. Recently, proof systems for quantified Boolean formulas (QBFs) have also been gaining attention. Q-resolution is a calculus enabling producing proofs from DPLL-based QBF solvers. While DPLL has become a dominating technique for SAT, QBF has been tackled by other complementary and competitive approaches. One of these approaches is based on expanding variables until the formula contains only one type of quantifier; upon which a SAT solver is invoked. This approach motivates the theoretical analysis carried out in this paper. We focus on a two phase proof system, which expands the formula in the first phase and applies propositional resolution in the second. Fragments of this proof system are defined and compared to Q-resolution.

Character Identification in Children Stories

Abstract: The automatic identification of direct and indirect discourses and the association of each “direct” utterance with its author are research topics that begin to be explored in Natural Language Processing.

The role that an educational robot plays

Abstract: Human beings naturally assign roles to one another while interacting. Role assignment is a way to organize interpersonal encounters and can result in uncertainty decrease when facing a novel interaction with someone we just met, or even to rediscover new roles within previous relationships. When people interact with synthetic characters - such as robots - it seems they also assign roles to these agents, just as they do with humans. Within the field of human-robot interaction (HRI), robots are being developed to fulfill specific roles. This enables researchers to design concrete behaviors that match the desired role that a robot will play in a given task. It would then be expected that if a robot is developed with such a specific role, users too would assign the same role to that robot. In this paper, we study how children assign roles to an educational robot whose role is established from the beginning of the interaction. Our results show that although the role that the robot played was explicitly presented to children, they end up perceiving and assigning different roles for that robot. Moreover, we conclude that role assignment in educational HRI is a dynamic process in which the perceptions of children regarding the robot change over time as a consequence of continuous interactions.