hypertext

Adaptive hypertext

Johan Bollen http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/INFOJB.html and http://www.c3.lanl.gov/~jbollen/

My PhD work is situated in the domain of adaptive hypertext, which in its turn is a sub-domain of human-computer interaction (HCI) research. The aim of HCI is to model and improve the interaction between humans and electronic (information) systems. The domain of adaptive hypertext more specifically focuses on how hypertext systems can be made to adapt their behavior to the needs of specific groups of users. My research attempts to address the (unavoidable) theoretical issues concerning hypertext design and navigation as well as the implementation and engineering of specific systems for adaptive hypertext. It is strongly influenced by cybernetics, cognitive science, connectionist models of human memory and human factors. My PhD research is first based on the assumption that the structure of any hypertext network, if it is designed for the storage and human retrieval of information, is that of an associative knowledge network. Both designer and navigator of the network have pre-formed conceptions of how concepts relate in the world. The designer uses his ideas of association among concepts to construct the hypertext system and link the appropriate pages (design model~network structure). The navigator uses his model of associations among concepts to navigate the network (mental model). The interaction between the designers design model (~network structure) and the navigator's mental model, determine the characteristics of the hypertext-browser system. Second, since hypertext networks behave like associative networks for both designer and navigator, the learning algorithms that most theories of associative networks describe can also be applied to hypertext networks. Hypertext networks could be made to autonomously change their structure according to local measures of navigational choices. This way the ergonomically desired overlap between design model and mental model can be ensured for hypertext networks, without the intervention of human design.

Bollen J., "Associative Network Models for Adaptive Web Linking and Retrieval", Dissertation in Experimental Psychology

Bollen J. [1995] "Adaptive hypertext networks that learn the common semantics of their users". In Proceedings of the 14th Int. Congress on Cybernetics, pages 251-255, Namur, 1995. International Association of Cybernetics.

Bollen J., Rocha L. [2000], "An adaptive systems approach to the implementation and evaluation of digital library recommendation systems", In LNCS - Fourth European Conference on Research and Advanced Technology for Digital Libraries (ECDL2000), Lisbon, September 2000. Springer Verlag.

Rocha M., Bollen J. [2000], "Biologically motivated distributed designs for adaptive knowledge management", In I.Cohen and L. Segel, eds, Design Principles for the Immune System and other Distributed Autonomous Systems, Oxford University Press, Oxford, In Press, 2000.

Bollen J. [1999] "Cognitive complexity vs. connectivity: efficiency analysis of hypertext networks" In F. Heylighen, J. Bollen, and A. Riegler, eds, The Evolution of Complexity, pages 345-368. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, 1999.

Syntactic autonomy

Rocha, Luis M. [2000]. "Syntactic Autonomy: or why there is no autonomy without symbols and how self-organizing systems might evolve them". New York Academy of Sciences. Vol. 901. In Press.

http://www.c3.lanl.gov/~rocha/lr_form.html

Two different types of agency are discussed based on dynamically coherent and incoherent couplings with an environment respectively. I propose that until a private syntax (syntactic autonomy) is discovered by dynamically coherent agents, there are no significant or interesting types of closure or autonomy. When syntactic autonomy is established, then, because of a process of description-based selected self-organization, open-ended evolution is enabled. At this stage, agents depend, in addition to dynamics, on localized, symbolic memory, thus adding a level of dynamical incoherence to their interaction with the environment. Furthermore, it is the appearance of syntactic autonomy which enables much more interesting types of closures amongst agents which share the same syntax. To investigate how we can study the emergence of syntax from dynamical systems, experiments with cellular automata leading to emergent computation to solve non-trivial tasks are discussed. RNA editing is also mentioned as a process that may have been used to obtain a primordial biological code necessary open-ended evolution.

Center for cognitive studies : http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/

Dennett D.C. [1998], Memes: Myths, Misunderstandings and Misgivings, Draft for Chapel Hill, October 1998 (http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/MEMEMYTH.FIN.htm).

Joslyn, Cliff: [2000] "Levels of Control and Closure in Complex Semiotic Systems", Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, special issue on "Closure", ed. J. Chandler, G. van de Vijver, v. 901, pp. 67-74, 2000. http://www.c3.lanl.gov/~joslyn

Howard Pattee, Professor University of Binghamton, Department of Systems Science and Industrial Engineering http://www.ssie.binghamton.edu/pattee/

Pattee, H. H. [1995] "Evolving self-reference: matter, symbols, and semantic closure". Communication and Cognition - Artificial Intelligence, 12 (1-2), 9-28.

http://www.ssie.binghamton.edu/pattee/sem_clos.html

Self-organisation of distributed, multi-user networks

Peter Brusilovsky http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~plb/home.html

http://www2.sis.pitt.edu/~peterb/

Brusilovsky, P. [2001], Adaptive hypermedia. User Modeling and User Adapted Interaction 11 (1/2), 87-110, http://www.wkap.nl/oasis.htm/270983.

Brusilovsky, P. [2000], "Concept-based courseware engineering for large scale Web-based education". In: G. Davies and C. Owen (eds.) Proceedings of WebNet'2000, World Conference of the WWW and Internet, San Antonio, TX, Oct. 30 - Nov. 4, 2000, AACE, pp. 69-74.

Brusilovsky, P. [2000] "Adaptive hypermedia: From intelligent tutoring systems to Web-based education" (Invited talk). In: G. Gauthier, C. Frasson and K. VanLehn (eds.) Intelligent Tutoring Systems. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 1839, (Proceedings of 5th International Conference on Intelligent Tutoring Systems,ITS 2000, Montreal, Canada, June 19-23, 2000) Berlin: Springer Verlag, pp. 1-7.

De Bra, P., Brusilovsky, P., and Houben, G.-J. [1999] "Adaptive Hypermedia: From Systems to Framework". ACM Computing Surveys, 31 (4es) December 1999. [publisher's site]

Brusilovsky, P. and Cooper, D. W. [1999], "ADAPTS: Adaptive hypermedia for a Web-based performance support system", In: P. Brusilovsky and P. De Bra (eds.) Proceedings of Second Workshop on Adaptive Systems and User Modeling on WWW at 8th International Word Wide Web Conference and 7-th International Conference on User Modeling, Toronto and Banff, Canada, May 11 and June 23-24, 1999, Computer Science Report # 99-07, Eindhoven University of Technology.

International Conference on Adaptive Hypermedia : http://ah2000.itc.it/