Plan-based Approach Research Articles

Selective effects of psychosocial stress on plan based movement selection

Efficient movement selection is crucial in everyday activities. Whether this function is governed by our stress system is so far unknown. In the current study, data from thirty-six young male adults were analyzed. They performed rule- and plan-based movement selection tasks before (session 1) and after (session 2) a psychosocial stressor, or after a control condition without additional social stressor. Results showed that the rule-based efficiency advantage which was observed prior to the psychosocial stressor was significantly reduced afterwards in the whole sample, as well as in the stress group. Regression analyses revealed that this effect was due to a modulation of the plan-based approach. Especially variations—both increase and decrease—in the parasympathetic activity (reflected by the heart rate variability measure RMSSD) appeared to be disadvantageous for plan-based movement selection improvement. In contrast, performance in the rule-based movement selection tasks appeared to be rather invariant to external influences. The current results suggest that autonomic nervous system activity might modulate motor-cognitive performance. This modulatory capability might be selective for plan-based approaches, hence the applied strategy to movement selection could be decisive when it comes to the vulnerability of motor-cognitive processes towards psychosocial stress.

Back to the Future for Dialogue Research

This “blue sky” paper argues that future conversational systems that can engage in multiparty, collaborative dialogues will require a more fundamental approach than existing technology. This paper identifies significant limitations of the state of the art, and argues that our returning to the plan-based approach to dialogue will provide a stronger foundation. Finally, I suggest a research strategy that couples neural network-based semantic parsing with plan-based reasoning in order to build a collaborative dialogue manager.

Coastal landscape and the Greek spatial planning: evidence from windpower in the South Aegean islands

This paper discusses issues about the coastal and the insular landscape integration in the Greek spatial planning framework. Case study area is the region of the South Aegean, where the proliferation of wind turbines is one of the principal factors of landscape change. The methodological approach adopted is mainly quantitative and is based on viewshed analysis. This paper is also demonstrates that zones with varying impact on landscape can be identified. It also emerges that the spatial planning framework in Greece promotes an ad hoc project-led instead of a plan-based approach to coastal and insular landscape management.

An adaptive plan-based approach to integrating semantic streams with remote RDF data

To satisfy a user’s complex requirements, Resource Description Framework (RDF) Stream Processing (RSP) systems envision the fusion of remote RDF data with semantic streams, using common data models to query semantic streams continuously. While streaming data are changing at a high rate and are pushed into RSP systems, the remote RDF data are retrieved from different remote sources. With the growth of SPARQL endpoints that provide access to remote RDF data, RSP systems can easily integrate the remote data with streams. Such integration provides new opportunities for mixing static (or quasi-static) data with streams on a large scale. However, the current RSP systems do not offer any optimisation for the integration. In this article, we present an adaptive plan-based approach to efficiently integrate sematic streams with the static data from a remote source. We create a query execution plan based on temporal constraints among constituent services for the timely acquisition of remote data. To predict the change of remote sources in real time, we propose an adaptive process of detecting a source update, forecasting the update in the future, deciding a new plan to obtain remote data and reacting to a new plan. We extend a SPARQL query with operators for describing the multiple strategies of the proposed adaptive process. Experimental results show that our approach is more efficient than the conventional RSP systems in distributed settings.

Using Social Relationships to Control Narrative Generation

Narrative generation represents an application domain for AI planning where plan quality is related to properties such as shape of plan trajectory. In our work we have developed a plan-based approach to narrative generation that uses character relationships as a key determinant in controlling plan shape (relationships are key in genres such as serial dramas and soaps). Our approach is implemented in a demonstration Interactive Narrative, called NetworkING, set in the medical drama genre. The system features a user-friendly mechanism for specifying relationships between virtual characters, via a social network and real-time visualisation of generated narratives on a 3D stage.

It’s the People, Stupid! - Formal Models of Social Interaction in Agile Software Development Teams

The success of modern ICT systems is not just about the technology. The human and social dimensions are also critical – especially in terms of understanding the context and environment within which the systems operate. This is true also about the environment in which the system is developed. Although much effort has been expended on building and analysing formal models of software systems, little has been done in terms of how software development teams work and how this might be studied in a formally-based way. This research looks at one of the fundamental aspects involved in collaborative teams working in projects – the transactive memory system (TMS). This, well established, concept in psychology is an approach to how the different people in a team regard the capabilities (knowledge and abilities) of each other as it changes over time. These capabilities are the basis for decision making in software projects about who does what, and when. Using a formal model of the TMS of a team, based on agent-based modelling, simulations were made of how teams might operate under different circumstances. The initial model was validated against published data. The model was then investigated in terms of how different types of project management affected the TMS of a team and on the team’s performance. In particular, a comparison was made between a traditional, plan-based approach against an agile method using pair programming. The result demonstrates strong benefits in terms of performance and learning with the agile approach.

It’s the People, Stupid! - Formal Models of Social Interaction in Agile Software Development Teams

The success of modern ICT systems is not just about the technology. The human and social dimensions are also critical – especially in terms of understanding the context and environment within which the systems operate. This is true also about the environment in which the system is developed. Although much effort has been expended on building and analysing formal models of software systems, little has been done in terms of how software development teams work and how this might be studied in a formally-based way. This research looks at one of the fundamental aspects involved in collaborative teams working in projects – the transactive memory system (TMS). This, well established, concept in psychology is an approach to how the different people in a team regard the capabilities (knowledge and abilities) of each other as it changes over time. These capabilities are the basis for decision making in software projects about who does what, and when.Using a formal model of the TMS of a team, based on agent-based modelling, simulations were made of how teams might operate under different circumstances. The initial model was validated against published data. The model was then investigated in terms of how different types of project management affected the TMS of a team and on the team’s performance. In particular, a comparison was made between a traditional, plan-based approach against an agile method using pair programming. The result demonstrates strong benefits in terms of performance and learning with the agile approach.

Two Routes to the Same Action: An Action Repetition Priming Study

ABSTRACT. Action selection can be influenced by preceding movements. The authors investigated how retrospective factors may interact with plan- versus rule-based action selection. Participants completed 2 tasks, both of which involved selecting a pronated or supinated posture. In the plan task, they chose the most comfortable hand orientation. In the rule task, they followed a learned prescription. Trials in both tasks comprised prime-probe pairs that were identical, or differed in the visual stimulus or required motor response. Both tasks showed a response-time advantage for probes that were preceded by identical primes. This effect was greater for the plan task suggesting that plan-based action selection is especially susceptible to recent history, fortifying the idea that differential mechanisms underlie a rule- versus plan-based approach to the same action.

Plans versus people: Comparing knowledge management approaches in IT-enabled business projects

This paper evaluates the impact of two approaches to knowledge management in projects — one focused on aligning project documents (“the Plan-based approach”) and another focused on developing shared understanding between different teams within a project (“the People-based approach”). A theoretical model and hypotheses are proposed and explored using data from a survey of 212 IT-enabled business projects. Results indicate that the people-based approach is more strongly influential on a project's success in securing business benefits. Although the plan-based approach is less influential, it does positively influence business benefit attainment and also supports the people-based approach. Thus, attaining shared understanding within the project team and aligning key documents are both important goals for a project's knowledge management strategy.

Assessment makes perfect: improving student's algorithmic problem solving skills using plan-based programme understanding approach

For the majority of undergraduate students of computer science, inadequate designing and planning algorithm skills are among the most salient hurdles. Learning how to design an algorithm which resolves a given problem is not easy. We propose a formative-diagnostic assessment approach which helps students on acquiring problem-solving skills that enable them to cope with problems and to design more efficient and elegant solutions. This method is based on using known components called: basic operations, which are defined and regrouped in a library. A plan-based programme understanding is used for modelling and a similarity measure is chosen for matching between plans to assess.

Improving fisheries co-management through ecosystem-based spatial management: The Galapagos Marine Reserve

Abstract Ecosystem-based spatial management (EBSM) can provide a mechanism for a strategic and integrated plan-based approach to managing human activities in the marine environment. An EBSM approach was adopted in the Galapagos Marine Reserve (GMR) at the end of the 1990s with the adoption of marine zoning. The latter was created under a co-management regime to reduce conflicts among users arising over incompatible demands for ocean space, to mitigate the impact of human activities on sensitive ecological areas, and to contribute to the sustainability of Galapagos fisheries. Unfortunately, the promise of an EBSM approach in the GMR has not been matched by effectiveness in practice, in achieving the established management objectives. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the shortcomings and lessons learned related to planning, implementation, monitoring, evaluation and adaptation of the GMR's marine zoning scheme, and to provide recommendations to better realize the potential value of the EBSM approach to co-managing the shellfisheries of the GMR.

Examining perceptions of agility in software development practice

Introduction Organizations undertaking software development are often reminded that successful practice depends on a number of non-technical issues that are managerial, cultural and organizational in nature. These issues cover aspects from appropriate corporate structure, through software process development and standardization to effective collaborative practice. Since the articulation of the 'software crisis' in the late-1960s, significant effort has been put into addressing problems related to the cost, time and quality of software development via the application of systematic processes and management practices for software engineering. Early efforts resulted in prescriptive structured methods, which have evolved and expanded over time to embrace consortia/ company-led initiatives such as the Unified Modeling Language and the Unified Process alongside formal process improvement frameworks such as the International Standards Organization's 9000 series, the Capability Maturity Model and SPICE. More recently, the philosophy behind traditional plan-based initiatives has been questioned by the agile movement, which seeks to emphasize the human and craft aspects of software development over and above the engineering aspects. Agile practice is strongly collaborative in its outlook, favoring individuals and interactions over processes and tools, working software over comprehensive documentation, customer collaboration over contract negotiation, and responding to change over following a plan (see Sidebar 1). Early experience reports on the use of agile practice suggest some success in dealing with the problems of the software crisis, and suggest that plan-based and agile practice are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, flexibility may arise from this unlikely marriage in an aim to strike a balance between the rigor of traditional plan-based approaches and the need for adaptation of those to suit particular development situations. With this in mind, this article surveys the current practice in software engineering alongside perceptions of senior development managers in relation to agile practice in order to understand the principles of agility that may be practiced implicitly and their effects on plan-based approach.

Event relations in plan-based plot composition

The process of plot composition in the context of interactive storytelling is considered from a fourfold perspective, that is, from the syntagmatic, paradigmatic, antithetic, and meronymic relations between the constituent events. These relations are shown to be associated with the four major tropes of semiotic research. A conceptual model and set of facilities for interactive plot composition and adaptation dealing with the four relations is described. To accommodate antithetic relations, corresponding to the irony trope, our plan-based approach leaves room for the unplanned. A simple storyboarding prototype tool has been implemented to conduct experiments.

Program plan recognition for year 2000 tools

There are many commercial tools that address various aspects of the Year 2000 problem. None of these tools, however, addresses the closely related leap-year problem. In this paper, we provide experimental results that suggest that the leap-year problem can be addressed by plan-based techniques for automated concept recovery. In particular, we provide representative code fragments illustrating the leap-year problem, and we show the results of an empirical study that provides evidence that a plan-based approach can efficiently recognize both correct and incorrect leap-year computations and that the needed plan library is likely to be tractable in size. This paper furthermore argues that plan-based techniques are in fact mature enough to make a significant contribution to the Year 2000 problem itself, despite none of the existing tools making any documented use of these plan-based techniques.

User-Tailored Planning of Mixed Initiative Information-Seeking Dialogues

Intelligent dialogue systems usually concentrate on user support at the level of the domain of discourse, following a plan-based approach. Whereas this is appropriate for collaborative planning tasks, the situation in interactive information retrieval systems is quite different: there is no inherent plan-goal hierarchy, and users are known to often opportunistically change their goals and strategies during and through interaction. We need to allow for mixed-initiative retrieval dialogues, where the system evaluates the user‘s individual dialogue behavior and performs situation-dependent interpretation of user goals, to determine when to take the initiative and to change the control of the dialogue, e.g., to propose (new) problem-solving strategies to the user. In this article, we present the dialogue planning component of a concept- oriented, logic-based retrieval system (MIRACLE). Users are guided through the global stages of the retrieval interaction but may depart, at any time, from this guidance and change the direction of the dialogue. When users submit ambiguous queries or enter unexpected dialogue control acts, abductive reasoning is used to generate interpretations of these user inputs in light of the dialogue history and other internal knowledge sources. Based on these interpretations, the system initiates a short dialogue offering the user suitable options and strategies for proceeding with the retrieval dialogue. Depending on the user‘s choice and constraints resulting from the history, the system adapts its strategy accordingly.

Towards a theory of delegation for agent-based systems

In this paper a theory of delegation is presented. There are at least three reasons for developing such a theory. First, one of the most relevant notions of “agent” is based on the notion of “task” and of “on behalf of”. In order to found this notion a theory of delegation among agents is needed. Second, the notion of autonomy should be based on different kinds and levels of delegation. Third, the entire theory of cooperation and collaboration requires the definition of the two complementary attitudes of goal delegation and adoption linking collaborating agents. After motivating the necessity for a principled theory of delegation (and adoption) the paper presents a plan-based approach to this theory. We analyze several dimensions of the delegation/adoption (on the basis of the interaction between the agents, of the specification of the task, of the possibility to subdelegate, of the delegation of the control, of the help levels). The agent's autonomy and levels of agency are then deduced. We describe the modelling of the client from the contractor's point of view and vice versa, with their differences, and the notion of trust that directly derives from this modelling. Finally, a series of possible conflicts between client and contractor are considered: in particular collaborative conflicts, which stem from the contractor's intention to help the client beyond its request or delegation and to exploit its own knowledge and intelligence (reasoning, problem solving, planning, and decision skills) for the client itself.

Plan-based integration of natural language and graphics generation

Multimodal interfaces combining natural language and graphics take advantage of both the individual strength of each communication mode and the fact that several modes can be employed in parallel. The central claim of this paper is that the generation of a multimodal presentation can be considered as an incremental planning process that aims to achieve a given communicative goal. We describe the multimodal presentation system WIP which allows the generation of alternate presentations of the same content taking into account various contextual factors. We discuss how the plan-based approach to presentation design can be exploited so that graphics generation influences the production of text and vice versa. We show that well-known concepts from the area of natural language processing like speech acts, anaphora, and rhetorical relations take on an extended meaning in the context of multimodal communication. Finally, we discuss two detailed examples illustrating and reinforcing our theoretical claims.

A plan-based approach to Prolog recursion

article Free Access Share on A plan-based approach to Prolog recursion Author: Jan Newmarch View Profile Authors Info & Claims ACM SIGCSE BulletinVolume 25Issue 2June 1993 pp 12–18https://doi.org/10.1145/152751.152755Online:01 June 1993Publication History 2citation114DownloadsMetricsTotal Citations2Total Downloads114Last 12 Months5Last 6 weeks1 Get Citation AlertsNew Citation Alert added!This alert has been successfully added and will be sent to:You will be notified whenever a record that you have chosen has been cited.To manage your alert preferences, click on the button below.Manage my Alerts New Citation Alert!Please log in to your account Save to BinderSave to BinderCreate a New BinderNameCancelCreateExport CitationPublisher SiteeReaderPDF

Communicative acts for explanation generation

Knowledge-based systems that interact with humans often need to define their terminology, elucidate their behavior or support their recommendations or conclusions. In general, they need to explain themselves. Unfortunately, current computer systems, if they can explain themselves at all, often generate explanations that are unnatural, ill-connected or simply incoherent. They typically have only one method of explanation which does not allow them to recover from failed communication. At a minimum, this can irritate an end-user and potentially decrease their productivity. More dangerous, poorly conveyed information may result in misconceptions on the part of the user which can lead to bad decisions or invalid conclusions, which may have costly or even dangerous implications. To address this problem, we analyse human-produced explanations with the aim of transferring explanation expertise to machines. Guided by this analysis, we present a classification of explanatory utterances based on their content and communicative function. We then use these utterance classes and additional text analysis to construct a taxonomy of text types. This text taxonomy characterizes multisentence explanations according to the content they convey, the communicative acts they perform, and their intended effect on the addressee's knowledge, beliefs, goals and plans. We then argue that the act of explanation presentation is an action-based endeavor and introduce and define an integrated theory of communicative acts (rhetorical, illocutionary, and locutionary acts). To illustrate this theory we formalize several of these communicative acts as plan operators and then show their use by a hierarchical text planner (TEXPLAN—Textual EXplanation PLANner) that composes natural language explanations. Finally, we classify a range of reactions readers may have to explanations and illustrate how a system can respond to these given a plan-based approach. Our research thus contributes (1) a domain-independent taxonomy of abstract explanatory utterances, (2) a taxonomy of multisentence explanations based on these utterance classes and (3) a classification of reactions readers may have to explanations as well as (4) an illustration of how these classifications can be applied computationally.

A plan recognition model for subdialogues in conversations

Previous plan-based models of dialogue understanding have been unable to account for many types of subdialogues present in naturally occurring conversations. One reason for this is that the models have not clearly differentiated between the varoius ways that an utterance can relate to a plan structure representing a topic. In this paper we present a plan-based theory that allows a wide variety of utterance-plan relationships. We introduce a set of discourse plans, each one corresponding to a particular way that an utterance can relate to a discourse topic, and distinguish such plans from the set of plans that are actually used to model the topics. By incorporating knowledge about discourse into a plan-based framework, we can account for a wide variety of subdialogues while maintaining the computational advantages of the plan-based approach.