Wir im Kiez: Multimodal App for Mutual Help Among Elderly Neighbours
Demonstrations
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Schmeier, Sven
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Ruß, Aaron
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Reithinger, Norbert
Proceedings of the 2015 International Conference on Multimodal Interaction
2015-11-09
p.379-380
© Copyright 2015 ACM
Summary: Elderly people often need support in everyday situations -- e.g. common
daily life activities like taking care of house and garden, or caring for an
animal are often not possible without a larger support circle. However,
especially in larger western cities, local social networks may not be very
tight, friends may have moved away or died, and the traditional support
structures found in so-called multi-generational families do not exist anymore.
As a result, the quality of life for elderly people suffers crucially. On the
other hand, people from the broader neighborhood would often gladly help and
respond quickly. With the project Wir im Kiez we developed and tested a
multimodal social network app equipped with a conversational interface that
addresses these issues. In the demonstration, we especially focus on the needs
and restrictions of seniors, both in their physical and psychological
limitations.
A Barrier-Free Platform to Help Elderly People to Help Themselves
Design for Aging
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Schmeier, Sven
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Reithinger, Norbert
HCI International 2014: 16th International Conference on HCI: Posters'
Extended Abstracts, Part II
2014-06-22
v.5
p.316-321
Keywords: Barrier-free; seniors; conversational interface
© Copyright 2014 Springer International Publishing
Summary: The proportion of elderly people in German society has been increasing for
decades. As a result Germany, and other industrial countries as well, are
currently facing large demographic changes in terms of age structure and
population size, changes that will only increase in the future. Furthermore,
especially in bigger cities, the traditional family structures with more
generations living together are disappearing.
Starting from these observations, the project Barrierefreie Cloud für
Senioren -- WirlmKiez (translated: A barrier-free Cloud for Seniors -- We in
our neighbourhood), funded by the German Ministry of Education and Research,
aims to develop a platform where elderly people can get in touch with and help
each other with everyday problems and issues. We plan to realise a virtual
neighbourly help especially for elderly people who have no or very little
social contact. Persons using the platform will be able to either provide
support to others ("I can help to hang curtains", "I can help gardening", ...)
or they can request for help ("I need to go to hospital for 4 days, who can
take care of my cat"). The app will run on computers, smartphones, and tablets
and will be very simple to use and appropriate for seniors. Its main features
are creating a proposal or request by using natural language. Behind the scenes
we will use shallow information extraction (IE) to extract the core
information. After this we store the extracted information plus additional meta
information like time and location on a central server (cloud). In the final
step a generated request or proposal is offered to adequate users of the
system, e.g. people who live nearby and are able to help or need help and
connecting the persons in the end.
DiLiA -- The Digital Library Assistant
Demos
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Eichler, Kathrin
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Hemsen, Holmer
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Neumann, Günter
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Reithinger, Norbert
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Schmeier, Sven
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Schumacher, Kinga
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Seifert, Inessa
ECDL 2010: Proceedings of the European Conference on Digital Libraries
2010-09-06
p.534-537
© Copyright 2010 Springer-Verlag
Summary: In this paper we present the digital library assistant (DiLiA). The system
aims at augmenting the search in digital libraries in several dimensions. In
the project advanced information visualisation methods are developed for user
controlled interactive search. The interaction model has been designed in a way
that it is transparent to the user and easy to use. In addition, information
extraction (IE) methods have been developed in DiLiA to make the content more
easily accessible, this includes the identification and extraction of technical
terms (TTs) -- single and multi word terms -- as well as the extraction of
binary relations based on the extracted terms. In DiLiA we follow a hybrid
information extraction approach -- a combination of metadata and document
processing.
VirtualHuman: dialogic and affective interaction with virtual characters
Poster Session 1
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Reithinger, Norbert
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Gebhard, Patrick
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Löckelt, Markus
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Ndiaye, Alassane
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Pfleger, Norbert
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Klesen, Martin
Proceedings of the 2006 International Conference on Multimodal Interfaces
2006-11-02
p.51-58
Keywords: AI techniques & adaptive multimodal interfaces, mobile, tangible &
virtual/augmented multimodal interfaces, multimodal input and output
interfaces, speech and conversational interfaces
© Copyright 2006 ACM
Summary: Natural multimodal interaction with realistic virtual characters provides
rich opportunities for entertainment and education. In this paper we present
the current VirtualHuman demonstrator system. It provides a knowledge-based
framework to create interactive applications in a multi-user, multi-agent
setting. The behavior of the virtual humans and objects in the 3D environment
is controlled by interacting affective conversational dialogue engines. An
elaborate model of affective behavior adds natural emotional reactions and
presence of the virtual humans. Actions are defined in a XML-based markup
language that supports the incremental specification of synchronized multimodal
output. The system was successfully demonstrated during CeBIT 2006.
A look under the hood: design and development of the first SmartWeb system
demonstrator
Semantics and dialog
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Reithinger, Norbert
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Bergweiler, Simon
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Engel, Ralf
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Herzog, Gerd
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Pfleger, Norbert
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Romanelli, Massimo
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Sonntag, Daniel
Proceedings of the 2005 International Conference on Multimodal Interfaces
2005-10-04
p.159-166
Keywords: interaction design, multimodality, semantic web
© Copyright 2005 ACM
Summary: Experience shows that decisions in the early phases of the development of a
multimodal system prevail throughout the life-cycle of a project. The
distributed architecture and the requirement for robust multimodal interaction
in our project SmartWeb resulted in an approach that uses and extends W3C
standards like EMMA and RDFS. These standards for the interface structure and
content allowed us to integrate available tools and techniques. However, the
requirements in our system called for various extensions, e.g., to introduce
result feedback tags for an extended version of EMMA. The interconnection
framework depends on a commercial telephone voice dialog system platform for
the dialog-centric components while the information access processes are linked
using web service technology. Also in the area of this underlying
infrastructure, enhancements and extensions were necessary. The first
demonstration system is operable now and will be presented at the Football
World Cup 2006 in Germany.
SmartKom: adaptive and flexible multimodal access to multiple applications
Multimodal architectures and frameworks
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Reithinger, Norbert
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Alexandersson, Jan
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Becker, Tilman
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Blocher, Anselm
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Engel, Ralf
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Löckelt, Markus
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Müller, Jochen
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Pfleger, Norbert
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Poller, Peter
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Streit, Michael
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Tschernomas, Valentin
Proceedings of the 2003 International Conference on Multimodal Interfaces
2003-11-05
p.101-108
Keywords: intelligent multimodal interfaces, multiple applications, system description
© Copyright 2003 ACM
Summary: The development of an intelligent user interface that supports multimodal
access to multiple applications is a challenging task. In this paper we present
a generic multimodal interface system where the user interacts with an
anthropomorphic personalized interface agent using speech and natural gestures.
The knowledge-based and uniform approach of SmartKom enables us to realize a
comprehensive system that understands imprecise, ambiguous, or incomplete
multimodal input and generates coordinated, cohesive, and coherent multimodal
presentations for three scenarios, currently addressing more than 50 different
functionalities of 14 applications. We demonstrate the main ideas in a walk
through the main processing steps from modality fusion to modality fission.
XTRA: A Natural-Language Access System to Expert Systems
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Allgayer, Jurgen
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Harbusch, Karin
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Kobsa, Alfred
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Reddig, Carola
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Reithinger, Norbert
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Schmauks, Dagmar
International Journal of Man-Machine Studies
1989
v.31
n.2
p.161-195
© Copyright 1989 Academic Press
Summary: The XTRA access system to expert systems is presented which is aimed at
rendering the interaction with expert systems easier for inexperienced users.
XTRA communicates with the user in a natural language (German), extracts data
relevant to the expert system from his/her natural-language input, answers user
queries as to terminology and provides user-accommodated natural-language
verbalizations of results and explanations provided by the expert system. A
number of novel artificial intelligence techniques have been employed in the
development of the system, including the combination of natural-language user
input and user gestures on the terminal screen, referent identification with
the aid of four different knowledge sources, simultaneous communication of the
access system with the user and the expert system, fusion of two complementary
knowledge bases into a single one, and the design of a natural-language
generation component which allows for a controlled interaction between the
"what-to-say" and the "how-to-say" parts to yield a more natural output. XTRA
is being developed independently of any specific expert system. In its first
application the access to an expert system in the income tax domain is being
realized.
