This Week's Talks
More detailed information may be found from the following
group seminar pages
Formal Analysis,
Theory and Algorithms Research Group
GIST
Information
Retrieval
Embedded, Networked, and Distributed Systems
Research Corner
Cakes Talks
Week Beginning Monday March 22, 2010
| Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday |
4:00, Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 422 Seminar Room
In this talk I present a new approach to the problem of ranking documents based on quantum probability theory. Key to the approach is the idea of Quantum Interference happening between document relevance judgements. This is formed through an
analogy between the classic double slit experiment in physics and document ranking in IR. The analogy will leads to a novel ranking principle, the Quantum Probability Ranking Principle (QPRP).
I will suggest an instantiation of the ranking principle and explain how this can be operationalised, and how it relates to other ranking principles and strategies. In particular, I will show how the QPRP extends the classical PRP. Then, I show some experiments using this new principle on the IR task of subtopic retrieval. I will show that on this task the QPRP outperforms the PRP and state of the art approaches, showing that quantum probability theory can be successfully applied in IR. Finally, I would like to share with you some considerations about ranking strategies and ranking tasks in IR, discussing the lines of my on going research.
Reference material can be found at:
[IR Talk] The Quantum Probability Ranking Principle
Guido Zuccon (University of Glasgow)
4:00, Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 423 Seminar Room
Trust talk: Network Security at Glasgow University
Chris Edwards
4:00, Sir Alwyn Williams Building, 422 Seminar Room
[FATA Talk] Model Checking Multi-Agent Systems
Ryan Kirwan
Model checking has been applied to many areas of software and hardware verification; this includes hybrid systems, which contain both hardware and software components. To model hybrid systems both types of component are included in a single model. In this research we consider hybrid systems in which multiple agents interact in an environment. An agent is a simple robot capable of moving, detecting obstacles, and learning to avoid obstacles. The goal of this research is to discover a practical and standardised way of modelling these systems, and to develop theoretical techniques to measure performance.
[GIST] Usable Gestures for Mobile Interfaces: Evaluating for Social Acceptability
Julie Rico
Gesture-based mobile interfaces require users to change the way they use technology in public settings. Since mobile phones are part of our public appearance, designers must integrate gestures that users perceive as acceptable for public use. This topic has received little attention in the literature so far. The studies described in this paper begin to look at the social acceptability of a set of gestures with respect to location and audience in order to investigate possible ways of measuring social acceptability. The results of the initial survey showed that location and audience had a significant impact on a user’s willingness to perform gestures. These results were further examined through a user study where participants were asked to perform gestures in different settings (including a busy street) over repeated trials. The results of this work provide gesture design recommendations as well as social acceptability evaluation guidelines.