Education
Synthesis of Geometry Proof Problems
Alvin, Chris (Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge) | Gulwani, Sumit (Microsoft Research) | Majumdar, Rupak (Max Planck Institute for Software Systems) | Mukhopadhyay, Supratik (Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge)
This paper presents a semi-automated methodology for generating geometric proof problems of the kind found in a high-school curriculum. We formalize the notion of a geometry proof problem and describe an algorithm for generating such problems over a user-provided figure. Our experimental results indicate that our problem generation algorithm can effectively generate proof problems in elementary geometry. On a corpus of 110 figures taken from popular geometry textbooks, our system generated an average of about 443 problems per figure in an average time of 4.7 seconds per figure.
Generating Content for Scenario-Based Serious-Games Using CrowdSourcing
Sina, Sigal (Bar-Ilan University) | Rosenfeld, Avi (Jerusalem College of Technology) | Kraus, Sarit (Bar-Ilan University)
Scenario-based serious-games have become an important tool for teaching new skills and capabilities. An important factor in the development of such systems is reducing the time and cost overheads in manually creating content for these scenarios. To address this challenge, we present ScenarioGen, an automatic method for generating content about everyday activities through combining computer science techniques with the crowd. ScenarioGen uses the crowd in three different ways: to capture a database of scenarios of everyday activities, to generate a database of likely replacements for specific events within that scenario, and to evaluate the resulting scenarios. We evaluated ScenarioGen in 6 different content domains and found that it was consistently rated as coherent and consistent as the originally captured content. We also compared ScenarioGen's content to that created by traditional planning techniques. We found that both methods were equally effective in generating coherent and consistent scenarios, yet ScenarioGen's content was found to be more varied and easier to create.
Online (Budgeted) Social Choice
Oren, Joel (University of Toronto) | Lucier, Brendan (Microsoft Research, New England)
We consider a classic social choice problem in an online setting. In each round, a decision maker observes a single agent's preferences overa set of $m$ candidates, and must choose whether to irrevocably add a candidate to a selection set of limited cardinality $k$. Each agent's (positional) score depends on the candidates in the set when he arrives, and the decision-maker's goal is to maximize average (over all agents) score. We prove that no algorithm (even randomized) can achieve an approximationfactor better than $O(\frac{\log\log m}{\log m})$. In contrast, if the agents arrive in random order, we present a $(1 - \frac{1}{e} - o(1))$-approximatealgorithm, matching a lower bound for the off-line problem.We show that improved performance is possible for natural input distributionsor scoring rules. Finally, if the algorithm is permitted to revoke decisions at a fixedcost, we apply regret-minimization techniques to achieve approximation $1 - \frac{1}{e} - o(1)$ even for arbitrary inputs.
Robust Distance Metric Learning in the Presence of Label Noise
Wang, Dong (Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics) | Tan, Xiaoyang (Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics)
Many distance learning algorithms have been developed in recent years. However, few of them consider the problem when the class labels of training data are noisy, and this may lead to serious performance deterioration. In this paper, we present a robust distance learning method in the presence of label noise, by extending a previous non-parametric discriminative distance learning algorithm, i.e., Neighbourhood Components Analysis (NCA). Particularly, we analyze the effect of label noise on the derivative of likelihood with respect to the transformation matrix, and propose to model the conditional probability of the true label of each point so as to reduce that effect. The model is then optimized within the EM framework, with additional regularization used to avoid overfitting. Our experiments on several UCI datasets and a real dataset with unknown noise patterns show that the proposed RNCA is more tolerant to class label noise compared to the original NCA method.
Capturing Difficulty Expressions in Student Online Q&A Discussions
Yoo, Jaebong (Samsung Electronics) | Kim, Jihie (University of Southern California, Information Sciences Institute)
We introduce a new application of online dialogue analysis: supporting pedagogical assessment of online Q&A discussions. Extending the existing speech act framework, we capture common emotional expressions that often appear in student discussions, such as frustration and degree of certainty, and present a viable approach for the classification. We demonstrate how such dialogue information can be used in analyzing student discussions and identifying difficulties. In particular, the difficulty expressions are aligned to discussion patterns and student performance. We found that frustration occurs more frequently in longer discussions. The students who frequently express frustration tend to get lower grades than others. On the other hand, frequency of high certainty expressions is positively correlated with the performance. We expect such online dialogue analyses can become a powerful assessment tool for instructors and education researchers.
Active Learning in Lecture with Peer Instruction
Lee, Cynthia Bailey (Stanford University)
Have you ever been surprised by poor class performance on a midterm question, and wondered why you were met with silence each time you asked "Any questions?" during the lecture on that topic? Do your students sometimes feel like they understood everything that was said in lecture, only to go home, start the homework, and immediately get stuck? Do you find that you only really learn something when you have to explain it to others?
Reports on the 2013 AAAI Fall Symposium Series
Burns, Gully (Information Sciences Institute, University of Southern California) | Gil, Yolanda (Information Sciences Institute and Department of Computer Science, University of Southern California) | Liu, Yan (University of Southern California) | Villanueva-Rosales, Natalia (University of Texas at El Paso) | Risi, Sebastian (University of Copenhagen) | Lehman, Joel (University of Texas at Austin) | Clune, Jeff (University of Wyoming) | Lebiere, Christian (Carnegie Mellon University) | Rosenbloom, Paul S. (University of Southern California) | Harmelen, Frank van (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) | Hendler, James A. (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute) | Hitzler, Pascal (Wright State University) | Janowic, Krzysztof (University of California, Santa Barbara) | Swarup, Samarth (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University)
Rinke Hoekstra (VU University from transferring and adapting semantic web Amsterdam) presented linked open data tools technologies to the big data quest. Finally, in the Social to discover connections within established scientific Networks and Social Contagion symposium, a data sets. Louiqa Rashid (University of Maryland) community of researchers explored topics such as social presented work on similarity metrics linking together contagion, game theory, network modeling, network-based drugs, genes, and diseases. Kyle Ambert (Intel) presented inference, human data elicitation, and Finna, a text-mining system to identify passages web analytics. Highlights of the symposia are contained of interest containing descriptions of neuronal in this report.
Active Learning in Lecture with Peer Instruction
Lee, Cynthia Bailey (Stanford University)
Have you ever been surprised by poor class performance on a midterm question, and wondered why you were met with silence each time you asked “Any questions?” during the lecture on that topic? Do your students sometimes feel like they understood everything that was said in lecture, only to go home, start the homework, and immediately get stuck? Do you find that you only really learn something when you have to explain it to others? Peer instruction is an active learning pedagogy that addresses these challenges and opportunities
A History of AI Research and Development in Thailand: Three Periods, Three Directions
Kawtrakul, Asanee (Kasetsart University) | Praneetpolgrang, Prasong (Sripatum University)
Thailand, a country of 65 million people, has had an active AI community for almost three decades. Research on Thai language processing and expert systems was then concentrated on at the laboratory. King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi also set up its own AI center -- as a The guest editor for this column was loosely affiliated group. Yuen Poovarawan was the pioneer in computer language processing of the Thai language. It is the National Electronics and Computer Technology now expanded to the Center of Excellence, supported Center (NECTEC) put together research development by National Electronics and Computer plans in AIrelated fields, for example, natural Technology Center (NECTEC), and focuses on language processing, expert systems, and merging together two types of technology: knowledge intelligent image processing.