Hidekazu Kubota

Exchanging tacit community knowledge by talking-virtualized-egos

This paper describes a method of exchanging tacit community knowledge using talking-virtualized-egos. We aim at sharing tacit knowledge in a community, for this purpose, we propose two ideas. The first idea is an exchange of narrative-mode messages with voices and gestures among community members; the members share tacit knowledge each other by telling narrativemode messages. Oral communication enables us to converse casually. The other idea is a talking-virtualizedegos metaphor; this metaphor mimics a theater where virtualized-egos talk and exchange narrative-mode message with voices and gestures on behalf of community members. Each community member can gain the tacit community knowledge from the other members’ point of view by observing the exchange objectively. To investigate these ideas, we have developed a system called EgoChat that supports tacit community knowledge sharing by exchanging narrative-mode messages orally based on the talking-virtualized-egos metaphor. Effectivity of the proposed system is discussed.

Zuzie: collaborative storytelling based on multiple compositions

This paper presents an expressive activity program and a support system for collaborative storytelling based on multiple compositions: Zuzie. Zuzies storytelling is designed so that people can experience rich expressions and extend their interpretation of them through creation of compositions. Each composition is a deliberate arrangement of a single set of figures on a background plane. Coupled with the expressive activity program, this research is intended to design and implement a system that supports multiple compositions. This report describes our Zuzie expressive activity and presents discussion of the expressions through the study and artworks.

Sustainable memory system using global and conical spaces

A pickling and rust-removing paste composition suitable for cleaning metal surfaces, including surfaces of steel and aluminum. The composition contains fluoride ions and a mixture of calcium compounds and tervalent iron and/or aluminum compounds and has an acidity corresponding to at least 10% by weight of free acid, calculated at 100% HF. The composition also most preferably contains at least one anion selected from nitrate, sulfate, phosphate and chloride and has an acidity corresponding to from about 15 to 30% by weight of free acid, calculated as 100% HF. The composition is applied to that portion of the metal surface, such as steel or aluminum, to be treated and is retained in contact with the surface for a period of time sufficient to effect the desired pickling and/or removal of rust on the surface.

Visualization of contents archive by contour map representation

This article describes a model for sustainable contents management, its visualization algorithms, and the implemented system, called sustainable knowledge globe (SKG). The focal point of our study is visualization using contour maps. The graphical representation of tree-structured contents increases in complexity with the number of contents. The contour map representations can briefly depict the arrangement and structure of contents in an archive. Three contour map representations are proposed assuming the importance of the arrangement design. Nesting, dendroidal, and island-like contours are amplified from the viewpoint of preservation of the structures and arrangements, in addition to supporting shape and texture design. The comparison and applications of the three algorithms are discussed.

Designing conversational agents: effect of conversational form on our comprehension

We have developed a broadcasting agent system, public opinion channel (POC) caster, which generates understandable conversational form from text-based documents. The POC caster circulates the opinions of community members by using conversational form in a broadcasting system on the Internet. We evaluated its transformation rules in two experiments. In experiment 1, we examined our transformation rules for conversational form in relation to sentence length. Twenty-four participants listened to two types of sentence (long sentences and short sentences) with conversational form or with single speech. In experiment 2, we investigated the relationship between conversational form and the user’s knowledge level. Forty-two participants (21 with a high knowledge level and 21 with a low knowledge level) were selected for a knowledge task and listened to two kinds of sentence (sentences about a well-known topic or sentences about an unfamiliar topic). Our results indicate that the conversational form aided comprehension, especially for long sentences and when users had little knowledge about the topic. We explore possible explanations and implications of these results with regard to human cognition and text comprehension.

Support for content creation using conversation quanta

In this study, we present a computational approach to support content creation by recording and reusing the conversational contents as reusable nuggets. We introduce the concept of the conversation quantization – a technique for approximating a continuous flow of conversation by a series of conversation quanta that correspond to the points in a discourse. We describe the creation of contents using conversation quanta. To realize the concept of conversation quanta, we attempt to manually extract conversation quanta from the videos of some meetings and create the conversational contents. As a result, we have confirmed that conversation quanta can be reused as conversational contents such as conversational agents and presentation contents. Further, we have obtained valuable insights into the nature of conversation quanta.

Toward the Knowledge Circulation between Institutions and Public Audiences with Virtual Agents

This paper proposes the CINOVA framework that supports the knowledge circulation between the institutions which possess large amount of knowledge and would like to disseminate it to public audiences. This framework proposes the use of visualized knowledge management systems and virtual agents for knowledge presentations. Two VKMSs and two virtual agent based presentation systems cooperate on the framework with a common contents presentation media, knowledge cards. The prototype system is still being implemented but the two virtual agent based presentation systems are already deployed to our client, NFRI in real-world exhibitions andWeb based on-line services.

Sustainable creation of conversational content using conversation quantization

The purpose of this paper is to support the sustainable creation of conversation content. My approach is from the viewpoint of conversational records as materials for new conversations. I introduce the concepts of conversation quanta and quantization spiral, the latter being a feasible framework for constructing conversational content. A conversation quantum is a reusable conversation material that is applicable to conversational systems. I survey the systems using conversation quanta and their evaluations.