AbstractsComputer Science

The blending of digital technologies, such as artificial intelligence, interactive systems, 3D interfaces and the Internet is enabling new services for users. In particular, Hybrid Structured 3D Virtual Environments (VE) provide users with a collaborative space not only for entertainment and socialization but also for developing “serious” applications such as e-learning, e-government and e-commerce. This thesis focuses on Hybrid Structured 3D VE, which are persistent multi­user systems where participants (both human users and software agents) develop “serious” activities. In these systems the 3D interface graphically represents the system and facilitates human participation, and an Organisation Centred Multi-Agent System (OCMAS) structures participants’ interactions. To do so, the OCMAS specifies the roles that participants can enact, the activities where complex tasks can be accomplished, and communication protocols that enable the prosecution of such tasks. Nevertheless, participating in these systems is not a straight-forward process. Specifically, when the system speci.cation is complex, participants have to perform intricate reasoning processes to understand their applicable regulations at current system state; and they do not have access to information about what happened before they entered the system, neither can further process this information. Moreover, software agents speak a computer-based language, which is usually hard to use by human users. Then, as human users interact with staff agents (software agents devoted to support the system activities) to complete tasks, human-agent interaction style becomes a key issue. In order to overcome these limitations, this work proposes Assisted Hybrid Structured 3D Virtual Environments, where both human users and software agents participation in the system is improved by both assistance and human­agent interaction mechanisms. The system is formalised as a two layered infrastructure. The Organisational Layer structures the interactions of participants, and the Assistance Layer is populated by a set of Personal Assistants in charge of providing with a set of Assistance services to a system participant. There are four types of Assistance services: i) an Information service that processes data about the organisation specification, the participant current state, and the organisational historical execution states; ii) a Justi.cation service that can be triggered once a participant tries to execute a non-valid or prohibited action; iii) an Estimation service that processes whether an action can be performed at current state prior to its execution or not and, if it is actually the case, then it also provides the next system state; and iv) an Advice service, which provides participants with a sequence of actions (i.e. plans) to achieve their goals. Moreover, this work implements and evaluates v-mWater, a virtual market based on trading water, modelled as an Assisted Hybrid Structured 3D Virtual Environment. The usability evaluation results of v-mWater show that it is…