Conversational interfaces have received much attention as a promising natural communication channel between humans and computers. A typical conversational interface consists of three major systems: speech understanding, dialog management and spoken language generation. In such a conversational interface, speech recognition…

The purpose of this paper is to describe how some theorems about constructions in categories can be seen as a way of doing generic programming. No prior knowledge of category theory is required to understand the paper.
We explore the…

Current methods for bipedal walking control include playback of recorded joint motion and the derivation of dynamic equations to map desired forces at the body to the required torques at the joints. Both methods require a significant amount of up-front…

Objective: The present study evaluates eating habits and behaviors, and nutritional and food safety knowledge of a group of Albanian adolescents. Design: A dietary questionnaire previously constructed and tested was self-administered during school time. Each section was evaluated using a…

This dissertation analyzes the strategic implications of customization policies available to companies that must simultaneously provide service and learn about their customers through automated interfaces. The first part of the dissertation lays out the theoretical framework within which the analysis…

This paper presents an outline of the history of library provision for nurses in the second half of the twentieth century. The few libraries for nurses that existed in the fifties were usually attached to Schools of Nursing and often…

Signature schemes are fundamental cryptographic primitives, useful as a stand-alone application, and as a building block in the design of secure protocols and other cryptographic objects. In this thesis, we study both the uses that signature schemes find in protocols,…

This thesis proposes a miethodology for the design of man-machine interfaces by combining top-down and bottom-up processes in vision. From a computational perspective, we propose that the scientific-cognitive question of combining top-down and bottom-up knowledge is similar to the engineering…

Computers have dramatically changed the nature of structural engineering practice by shifting work from process-oriented tasks, such as performing hand calculations and drafting, to structural modeling and interpretation of computer results. To perform these new functions, engineers need to have…

The proper interpretation of measurements from an optical fiber sensor requires a full understanding of its mechanical response to external action and the corresponding change in optical output. To quantify the mechanical behavior it is necessary to know the mechanical…