networks & systems laboratory> research> current projects> from Linger to onTap

From Linger to onTap
Smart Internet Technology Research Group

Linger
(machine learning, evolutionary computing)

- Linger: Linger Is Neural & Genetic Email Reader

Explore the issues of
- Email filtering
- Feature selection
- Hybrid approach using Genetic Algorithms (GA) and Neural Networks (NN)

Context
- Many email clients offer automatic email filtering using simple keyword spotting.
- The rules have to be manually crafted by the user.
- The rules become out-of-date

Approach
- Hybrid approach to classification
- Soft computing techniques
- Since GA is good at searching through a large space of possible parameters, it is used to isolate which features can be used to distinguish between mail types.
- Optimal feature selection is to be found quickly based on the variance of each word across al mailboxes
- NN is good at adapting to input and generalizing for unseen data, hence, it is used to classify the unknown mail based on what features it contains


Mining Financial News
(machine learning, textual information)

Explore the issues of
- Financial market prediction using textual and numerical data

Context
- AOI (Australian Ordinary Index) from Australian Stock Exchange

Approach
- Finding the most significant 50 keywords
- An increase in the AOI gives a value between 0.5 and 1, and a decrease in the AOI a value between 0.5 and 0. The closer a value is to 0 (or 1), the further the AOI dropped (or rose).
- Induction tree, neural networks and textual analysis (based on probability based) are experimented.

Student Modeling
(education, genetic algorithms)

Explore the issues of
- Student modeling
- Parallel hypothesis of student’s problems using Genetic Algorithms (GA)
- To what extent can this approach be generalized to other teaching domains
- Individualized instruction

Context
- Mathematics tutoring system
- A Prolog system driving the design of questions

Approach
- GA is used to implement a way of reasoning similar to human reasoning.
- Initial population is instantiated using prototypes.
- The approach of this program is to evolve several different hypothetical student models simultaneously, and constantly discard erroneous hypotheses and generate new hypotheses.

Research Interests

Machine Learning
- Concept drift
- Reinforcement Learning
- Coevolution of feature selection, text case generation and learning
- Particularly interested in text-related information
- ML for User Modeling

Textual Information
- Information extraction
- Text mining
- Financial market prediction using text
- Speech interface

Education
- Application of workflow technology
- Just-in-time feedback
- Student Modeling
- Ontology

Evolutionary Computing
- Hybrid approach with other techniques, e.g. neural networks, nearest neighbor, HMM
- Coevolution
- GENIE architecture – an artificial life approach to reinforcement learning

 

TeleBrowse
(textual information)

Explore the issues of
- Web accessibility
- HCI

Context
- Accessing web information from PC as well as from telephone
- Using any ordinary web pages without additional encoding

Approach
- Simple commands to navigate inter-page and intra-page
- Analyses of a web page to create a structure for navigation
- Ear-cons used to convey the structure of a web page
- User studies on visual-impaired persons as well as normal persons. It was found that visual-impaired persons have developed strategies to cope with the linear arrival of information; while visual-normal persons are much more frustrated with a purely speech interface.

OnTap
(education, workflow)

Meaning from dictionary
- Ready to be drawn; in a tapped cask: beer on tap.
- Available for immediate use; ready: extra personnel on tap.
- Our intention: a system that is always ready and available.

Explore the issues of
- Workflow technology in the education domain.
- Helping the students without temporal and locality constraints.
- Tracking of the progress of software project development.
- Providing just-in-time responses to students.

Context
- Two foundational first year undergraduate courses introduces the essence of computer programming and management of software development processes through Problem-Based Learning (PBL).
- Group projects are supported by assessable submissions of weekly project plans (similar to minutes), acting as one of the doorway between students and their supervisor.
- Each tutor is involved in the supervision of not only one team, but instead, several teams.
- Supervision of student groups via project plans outside of laboratory time can compound to a heavy workload.
- There is a perceived problem with this procedure where in some cases, the progress of projects have not been accurately monitored or even neglected.
- Hypothetically, this could be due to a time constraint as additional time and effort is required to track the progress of each project and give feedback or advice to groups of any potential project issues by constant referral to past submissions and the project template (time-line).
- Consequently, tutors merely check for existence of submission without taking into much consideration of the content of plans. Lack of feedback gave rise to inconsistent and insufficient project plans and submissions.

Contacts

Dr Josiah Poon

 
University of SydneyDesigned by eliu