Title: Logical English as a Computer Language for Human-Machine communication

Abstract:

Logical English (LE) is a computer-executable, controlled form of English, which can be understood without any training in computing, logic or mathematics. It is inspired in part by the language of law, which can be viewed as a programming language that is executed by humans rather than by computers.

The basic form of LE is simply syntactic sugar for logic programs. I will present LE and illustrate its use for representing and executing legal rules and regulations, including the use of meta- (or higher-order) predicates to represent propositional attitudes, such as obligations, permissions, and notifications. I will also illustrate an implementation of LE on SWISH, the online version of SWI Prolog.

Bio:

Robert Kowalski is Emeritus Professor at Imperial College London. His research is concerned both with developing human-oriented models of computing and computational models of human thinking. His early work in the field of automated theorem-proving contributed to the development of logic programming in the early 1970s. His later research has focused on the use of logic programming for knowledge representation and problem solving. It includes work on the event calculus, legal reasoning, abductive reasoning and argumentation. In 2011 he received the IJCAI award for Research Excellence, and in 2012 the JSPS Award for Eminent Scientists.

Title: Emotional Wellbeing Technology: The DanzArTe project

Abstract:

I introduce multimodal systems supporting the active experience of audiovisual cultural content, for cultural welfare and non-verbal affective applications. Multimodal non-verbal affective as well as social computing paradigms enable active group experience of content, i.e., they enable both individuals and groups of users to mould, augment, and recreate audiovisual content by means of their full-body individual as well as joint expressive movement. I present results of projects at Casa Paganini-InfoMus in this area, and in particular DanzArTe, a treatment protocol and interactive system designed for older people at risk of fragility, grounded on the active experience and real-time processing of audiovisual cultural content. In DanzArTe, 3D visual agents inspired by the preparatory drawings in classical visual art paintings and interactive sonification agents are the main guides for the users to full-body physical activity and cognitive exercise of memory training. DanzArTe is a pilot project of Compagnia di San Paolo bank foundation and received funding from the EU H2020 FET PROACTIVE EnTimeMent project (entimement.dibris.unige.it).

Bio:

Antonio Camurri is full professor in the Department of Informatics, Bioengineering, Robotics and Systems Engineering at University of Genova, Italy. He is Co-Director of the New York University Summer Program hosted at Università degli Studi di Genova (4 editions: 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006). Coordinator of the LLP Erasmus Summer School on Sound and Music Computing. University of Genova: courses on Human Computer Interaction at the Master in Computer Engineering, and the Master in Digital Humanities. Course on Foundations on Computer Science at humanities faculty. Antonio's research interests include non-verbal multimodal interactive systems; computational models of non-verbal full-body expressive gesture, emotion, and social signals; interactive multimodal systems for performing arts, active experience of cultural content, wellness, therapy and rehabilitation. Coordinator of European funded projects in FP5, FP7 and Horizon 2020 (e.g., DANCE - http://dance.dibris.unige.it), Principal Investigator in about 20 EU- funded projects and in contracts with industry and cultural institutions, co- owner of software patents. Co-director of the Joint Resarch Laboratory ARIEL on Augmented Rehabilitation with Giannina Gaslini Children Hospital. http://www.casapaganini.org Youtube channel: http://youtube.com/InfoMusLab