This thesis contributes to a multi-disciplinary research field aiming to build autonomous virtual actors. Emotions are a very active topic of research in many domains, such as biology, sociology, and neurology, due to their powerful influences on human behaviours. Computer science also takes an interest in emotion to create believable autonomous virtual characters. Much research focuses on mech...

In this thesis, we propose a unified framework for the pragmatics and the semantics of agent communication. Pragmatics deals with the way agents use communicative acts when conversing. It is related to the dynamics of agent interactions and to the way of connecting individual acts while building complete conversations. Semantics is interested in the meaning of these acts. It lays down the found...

In this paper we develop a logical framework for specifying and verifying systems of communicating agents and interaction protocols. The framework is based on Dynamic Linear Time Temporal Logic (DLTL), which extends LTL by strengthening the until operator by indexing it with the regular programs of dynamic logic. The framework provides a simple formalization of the communicative actions in term...

A mark up language for tagging discourse, and for converting discourse sequences into a written format, according to highly context sensitive procedures, will be illustrated as well as a system for document annotation. The context in which a given communicative intercourse has taken place needs to be made available to ensure consistent interpretation of both single sequences of discourse and gl...

We describe the creation of a set of point-light movies depicting 43 communicative gestures and 43 noncommunicative, pantomimed actions. These actions were recorded using a motion capture system that is worn on the body and provides accurate capture of the positions and movements of individual fingers. The movies created thus include point-lights on the fingers, allowing for representation of a...

Computational Simulations of Mediated Face-to-Face Multimodal Communication Melanie A. Baljko Doctor of Philosophy, November 2004 Graduate Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto Individuals who have little or no functional speech due to underlying physical disorder may instead use a computational device, called a Voice Output Communication Aid (VOCA), to produce synthesized speec...

OBJECTIVE To investigate whether the lack of knowledge of toxic agents in households is a risk factor for individual unintentional childhood poisoning. METHODS The case group (n = 25) was composed of caregivers of children under 60 months of age who underwent accidental oral poisoning and were treated at two reference hospitals in Porto Alegre, southern Brazil, and recorded in the Toxicology ...

The communicative turn in policy analysis and planning has resulted in increasing interest in the issue of what the text of the plan has to narrate to different categories of readership. The quality of the text of the plan is a central aspect of this new concern. According to rational planning theory, a plan should be an exposition of various directives. The plan is based on the scientific exam...

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Abstract This article proposes to conceptualize the public sphere as a dynamic network of actors and contents that are linked with each other by communicative actions. perspective allows us theoretically derive empirically describe entire range small large structures their evolution over time. First, we will define elements these networks, which include actors, content, actions, content relatio...