Friendly Interfaces Between Humans and Machines (eBook)

Dr. Paranandi Venkata Suryanarayana Rao, is an Indian computer scientist, known for his research in the fields of speech and script recognition, who has contributed to the development of TIFRAC, the first indigenously developed electronic computer in India. He is a recipient of various awards, such as the IEEE Third Millennium Medal, Vikram Sarabhai Award, Om Prakash Bhasin Award and the VASVIK Industrial Research Award. The Government of India awarded him the fourth highest civilian honour of Padma Shri in 1987. He graduated in science from Utkal University in 1953 and received a master’s degree in science (Physics) from Banaras Hindu University in 1955. Rao joined Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) in the department of computer R&D in 1955 until retirement.  He subsequently built the Cognitive Systems Research Laboratory in the capacity of a research advisor with Tata Infotech. He was also a research advisor to Satyam and Tata Consultancy Services. He obtained a doctoral degree in Physics from the University of Mumbai for his work on the display of text and graphics on computer screens.Dr. Sunil Kumar Kopparapu obtained his doctoral degree in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, India in 1997. His thesis “Modular integration for low-level and high-level vision problems in a multi-resolution framework” provided a broad framework to enable reliable and fast vision processing. In his current role as a Principal Scientist with the TCS Innovations Labs – Mumbai, he is actively working in the areas of speech, script, image and natural language processing with a focus on building usable systems for mass use in Indian conditions. He has also coauthored a book titled Bayesian Approach to Image Interpretation and more recently a Springer Brief on Non-linguistic Analysis of Call Center Conversation and Analyzing Emotions in Spontaneous Speech in addition to several journal and conference publications; he also holds a number of patents.

Preface 6
Acknowledgements 7
Contents 8
About the Authors 10
Abbreviations 11
Abstract 12
1 Dissecting the Monograph 14
2 Introduction 17
2.1 Language 17
2.2 Natural Language Interfaces 18
References 20
3 Language 21
3.1 Evolution of Language 21
3.2 Grammar 23
3.3 Richness of Language 24
3.4 Universal Networking Language [6] 25
3.5 Transactional Language 26
3.6 WordNet 27
3.7 Search Engine | Query Answering Systems 30
References 31
4 Deep and Minimal Parsing 32
4.1 Introduction 32
4.2 Syntacto-Semantic (SS) Categories for Phrases 39
4.3 Minimal Parsing System [1] 41
4.4 Using the Minimal Parsing Idea 44
4.5 KC in Transaction Oriented HMI 45
References 47
5 HMI Systems 48
5.1 Information Retrieval Based Question Answering 54
5.2 Our Approach and Goal 57
References 57
6 Case Studies 58
6.1 OASIS: Online Answering System with Intelligent Sentience 59
6.2 QA System for a E-Book 75
6.3 Airlines Website 81
6.4 Natural Language HMI to Yellow Pages 87
6.4.1 History 88
6.4.2 System Overview 89
6.4.3 Advantage of a User-Friendly Natural Language Interface 91
6.5 KisanMitra: A HMI for Rural Indian Farmers 97
6.5.1 Background 97
6.5.2 Introduction 98
6.5.3 QA Systems as Pattern Matching Systems 99
6.5.4 Our Approach 101
References 105
7 Conclusions 106
A.1 Example Taxonomy Tree 108
A.2 Sample HMI (e-Book on Fitness) 116
A.3 Types of Questions 121
Outline placeholder 1
A.3.1 Tractable (Type 1) 121
A.3.2 Intractable (Type 2) 122
Bibliography 123