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CS4526 BSc Single Honours Project. Hussein Patwa April 2008. What is this Project?. An extension of existing ATLAS.TXT work
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CS4526 BSc Single Honours Project Hussein Patwa April 2008
What is this Project? • An extension of existing ATLAS.TXT work “apply Natural Language Generation (NLG) technology to automatically produce textual summaries of map data highlighting ‘important’ content extracted from the underlying spatial data” • An extensible platform for future work • A two-phased approach– software & study
What is this problem? • Blind people cannot access graphical representations of information • But authors insist on producing this ever more frequently • Thus, a widening information access gap
What do we want to access? • Maps • Atlas, tourist guides • Statistical Maps • Census (2001) • Statistical maps giving useful information • Office of National Statistics • Patterns, Trends
How is this information collected? • Clustering: • Grouping similar data elements together • Trending: • Identifying regular patterns between clusters • Visualisation: • Interpreting the trends
Should be simple, surely? • An algorithm to construct clusters • An algorithm to identify trends • A mechanism to display the resulting information as text
It’s Not • Remember the community we’re dealing with • No concepts at all • What are we trying to do? • How could it be useful? • So unable to provide user requirements • A rather significant hurdle, yes?
So now there’s a new problem • How to obtain requirements from those who don’t understand them? • How to adapt/refine for a viable product? • So now we have a research project >>> ENTER PHASE 2 STAGE LEFT >>>
New territory, and it’s exciting • No such previous concept for requirements gathering • No previous research into similar technologies • And most importantly, a completely clean slate for a completely new community
Why me? • Understanding and insight foster results • Direct personal motivationfrom conception to conclusion • Who better than one who: • has the problem • knows the problem • knows the people • has the mindset?
How do you do that? • Talk to potential users • Work with them, not for them • Sell benefits and uses • Together, construct tailored requirements to fit this unique community
Where when, & what why? • Conduct requirements gathering exercises • Map to parameters for trending software • Declare tailored set of recommendations
This is worthwhile, how? • Opens the door to future research work in otherwise unexplored areas • Provides a platform for ATLAS.TXT for more useful end results • Sets a new, viable standard for future technical developments in this field
My experiences & lessons learned • Working on an ongoing, established project with veteran professionals • Lessons: • Personal discipline • Working to expectations • Enhancing understanding of technologies • Food for thought on a project within which I have a worthwhile stake
Finalement Thank you for your attention and assistance. Any Questions?