We propose self-organizing and simplifying neuro-fuzzy networks (NFNs) to yield transparent human-readable policies by exploiting fuzzy information granulation and graph theory. Deriving from social network analysis, we retain only the frequent-yet-discernible (FYD) patterns in NFNs and apply them to reward-based scenarios. The effectiveness of NFNs from FYD patterns is shown in classic control and a real-world classroom using an intelligent tutoring system to teach students.

Apprenticeship learning (AL) aims to induce decision-making policies by observing and imitating expert demonstrations.Existing AL approaches typically rely on online interactions and assume that the demonstrations follow a single reward function.Nevertheless, in real-world human-centric applications, policies are usually learned in an offline setting, with the demonstrations driven by multiple reward functions that evolve over time.To address these challenges, we introduce a novel AL framework: Time-aware Hierarchical EM Energy-based Sub-trajectory (THEMES) clustering.We evaluate the effectiveness of THEMES in two challenging human-centric domains -healthcare and education.Our experimental results across multiple datasets demonstrate that THEMES can accurately induce policies, outperforming competitive baselines and ablations, demonstrating its potential for tackling a broad range of complex, real-world human-centric tasks.

Through Facebook "Group" feature, users often sensitize communionships, join different Facebook groups, and establish imagined communities with known people and strangers. In our interview study with 32 admins and users of Facebook groups, we explored the influential factors of such communionships, the challenges the Facebook group admins face while managing these communities, and how they resolve those. Our findings show that admins set rules for the entry and maintenance of the groups, monitor members' activities, and often limit their actions or mute them during conflicts. Thus, the members and admins of the groups together grow a sensibility of sovereignty within the community on Facebook. While the imagined sovereignty in Facebook groups is empowering, this empowerment may not be perceived and experienced evenly by everyone in such online communities. To explain this, we build on the concept of "Imagined Communities' by Benedict Anderson [16 ] and argue that there is a tension between Facebook admins' perceived sovereignty and other users' empowerment in practice. Our work joins the body of CSCW literature that aims at designing more sustainable and collaborative tools for specific communities on Facebook groups and other similar platforms.

A large number of mobile phone applications have been built and deployed to combat COVID-19, offering various services to users, including virus information, contact tracing, and symptom monitoring among others. At the same time, the privacy and security vulnerabilities of user data over these apps have become a big concern in many places. To examine this issue, we conducted a mixed-method study with a combined approach of app analysis and an online survey to understand the privacy vulnerabilities of such apps and get an overview of user perceptions around this issue. In addition, we considered the notion of privacy in two different socio-economic contexts (Global North and Global South) to specify similarities and differences in app-specific privacy functionalities (data practices, functional requirements, regulations, etc.) and identify factors that impacted users’ decision to use such apps (such as trust, preferences, concerns, motivations, etc.). Thus, this paper presents two diverse sets of opinions from these two geographic regions (including 27 countries), which provide a broader understanding of how the privacy concerns around COVID-19 are connected to various economic, political, and social factors. Furthermore, our analysis of 39 apps provides a deep insight into what many COVID-19 apps are lacking to ensure proper privacy practices and how those issues are entangled with various contextual challenges.

Facebook users often join Facebook groups to connect to the people with the same interest regardless of the fact that the other members take the same standing with them. Our study aims to investigate Bangladeshi users' motivation to join and strategies to manage their Facebook groups and identify the relevant challenges. In our ongoing work, we are conducting a survey and interviewing Facebook-group users to understand how Facebook groups are bringing the users of similar interest and agenda together on Facebook and providing the admins with imagined sovereignty. This poster presents some of our crucial findings. This set of findings will be useful in designing better tools for managing Facebook groups for empowering the admins and the users.