This paper presents a methodology for adapting an advanced communication system for deaf people in a new domain. This methodology is a user-centered design approach consisting of four main steps: requirement analysis, parallel corpus generation, technology adaptation to the new domain, and finally, system evaluation. In this paper, the new considered domain has been the dialogues in a hotel reception. With this methodology, it was possible to develop the system in a few months, obtaining very good performance: good speech recognition and translation rates (around 90%) with small processing times.

Graphic design is the process of creating graphics to meet specific commercial needs based on knowledge of layout principles and esthetic concepts. This is usually an iterative trial and error process which requires a lot of time even for expert designers. This expert knowledge can be modelled, represented and used by a computer to perform design activities. This paper describes a novel approach named Gaudii (standing for "Intelligent Automated Graphic Design Generator") which utilizes principles and techniques known from the fields of Evolutionary Computation and Fuzzy Logic to automatically obtain design elements. Experimental results that demonstrate the potential of the proposed approach are presented in the area of poster design.

Emotions play a key role in any purchasing process even more when it is done through web portals. In this paper, we present a fuzzy-logic based system aimed to generate emotions for a virtual seller or avatar. The 3D avatar is integrated within the e-Zoco e-commerce portal and its behaviour depends on the product search results. Moreover, the mood of the avatar not only depend on the products that the portal can offer, but also the recommendations that can be used to guide the customer when beginning a new search. The system provides advice to the clients in order to assist them in the specification of constraints and thus obtain more interesting products in a shorter time.

A lot of current small businesses involve very simple interaction models that are being formalized for carrying out electronic commerce via open networks, like the Internet, or closed, private networks. E-commerce implies carry on negotiation between suppliers and customers, and makes a decision. We develop a technique for multi-issue negotiations in competitive environments in which many sellers negotiate with one agent buyer who has to make a decision. The technique leads the negotiation carrying out comparison-based analysis of multi-options provided for sellers and gains relevant information about each option. Moreover, an algorithm is developed to support buyer's decision based on that acquired information.