People with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have difficulties in social communication and interaction. Their caregivers help them in overcoming these challenges. Social stories are tools largely adopted to improve the interaction and communication capabilities of people with ASD. The creation of a social story is not an easy task. Several guidelines have been defined to build them. In this paper, we propose an interactive mobile application aimed at empowering caregivers of people with ASD in generating social stories. The application integrates AI processing and AI-based audio transcription for story generation, effective audio data extraction, and data processing. The stories are presented in a slide-show format to the learner in different modalities according to the learner's capabilities. A preliminary usability study of the application has been performed and the first results are encouraging.

This paper proposes a multimodal conversational interface that supports caregivers of people with ASD in the semiautomatic creation of social stories. With the support of the multimodal interface the editor lets caregivers select the appropriate elements and the content representations to be included in the social stories by following specific guidelines. We describe the interface design and a preliminary evaluation of the mobile application. Seven caregivers of people with ASD have participated in the evaluation. Usability results are encouraging.

Multimedia Software Engineering (MSE) is a new frontier for both Software Engineering (SE) and Visual Languages (VL). In fact multimedia software engineering can be considered as the discipline for systematic specification, design, substitution and verification of visual patterns. Visual Languages contribute to MSE such concepts as: Visual notation for software specification, design and verification flow charts, ER diagrams, Petri Nets, UML visualization, visual programming languages etc. Multimedia Software Engineering and Software Engineering are like two sides of the same coin. On the one hand we can apply software engineering principles to the design of multimedia systems. On the other hand we can apply multimedia technologies to the software engineering practice. In this paper we concentrate on the first of these possibilities. One of the promising application areas for Multimedia Software Engineering is Distance Learning. One aim of this paper is to demonstrate how it is possible to design and to implement complex multimedia software systems for Distance Learning using a Teleaction Object transformer based on XML technology applying a Component-Based Multimedia Software Engineering approach. The paper shows a complete process of dataflow transformation that represents TAO in different ways (text, TAOML, etc.) and at different levels of abstraction. A component-based tool architecture is also discussed.The use of an XML-based approach in the Distance Learning field has other advantages as well. It facilitates reuse of the teaching resources by using metadata. Standards for representing multimedia distance learning materials are currently evolving. Such standards are necessary in order to allow a representation which is independent of hardware and software platforms so that this material can be examined, for example, in a web browser or so that it may be reused.

Multimedia systems incorporating hyperlinks and user interaction can be prototyped using TAOML, an extension of HTML. TAOML is used to define a Teleaction Object (TAO) which is a multimedia object with associated hypergraph structure and knowledge structure The hypergraph structure supports the effective presentation and efficient communication of multimedia information. In this paper, a formal specification methodology for TAOs using Symbol Relation (SR) grammars is described. An attributed SR grammar is then introduced in order to associate knowledge with the TAO. The limitations to achieve an efficient parser are given. The grammatical formalism allows for validation and verification of the system specification. This methodology provides a principled approach to specify, verify, validate and prototype multimedia applications.

Data flow diagrams are an important design aid in system development. CASE tools allow data flow diagram construction and modification to be automated. Decomposition is the top-down development of a data flow diagram starting with the system inputs and the system outputs. Decomposition may also be automated, resulting in an interactive process for data flow diagram design. Adler (1988) described an algebra for the decomposition of data flow diagrams. A set of quality measures was also described. The authors show that these quality measures do not correspond to the intuitive notion of a good decomposition. A new set of criteria is proposed which does correspond to the intuitive notion of a good decomposition. The use Adler's algebra leads to an inefficient decomposition process, as well as one which is not guaranteed to find a good decomposition. The authors give an efficient algorithm which gives a good decomposition.>

The concepts of virtual agents (VAs) and virtual communities (VCs) are proposed for interagent communication and cooperation based on 'scientific community' metaphor. VAs are 'images' of autonomous agents (expert decision support systems and human decision makers) dynamically created in a local agent's 'mind' (or knowledge base) and linked to the remote host through attached network routines. This feature enables VAs to be defined as network domain objects which conceal the details of computer communications and provide an agent-oriented environment for perspective sharing and coordination. Using this protocol, VAs can be organized into VCs and different social protocols may be modeled as virtual sessions in a virtual conference setting. A prototype system is developed in C and C++ using the UDP/IP protocol. The basic ideas are illustrated with an application example. The major advantage of this approach lies in its utility for coordination without coercion.>

A system to generate and interpret customized visual languages in given application areas is presented. The generation is highly automated. The user presents a set of sample visual sentences to the generator. The generator uses inference grammar techniques to produce a grammar that generalizes the initial set of sample sentences, and exploits general semantic information about the application area to determine the meaning of the visual sentences in the inferred language. The interpreter is modeled on an attribute grammar. A knowledge base, constructed during the generation of the system, is then consulted to construct the meaning of the visual sentence. The architecture of the system and its use in the application environment of visual text editing (inspired by the Heidelberg icon set) enhanced with file management features are reported.>

In this paper, we give purity-preserving conditions for iconic operators, and present a formal definition of degree of icon purity by extending an icon system to a fuzzy icon system, based upon the theory of fuzzy sets. We also show an icon system can be modeled by means of an attribute grammar.