Irene Mazzotta

• User-Adapted Persuasion
• Cognitive and Emotional Modes of Persuasion
• Dialogue Simulation
• Natural Human-Computer Interaction
• Intelligent Interfaces
• Natural Language Processing
• Affective Language Interaction

• AN EXPERIMENT ON PERSUASION MESSAGES
• AN EVALUATION OF PERSUASION DIALOGUES

• May 2009 - Receive the Ph.D in Computer Science from the University of Bari. Thesis title: ''PORTIA: A User-Adapted Persuasion System Based On 'a-rational' approach''.
  I proposed a computational model of context and user-adapted persuasion, and presented a user-adapted persuasion prototype, called PORTIA developed to test the model. The model was based on a theory of 'a-rational' persuasion, and the strategies represented in the model was the result of both theoretical and empirical background. The key points of the proposed model were the separation between reasoning and argumentation phases in the persuasion process, and the use of Belief Networks to represent the uncertainty inherent in this form of practical reasoning. The challenge of the model is to provide intelligent interfaces capable to simulate the persuasion process used by humans to persuade someone to perform a given action. T hat is, persuasive intelligent interface with the capability of reasoning and evaluating the persuasive power of different strategies to a given user, and also combining rational and emotional modes of persuasion in order to produce effective persuasion attempt in different contexts, and from monologic or dialogic viewpoints.
• November 2004 - Start the Ph.D in the Dpt. of Computer Science at the University of Bari, with a scholarship (Supervisor Prof. Fiorella de Rosis)
• October 2004 - Receive the degree ('Laurea') in Computer Science with full marks and honours at the University of Bari. Thesis title: 'Adapting the Dialogue to the User's Mental State' (Adattamento del Dialogo allo Stato Mentale dell'Utente) (Advisor Prof. Fiorella de Rosis).
  The thesis described a Dialog Simulation System based on the 'Information State' Model (Traum e Larsson). This prototype was an extension of the Dialog System developed in the scope of the MAGICSTER EU project.

• EASSS 2009 - 17th European Agent Systems Summer School. University of Turin, IT. 31 August - 4 September, 2009.
• Mini-Scuola WOA 2009 - School associated to the 10th Workshop Nazionale dagli Oggetti agli Agenti (WOA 2009). University of Parma, Italia, IT. 8 July, 2009.
• Esslli 2005 - 17th European Summer School in Logic, Language and Information. Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, UK. 8 - 19 August, 2005

• [July 2007 - present] - Research Fellow at Dpt of Computer Science - University of Bari for the Research Programme 'Simulation of persuasive natural language dialogs' (Simulazione di Dialoghi Persuasivi in linguaggio naturale).
• [Feb 2005 - March 2005] - Visiting Research at the Dpt of Computer Science, University of Liverpool, UK, to study in deep the Natural Human-Computer Interaction issues with particular interest for the Argumentation and NLG.
• [2004-2007] - Scientific Collaboration with the Intelligent Interfaces Group, Dpt. of Computer Science, University of Bari, in the scope of the EU Network of Excellence HUMAINE (Human-Machine Interaction Network on Emotions). Responsabilities included: cooperation with other partners of the WorkPackage on 'Emotion Communication and Persuasion'; taking part in the Meetings Project; drawing up the Delieverables.

• HUMAINE: Human-Machine Interaction Network of Excellence on Emotions. A EC Research Project in the scope of the Information Societies Technology Programme.
  Exemplars developed so far.

• AAAI spring symposium: AI and Health Communication. Stanford University, Stanford, CA, 21-23 March, 2011
• UM4Motivation: Workshop on User Models for Motivational Systems - the affective and the rational routes to persuasion, in conjunction with the 18th International Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization (UMAP2010). Big Island of Hawaii, 20 June 2010.
• AISB 2010 Symposium: AI & Games. De Montfort University, Leicester, Uk, 30 March, 2010.
• AISB 2009 Symposium: AI & Games. Edinburgh, Scotland, 8-9 April, 2009.

• Pers4eHealth09: 4th workop on Personalisation for e-Healt, in conjunction with the 12th Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Medicine (AIME 2009). Verona, Italy, 19 July 2009.

• HUMAINE - Human-Machine Interaction Network of Excellence on Emotions Association
• AIIA - Associazione Italiana per l'Intelligenza Artificiale (Italian Association for Artificial Intelligence)
• AISB - Artificial Intelligence and the Simulation of Behaviour

• Tutorial on 'Jason: a Java-based interpreter for an extended version of AgentSpeak' in the Agents for digital communication Teaching.
  Master Degree in Informatics - University of Bari.
• Tutorial in the Laboratory of Computer Architecture Teaching.
  Degree in Informatics - University of Bari.

• Tutorial on 'Natural Language Generation' in the Intelligent Interfaces Teaching.
  Master Degree in Informatics - University of Bari.
• Tutorial on 'Dialogue Simulation' in the Intelligent Interfaces Teaching.
  Master Degree in Informatics - University of Bari.

• Tutoring in the Intelligent Interfaces Teaching.
  Master Degree in Informatics - University of Bari.
Academic year 2006-2007
• Tutoring in the Intelligent Interfaces Teaching.
  Master Degree in Informatics - University of Bari.
• Tutoring in the Human-Computer Intelligent Teaching.
  Degree in 'Informatics and Digital Communication' - University of Bari.
• Java Tutorial in the Human-Computer Interaction Teaching.
  Degree in 'Informatics and Digital Communication' - University of Bari.
  1. An introduction to Java - Slides I
  2. An introduction to Java - Slides II
  3. Grafical User Interface - Slides I
  4. Graphical User Interface - slides II (Video 1 , Video 2 , Video 3 , Video 4 ).
Academic year 2005-2006
• Tutoring in the Intelligent Interfaces Teaching.
  Master Degree in Informatics - University of Bari.
• Tutoring in the Laboratory of Data Bases.
  Degree in 'Informatics and Digital Communication' - University of Bari.
• Tutoring in the Laboratory of Data Bases.
  Degree in 'Informatics and Digital Communication' - University of Bari.
• Tutoring in the Laboratory of Programming Languages.
  Degree in 'Informatics and Digital Communication' - University of Bari.

• I. Mazzotta,
  PORTIA: A User-Adapted Persuasion system based on 'a-rational' approach.
  PhD Thesis, University of Bari, May 2009.
  

• N. Novielli, F. de Rosis, I. Mazzotta,
  User Attitude Towards an Embodied Conversational Agent: Effects of the Interaction Mode.
  To appear in Journal of Pragmatic, ELSEVIER, ISSN: 0378-2166, DOI:10.1016/j.pragma.2009.12.016, Special Issue on the Pragmatics of HCI/HRI.
  
• I. Mazzotta, F.de Rosis and V.Carofiglio,
  A user-adapted persuasion system in the healthy eating domain.
  IEEE Intelligent Systems, ISSN:1541-1672, Vol. 22, no. 6, pp.42-51, Nov/Dec, 2007.
  

• I. Mazzotta, B. De Carolis and V. Silvestri,
  Adapting Persuasion Strategies in Ambient Intelligent Contexts.
  In Manfred Tscheligi, Boris de Ruyter, John Soldatos, Alexander Meschtscherjakov, Cristina Buiza, Wolfgang Reitberger, Norbert Streitz, Thomas Mirlacher (Eds.): Roots for the Future of Ambient Intelligence. Adjunct Proceedings 3rd European Conference on Ambient Intelligence (AmI09), ISBN 978-3-902737-00-7, pages 213-216, Salzburg, Austria, November 2009.
  
• B. De Carolis, I. Mazzotta, N. Novielli,
  NICA: Natural Interaction with a Caring Agent.
  In Ambient Intelligence, European Conference, AmI 2009, Salzburg, Austria, November 18-21, vol. 5859/2009, ISBN: 978-3-642-05407-5, ISSN: 0302-9743 (Print) 1611-3349 (Online), DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-05408-2_20, pages 159-163, Springer Berlin/Heidelberg, http://www.springerlink.com/content/4636294560388663/, 2009.
  
• I. Mazzotta, N. Novielli, B. De Carolis,
  Are ECAs More Persuasive than Textual Messages?
  In Z. Ruttkay, M. Kipp, A. Nijholt, H. Vilhjalmsson (Eds.): Intelligent Virtual Agents, 9th International Conference, IVA 2009, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, September 14-16, 2009, Springer LNCS 5773, ISSN 0302-9743 (Print) 1611-3349 (Online), ISBN 978-3-642-04379-6, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-04380-2, pages 527-528, http://www.springerlink.com/content/m25p31g5w1xt6159/, 2009.
  
• I. Mazzotta, N. Novielli, E.Silvestri and F.de Rosis,
  'O Francesca, ma che sei grulla?'. Emotions and irony in persuasion dialogues
  In Proceedings of the 10th Conference of AI*IA - Special Track on 'AI for Expressive Media'.
  AI*IA 2007: Artificial Intelligence and Human-Oriented Computing, Springer LNCS 4733/2007, ISBN 978-3-540-74781-9, pages 602-613,
  Rome, IT, September 2007
  
• F.de Rosis, I. Mazzotta, M.Miceli and I.Poggi
  Persuasion artifices to promote wellbeing.
  In W IJsselsteijn et al (Eds): Persuasive Technology, First International Conference on Persuasive Technology for Human Well-Being, PERSUASIVE 2006, Springer LNCS 3962/2006, ISSN 0302-9743, ISBN 3-540-34291-5, pages pp 84-95,
  Eindhoven, NL, May 2006.
  
• I.Mazzotta and F.de Rosis
  Artifices for persuading to improve eating habits.
  AAAI Spring Symposium on "Argumentation for consumers of health care". Technical Report SS-06-01 No. ISBN 978-1-57735-262-4, pages 76-85,
  Stanford, USA, March 2006.
  

• B. De Carolis, I. Mazzotta, N. Novelli, V. Silvestri,
  Using Common Sense For Improving Context-Aware Recommendations In The Tourism Domain.
  In Proceedings of the IADIS International Conference WWW/INTERNET, ISBN: 978-972-8924-92-8, pages 359-366, Rome, Italy, November, 2009.
  
• I. Mazzotta, Vincenzo Silvestri and F.de Rosis
  Emotional And Non Emotional Persuasion Strength.
  In Proceedings of the AISB 2008 Symposium on Persuasive Technology. in the scope of AISB'08, ISBN 1 902956 62 1. pages 14-21,
  Aberdeen, UK, April 2008.
  
• G. Clarizio, I. Mazzotta, N. Novielli and F. de Rosis
  Social Attitude Towards a Conversational Character
  In Proceedings of the 15th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication. RO-MAN 2006, DOI 10.1109/ROMAN.2006.314386, pages 2-7,
  Hatfield, UK, September 2006
  
• F. de Rosis, A. Cavalluzzi, I. Mazzotta and N. Novielli
  Can embodied conversational agents induce empathy in users?
  In Proceedings of the Joint Symposium on Virtual Social Agents. In the scope of AISB’05, ISBN 1 902956 492, pages 65-72,
  Hatfield, UK, April 2005.
  

Proceedings of National Conferences

• V. Carofiglio, B. De Carolis, I. Mazzotta, N. Novielli, S. Pizzutilo,
  Towards a Socially Intelligent ECA.
  In Giovannella C., Santucci G. (Eds.) Proceedings of CHItaly ’09, ISBN 978-88-88044-14-9, pages 99-106, Roma, Italy, June 2009.
  

Workshops

• B. De Carolis, I. Mazzotta, N. Novielli, V. Silvestri,
  Using Common Sense in Providing Personalized Recommendations in the Tourism Domain.
  In Proceedings of the Workshop on Context-Aware Recommender Systems (CARS 2009), in conjunction with the 3rd ACM Conference on Recommender Systems, online proceedings at http://ids.csom.umn.edu/faculty/gedas/cars2009/, New York, NY, USA - October, 2009.
  
• B. De Carolis, I. Mazzotta, N. Novielli,
  NICA Cares for Me! Planning Socially Intelligent Reactions in a Caring Robot.
  In Proceedings of WOA 2009, Decimo Workshop Nazionale “Dagli Oggetti agli Agenti”, http://cmt.math.unipr.it/woa09/agenda.html, ISBN 978-88-6122-157- 4, Parma, IT, July 2009.
  
• A.Cavalluzzi, F.de Rosis, I.Mazzotta and N.Novielli
  Modeling the user attitude towards an ECA.
  UM'05 Workshop on "Adapting the Interaction Style to Affective Factors".
  Edinburgh, UK, July 2005.
  
• I. Mazzotta, G. Clarizio, F. de Rosis and V. Silvestri
  Evaluating Affective Conversational Agents: questionnaire analysis, behavior observation or both?
  HUMAINE WP9 Workshop on "Innovative Approaches for Evaluating Affective Systems".
  Stockholm, SE, January 2006.
  
• I. Mazzotta, F. de Rosis
  On Emotion-Rich Persuasion Artifices.
  HUMAINE WP8 Workshop on "Communication and Emotion".
  Trento, IT, November 2005.
  
• A. Cavalluzzi, G. Clarizio, B.De Carolis, I. Mazzotta and N. Novielli
  Iterative Design of Embodied Conversational Agents With Wizard of Oz Studies
  Humaine: Proceedings of the WP6 Workshop".
  Paris, FR, March 2005.
  
• F. de Rosis, I. Mazzotta and N. Novielli
  Language Issues in Emotional and Non Emotional Persuasion
  Final HUMAINE Plenary Session,
  Paris, FR, June 2007.
  
• N. Novielli G. Clarizio, I. Mazzotta and F. de Rosis
  Wizard of Oz Interactions with ECAs: some findings and several problems.
  Workshop on ‘How People Talk to Computers, Robots, and Other Artificial Communication Partners’,
  Bremen, GE, April 2006
  

Irene Mazzotta