Newsgroups: comp.ai
Path: utzoo!utgpu!cunews!dgbt!rick.doc.ca!calvin.doc.ca!andrew
From: andrew@calvin.doc.ca (Andrew Patrick)
Subject: Re: Conversations
Message-ID: <1991Feb2.034212.10236@rick.doc.ca>
Sender: news@rick.doc.ca
Nntp-Posting-Host: calvin.doc.ca
Organization: Communications Research Centre, Ottawa
References: <1991Jan30.164108.24633@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu>
Date: Sat, 2 Feb 1991 03:42:12 GMT

In article <1991Jan30.164108.24633@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu> dailey@frith.uucp (Chris Dailey) writes:
>I'm not an AI person (I'm just an undergrad studying compilers), and I
>have a couple of ideas regarding conversation in natural languages.
>
>I wanted to ask if anyone here knew of any work done in this area.  The
>only thing even close to what I'm thinking of is the ancient ELIZA-type
>programs.  Some of the more complex adventure games may also come close
>to what I'm thinking of, but probably not.
...

We have published a couple of papers on this topic recently:

Whalen, T. E., & Patrick, A. S.  (1990).  COMODA:  A conversation model
    for database access.  Behaviour & Information Technology, 9, 93-110.

Whalen, T.E, & Patrick, A.S.  (1989).  Conversational hypertext:
    Information access through natural language dialogues with
    computers.  Paper presented at the SIGCHI Conference, April 30 - May
    4, 1989, Austin Texas.  Published in CHI '89 Conference Proceedings,
    289-292.

We also have some unpublished papers you may be interested in -- drop
me a note with a postal address.


    BTW, my news software (the latest C-News and NNTP) coughs with
    follow-ups directed to an e-mail address -- it complains that there
    are not newsgroups matching foo@bar.domain in the active file (which
    makes sense).  Is this practice of directing followups to an e-mail
    address common?


-- 
Andrew Patrick, Ph.D.       Department of Communications, Ottawa, CANADA
andrew@calvin.doc.CA
                    "The interface IS the program."
