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To provide a more robust context for personalization, we desire to extract a continuum of general (long-term) to specific (short-term) interests of a user. Our proposed approach is to learn a user interest hierarchy (UIH) from a set of web pages visited by a user. We devise a divisive hierarchical clustering (DHC) algorithm to group words (topics) into a hierarchy where more general interests are represented by a larger set of words. Each web page can then be assigned to nodes in the hierarchy for further processing in learning and predicting interests. This approach is analogous to building a subject taxonomy for a library catalog system and assigning books to the taxonomy. Our approach does not need user involvement and learns the UIH "implicitly." Furthermore, it allows the original objects, web pages, to be assigned to multiple topics (nodes in the hierarchy). In this paper, we focus on learning the UIH from a set of visited pages. We propose a few similarity functions and dynamic threshold-funding methods, and evaluate the resulting hierarchies according to their meaningfulhess and shape.

Abstract. In this paper we describe a language for reasoning about actions that can be used for modelling and for programming rational agents. We propose a modal approach for reasoning about dynamic domains in a logic programming setting. Agent behavior is specified by means of complex actions which are defined using modal inclusion axioms. The language is able to handle knowledge producing actions as well as actions which remove information. The problem of reasoning about complex actions with incomplete knowledge is tackled and the temporal projection and planning problems is addressed; more specifically, a goal directed proof procedure is defined, which allows agents to reason about complex actions and to generate conditional plans. We give a non-monotonic solution for the frame problem by making use of persistency assumptions in the context of an abductive characterization. The language has been used for implementing an adaptive web-based system.

Abstract. In this paper we describe an approach to the construction of adaptive tutoring systems, based on techniques from the research area of Reasoning about Actions and Change. This approach leads to the implementation of a prototype system, having a multi-agent architecture, whose kernel is a set of rational agents, programmed in the logic programming language DyLOG. In the prototype that we implemented the reasoning capabilities of the agents are exploited both to dynamically build study plans and to verify the correctness of user-given study plans with respect to the competence that the user wants to acquire.

The World Wide Web has not only revolutionized the area of traditional hypermedia, it is also starting to influence adaptive hypermedia research. The main feature of the World Wide Web has been simplicity, standards based protocols and formats, and open environments and systems. In this paper we will investigate the potential of these aspects for adaptive hypermedia systems, based on a discussion of existing standards useful for adaptive hypermedia and on experiences we have gained through an RDF-based P2P infrastructure we have been developing in the context of several projects.

Websites that show the same information to all visitors, often also presented in the same way, are no longer considered acceptable. Creating a Website with specific information for different user groups (or even individual users) is cumbersome and leads to a lot of redundancy. AHA! is a simple server-side extension that enables information providers to add automatic personalization, or adaptation, to a Website, thereby eliminating redundant and potentially inconsistent information.

This paper examines the sufficiency of existing eLearning standards for facilitating and supporting the introduction of adaptive techniques in computer-based learning systems. To that end, the main representational and operational requirements of adaptive learning environments are examined and contrasted against current eLearning standards. The motivation behind this preliminary analysis is attainment of: interoperability between adaptive learning systems; reuse of adaptive learning materials; and, the facilitation of adaptively supported, distributed learning activities.

Research at the University of Southampton has extended generalised Open Hypermedia (OH) models to include concepts of context and behaviour, both traditionally very important to the Adaptive Hypermedia (AH) domain. In this paper we re-evaluate Brusilovsky's pragmatic taxonomy of AH techniques from a structural perspective. A variety of OH structures are discussed that can be used to implement the techniques found in the taxonomy. By identifying common structures we gain a new perspective on the relationship between different AH techniques.

Adaptive navigation support is a specific group of technologies that support user navigation in hyperspace, by adapting to the goals, preferences and knowledge of the individual user. These technologies, originally developed in the field of adaptive hypermedia, are becoming increasingly important in several adaptive Web applications, ranging from Web-based adaptive hypermedia to adaptive virtual reality. This chapter provides a brief introduction to adaptive navigation support, reviews major adaptive navigation support technologies and mechanisms, and illustrates these with a range of examples.

this paper we present SeAN (Server for Adaptive News), an adaptive system for the personalized access to news servers on the WWW. The aims of the system are (i) to select the sections (topics) and news in the server that are most relevant for each user, (ii) to customize the detail level of each news item to the user's characteristics and (iii) to select the advertisements that are most appropriate for each page and user. In the paper we discuss the functionalities of the system and we present the choices we made in its design. In particular, we focus on the techniques we adopted for structuring the news archive, for creating and maintaining the user model and for generating the personalized hypertext for browsing the news server. Keywords: User modeling, adaptive systems, news servers on the World Wide Web 1. Introduction The possibility of providing customized services [45], i.e., services tailored to the needs and preferences of the individual user (customer) has