(m.l.) Personalized education, technologies that model themselves on user tastes, interests and preferences: these are just some of the themes to be discussed by the 170 researchers scheduled to participate in UMAP (User Modeling, Adaptation, and Personalization) the world’s major international conference on the research and development of computer systems capable of autonomously acquiring user information and of adapting their behaviour to such information.
From 22 to 26 June 2009, Trento will welcome some of the most famous experts in adaptive systems, personalization and user “modelling” from the United States, Australia, Japan and Europe. The Centro Servizi Culturali S. Chiara service centre, in via S. Croce in Trento, will be the venue of the UMAP conference the programme of which includes presentations, exhibitions of select scientific posters for a peer-review process, conferences, demonstration sessions for innovative systems and dedicated to young talents. Furthermore, on the 22nd and the 26th of June workshops will be held on specific research themes, allowing participants to explore cutting edge subjects and emerging technologies, such as technologies based on recommendation, personalization in e-learning and web-based adaptive systems, all of which are witnessing the battle between IBM, Google and Microsoft for leadership.
Watch the multimedia press release and the interview with the event’s coordinator, Massimo Zancanaro (head of i3 - Intelligent Interfaces & Interaction – the research unit of the Information Technology centre of Fondazione Bruno Kessler) together with Fabio Pianesi (head of the FBK Computational Cognitive Lab).
For all other information concerning the conference, please visit: http://umap09.fbk.eu 

Read the English translation of the interview to Massimo Zancanaro – Head of i3 - Intelligent Interfaces & Interaction – the research unit of the Information Technology centre of Fondazione Bruno Kessler.

The UMAP conference concerns research in the field of information and communication technologies (ICT), in detail, those technologies that adapt to the user, i.e. that understand several characteristics of their user and are capable of changing their internal structure in order to make their service more personalized.
UMAP this year will attract about 170 researchers coming from all over the world: USA, most of Europe, Australia and Japan. The UMAPconference will be held in Trento at the Santa Chiara centre on 23-24-25 June 2009. On the 22nd and the 26th study sessions will be held in which several specific themes will be analyzed.
The possible scenarios of application developed and studied within the UMAP research area are quite varied: technologies applied to electronic trade or web-based educational systems. In the last few years, research has been heading in the direction of new types of technology, such as domotics or ambient intelligence. In the field of electronic trade, for example, the system will attempt to sell or provide more user-personalized services, such as suggesting a favourite book, while in domotics the aim is to offer increasingly advanced services, such as providing information so as to enhance energy saving.
The Fondazione Bruno Kessler i3 research unit has organized this conference together with the User Modeling Inc. Association, with headquarters in Boston (USA). Our research relates, in particular, to those aspects of technology that consist in “modelling” users. The work we will present at UMAP involves a system that is automatically capable of recognizing the personality traits of a meeting’s participants, simply by analysing their verbal and non-verbal behaviour. This type of technology is the basis for the subsequent adaptation of the systems to specific personality traits. Possible fields of application are those concerning “targeted advertising”, as well as educational fields. Many studies have demonstrated how different types of personality require different teaching models: an automatic training system could adapt itself to the pupil, changing the lessons and the subject illustration method in compliance with that pupil’s personality traits.

See the multimedial press release (formats .wmv, .flv, .mp4)