Dedicated to my wonderful mother
for her love and measureless support from the Heaven
Acknowledgements
“If I can see farther it is only because I stand on the shoulders of giants.”
–Issac Newton (1642-1727)
This chapter may be the most difficult part of the thesis for me to write. During the past few
years, I met a lot wonderful people. They gave me a lot of helps without asking any response.
Jus like that an old Chinese proverb says, “We always acquire too much from the world, and
gave ourselves’ to others too less.” (得之於人者太多，出之於已者太少) A lot of people
contribute to this thesis and my personal development. I have to thank them all at the beginning of this thesis. This is why I quote Sir Issac Newton’s words of wisdom here. I cannot say
that I have seen farther, but I will always take this as my goal and keep myself moving forward to contribute my endeavors to the lovely world.
I deeply appreciate to Prof. Tsai-Yen Li of the Computer Science Department and Prof.
Chun-Yen Chang of the Department of Earth Sciences, National Taiwan Normal University to
serve as advisors of my master program. They not only teach me domain knowledge of Computer Science and Science Education. They also gave me invaluable supports and facilitations
to let me construct my own scientific thoughts and innovations. My best harvest of the master
program is not the certification of master degree, but their measureless mentoring.
I do thank a lot for Prof. Chao-Lin Liu of the Computer Science Department to serve as a
member of the committee of my oral exam. During these two years, Prof. Liu gave me a lot of
comments and helps on my academic works and personal life. He encourages me substantially
to pursue academic research and help me to understand the job description of being a scholar.
I can never forget where I started my research career. I sincerely thank Prof. Hsieh-Hai Fu
and Prof. Yi-Jehng Kuan of the Department of Earth Sciences, National Taiwan Normal University. They tutored me to apply the research studentship offered by National Science Committee in 1998. At that time, I was still an undergraduate student. Since that moment, I gradually realize the way I should go. I also thank for people in the Institute of Astronomy, National
Central University to give me an open space of thinking in the summer of 1998. Although it
seems distant from the research field I am pursuing today. But the value of enlightenment is
really universal and can across the boundary of different disciplines.
Thank all of my colleagues of the Computer Science Department, National Chengchi University for their helps. Especially, I have to thank people in the Intelligent Media Lab, mainly
including Je-Ren Chen, Pei-Feng Chen, Han-Nung Lin, Pei-Ying Chiang, Shu-Wei Hsu,
Xiang-Yan Xiao, Hsu-Chi Chou, Mao-Yung Liao and Chun-Feng Liao. Thank you all for
helping me on uncountable amounts of contributions and helps.
I also thank all professors and the faculty of the Computer Science Department for their
admirable instruction and hard works. Especially, I would like to thank Prof. Man-Kwan Shan,
Prof. Maw-Kae Hor, Prof. Kung Chen, Prof. Jyh-Shane Liu, and Grace Tan of the department
office for advancing my understanding of Computer Science and helps of official tasks. I also
thank Prof. Jiann-Min Yang of the Department of Management Information System, National
Chengchi University for his great course. His talk stimulated my thinking a lot.
I also derived amounts of helps outside the university. I would firstly like to thank Prof.
Jin-Tan Yang of the National Kaohsiung Normal University for offering many chances of interaction and discussion on technical issues of learning technology. I sincerely thank Prof.
Kinshuk in the Massey University, New Zealand, the Chair of IEEE Technical Committee of
Learning Technology for giving me substantial comments and encouragement on my thesis.
Thank Prof. Peter Brusilovsky in the University of Pittsburgh for taking time to comment my
research ideas via email. Especially, I have to thank Hansjörg (George) von Brevern of the
University of Bern, Switzerland for generously sharing his research ideas and thoughts. I do
gain a lot from the process of discussion with him.
I am really fortunate that I can recruited by the Institute of Information Science, Academia
Sinica before my graduation. I would like to thank Prof. Tyng-Ruey Chuang and Prof.
Lee-Feng Chien of the institute for giving me substantial helps on research works. Also, thank
my colleagues in the Parallel Processing Lab of the institute for nicely sharing my part-time
RA works. So I can concentrate on this thesis in the last two months. I will do my best for this
honorable work in the following days.
Finally and most importantly, I have to deeply thank my fiancée, Yi-Chuan Chen for tolerating and supporting my research works. Because of her infinite support, I can then dedicate
myself to academic research. This thesis also represents my responsibility and promise for her
contributions. Thank my family, my sister and my father for encouraging me to complete my
master thesis. It is not possible to complete this thesis without you as my background. This
thesis is especially dedicated to my wonderful mother. For her love, encouragement and supports from the Heaven.
HAO-CHUAN WANG
National Chengchi University
July 2004