ROCHESTER, N.Y.---Aug. 12, 2002--Ancient philosophers may not have agreed on standards of beauty, but Xerox Corporation scientists are developing computer programs that codify those criteria to create aesthetically pleasing - and functional - documents regardless of how the content changes. In a paper presented at ISDA 2002 late last week in Atlanta, Xerox scientist Lisa Purvis described the first application of constrained optimization techniques to the process of automated custom document assembly. The result could be documents that arrange their own text, pictures, charts, headlines and white spaces in much the way a graphic artist might. Intelligent Systems Design and Applications (ISDA 2002) is an international workshop for researchers, developers, practitioners and users of soft computing, computational intelligence and artificial intelligence. Purvis's paper was entitled "A Genetic Algorithm Approach to Automated Custom Document Assembly." Her technique is aimed at document creation in a digital, networked environment where personalized content is prized. It enables the user not only to satisfy basic content and layout constraints, but also to find a "best" solution incorporating alignment, balance and page utilization as aesthetic criteria. The technique would be useful for creation of attractive, personalized Web documents as well as hardcopy documents. Purvis believes that the constrained-optimization approach can democratize the production of customized documents, a process that has traditionally been time-consuming and required a high level of expertise. "We want everybody at every level to have the tools so they can do great work," she said. Xerox Corporation, one of the world's top technology innovators, spends about $1 billion annually on research and development. It operates six research and technology centers in the United States, Canada and Europe that conduct work in color science, computing, digital imaging, work practices, electromechanical systems, novel materials and other disciplines connected to Xerox's expertise in printing and document management.