Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Integrating Social Network Effects in Product Design and Diffusion

Title of dissertation: INTEGRATING SOCIAL NETWORK EFFECTS in PRODUCT DESIGN and DIFFUSION Dilek Günneç, Doctor of Philosophy, 2012 Dissertation directed by: Professor Subramanian Raghavan Robert H. Smith School of Business Connectivities among people are amplified with recent advancements in internet technology increasing the number of communication channels. Information spread over these networks strengthen the social influence among individuals and affect their purchasing decisions. In this thesis, we study three problems in the product design and diffusion context by integrating such social network effects where influence takes place over neighborhood relationship ties among the users of the product. We consider the setting where peer influence plays a significant role in a consumer’s product choice or there is a tangible benefit from using the same product as the rest of one’s social network. Building upon the well-known Share-of-Choice problem, we model an influence structure and define the Share-of-Choice problem with Network Effects. It is an NP-Hard combinatorial optimization problem which we solve using a Genetic Algorithm. Using simulated data we show that ignoring social network effects in the design phase of a product results in a significantly lower market share for a product. Our genetic algorithm obtains near-optimal solutions and is very robust in terms of its running time, scalability, and ability to adapt to additional constraints/variations of the model. In this setting, we introduce a product diffusion problem, the Least Cost Influence Problem, which increases the market share of a product by intervening the natural diffusion of it over the social network. This intervention is in the form of incentive supply to a group of people in a least costly way while maximizing the spread of the product. We generalize the Least Cost Influence Problem by moving away from the marketing setting and by treating the previous product as any piece of “information” that can spread over a social network by adoption. We show that this problem is polynomially solvable over tree networks under some conditions. We provide a Dynamic Programming algorithm to solve this problem and show that it can be interpreted as a greedy algorithm that gives incentives starting with the people that are least influenced by their neighbors, albeit the definition of susceptibility to influence from neighbors is updated throughout the algorithm. We introduce a two dimensional influence model and extend our modeling and solution methods for the product line design problem which involves designing multiple products within the same product line with the objective of appealing to the heterogeneous structure of the market. The first dimension of influence is the affection of individuals from using the same product, and the second dimension is the influence of using a similar product from the same product line which has a lower intensity of influence. We reexamine the Least Cost Influence Problem in the product line setting. INTEGRATING SOCIAL NETWORK EFFECTS in PRODUCT DESIGN and DIFFUSION
Cooperative decision making using a collection of autonomous quad rotor unmanned aerial vehicle interconnected by a wireless communication network

In recent years, the problem of designing a cooperative communication system to support a swarm of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) is a major research challenge. In this paper, we present a time-effective approach for multiple UAVs conducting a collaborative search algorithm, this approach is targeted for sensing the disaster zone and finding the survivors in most efficient manner. In this respect, we consider a swarm of autonomous quad rotor UAVs that serve as a mobile sensors; communicate through a wireless link and equipped with a sensing devices. We aimed in this approach for the cooperative UAVs to coordinate their actions and behave as an intelligent array of sensors during the searching, detecting, and locating survivors. This approach has the ability to move the UAVs to the required location and finally achieving a cooperative decision making. A simulation of cooperative quadrotor UAVs is implemented using the Optimized Network Engineering Tool (OPNET). We develop a module for each UAV in which it is responsible for searching, detecting, and locating survivors. Moreover, this module is responsible for the wireless communication between the quad rotor UAVs. Performance of a cooperative decision making technique is observed when communication range and number of UAVs are varied. The results indicate that the number of quadrotor UAVs was found to have the greatest impact on the total time that is taken for detecting, and locating survivors. The findings demonstrate that the proposed approach can be used to search a large disaster zone in a very short time. Keywords: Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks, Quad Rotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, Natural Disasters, Cooperative Decision Making.
Recherche et visualisation de mots sémantiquement liés

Nous presentons PatternSim, une nouvelle mesure de similarite semantique qui repose d’une part sur des patrons lexico-syntaxiques appliques a de tres vastes corpus et d’autre part sur une formule de reordonnancement des candidats extraits. Le systeme, initialement developpe pour l’anglais, a ete adapte au francais. Nous rendons compte de cette adaptation, nous en proposons une evaluation et decrivons l’usage de ce nouveau modele dans la plateforme de consultation en ligne Serelex.
An object-oriented database for advanced searches of file systems based on metadata

With the increasing amounts of information people are subjected to, the need to better archive and retrieve this information is becoming more important. The hierarchical file system being used today is beginning to show its limitations for handling large amounts of documents. The hierarchical design cannot handle multi category archiving. Over time the hierarchy will become too shallow and list too many results per folder, or too deep, hiding documents in deep branches. An alternative to the traditional hierarchical file system, the MetaFS is tag based and metadata aware. Files can be organized with tags and found again later by using drill-down on the tags through a Virtual Hard Drive (VHD) interface, to be backwards compatible. For those hard to find files, metadata search is available, using a metadata driven drill-down technique for narrowing down search results.
EVALUATING INDEXING AND ROUTING SCHEMES FOR SPATIAL QUERIES IN SENSOR NETWORKS

A semiconductor device includes a semiconductor substrate having electrodes brazed thereto. The electrode is made of a Cu-C composite material in which carbon fibers are embedded in copper matrix. The carbon fibers are so disposed as to be in a ring-like shape or a loop shape substantially in parallel with a surface of the semiconductor substrate onto which the electrode is brazed. The carbon fibers disposed in an outer peripheral portion have a higher longitudinal elastic modulus than that of the carbon fibers positioned at a central portion of the electrode. The electrode thus has a thermal expansion coefficient approximating to that of the semiconductor substrate. Content of copper can be increased at the central portion of the electrode for attaining a high thermal conductivity.
Maintaining alignment in management education : the potential for drift in assessment

The paper explores the issues involved in maintaining operational alignment between curriculum aims, teaching and the assessment of student learning. Whilst various conceptual frameworks can help to shape learning outcomes that reflect a constructivist approach across an aligned scheme of education there are, nonetheless, opportunities for misalignment to occur with the potential to significantly dilute the aims of the curriculum. A particular focus of the paper is the use of verbs to articulate learning outcomes and how these follow through into assessment mechanisms. The paper argues that drift is likely to occur in all forms of education, although empirical evidence is usually difficult to access due to the confidential nature of assessment processes. In order to illustrate the conjectured concerns, a case study drawing on the published syllabi, examinations and marking schemes from the examinations of a professional accounting body is presented. Keywords: assessment; constructive alignment; learning objectives; marking processes
A screen editor written in the miranda functional programming language

This paper explores the development of an interactive screen editor, in the functional programming language Miranda, from a specification written in Z. The program makes use of a set of interactive functions especially developed to aid the writing of interactive programs (in Miranda). The editor developed is fully featured and could be used to edit text, although the execution speed is rather poor. 1 Miranda is trademark of Research Software Ltd.
A data flow coverage testing tool for C

Describes ATAC (Automatic Test Analysis for C), a tool for data flow coverage testing of C programs. ATAC is being used as a research instrument at Purdue and Bellcore and as a software development tool at Bellcore. The authors discuss the design of ATAC, a preliminary view of its uses in development, and its research uses. <<ETX>>
Detecting the Difficulty Level of Foreign Language Texts

Abstract : This report describes experiments conducted on automatically determining the difficulty level of foreign language materials for the purpose of aiding teachers, students, and DoD linguists in finding suitable materials for supporting language learning and sustainment. The measure used as the indicator of difficulty is based on the Interagency Language Roundtable (ILR) proficiency scale, which is used to measure the proficiency levels of DoD linguists in listening, reading, speaking, writing, translating, and interpreting. The experiments described were conducted with a corpus of authentic Arabic and Mandarin Chinese materials from several genres that were hand-labeled for ILR level. The corpus contained materials at the 2, 2+, and 3 levels. ILR level detectors were built for these levels for both the original Arabic and Mandarin sources as well as for human-produced English translations of these sources. The detectors were based on statistical language modeling techniques. The equal error rates (EERs) obtained ranged from 12.4-49.4% depending on the language, ILR level, language model order, and various other factors related to the experimental design. In general, the performance was best for discriminating level 3 materials from level 2 and 2+ materials, with EERs ranging from 12.4-33.3% across the languages (and translations), language model level, and experimental design. The performance was worst for discriminating level 2+ materials from level 2 and 3 materials, with EERs ranging from 31.2-49.4%.
Research and Development in Expert Systems IX: Documents as expert systems

This paper is written in a document production tool that appears to a user as a word processor but also acts as an expert system shell with frame and rule representations supporting deductive inference. The electronic version of the document is active, providing typographic text and page layout facilities, versioning, hypermedia sound and movies, hypertext links, and knowledge structures represented in a visual language. It can be read as a hypermedia document and also interrogated as a knowledgebased system for problem-solving. The paper version of the document, which you are now reading, is produced by printing the electronic version. It loses its active functionality but continues to act as a record of the knowledge in the document. The overall technology has been developed as an alternative approach to the dissemination of knowledge bases. It also provides a different interface to knowledge-based systems that emulates document interfaces with which many users are already familiar.
Modifying Event Nominals: Syntactic Surface Meets Semantic Transparency

The paper starts out with the observation that modifiers to eventive ung-nominals can both target at the denoted event as a whole and modify it from inside. The internal reading will be shown to challenge iconic mapping between surface-oriented c-command and semantic scope. By using Egg (2006)’s flexible syntax-semantic interface the given ambiguity is analyzed as landing site underspecification allowing for a compositional make-up in both cases: based on a bipartite eventive structure for ung-nominals, the internal reading is argued to result from applying the modifier to an event concept fed by the verbal lexical base whereas the external reading emerges if the modifier targets at a concept-correlate introduced by the nominal affix.
An Improved Packet size Entropy Based DoS Attack Detection Scheme

A denial-of-service attack is an attempt by a single person or a group of people to disrupt an online service. The cost of the attack depends on the importance of the online service in the Internet world, whether it is online banking or online shopping. Shutting down some services for some hours can cost millions and millions of dollars for companies like Amazon, eBay, HSBC, etc. So a denial-of-service attack is a very serious problem in the online world. By recognizing such an attack at the beginning can reduce the damage caused by these attacks. Even so, such an attempt is extremely difficult on the networks where the traffic is very high. Furthermore, people who were determined to take down a particular network service will definitely do a lot of homework and can cause much more damage than a general denial-of-service attack can. However, there are a lot of mechanisms available today to identify the denial-of-service attacks. One such method is entropy based detection scheme. In entropy based detection scheme, packet size entropy based scheme is much faster and easy to implement. Even so, there are some shortcomings as well to this method. This thesis introduces a new parameter to the packet size entropy based DoS attack detection scheme so that it can improve the detection accuracy. The new parameter is the entropy of the source and destination IP address combination. I.e. a concatenation of both addresses will give a hash like value, which can uniquely identify a particular path. By this parameter, even if the attacker changes the packet size using simple application programs for packets such as ICMP, the attack can be detected.
A transmission control framework for continuous media

Desktop video conferencing allows people to simulate face-to-face conversations by integrating real-time two-way audio and video with the computer system. Unfortunately, the quality of video conferences carried over current networks such as the Internet is often inadequate for effective communication. Network congestion can cause video conferences to experience high latencies and poor fidelity. We claim that in many cases we can sustain low-latency, high-fidelity conferences over current networks even when the networks are highly congested if we carefully manage the transmission of the audio and video streams at the endpoints of the conference. Network congestion is caused by two distinct types of network constraints: capacity constraints and access constraints. Capacity constraints limit the bit rate that can be supported by the network. Access constraints limit the message rate that can be supported by the network. We claim conferences can heuristically identify the type of network constraint causing congestion and reduce the effects of the congestion by carefully selecting the bit and message rates associated with each of the conference media streams. We explain and empirically demonstrate why addressing capacity and access constraints requires two complementary transmission adaptations: scaling and packaging. Scaling increases or decreases the bit rate associated with a media stream by controlling the generation and compression of the media stream. Packaging increases or decreases the conference message rate by controlling the type and number of media data units, or frames, placed into each message. We describe a transmission control framework that shows how scaling and packaging can be used to preserve conference quality when the network has capacity constraints, access constraints, or a combination of capacity and access constraints. We develop a transmission control algorithm based on this framework and demonstrate that the algorithm can deliver low-latency, high-fidelity conferences even on heavily congested networks. We also show that the algorithm delivers conferences with lower latency and higher fidelity than those delivered by non-adaptive transmission algorithms or by algorithms that only scale the video bit rate.
CONTROLLING BIPEDAL LOCOMOTION FOR COMPUTER ANIMATION

Some seemingly simple behaviours such as human walking are difficult to model because of their inherent instability. This thesis proposes an approach to generating balanced 3D walking motions for physically-based computer animations by viewing the motions as a sequence of discrete cycles in state space. First, a mechanism to stabilize open loop walking motions is presented. Onc this basic “balance” mechanism is in place, the underlying open loop motion can then be modified to generate variations on the basic walking gait. In addition to other interesting variations, the speed, stride rate and direction of a walk can each be controlled. These variations can be parameterized and potentially used to provide the animated character with the ability to perform autonomous motions such as following a path specified by the animator. While this work is somewhat specific to physically-based animation, some of the underlying ideas may prove useful in other disciplines such as robotics and biomechanics.
Dia logue Acts in VERBMOBIL-2 Second Edition

Die vorliegende Arbeit wurde im Rahmen des Verbundvorhabens Verbmobil vom Bundesministerium f ur Bildung, Wissenschaft, Forschung und Technologie (BMBF) unter dem FF orderkennzeichen 01IV101K/1 geff ordert. Die Verantwortung f ur den Inhalt dieser Arbeit liegt bei den AutorInnen.
"So easy to look at, so hard to define”: tough movement in the minimalist framework

This dissertation addresses the syntactic analysis of the (English) tough construction (TC), a syntactic construction in which (typically) adjectival predicates in the semantic class of 'tough' and 'easy' may participate: (i) John is tough/easy/impossible/a cinch to please e In this construction, the matrix subject is coreferent with the understood (nonovert) object of the embedded infinitival, as the non-TC paraphrase in (ii) shows: (ii) It is tough/easy/impossible/a cinch to please John A theoretically and empirically adequate analysis of such constructions has long proved elusive in generative syntactic frameworks: on the one hand due to apparent incompatibility with the theoretical principles of Case-theory, theta-theory, and movement constraints, on the other due to a range of largely contradictory empirical facts suggesting that TCs involve both NP-movement (‘A-movement’) and wh-movement (‘A-bar-movement’). The very fact that within previous Principles and Parameters models TCs have proved “in principle unexplainable” (Holmberg, 2001:839) appears detrimental to the credibility of such syntactic frameworks. I attempt to fill this previously conspicuous ‘gap’ in the empirical adequacy of Principles and Parameters syntax, arguing that recent revisions to the minimalist framework (particularly Chomsky 2000; 2001a) should inspire a rethinking of TCs, thus lending further support to the current minimalist framework and the manner in which core theoretical principles are reworked therein. Chapter 2 provides a range of evidence to support the claim that the lexical argument structure of 'tough'-class predicates is identical in both TC and non-TC configurations. Chapter 3 briefly introduces crucial additions to the recent minimalist framework concerning agreement, movement and feature-checking. Chapter 4 details the various problems encountered by the most common analyses of TCs within generative syntax, and the reasons why each is incompatible with a specific set of basic theoretical assumptions. Drawing on this, chapter 5 outlines an analysis of TCs consistent with these assumptions as stated in the current framework, based on an innovative approach to the syntax of null wh-operators. Chapter 6 explores some consequences of extending this analysis to provide an account for a set of constructions apparently related to TCs.
LiFT: Lightweight Freerider-Tracking Protocol

This paper addresses the problem of detecting freeriders in eer-to-peer epidemic content dissemination applications, such as gossip-based and mesh-based systems. We present LiFT, a Lightweight Freerider-Tracking Protocol, relying on accountability: each peer logs a digest of its past interactions with other peers and tracks abnormal behaviors by cross-checking its history log with other peers. LiFT is the rst protocol that detects freeriders in a randomized push-based application without using cryptography. Such applications are challenging because incentives a la Tit-for-Tat are not applicable and the random selection of communication partners prevents the use of any deterministic verication of the logs. We present a theoretical analysis of LiFT, backed up by extensive simulations. Additionally, we report on our experiments on the illustrative example of a gossip-based content dissemination protocol. In this setting, we show that after 50 gossip periods, LiFT detects freeriders (that freeride the protocol by 10%) over 99% of the time and that only 0.1% of the honest nodes are wrongfully accused.
Accurate segmentation of brain MR images

Full brain segmentation has been of significant interest throughout the years. Recently, many research groups worldwide have been looking into development of patient-specific electromagnetic models for dipole source location in EEG. To obtain this model, accurate segmentation of various tissues and sub-cortical structures is thus required. In this project, the performance of three of the most widely used software packages for brain segmentation has been analyzed: FSL, SPM and FreeSurfer. For the analysis, real images from a patient and a set of phantom images have been used in order to evaluate the performance r of each one of these tools.
Para-phrasing Recognition through Conceptual Graphs

An automated reading trainer needs to understand and recognize the students’ input and response back appropriately. Among well-known reading strategies, we first want to recognize the paraphrasing strategy because most students begin their self-explanation by paraphrasing. This paper briefly describes the need and goal of paraphrase strategy recognition. Then, we will focus on paraphrasing definition as well as its recognition model. We also discuss various knowledge representations for possible use for paraphrasing recognition. For each type of paraphrasing, the examples are shown. Lastly, we will discuss our implementation plan for the proposed system.
Extracting Named Entities from Pseudo Speech Transcriptions

Speech transcriptions are very complex to process by taggers for conventional written language due to the lack of capitalization and punctuation marks. We report in this paper our first attempt toward named entity recognition on speech transcriptions. In this work, we experimented on simulated speech transcriptions. Our experimental result s show that our method is robust and achieves high classification accuracies.