bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Does Transparency Lead to Better Education? The Effects in the Netherlands of Publishing School Performance Indicators on the Internet
Authors: Meijer Albert
Published: February 2025

Publishing information about school performance on the Internet is currently a ‘hype’ around the world. Many countries publish this information because they believe that this will benefit schools and parents. The assumption is that parents will use this information to assess the performance of schools and consequently choose a school on the basis of this information. Changes in school choice would then form a strong signal to schools to improve performance, with the net result being a better school system. This expectation, however, does not hold true in reality; the information is not used much by parents and, hence, their behavior does not send a strong signal to schools. This does not mean that the publication of school performance data on the Internet has no effect. School administrators do frequently refer to the information in order to know what is happening at other schools. They interpret and analyze this information in the context of competition with other schools, benchmarking themselves and learning from others. Schools do change their behavior in response to the influences of the information being public, albeit not in a deterministic and predictable manner.
Learning with Weighted Transducers
Authors: Cortes Corinna  , Mohri Mehryar
Published: February 2025

Weighted finite-state transducers have been used successfully in a variety of natural language processing applications, including speech recognition, speech synthesis, and machine translation. This paper shows how weighted transducers can be combined with existing learning algorithms to form powerful techniques for sequence learning problems.
Neural Network Sieve Bootstrap Prediction Intervals: Some Real Data Evidence
Authors: Giordano Francesco  , La Rocca Michele  , Perna Cira
Published: February 2025

A sieve bootstrap scheme, the neural network sieve bootstrap, for nonlinear time series is discussed. The approach, which is non parametric in its spirit, does not have the problems of other nonparametric bootstrap techniques. The procedure is used to construct prediction intervals and it takes into account the uncertainty associated with the estimation of the model parameters. An application to real data sets is also presented.
e-Government in Japan
Authors: Obi Toshio  , Iwasaki Naoko
Published: February 2025

Japan even though being an island country situated in the Pacific Ocean, has a well developed ICT infrastructure. In 2008 Broadband Internet coverage has been almost 1/4 of population and FTTH is more than 10%. ICT industry was accounted in 2006 as the largest industry among all industries. However, Japanese ICT companies are still struggling to beat their autonomy to go into overseas markets. e-Government Status of Japan is reflected through indicators listed, Management Optimization, National Portal Service, CIO in Government, Required Interface and e-Government Promotion. Development trends include e-Government and Innovative CIO for e-Government in Japan: New role of CIO, Expanding Role of CIO and Innovation and CIO Core Competences. New IT Reform Strategy 2006-2010 is highlighted as direction of e-Government.
Evidence of Misunderstandings in Tutorial Dialogue and their Impact on Learning
Authors: Jordan Pamela  , Litman Diane  , Lipschultz Michael  , Drummond Joanna
Published: February 2025

We explore the frequency and impact of misunderstandings in an existing corpus of tutorial dialogues in which a student appears to get an interpretation that is not in line with what the system developers intended. We found that this type of error is frequent, regardless of whether student input is typed or spoken, and that it does not respond well to general misconception repair strategies. Further we found that it is feasible to detect misunderstandings and suggest alternative strategies for repairing them that we intend to test in the future.
Educational Question Answering based on Social Media Content
Authors: Gurevych Iryna  , Bernhard Delphine  , Ignatova Kateryna  , Toprak Cigdem
Published: February 2025

We analyze the requirements for an educational Question Answering (QA) system operating on social media content. As a result, we identify a set of advanced natural language processing (NLP) technologies to address the challenges in educational QA. We conducted an inter-annotator agreement study on subjective question classification in the Yahoo!Answers social Q&A site and propose a simple, but effective approach to automatically identify subjective questions. We also developed a two-stage QA architecture for answering learners' questions. In the first step, we aim at re-using human answers to already answered questions by employing question paraphrase identification [1]. In the second step, we apply information retrieval techniques to perform answer retrieval from social media content. We show that elaborate techniques for question preprocessing are crucial.
Assessing Student Paraphrases Using Lexical Semantics and Word Weighting
Authors: Rus Vasile  , Lintean Mihai  , Graesser Art  , McNamara Danielle
Published: February 2025

We present in this paper an approach to assessing student paraphrases in the intelligent tutoring system iSTART. The approach is based on measuring the semantic similarity between a student paraphrase and a reference text, called the textbase. The semantic similarity is estimated using knowledge-based word relatedness measures. The relatedness measures rely on knowledge encoded in Word-Net, a lexical database of English. We also experiment with weighting words based on their importance. The word importance information was derived from an analysis of word distributions in 2,225,726 documents from Wikipedia. Performance is reported for 12 different models which resulted from combining 3 different relatedness measures, 2 word sense disambiguation methods, and 2 word-weighting schemes. Furthermore, comparisons are made to other approaches such as Latent Semantic Analysis and the Entailer.
Developing an ITS in Sudoku
Authors: Kwok Lam-for  , Yu Carter
Published: February 2025

Despite of the high popularity of Sudoku, most people are not aware of the applicable rules explicitly when playing the game. In this project, we proposed an Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS) that aims to help logic development by solving Sudoku puzzles. The proposed ITS is capable of providing players with hints on deductive inference in solving Sudoku puzzles.
Transfer Learning and Representation Discovery in Intelligent Tutoring Systems
Authors: Ferguson Kimberly  , Woolf Beverly Park  , Mahadevan Sridhar
Published: February 2025

We describe a novel framework developed for transfer learning within reinforcement learning (RL) problems. Then we exhibit how this framework can be extended to intelligent tutoring systems (ITS). We compose an algorithm that automatically constructs a graphical representation based on the transfer framework. We evaluate this on a real-world ITS example and show that the model constructed by our approach performs better than previously published results. We propose that transfer learning is a useful and related area to explore for furthering intelligent tutoring systems.
Situated Computation
Authors: Gero John S.
Published: February 2025

Situated computation is a paradigm that brings concepts from situated cognition in cognitive science to computation. Situated computation expands the concept of computation from being the encoding of objective knowledge that is fixed by the programmers of the system to include first-person knowledge acquired while the programs are being used. This first-person knowledge forms the basis of the system's experience that is then made available as the system is used further.
Towards a Global Regime for Cyber Warfare
Authors: Hughes Rex
Published: February 2025

With two years having passed since the infamous cyber conflict between Estonia and Russia, international society still lacks a coherent set of principles, rules, and norms governing state security and military operations in cyberspace. For parties committed to promoting the cause of peace and stability in a multipolar world, this is a troubling notion since history shows that the likelihood of a new arms race is high when disruptive technologies dramatically alter the means and methods of war. As more nations aspire to project national power in cyberspace, a new digital arms race appears to be imminent if not already upon us. Thus, there is a central question confronting international society and more specifically the diplomatic community in cyberspace: What steps can be taken both today and into the future to forestall a major arms race and interstate competition in cyberspace? In order to begin addressing this complex question from the perspective of the Euro-Atlantic Community, this paper discusses both the challenges and opportunities of regulating 21stcentury cyber warfare. The paper is divided into three sections. Section 1 examines the evolution of the laws of armed conflict (LOAC) since the late 19thcentury. Section 2 examines how the LOAC apply to cyber warfare as viewed primarily from a US perspective (since US scholars have dominated the international regime discourse thus far). Section 3 examines what is needed to create a global regime for cyber warfare and specifically the role that NATO and the Euro-Atlantic Community can play.
Sun Tzu was a Hacker: An Examination of the Tactics and Operations from a Real World Cyber Attack
Authors: Rios Billy K.
Published: February 2025

This text will cover the operational and tactical techniques used in a “real world” cyber-attack and includes an analysis of the planning, command, control, execution, and outcome of these cyber-attacks. The text focuses on the cyber-attacks against the nation state of Georgia in 2008, as the author was in a unique position to observe the communications, execution, and responses from both attacking and defending entities. The various aspects of the attacks will be described and linked back to traditional concepts of Maneuver Warfare as described in Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication 1 (MCDP-1).
Warfare and the Continuum of Cyber Risks: A Policy Perspective
Authors: Cutts Andrew
Published: February 2025

At the highest levels of national government, two of the most important decisions to get right are properly prioritizing among competing missions, and balancing between short-term and long-term objectives. The most consequential and highest risk threat is attack by one or more nation-states intent on projecting power, and who are willing to damage or destroy critical information infrastructure by cyber means in order to achieve this objective. Threat actors falling into this category have the necessary time, resources, sophistication, and access to do so. This category certainly includes cyber warfare. Today, nation-states are beginning to understand in concrete terms the potential benefits and costs of cyber attacks used as a means of projecting national power. It may not take a great deal of a nation's cyber resources, planning time, or technical access to achieve limited national objectives.
An Investigation into Distributed Channel Mobility Support for Communicating Process Architectures
Authors: Chalmers Kevin  , Kerridge Jon
Published: February 2025

Localised mobile channel support is now a feature of Communicating Process Architecture (CPA) based frameworks, from JCSP and C++CSP to occam-π. Distributed mobile channel support has also been attempted in JCSP Networking and occam-π via the pony framework, although the capabilities of these two separate approaches is limited and has not led to the widespread usage of distributed mobile channel primitives. In this paper, an initial investigation into possible models that can support distributed channel mobility are presented and analysed for features such as transmission time, robustness and reachability. The goal of this work is to discover a set of models which can be used for channel mobility and also supported within the single unified protocol for distributed CPA frameworks. From the analysis presented in this paper, it has been determined that there are models which can be implemented to support channel end mobility within a single unified protocol which provide suitable capabilities for certain application scenarios.
A wawelet based heuristic to dimension Neural Networks for simple signal approximation
Authors: Colombini Gabriele  , Sottara Davide  , Luccarini Luca  , Mello Paola
Published: February 2025

Before training a feed forward neural network, one needs to define its architecture. Even in simple feed-forward networks, the number of neurons of the hidden layer is a fundamental parameter, but it is not generally possible to compute its optimal value a priori. It is good practice to start from an initial number of neurons, then build, train and test several different networks with a similar hidden layer size, but this can be excessively expensive when the data to be learned are simple, while some real-time constraints have to be satisfied. This paper shows a heuristic method for dimensioning and initializing a network under such assumptions. The method has been tested on a project for waste water treatment monitoring.
Legal Change Management with a Native XML Repository
Authors: Palmirani Monica  , Cervone Luca
Published: February 2025

This paper presents a solution for managing heterogeneous legal XML resources using a native XML repository—called eXistrella—designed to enable a common query layer within a temporal environment equipped to manage the evolution of legislative documents over time. With eXistrella, the structure of a legal document is directly connected with the legal knowledge embedded in the corresponding norms, exploiting the XML syntax used in modeling such norms, and in this way, the gap can be bridged between the container (the document) and the way the content (the norm) is modeled.
Emerald: Legal Knowledge Engineering Using OWL and Rules
Authors: Förhécz András  , Kőrösi Gábor  , Millinghoffer András  , Strausz György
Published: February 2025

In the field of legal knowledge engineering development of expert systems is getting more common. At present, we are in the process of building a new environment for developing legal knowledge systems. Our previous knowledge based system development tool, AllexGold includes a rule-based reasoning engine with a transparent interface but struggles from limitations in expressive power. The new environment, Emerald, is being built around Semantic Web technologies, exploiting the benefits of using description logic (DL) reasoners. However, to keep the advantages of rule formalisms and interactive dialogues, we combine DL reasoning with production rules and a backward chaining algorithm. The article gives an overview about the new legal knowledge engineering environment and some of its internals.
The 4D World Map System with Semantic Spatiotemporal Analyzers
Authors: Sasaki Shiori  , Takahashi Yusuke  , Kiyoki Yasushi
Published: February 2025

This paper presents a design and implementation for the “4D World Map System,” a knowledge representation system which enables semantic, temporal and spatial analysis of documents, and integrates and visualizes the analyzed results as a 4-dimentional dynamic historical atlas (4D World Map Set). The main feature of this system is to create various context-dependent patterns of historical/cultural stories according to a user's viewpoints dynamically. This system generates multiple views of semantic and temporal-spatial relationships among documents of the humanities and social sciences. This system organizes the relationships among documents into various historical/cultural stories by a user's viewpoints. A semantic associative search method is applied to this system for realizing the concept that “semantics” of words, documents, and events vary according to the “context”. Semantically-evaluated and analyzed document data are also mapped dynamically onto a time-series multi-geographical space. This system provides high visibility of semantic correlations between documents in time series variation with geographic information. In this paper, we also show several experiments by using news articles and International Relations documents to clarify the feasibility of the system.
Concept Drift in documents and Formal Concept Analysis
Authors: Miyazaki Yutaka  , Tanaka Yuzuru
Published: February 2025

Formal Concept Analysis (FCA) enables us to extract conceptual information from data and to visualize its structure in a lattice form. Here, we apply FCA to the analysis of a series of documents published periodically, in order to capture drifts of formal concepts occurred in the series by shifting the corresponding formal context as a viewpoint by some constant amount of time little by little. The resulting concept drifts can reflect the change of topics frequently discussed at that time.
JoinSee: A Real-Time and Collaborative Hyper-Media System for Participatory Performances in the Opera of Meaning
Authors: Kurabayashi Shuichi  , Dubnov Shlomo  , Kiyoki Yasushi
Published: February 2025

In this paper, we propose a real-time and collaborative hyper-media system that introduces database-enhanced collaborative models and multimedia processing models for creating improvised performances in the Opera of Meaning. The system provides a main story media and a corresponding shared canvas that is shared among Internet-wide user communities. Our shared canvas mechanisms make it possible to describe and share users' ideas and impressions about the main story media. The key technology of this system is a timeline-dependent and script-driven live performance engine, which provides users with ECA rules to express and characterize the users' ideas and impressions by using existing multimedia data such as video files and image files. The system provides directors and participants of improvised performance with a set of database operators for controlling and contributing to the performance. The system motivates users to contribute to the performance by exploiting users' own media libraries and existing web services. We have implemented the prototype system which is applicable to the existing video and image files on the Web.
Fingerprinting Radio Frequency Identification Tags Using Timing Characteristics
Authors: Chinnappa Gounder Periaswamy Senthilkumar  , Thompson Dale R.  , Romero Henry P.  , Di Jia
Published: February 2025

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) has been very actively developed as an identification technology in the last ten years. The uniqueness of RFID tag's electronic product code has made it to be used as an anti-counterfeiting feature for objects attached to it. However, currently the anti-counterfeiting properties of the tag themselves and methods to prevent counterfeiting of the tags have not been established. Here we propose a physical layer fingerprinting methodology that will improve the security of RFID tags.
Security Flaws in a Recent Ultralightweight RFID Protocol
Authors: Peris-Lopez Pedro  , Hernandez-Castro Julio C.  , Tapiador Juan M.E.  , van der Lubbe Jan C.A.
Published: February 2025

In 2006, Peris-Lopez et al. [1,2,3] initiated the design of ultralightweight RFID protocols – with the UMAP family – involving only simple bitwise logical or arithmetic operations such as bitwise XOR, OR, AND, and addition. This combination of operations was revealed later to be insufficient for the intended security level [12,13]. Then, Chien proposed the SASI protocol [4] with the aim of offering better security by adding the bitwise rotation to the set of supported operations. The SASI protocol represented a milestone in the design of ultralightweight protocols, although certain attacks have been published against this scheme [5,6,7]. In 2008, a new protocol named Gossamer [8] was proposed and the scheme can be considered a further development of both the UMAP family and SASI. Although no attacks have been disclosed against Gossamer, Lee et al. [9] have recently published an alternative scheme that is highly reminiscent of SASI. In this paper, we show that Lee's scheme fails short of many of its security objectives, being vulnerable to several important attacks like traceability, full disclosure, cloning and desynchronization.
Exercise in Hot and Cold Environments
Authors: Oksa Juha  , Racinais Sebastien  , Hue Olivier
Published: February 2025

Under some circumstances, an increase in muscle temperature can improve muscle force production, while long duration performances are impaired in hot environment. Historically, studies have focused on the increased skin blood flow and reduced blood supply to the muscle to explain a diminished exercising capacity. More recently, central and possibly cerebral temperature have been implicated as important factors that limit exercise in hot environments. With hyperthermia (core temperature above 38.5°C), muscle force production becomes impaired due to a decrement in muscle voluntary activation. At the opposite, when humans are exposed to cold ambient temperatures cooling may occur, and even while exercising, when body heat production is increased, this may result in subnormal body temperatures. It is well verified that subnormal body and especially muscle temperature has an adverse effect on performance capacity: in fact, a dose response relationship between fall in muscle temperature and decrease in performance has been established. While maximal performance capacity is decreased the requirements for being able to perform the same amount of work in cold environment in relation to thermoneutral is increased. This leads to an increased relative strain of a given exercise leading to an increased level of fatigue or the fatigue occurs earlier during exercise. This needs to be taken into account when targeting exercise programs and/or planning work or recreational long term exposures to cold.
Global e-Government in the Post Crisis Economy – Panel Discussion
Authors: Obi Toshio  , Auffret Jean-Pierre  , Mkhatshwa Smangaliso  , Mukherjee Ashish Kumar  , Santana Martin  , Slavin Boris  , Yang Fengchun
Published: February 2025

This is a transcript of a panel discussion at the 2008 Tokyo International Academy of CIO Conference. Issues discussed included the subprime financial crisis impact on e-Government developments, ICT and the environment, President Barak Obama's agenda regarding ICT, and the strengths and weakness of the Japanese ICT industry.
Towards an Ontology of Products
Authors: Vignolo Massimiliano
Published: February 2025

We speak of types of products and of instances of products. I argue that the ontological status of types of products is the same as that of material stuffs, like water and gold, which have a non-particular level of existence. I also argue that the relationship between types of products and their instances is logically similar to the relation of constitution, which holds between, say, gold and a ring made of gold. On my view types of products are concrete entities that can be created in space and time and undergo complete destruction as well as instances of products.
An Activity Theory Framework for DSS for Extreme Events
Authors: O'Leary Daniel E.
Published: February 2025

Usage of activity theory has emerged in other applications in computer science, including human computer interfaces. This paper applies activity theory as a theoretical framework for the analysis of DSS for extreme events. An example, based on computer support on the web for hurricane response, is used to illustrate how activity theory might be applied to extreme events in a decision support system environment.
A Motivation-Based Mechanism to Design Behaviors
Authors: Dujardin Tony  , Routier Jean-Christophe
Published: February 2025

In human-level simulations, like video games can be, the design of character's behaviors has an important impact on simulation realism. We propose to divide it into a reasoning part, dedicated to a planner, and an individuality part, assigned to an action selection mechanism. Applying the separation of declarative and procedural aspects, the principle is to provide every character with the same procedural mechanisms: the planner and the action selection mechanism. Declarative knowledge is then used at the agent level to individualize the behavior. The contribution of this paper consists in a motivation-based action selection mechanism that allows individualization in behavior. The modularity provided by the motivations enables a large variety of behaviors for which the designer has to choose parameters. If the simulation of characters are our first motivation, the principles involved in the proposed motivation-based action mechanism are general enough to be used in other contexts.
On the stability of an Optimal Coalition Structure
Authors: Airiau Stéphane  , Sen Sandip
Published: February 2025

The two main questions in coalition games are 1) what coalitions should form and 2) how to distribute the value of each coalition between its members. When a game is not superadditive, other coalition structures (CSs) may be more attractive than the grand coalition. For example, if the agents care about the total payoff generated by the entire society, CSs that maximize utilitarian social welfare are of interest. The search for such optimal CSs has been a very active area of research. Stability concepts have been defined for games with coalition structure, under the assumption that the agents agree first on a CS, and then the members of each coalition decide on how to share the value of their coalition. An agent can refer to the values of coalitions with agents outside of its current coalition to argue for a larger share of the coalition payoff. To use this approach, one can find the CS s★with optimal value and use one of these stability concepts for the game with s★. However, it may not be fair for some agents to form s★, e.g., for those that form a singleton coalition and cannot benefit from collaboration with other agents. We explore the possibility of allowing side-payments across coalitions to improve the stability of an optimal CS. We adapt existing stability concepts and prove that some of them are non-empty under our proposed scheme.
A Decentralised Symbolic Diagnosis Approach
Authors: Schumann Anika  , Pencolé Yannick  , Thiébaux Sylvie
Published: February 2025

This paper considers the diagnosis of large discrete-event systems consisting of many components. The problem is to determine, online, all failures and states that explain a given sequence of observations. Several model-based diagnosis approaches deal with this problem but they usually have either poor time performance or result in space explosion. Recent work has shown that both problems can be tackled when encoding diagnosis approaches symbolically by means of binary decision diagrams. This paper further improves upon these results and presents a decentralised symbolic diagnosis method that computes the diagnosis information for each component off-line and then combines them on-line. Experimental results show that our method provides significant improvements over existing approaches.
Refined Preference-based Argumentation Frameworks
Authors: Kaci Souhila
Published: February 2025

Argumentation is a reasoning model based on constructing arguments, determining potential conflicts between arguments and determining acceptable arguments. Dung's argumentation theory is an abstract framework based on a binary defeat relation between arguments. Due to this abstract representation, it has been instantiated in different ways. In particular, preference-based argumentation frameworks take into account a preference relation over arguments together with a (non necessarily symmetric) attack relation. We show that preference-based argumentation frameworks faithfully instantiate Dung's framework only when the attack relation is symmetric. Moreover the latter condition prevents undesirable results. We also promote a higher impact of preferences in preference-based argumentation frameworks and propose different ways to rank-order sets of acceptable arguments.
Visual Localization Using Ground Points
Authors: Bonin-Font Francisco  , Burguera Antoni  , Ortiz Alberto  , Oliver Gabriel
Published: February 2025

This paper presents a mobile robot localization approach aimed at using visual information to improve the dead reckoning pose estimates. Visual features are obtained by means of an Inverse Perspective Transformation method, which is able to distinguish between ground points and obstacles. Thanks to this, ground points can be labelled with unique identifiers and their coordinates can be computed. These labelled ground points constitute the visual landmarks and are fused with dead reckoning information by means of an Extended Kalman Filter. The experimental results provided emphasize the benefits of this approach.
Disciple Cognitive Agents: Learning, Problem Solving Assistance, and Tutoring
Authors: Tecuci Gheorghe  , Boicu Mihai  , Marcu Dorin  , Schum David
Published: February 2025

Over the years we have researched a computational theory and technology that allows regular computer users who are not knowledge engineers to develop intelligent agents that incorporate their problem solving expertise [1–7]. This resulted in a series of increasingly more powerful Disciple cognitive agents that integrate several complementary capabilities. They are able to learn, directly from their users, their subject matter expertise, which currently takes years to establish, is lost when experts separate from service, and is costly to replace. They can assist their users in solving complex problems in uncertain and dynamic environments, and they can tutor students in expert problem solving. Disciple agents have been developed for a wide variety of domains, including manufacturing [1], education [2], course of action critiquing [3], center of gravity determination [4, 5], and intelligence analysis [6]. The most recent Disciple agents incorporate a significant amount of generic knowledge from the Science of Evidence, allowing them to teach and help their users in discovering and evaluating evidence and hypotheses, through the development of Wigmorean probabilistic inference networks that link evidence to hypotheses in argumentation structures that establish the relevance, believability and inferential force of evidence [7].
A Neurologically Plausible Artificial Neural Network Computational Architecture of Episodic Memory and Recall
Authors: Vineyard Craig M.  , Bernard Michael L.  , Taylor Shawn E.  , Caudell Thomas P.  , Watson Patrick  , Verzi Stephen  , Cohen Neal J.  , Eichenbaum Howard
Published: February 2025

Episodic memory is supported by the relational memory functions of the hippocampus. Building upon extensive neuroscience research on hippocampal processing, neural density, and connectivity we have implemented a computational architecture using variants of adaptive resonance theory artificial neural networks. Consequently, this model is capable of encoding, storing and processing multi-modal sensory inputs as well as simulating qualitative memory phenomena such as auto-association and recall. The performance of the model is compared with human subject performance. Thus, in this paper we present a neurologically plausible artificial neural network computational architecture of episodic memory and recall modeled after cortical-hippocampal structure and function.
Explanatory Aspirations and the Scandal of Cognitive Neuroscience
Authors: Gayler Ross W.  , Levy Simon D.  , Bod Rens
Published: February 2025

In this position paper we argue that BICA must simultaneously be compatible with the explanation of human cognition and support the human design of artificial cognitive systems. Most cognitive neuroscience models fail to provide a basis for implementation because they neglect necessary levels of functional organisation in jumping directly from physical phenomena to cognitive behaviour. Of those models that do attempt to include the intervening levels, most either fail to implement the required cognitive functionality or do not scale adequately. We argue that these problems of functionality and scaling arise because of identifying computational entities with physical resources such as neurons and synapses. This issue can be avoided by introducing appropriate virtual machines. We propose a tool stack that introduces such virtual machines and supports design of cognitive architectures by simplifying the design task through vertical modularity.
Higher order based image deconvolution in electromagnetic non destructive evaluation of metallic materials
Authors: Burrascano Pietro  , Cacciola Matteo  , Morabito Francesco Carlo  , Ricci Marco
Published: February 2025

We present a non-destructive magnetic imaging technique developed for the evaluation of hot-rolled stainless steel. Starting from measurements of magnetic field carried out by means of a Hall probe array, magnetic images of sample surfaces are attained. In order to enhance the signal to noise ratio and to detect defects, we have implemented some image processing protocols. In particular we report the contextual application of Independent Component Analysis and Wiener filter to the image deconvolution task focusing on the advantages that such approach assures.
ICA based Algorithms for Flaw Classification in Pulsed Eddy Current Data: A Study
Authors: Cacciola Matteo  , Ripepi Giuseppe  , Yang Guang  , Tian Gui Yun  , Morabito Francesco Carlo
Published: February 2025

Pulsed Eddy Current (PEC) is a new emerging Non Destructive Evaluation technique for sub-surface defect detection. It provides new challenges to signal analysis and interpretation approach applied to the inspection evaluation. For instance, PEC could suffer from noise and be not sufficient to extract more information about the defects. This paper aims to approach the challenge of flaw identification in PECs. Due to non-Gaussianity of PEC measurements, we applied Independent Component Analysis (ICA) in extracting information from PEC responses. We considered three different approaches implementing ICA, in order to project the response signals of various defects into the Independent Components (ICs) feature space. Then, useful ICs of each algorithm were used as features for machine learning algorithms, in order to solve the inverse problem of pattern classification. Since the nongaussianity of the OEC measurements, we retained ICs with highest kurtosis. The considered different kinds of defects were: metal loss, sub-surface cracks, surface defects and slants. We compared the performances of our implemented algorithms with results available in scientific literature. We obtained improvements in reliability of the pattern classification algorithm, as well as in reducing the computational load, obtaining a classification error of 8.54% over 3063 testing patterns.
New User-driven Innovation Policy: The Key to Finnish Local Government Service Reform
Authors: Jäppinen Tuula
Published: February 2025

In Europe the paradigms of local governance have changed from the old public administration to New Public Management and public governance. The innovation policy of the 21stcentury entails broadening the concept of innovation from the private sector to public service innovation together with service users. User-centricity means that the development of services is based on the needs of citizens and the focus is on users rather than on production. In theory, citizens have two channels for participation in public service reform: the traditional way to participate in decision-making on services through user democracy and a new, more innovative way to participate as users in service provision. Two Finnish case studies are used to illustrate how municipalities are implementing user-driven innovation policy. The first case study describes participation in decision-making, the second user-driven innovation in service provision. These cases show that service users are better prepared for the shift towards user-centricity than service providers
Governance Reforms in Three Southeast Asian Countries: the Role of Research-based Evidence in Promoting Innovations
Authors: Pellini Arnaldo  , Bachtiar Palmira Permata  , Alicias Maria Dolores  , Hang Nguyen Thi Thu
Published: February 2025

To respond to slow economic development, urbanization and other challenges many South East Asian countries have undertaken wide ranging public administration reforms, ranging from the big bang decentralization in Indonesia which started in 1999 to the more gradual approach taken by the government of Vietnam. The objectives have usually been to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of service provision in order to reduce transaction costs and enhance opportunities for economic growth and respond to the citizens' demand for greater participation in decision making processes. This chapter describes specific innovation in the field of governance looking at the role that research-based evidence has played in informing or influencing the policy reforms. The assumption is that while governance reforms are extremely complex, the adoption of an evidence-based approach to pilot and design the reforms can enhance the possibility to design policies and define practices more in line with specific institutional needs and local demands. Three case studies illustrate these developments: One Stop Services in Indonesia, development planning through participatory rural appraisal in the Philippines, and the case of simplification of administrative procedures in Vietnam.
Implementing Generalised Alt
Authors: Lowe Gavin
Published: February 2025

In this paper we describe the design and implementation of a generalised alt operator for the Communicating Scala Objects library. The alt operator provides a choice between communications on different channels. Our generalisation removes previous restrictions on the use of alts that prevented both ends of a channel from being used in an alt. The cost of the generalisation is a much more difficult implementation, but one that still gives very acceptable performance. In order to support the design, and greatly increase our confidence in its correctness, we build CSP models corresponding to our design, and use the FDR model checker to analyse them.
A Systems Re-engineering Case Study: Programming Robots with occam and Handel-C
Authors: Slipper Dan  , McEwan Alistair A.
Published: February 2025

This paper introduces a case study exploring some of the legacy issues that may be faced when redeveloping a system. The case study is a robotics system programmed in occam and Handel-C, allowing us to draw comparisons between software and hardware implementations in terms of program architecture, ease of program code verification, and differences in the behaviour of the robot. The two languages used have been selected because of their model of concurrency and their relation to CSP. The case study contributes evidence that re-implementing a system from an abstract model may present implementation specific issues despite maintaining the same underlying program control structure. The paper identifies these problems and suggests a number of steps that could be taken to help mitigate some of the issues.
Verification of a Dynamic Channel Model using the SPIN Model Checker
Authors: Friborg Rune Møllegaard  , Vinter Brian
Published: February 2025

This paper presents the central elements of a new dynamic channel leading towards a flexible CSP design suited for high-level languages. This channel is separated into three models: a shared-memory channel, a distributed channel and a dynamic synchronisation layer. The models are described such that they may function as a basis for implementing a CSP library, though many of the common features known in available CSP libraries have been excluded from the models. The SPIN model checker has been used to check for the presence of deadlocks, livelocks, starvation, race conditions and correct channel communication behaviour. The three models are separately verified for a variety of different process configurations. This verification is performed automatically by doing an exhaustive verification of all possible transitions using SPIN. The joint result of the models is a single dynamic channel type which supports both local and distributed any-to-any communication. This model has not been verified and the large state-space may make it unsuited for exhaustive verification using a model checker. An implementation of the dynamic channel will be able to change the internal synchronisation mechanisms on-the-fly, depending on the number of channel-ends connected or their location.
Ontology and Model Based Systems Engineering
Authors: van Ruijven L.C.
Published: February 2025

The subject of this paper is an information technology framework based on the use of an ontology that can be used for explicit and consistent specification, design, engineering, production and maintenance of complex facilities, e.g. ships and infrastructure. The framework supports the needs of Systems Engineering for unambiguous and explicit communication about such a facility between project participants, companies, disciplines etc. It further facilitates interoperability, increases efficiency and reduces failure costs. To show the complexity of realizing complex facilities nowadays, the first part of the paper gives the basics of a system as a capital facility and the corresponding Systems Engineering process which results in such capital facilities. Subsequently in the second part this is used to explore the need for an ontology-based framework.
14. Zinc and Cancer
Authors: Taylor Kathryn  , Gee Julia  , Kille Peter
Published: February 2025

Zinc is essential for cells and intracellular zinc levels are maintained within appropriate boundaries by zinc transporters. However, increasingly, changes in intracellular zinc have been observed in a number of different cancers. Furthermore, these changes in zinc levels are often accompanied by parallel alterations in the expression of different zinc transporters. In this chapter we will detail what is known about zinc and zinc transporter levels in different cancers with particular emphasis on breast cancer, which has been examined most thoroughly. It is hoped that what has been discovered regarding the involvement of zinc and zinc transporters in breast cancer will be applicable to future investigations of other cancers.
28. Conclusions from Zinc Transporter Mutations for Zinc Physiology
Authors: Andrews Glen K.
Published: February 2025

The past decade has seen a rapid increase in our understanding of the physiological functions of zinc transporters in the Slc39a (Zip) and Slc30a (ZnT) families in mammals. Remarkably, about half of the 24 putative zinc transporters (6 of the 14 Zip family members and 7 of the 10 ZnT family members) are mutated in a disease and/or have been knocked-out leading to disease phenotypes. Information gleaned from these studies accentuates the surprising diversity of the physiological functions of zinc. Thus far, three mammalian zinc transporters have been reported to be essential for development and viability of the embryo or neonate. Several others become essential first during critical zinc-sensitive periods of development, differentiation and/or function of specific cell-types. Yet other zinc transporters appear to serve ancillary functions in the homeostasis of zinc by participating in its retention or redistribution. Future studies of the effects of mutations in Zip and ZnT family members will be revealing and conditional knockout studies are required to probe other potential cell-specific functions of almost all of the Zip and ZnT family members.
A First Approximation to a Cognitive Icon Query By Example Search Engine
Authors: Museros Lledó  , Sanz Ismael  , Falomir Zoe
Published: February 2025

The application of a qualitative shape and qualitative colour description and similarity calculus to an Image Query By Example problem is presented in this paper. Specifically, the qualitative shape and colour similarity theories are applied to the problem of matching icon images. The suitability of this approach as a foundation for a practical query by example engine for icons is shown by an experimental evaluation. The use of a more cognitive approach opens the possibility of creating systems that can be tailored to particular user requirements involving complex rules that cannot be handled by current systems.
Linear Attacks on Stream Ciphers
Authors: Hell Martin  , Johansson Thomas
Published: February 2025

This paper is a survey of how linear attacks can be applied on stream ciphers. It gives an overview of the development of linear attacks and a short theoretical explanation on how a linear attack on a stream cipher is typically launched today. The main part of the paper is then a more detailed description of the application of linear attacks on three stream cipher designs, namely Grain, Pomaranch, and SNOW.
A Computational Agent Model for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders
Authors: Naze Sebastien  , Treur Jan
Published: February 2025

In this paper a computational agent model is presented that describes and mimics processing in persons with a Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The model is based on insights from the neurological literature on how specific phenomena that are typical for PTSD patients can occur, such as re-experiencing the strong feeling related to the original traumatic event, dissociation (not feeling the own body), and flashbacks in the form of images. A number of simulations is presented that show how the agent model displays these phenomena of re-experiencing, dissociation and flashback episodes, triggered by a neutral stimulus. The obtained cognitive/affective agent model can be used as a basis for the design of human-like virtual agents in simulation-based training or in gaming or virtual stories.
On the Recognition of Emotional Voices by Typical and Speech Impaired Children
Authors: Troncone Alda  , Esposito Anna
Published: February 2025

The purpose of this study was to examine the ability of stuttering children to recognize emotions by acoustic signal. Previous studies about this topic have generated mixed results. In [1–2], stuttering children were found to be less efficient in identifying all emotions than fluent ones. In [3] the results showed significant perceptual differences between stutterers and fluent children for all the emotional states under examination except for anger. In the present study 25 developmental stutterers and 50 fluent children balanced for age (ages between 6 and 9) and gender have been tested on their ability to recognize 5 basic vocal emotional states (anger, fear, happiness, surprise and sadness). The 25 stuttering children were recruited at Phoniatric Outpatients in Naples, Italy (Azienda Ospedaliera di Rilievo Nazionale Santobono Pausilipon, struttura Dipartimentale di Audiologia e Foniatria) and Azienda Universitaria Policlinico (Clinica ORL Ospedale Gesù e Maria, reparto di Foniatria e Audiologia). The control group was recruited at a primary school in Naples' province, Italy. The stimuli consisted of 20 emotionally coloured sentences, four for each emotion. The sentences were extracted from video clips of Italian movies and were emotionally rich [4–5]. The findings are a contribution to understanding the perceptual and cognitive processes involved in the perception of emotional states especially when a mild speech communication disorder is involved.
From Examples to Bayesian Inference
Authors: Palmieri Francesco A.N.  , Ciuonzo Domenico  , Mattera Davide  , Romano Gianmarco  , Salvo Rossi Pierluigi
Published: February 2025

We show how to build an associative memory from a finite list of examples. By means of a fully-blown example, we demostrate how a probabilistic Bayesian factor graph can integrate naturally the discrete information contained in the list with smooth inference.