bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Robotic Hardware and Software Integration for Changing Human Intentions
Authors: Durdu Akif , Erkmen Ismet , Erkmen Aydan M. , Yilmaz Alper
Published: March 2012

Estimating and reshaping human intentions are among the most significant topics of research in the field of human-robot interaction. This chapter provides an overview of intention estimation literature on human-robot interaction, and introduces an approach on how robots can voluntarily reshape estimated intentions. The reshaping of the human intention is achieved by the robots moving in certain directions that have been a priori observed from the interactions of humans with the objects in the scene. Being among the only few studies on intention reshaping, the authors of this chapter exploit spatial information by learning a Hidden Markov Model (HMM) of motion, which is tailored for intelligent robotic interaction. The algorithmic design consists of two phases. At first, the approach detects and tracks human to estimate the current intention. Later, this information is used by autonomous robots that interact with detected human to change the estimated intention. In the tracking and intention estimation phase, postures and locations of the human are monitored by applying low-level video processing methods. In the latter phase, learned HMM models are used to reshape the estimated human intention. This two-phase system is tested on video frames taken from a real human-robot environment. The results obtained using the proposed approach shows promising performance in reshaping of detected intentions.
A Framework for Prototyping of Autonomous Multi-Robot Systems for Search, Rescue, and Reconnaissance
Authors: Dogru Sedat , Topal Sebahattin , Erkmen Aydan M. , Erkmen Ismet
Published: March 2012

Robots consistently help humans in dangerous and complex tasks by providing information about, and executing tasks in disaster areas that are highly unstructured, uncertain, possibly hostile, and sometimes not reachable to humans directly. Prototyping autonomous multi-robot systems in disaster scenarios both as hardware platforms and software can provide foundational infrastructure in comparing performance of different methodologies developed for search, rescue, monitoring and reconnaissance. In this chapter, the authors discuss prototyping modules of heterogeneous multi-robot networks and their design characteristics for two different scenarios, namely Search and Rescue in unstructured complex environments, and connectivity maintenance in Sycophant Wireless Sensor Networks which are static ecto-parasitic clandestine sensor networks mounted incognito on mobile agents using only the agent’s mobility without intervention, and are cooperating with sparse mobile robot sensor networks.
Ontology-Based Information Extraction under a Bootstrapping Approach
Authors: Iosif Elias , Petasis Georgios , Karkaletsis Vangelis
Published: March 2012

The authors present an ontology-based information extraction process, which operates in a bootstrapping framework. The novelty of this approach lies in the continuous semantics extraction from textual content in order to evolve the underlying ontology, while the evolved ontology enhances in turn the information extraction mechanism. This process was implemented in the context of the R&D project BOEMIE1. The BOEMIE system was evaluated on the athletics domain.
SODA
Authors: Diosteanu Andreea , Stellato Armando , Turbati Andrea
Published: March 2012

In this chapter, the authors present Service Oriented Data Acquisition (SODA), a service-deployable open-source platform for retrieving and dynamically aggregating information extraction and knowledge acquisition software components. The motivation in creating such a system came from the observed gap between the large availability of Information Analysis components for different frameworks (such as UIMA [Ferrucci & Lally, 2004] and GATE [Cunningham, Maynard, Bontcheva, & Tablan, 2002]) and the difficulties in discovering, retrieving, integrating these components, and embedding them into software systems for knowledge feeding. By analyzing the research area, the authors noticed that there are a few solutions for this problem, though they all lack in assuring a great level of platform independence, collaboration, flexibility, and most of all, openness. The solution that they propose is targeted to different kinds of users, from application developers, benefiting from a semantic repository of inter-connectable information extraction and ontology feeding components, to final users, who can plug and play these components through SODA compliant clients.
OntoWiktionary
Authors: Meyer Christian M. , Gurevych Iryna
Published: March 2012

For constructing their ontology OntoWiktionary, the authors present a two-step approach that involves (1) harvesting structured knowledge from Wiktionary and (2) ontologizing this knowledge (i.e., the formation of ontological concepts and relationships from the harvested knowledge). They evaluate their approach based on human judgments and find their new ontology to be of overall good quality. To encourage further research in this field, the authors make the final OntoWiktionary publicly available and suggest integrating this novel resource with the linked data cloud as well as other existing ontology projects.
A High Level Model of a Conscious Embodied Agent
Authors: Wiedermann Jirí
Published: March 2012

In this paper, the author describes a simple yet cognitively powerful architecture of an embodied conscious agent. The architecture incorporates a mechanism for mining, representing, processing and exploiting semantic knowledge. This mechanism is based on two complementary internal world models which are built automatically. One model (based on artificial mirror neurons) is used for mining and capturing the syntax of the recognized part of the environment while the second one (based on neural nets) for its semantics. Jointly, the models support algorithmic processes underlying phenomena similar in important aspects to higher cognitive functions such as imitation learning and the development of communication, language, thinking, and consciousness.
Combining Ontology with Intelligent Agent to Provide Negotiation Service
Authors: Pu Qiumei , Cao Yongcun , Pan Xiuqin , Fu Siyao , Hou Zengguang
Published: March 2012

Agent and Ontology are distinct technologies that arose independent of each other, having their own standards and specifications. The semantics web is one of the popular research areas these days, and is based on the current Web, which adds more semantics to it for the purpose of building the Ontology of Web content. In this regard, application program on Web can make the purpose of cross-platform calculation come true by taking advantage of Ontology. However, agent is a theory able to enhance abstraction of software itself, and as it is know, negotiation protocol is the basic principle in the electronic commerce which has a direct impact on the efficiency of the negotiation. This study examines the communication architecture with negotiation protocol on the Semantic Web. Precisely speaking, agents make computing with Ontology, and the authors define an agent’s communication ontology for this communication framework and semantic web use Ontology to describe the negotiation protocol. In this context, the buyer or seller will be able to improve semantic cognitive in process of negotiation. Also, it can provide an intelligent platform for the information exchange on the same understanding about the content of communication in the electronic negotiation service.
The Formal Design Model of a Real-Time Operating System (RTOS+)
Authors: Wang Yingxu , Zeng Guangping , Ngolah Cyprian F. , Sheu Phillip C.-Y. , Choy C. Philip , Tian Yousheng
Published: March 2012

A real-time operating system (RTOS) provides a platform for the design and implementation of a wide range of applications in real-time systems, embedded systems, and mission-critical systems. This paper presents a formal design model for a general RTOS known as RTOS+ that enables a specific target RTOS to be rigorously and efficiently derived in real-world applications. The methodology of a denotational mathematics, Real-Time Process Algebra (RTPA), is described for formally modeling and refining architectures, static behaviors, and dynamic behaviors of RTOS+. The conceptual model of the RTOS+ system is introduced as the initial requirements for the system. The architectural model of RTOS+ is created using RTPA architectural modeling methodologies and refined by a set of Unified Data Models (UDMs). The static behaviors of RTOS+ are specified and refined by a set of Unified Process Models (UPMs). The dynamic behaviors of the RTOS+ system are specified and refined by the real-time process scheduler and system dispatcher. This work is presented in two papers in serial due to its excessive length. The static and dynamic behavioral models of RTOS+ is described in this paper; while the conceptual and architectural models of RTOS+ has been published in IJSSCI 2(2).
Symbiotic Aspects in e-Government Application Development
Authors: Moulin Claude , Sbodio Marco Luca
Published: March 2012

For e-Government applications, the symbiotic aspect must be taken into account at three stages: at design time in order to integrate the end-user, at delivery time when civil servants have to discover and interact with new services, at run time when ambient intelligence could help the interaction of citizens with specific services. In this paper, we focus on the first two steps. We show how interoperability issues must concern application designers. We also present how semantics can help civil servants when they have to deal with e-government service frameworks. We then describe an actual application developed during the European Terregov project where semantics is the key point for simplifying the role of citizens when requesting for health care services.
Classifier Ensemble Based Analysis of a Genome-Wide SNP Dataset Concerning Late-Onset Alzheimer Disease
Authors: Coelho Lúcio , Goertzel Ben , Pennachin Cassio , Heward Chris
Published: March 2012

In this paper, the OpenBiomind toolkit is used to apply GA, GP, and local search methods to analyze a large SNP dataset concerning Late-Onset Alzheimer’s Disease (LOAD). Classification models identifying LOAD with statistically significant accuracy are identified as well as using ensemble-based important features analysis in order to identify brain genes related to LOAD, most notably the solute carrier gene SLC6A15. Ensemble analysis is used to identify potentially significant interactions between genes in the context of LOAD.
An Integrated Approach for Teaching Robotics based on the Development of Low-Cost Parallel Robots
Authors: Kawano Alexandre , Tannuri Eduardo Aoun , Okamoto Jun , Barreto Marcos Ribeiro Pereira , Maruyama Newton , Ibrahim Ricardo Cury , Hess-Coelho Tarcisio-Antonio
Published: March 2012

From the academia viewpoint, the process of qualifying engineering students demands they acquire a deep understanding of basic sciences and technological aspects. On the other hand, it is quite a challenge to keep them motivated throughout their graduation period. Taking into account these issues, an integrated approach for teaching can provide good results. Basically, the way that such integration might be accomplished requires a single project per period. In addition, the disciplines taken by the students in a specific period should provide them the necessary background to conclude that project. Focusing on teaching robotics, this chapter describes the authors’ experience with mechatronics engineering students in the 7th-period of their graduation.
Modular Cable-Driven Robotic Arms for Intrinsically Safe Manipulation
Authors: Lim Wen Bin , Yang Guilin , Yeo Song Huat , Mustafa Shabbir Kurbanhusen
Published: March 2012

A Cable-Driven Robotic Arm (CDRA) possesses a number of advantages over the conventional articulated robotic arms, such as lightweight mechanical structure, high payload, fault tolerance, and most importantly, safe manipulation in the human environment. As such, a mobile manipulator that consists of a mobile base and a CDRA can be a promising assistive robot for the aging or disabled people to perform necessary tasks in their daily life. For such applications, a CDRA is a dexterous manipulator that consists of a number of cable-driven joint modules. In this chapter, a modular design concept is employed in order to simplify design, analysis, and control of CDRA to a manageable level. In particular, a 2-DOF cable-driven joint module is proposed as the basic building block of a CDRA. The critical design analysis issues pertaining to the kinematics analysis, tension analysis, and workspace-based design optimization of the 2-DOF cable-driven joint module are discussed. As a modular CDRA can be constructed into various configurations, a configuration-independent kinematic modeling approach based on the Product-of-Exponentials (POE) formula is proposed. The effectiveness of the proposed design analysis algorithms are demonstrated through simulation examples.
Dual Robot Control for Part Handling Services with Human Interaction
Authors: Borangiu Theodor , Anton Florin Daniel , Anton Silvia
Published: March 2012

The chapter also discusses a new method of using robots to interact with humans (natural interaction) to provide assistance services. Using depth sensors, the robots are able to detect the human operator and to avoid collisions. Collision avoidance is implemented using a depth sensor, which monitors the activity outside and inside the multi-robot system workspace, using skeleton tracking, which allows the robot to detect collisions and stop the motion at the right time.
Service Robots for Agriculture
Authors: Bertetto Andrea Manuello
Published: March 2012

In general, service robots are described with different characteristics for different tasks. In this chapter service robots are analyzed as machines in the agricultural field. The mechanisation in agriculture is discussed and service robots are described for particular tasks. In particular, the harvesting and treatment of high commercial value products is discussed for robotized applications. A significant case study is described and discussed for a robotized system with the aim to harvest and separate the Saffron flower spice.
The UNESCO OER Community 2005-2009
Authors: D’Antoni Susan
Published: March 2012

This is the story of an international community convened to raise awareness of the growing Open Educational Resources (OER) movement. The experience of the international OER Community underlines the potential of the Internet to link people in an inclusive manner to promote collaboration – individuals who would never normally be able to meet and hold focussed discussions over a sustained period. Launched by an international organization, the UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP), and supported the primary champion of the OER movement, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the OER community was exemplary in its interaction, action, and longevity. From 2005, the members of the community have come together from time to time to discuss OER in what can be described as a series of virtual seminars. At two points they put forward their opinion of the priorities to advance the OER movement. Now, with support from the UNESCO Chair in OER at Canada’s Athabasca University, they are about to be invited to make another contribution. This is both the story of a community as a case study, and a personal reflection.
Fostering OER Communities of Practice with Teachers
Authors: Fulantelli Giovanni , Taibi Davide , Gentile Manuel , Allegra Mario
Published: March 2012

The focus of this chapter is on “key issues for fostering OER communities of practice with teachers.” It is based on the successful experiences of three European funded projects: SLOOP, TENEGEN, and SLOOP2DESC. These three projects draw on the concept of open education as well as on the open and free software movements. The original idea behind the three projects was that teachers can build learning objects in conjunction with software specialists who are developing open software packages: each teacher can contribute to the development phase, as well as repurposing the learning objects to meet her/his specific needs, thus working in a collaborative environment. In order to enable this collaborative production and reuse of learning objects, the authors have introduced the Open Learning Object or OpenLO model, which combines the benefits of the learning object paradigm with the ‘Openness’ concept characterized by Web 2.0 approaches to knowledge building and sharing.
Open Educational Resources
Authors: Misra Pradeep Kumar
Published: March 2012

All over the world, governments, societies, and researchers are looking for ways to keep the ageing population active and engaged. The need of the hour is in looking for the tools that can help in making ageing engaging. OER supported lifelong learning with the aim of improving knowledge, skills, and competence can be a viable option for improving the wellness of ageing population. Following this approach, the present chapter discusses: global initiatives to keep ageing population active and engaged; using lifelong learning to make ageing population active, productive, and healthy; possibilities to use OER for offering lifelong learning; making ageing population competent to share their knowledge with society by using OER; key possibilities and challenges in offering OER supported lifelong learning; and potential strategies to make ageing engaging through OER supported lifelong learning.
Collaborating over Rich Media
Authors: Lane Andy , Law Andrew
Published: March 2012

Open Educational Resources comprise many types of assets, including rich media. However, dynamic rich media offer different opportunities and challenges for learners, teachers, and higher education institutions alike than do more static items such as text. The Open University in the UK (OUUK) has been extensively developing and using rich media in collaboration with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) for its distance teaching and outreach programmes since it was established in 1969. As new media technologies have arrived, so have the capabilities of the OUUK and the BBC to create rich media in partnership and make them openly accessible. This chapter describes these developments and then discusses the approaches and evidence required to guide them in a way that both serves the BBC, the OUUK, the higher education sector, and the wider community. It concludes that rich media are an essential part of the developing OER landscape and that openly sharing them brings defined benefits to an HEI beyond their traditional student body.
Heidegger’s Notion of Befindlichkeit and the Meaning of “Situated” in Social Inquiries
Authors: Liberman Kenneth
Published: March 2012

This chapter is based on a talk presented to the Alpis Information Systems 2009 Annual Conference Carisolo, Italy. It examines the role of phenomenology, most importantly Heidegger’s notion of Befindlichkeit, in social situations. In discussing the meaning of “situated,” the chapter covers the importance of in situ studies, the problems with over-conceptualizing and the limits of Conoscenza Teoretica, Befindlichkeit, itself, and the limits of formal analysis.
Studying Information Infrastructures
Authors: Nielsen Petter
Published: March 2012

As a result of a steady increase in reach, range, and processing capabilities, information systems no longer appear as independent, but rather as integrated, parts of large scale networks. These networks offer a shared resource for information delivery and exchange to communities, which appropriate them for their respective purposes. Such information infrastructures are complex in several ways. As they are composed of a variety of different components, their openness and heterogeneity make them inherently uncontrollable; through their expansion, these various interconnected networks enter new interdependencies; while they are based on extending existing technical and social networks, they also need to develop and grow over a long period of time; and, they are developed as a distributed activity. Examples of such information infrastructures include the Internet, National Information Infrastructure (NII) initiatives and industry-wide EDI networks, as well as corporate-wide implementations of enterprise systems.
Prioritizing Packaged Software Implementation Projects
Authors: Rowland Nicholas J.
Published: March 2012

This chapter examines the dynamics of prioritizing implementation projects. Building on the notion of “fit-gap” work, this chapter emphasizes the significance of “de-prioritization” as a practical technique for managing Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementation projects. “Fit-gap” is a term that resonates with current academic and professional discussions concerning the use of customization and work-arounds necessary to coax suboptimal implementations into functioning properly as the systems age. These are not idle matters given the near irreversibility of ERP projects once initiated and the reported high probability of failure following implementation. Drawn from in-depth interviews and internal documents collected from a multiyear organizational case study of ERP in an institution of higher education, this chapter reports on various uses, interpretations, and consequences of prioritization techniques used to manage implementation projects. In practice, the idea that complex software implementations can be theoretically reduced to mere gaps in fit serves to obscure the political conflict and ambiguous economic accounting that underlie committee work devoted to identifying gaps, deliberating on possible fits, and then prioritizing which gaps are fit immediately and others scheduled for fit later on. In conclusion, while fit-gap committee work is openly intended to result in fewer customizations overall, de-prioritization, as a management technique, appears to “remove without removing” agenda items from the implementation schedule. The upshot for managers: placing such decisions in purgatory delays indefinitely investments of time and finances into customizing new software to fit old policies, and all the work-arounds necessary to shore-up any lingering idiosyncrasies.
Multicast Routing Protocols in MANET
Authors: Torkestani Javad Akbari , Meybodi Mohammad Reza
Published: March 2012

Multicast routing is an effective way to establish the group communication when the same message or the same stream of data needs to be sent to multiple receivers. Multicast routing has attracted a lot of attention in group oriented computing due to supporting data transmission from a single source node to multiple destinations concurrently. The advantage of multicast routing lies in its capability of reducing the communication cost and saving the network resources by sending only one copy of the message over the shared link leading to different destinations. Generally speaking, this survey classifies the multicast routing protocols into four categories based on the underlying routing structure: tree-based, mesh-based, hybrid, and stateless multicast routing protocols. This survey summarizes the well-known most recent protocols of each category and compares their objectives, performances, advantages, and disadvantages. This survey study helps us to choose the best multicasting protocol for each network application with respect to the requirements of application.
Mobility Models for Ad-Hoc Networks
Authors: Kulkarni Shrirang Ambaji , Rao G. Raghavendra
Published: March 2012

Multihop wireless networks hold a lot of promise in terms of military based ad-hoc network applications, wireless sensor network based applications, along with vehicular and inter terrestrial applications. The simulation of these types of networks is required to analyze the working of these types of complex networks. An essential component of these simulation based studies is the modeling of mobility of nodes. Thus many mobility models have been proposed to model the movement of wireless nodes with various constraints and real world scenarios. In this chapter an insight is provided into the working of various mobility models along with its classification. The authors also analyze the performance of these mobility models by measuring their performances with appropriate mobility and connectivity metrics. The mobility models proposed to meet the challenges of vehicular ad-hoc networks and delay tolerant networks are also discussed.
Environment Design Architecture of MANET
Authors: Trivedi Krunal D. , Patel Narendra J. , Shah Palak. R.
Published: March 2012

Mobile Ad-hoc Network (MANET) is a new standard of wireless wearable devices enabling instantaneous person-to-person, person-to-machine, or machine-to-person communications immediately and easily. MANET is a compilation of wireless mobile hosts forming a temporary network without the aid of any stand-alone infrastructure or centralized administration or self organization network. MANET has the aspects such as wireless connection, constantly changing topology, scattered operation, and ease of deployment. These capabilities make MANETs very attractive to applications ranging from simple wireless network coverage in offices and warehouses to emergency rescue/response and military operations, law enforcement, and smart environments (including intelligent transport systems). In this chapter, the authors discuss MANET environment and network architecture, which should be kept in mind at design phase of MANET. The authors also discuss: MANET parameters, environment deviations, routing protocol performance considerations, and MANET security challenges.
Lotus Workforce Management
Authors: O’Connor Jerh. , Dalton Ronan , Naro Don
Published: March 2012

Human Resources departments are often burdened with administrative tasks performed on behalf of employees who lack the tools necessary to complete these tasks themselves. A software approach known as self-service aims to streamline HR processes by providing employees with access and control of their personal information. Different approaches to self-service have been developed, including solutions offered by SAP, Sage Software, and IBM®. This paper examines the approach taken by IBM Lotus® Workforce Management, which is a self-service solution for IBM WebSphere® Portal. Most of the self-service solutions available in the marketplace do provide HR capabilities for an organization’s workforce, however, these solutions are usually designed as “out-of-the-box” software that require an organization to adopt a particular approach and a specific set of functionality. Lotus Workforce Management, on the other hand, focuses on providing three key features that allow organizations more choice and control over the implementation of a self-service solution. These features are extensibility, customization, and ease of integration. Extensibility is provided through the WebSphere Portal framework that lets users add or remove components and functionality and determine the structure of communication between portal resources. Integration with IBM WebSphere Portlet Factory gives users the ability to customize and design a solution that is tailored to their needs. Finally, ease of integration with HR resources that reside in a back end system is important as most organizations would be reluctant to change or make complex configurations to that system. For this reason, Lotus Workforce Management uses existing components for SAP ERP systems and provides functional code for rapid and simple integration without extensive configuration.
Use of Web Analytics in Portals
Authors: Polgar Jana
Published: March 2012

Web analytics are typically branded as a tool for measuring website traffic. They can be equally used as a tool for business research, results of advertising campaigns, and market research. Web analytics provide data on the number of visitors, page views, measure a visitor’s navigation through a website, etc. This collection of data is typically compared against some metrics to indicate whether the web site is delivering expected values, what improvements should be considered, and so on. These metrics are also used to improve a web site or marketing campaign’s audience response. Tracking portal visits are important in order to obtain a better understanding of which parts of the portal are delivering value. However, portals have unique attributes associated with the page composition techniques, page, and portlet refresh. Portal always presents multiple topics on the same page, which pose specific challenges to explore exciting opportunities allowing the web designer to gain insights about portal usage and user behaviour. Furthermore, portals are inherently multidimensional, and effective tools to monitor and analyse portal data usage must be able to support multidimensional analysis.
Search Integration with WebSphere Portal
Authors: Prokoph Andreas
Published: March 2012

Modern web applications and servers like Portal require adequate support for integration of search services due to user focused information delivery and user interaction, as well as new technologies used to render such information, which is exemplified by two fundamental problems that have long plagued web crawlers: dynamic content and Javascript generated content. Today, the solution is simple: ignore such web pages. To enable “search” in Portals, a different “crawling” paradigm is required to search engines to gather and consume information. WebSphere Portal provides a framework that propagates content and information through “Seedlists”—comparable to HTML based sitemaps but richer in terms of features. This mandates that information and content delivering applications must be “search engine aware”, requiring them to enable services and seedlists for fast, efficient and complete delivery of content and information. This is the main integration point for search engines into the portal for Portal site search services for a rich and user focused search experience. This article discusses how such technologies can allow for more efficient crawling of public Portal sites by prominent Internet search engines as well as myths surrounding search engine optimization.
Challenges of Multi Device Support with Portals
Authors: Fitzgerald Jaye , Landrum Van
Published: March 2012

Although Portals can aggregate and integrate applications “at the glass” on desktop PCs and laptop browsers, more users expect to access Portals on their mobile devices. The challenges to support multiple devices are difficult. Standard HTML web pages cannot be delivered to most mobile devices, which have different capabilities like screen sizes, image formats, and input methods. With thousands of devices and the frequent introduction of new devices, how can a Portal support the many types of mobile devices connecting to the Portal’s many applications? In this paper, the authors discuss the issues and solutions to this many-to-many relationship. IBM Mobile Portal Accelerator provides multiple device support from a Portal by using a version of XHTML called XDIME as the content markup and a multi-channel component coupled with a device repository to provide the proper device specific view. As a result, the page that is sent to the device is appropriate for that specific device and its capabilities, where no horizontal scrolling is required, all information fits on the screen, forms work, and all images are rendered properly, creating a positive user experience.
Generalized Evidential Processing in Multiple Simultaneous Threat Detection in UNIX
Authors: Sultan Zafar , Kwan Paul
Published: March 2012

In this paper, a hybrid identity fusion model at decision level is proposed for Simultaneous Threat Detection Systems. The hybrid model is comprised of mathematical and statistical data fusion engines; Dempster Shafer, Extended Dempster and Generalized Evidential Processing (GEP). Simultaneous Threat Detection Systems improve threat detection rate by 39%. In terms of efficiency and performance, the comparison of 3 inference engines of the Simultaneous Threat Detection Systems showed that GEP is the better data fusion model. GEP increased precision of threat detection from 56% to 95%. Furthermore, set cover packing was used as a middle tier data fusion tool to discover the reduced size groups of threat data. Set cover provided significant improvement and reduced threat population from 2272 to 295, which helped in minimizing the processing complexity of evidential processing cost and time in determining the combined probability mass of proposed Multiple Simultaneous Threat Detection System. This technique is particularly relevant to on-line and Internet dependent applications including portals.
Part of the Tool Kit
Authors: Wong Kee , Adamson Greg
Published: March 2012

Portals, and Service Oriented Architecture in general, simplify the process of delivering services to users. But this doesn’t represent a fundamental change to the user experience. Changing the user experience depends on business intent, and while Web 2.0 functionality is available for users today, corporate and government department practices are often not ready to embrace it. In fact the most effective uptake of new technologies may not be the company intranet at all, but an external company community hosted on MySpace or Facebook. This case study examines the experiences of delivering both strategy and implementations to Fortune 500-type companies and Australian government departments. It compares the experience of delivering web and pre-web services, and notes the impact of the global financial crisis on innovation, concluding with the observation that in this changing climate SOA remains part of the industry practitioner’s toolkit.
Challenges in Researching Portals and the Internet
Authors: Adamson Greg
Published: March 2012

The portal is a point of convergence for many uses and users. Along with the Internet itself, the portal crosses or combines many traditionally separate areas of research, each with its own perspective or perspectives. Such a combination creates a challenge for researchers on how to combine these various perspectives in examining portal and Internet use. This paper examines the methodological challenge by combining five perspectives: historical, technical, media, regulatory and business theory. The paper provides examples of the misunderstanding found regarding concepts that are fundamental and widely understood within a single field, but unknown or misunderstood outside of that field. This misunderstanding between business, technologists, media theorists and regulators contributed to the gulf between Internet investment expectation and the 2000 to 2001 results, the US$4 trillion ‘tech wreck’. Avoiding them will be important to the effective implementation of portal-based business solutions.
Enhancing the Portal Experience
Authors: Lamantia Joe
Published: March 2012

This article presents strategies for enhancing the long-term business and user value of portals as the third in a series of articles describing a Portal Design Framework. This article identifies essential Enterprise 2.0 functionality for collaboration and dialog—capabilities that support emerging Social Business practices—included in the Building Blocks Design Framework. The author discusses portal management and governance best practices and describes strategies for maintaining and enhancing the user experience of portals designed using the Building Blocks Framework.
A Simulator for Large-Scale Parallel Computer Architectures
Authors: Janssen Curtis L. , Adalsteinsson Helgi , Cranford Scott , Kenny Joseph P. , Pinar Ali , Evensky David A. , Mayo Jackson
Published: March 2012

Efficient design of hardware and software for large-scale parallel execution requires detailed understanding of the interactions between the application, computer, and network. The authors have developed a macro-scale simulator (SST/macro) that permits the coarse-grained study of distributed-memory applications. In the presented work, applications using the Message Passing Interface (MPI) are simulated; however, the simulator is designed to allow inclusion of other programming models. The simulator is driven from either a trace file or a skeleton application. Trace files can be either a standard format (Open Trace Format) or a more detailed custom format (DUMPI). The simulator architecture is modular, allowing it to easily be extended with additional network models, trace file formats, and more detailed processor models. This paper describes the design of the simulator, provides performance results, and presents studies showing how application performance is affected by machine characteristics.
Service and Management Oriented Traffic Information Grid
Authors: Fang Yu , Zhang Dong Liang , Yan Chun Gang , Chen Hong Zhong , Jiang Changjun
Published: March 2012

Traffic information service plays an important role in one’s daily life. However, traffic information processing is very complicated because of its dynamic, cooperative and distributed features. This paper presents the Service and Monitoring Oriented Traffic Information Grid. In this system, it is a remarkable characteristic to provide real-time, dynamic information services for travelers and traffic managers by grid technology. The system provides travelers with services of optimized route scheme, bus arrival prediction based on real-time route status, and route status forecast. For traffic managers, the system can provide vehicle tracing, traffic monitoring, history data analysis, and decision making on traffic control strategy. In this regard, key research includes large multi-source traffic data integration, route status forecast, and optimum dynamic travel scheme implementation based on massive GPS data.
Mining Environmental Data in the ADMIRE Project Using New Advanced Methods and Tools
Authors: Habala Ondrej , Šeleng Martin , Tran Viet , Šimo Branislav , Hluchý Ladislav
Published: March 2012

The project Advanced Data Mining and Integration Research for Europe (ADMIRE) is designing new methods and tools for comfortable mining and integration of large, distributed data sets. One of the prospective application domains for such methods and tools is the environmental applications domain, which often uses various data sets from different vendors where data mining is becoming increasingly popular and more computer power becomes available. The authors present a set of experimental environmental scenarios, and the application of ADMIRE technology in these scenarios. The scenarios try to predict meteorological and hydrological phenomena which currently cannot or are not predicted by using data mining of distributed data sets from several providers in Slovakia. The scenarios have been designed by environmental experts and apart from being used as the testing grounds for the ADMIRE technology; results are of particular interest to experts who have designed them.
Development of Myelodysplastic Syndrome and Acute Myeloid Leukemia 15 Years after Hydroxyurea Use in a patient with sickle Cell Anemia
Authors: Baz Walid , Najfeld Vesna , Yotsuya Matthew , Talwar Jotica , Terjanian Terenig , Forte Frank
Published: March 2012

We report a 41 year old male with sickle cell disease who developed a myelodysplastic syndrome and acute myeloid leukemia with complex karyotype involving chromosomes 5, 7 and 17 after 15 years of hydroxyurea treatment. He responded poorly to induction chemotherapy with cytarabine/idarubicin followed by high dose cytarabine and succumbed to neutropenic sepsis. Multiple systematic reviews, observational studies and clinical trials were conducted to identify the toxicity profile of hydroxurea. Only six cases of leukemia/myelodysplastic syndrome were identified in patients with sickle cell anemia treated with hydroxyurea. Subsequently, it was concluded that hydroxyurea is not leukemogenic. However, it was noted that most of the published studies had only up to 9 years of follow-up. Our patient was started on hydroxyurea in 1990, before the widespread use of the drug and took hydroxyurea for 15 years. His presentation may reflect an outcome otherwise not yet observed because of the short follow-up of prior studies. We believe that the leukemogenic risk of hydroxyurea should be discussed with the patients and their families. Studies evaluating the adverse effects of hydroxyurea should have longer follow-up before definitive conclusions are drawn.
Drug, Sex and Age Differentials in the Use of Australian Publicly Funded Treatment Services
Authors: Fischer Jane Anne , Clavarino Alexandra Marie , Najman Jackob Moses
Published: March 2012

Context

Little is known about the proportion of the Australian population using alcohol or other drugs who may seek treatment. There is a need to have some additional estimates of population morbidity which reflect harms associated with use.

Objective

To determine Australian population rates of publicly funded community based specialised alcohol and other drug treatment and in-patient hospital care by those ‘at risk’, by drug type, sex and age.

Design and setting

The design is secondary data analysis of publicly available datasets. We use the latest available complete data on Australian general population incidence of alcohol, cannabis amphetamines and ecstasy use (2007 National Drug Strategy Household Survey) and nationally collected administrative data on publicly funded specialised alcohol and other drug treatment services (2006–2007 Alcohol and Other Drug Treatment Services National Minimum Dataset) and public hospitals (2006–2007 National Hospital Morbidity Minimum Dataset) to calculate rates of drug treatment and in-patient hospital care per 1000 Australians. ‘At risk’ for alcohol is defined as being at risk of short term harm, as defined by the National Health and Medical Research Council (2001). ‘At risk’ for illicit drugs is defined as those exposed to potential harm through at least weekly use of cannabis, amphetamines and ecstasy use.

Results

Risky alcohol consumption followed by recent cannabis use appears to lead to most harm. Greater harm seems to be experienced by males rather than females. Younger adults (15–19 years) and older adults (40+ years) seem also to experience the highest rates of harm.

Conclusions

It is possible to derive population estimates of harms associated with licit and illicit drugs use. Treatment rates vary across drug type, gender and age. Alcohol and cannabis are the substances whose use leads to the greatest demand for services. Ecstasy appears to generate few presentations for treatment. Publicly available data can be used to estimate harms associated with the use of particular substances. Such estimates are best interpreted in the light of other ways of estimating harms.
Capillary Leakage in Travelers with Dengue Infection: Implications for Pathogenesis
Authors: Meltzer Eyal , Heyman Zahava , Bin Hanna , Schwartz Eli
Published: March 2012

Dengue hemorrhagic fever is characterized by the presence of a capillary leak syndrome. Its pathogenesis is presumed to differ from that of classical dengue fever (DF) and to be associated with secondary dengue infection. Returning travelers given a diagnosis of DF were evaluated for capillary leakage with abdominal sonography. Data were compared between travelers with primary/secondary infection defined by epidemiologic and serologic parameters. A total of 12 (34.3%) of 35 patients had sonographic signs of capillary leakage. Most (85%) patients with capillary leakage had classical DF. Capillary leak was diagnosed in 32% of primary dengue cases and in 40% of secondary dengue cases (P = 0.69). The two patients given a diagnosis of dengue hemorrhagic fever had primary infections. The high prevalence of capillary leakage among travelers, most of them with primary exposure to dengue, calls into question the importance of secondary infection in causing capillary leakage in dengue infection.
Triatomine Infestation in Guatemala: Spatial Assessment after Two Rounds of Vector Control
Authors: Manne Jennifer , Nakagawa Jun , Yamagata Yoichi , Goehler Alexander , Brownstein John S. , Castro Marcia C.
Published: March 2012

In 2000, the Guatemalan Ministry of Health initiated a Chagas disease program to control Rhodnius prolixus and Triatoma dimidiata by periodic house spraying with pyrethroid insecticides to characterize infestation patterns and analyze the contribution of programmatic practices to these patterns. Spatial infestation patterns at three time points were identified using the Getis-Ord Gi*(d) test. Logistic regression was used to assess predictors of reinfestation after pyrethroid insecticide administration. Spatial analysis showed high and low clusters of infestation at three time points. After two rounds of spray, 178 communities persistently fell in high infestation clusters. A time lapse between rounds of vector control greater than 6 months was associated with 1.54 (95% confidence interval = 1.07–2.23) times increased odds of reinfestation after first spray, whereas a time lapse of greater than 1 year was associated with 2.66 (95% confidence interval = 1.85–3.83) times increased odds of reinfestation after first spray compared with localities where the time lapse was less than 180 days. The time lapse between rounds of vector control should remain under 1 year. Spatial analysis can guide targeted vector control efforts by enabling tracking of reinfestation hotspots and improved targeting of resources.
New Discoveries of Sylvatic Triatoma infestans (Hemiptera: Reduviidae) Throughout the Bolivian Chaco
Authors: Waleckx Etienne , Depickère Stéphanie , Salas Renata , Aliaga Claudia , Monje Marcelo , Calle Hiber , Buitrago Rosio , Noireau François , Brenière Simone Frédérique
Published: March 2012

Sylvatic populations of Triatoma infestans might be involved in the recolonization of human dwellings. We report here the discoveries of new T. infestans sylvatic foci in the Bolivian Chaco. Eighty-one triatomines were caught, 38 of which were identified as T. infestans. Triatoma sordida and Panstrongylus geniculatus were the other species collected. One T. infestans and one T. sordida were infected with Trypanosoma cruzi TcI; one T. infestans was infected with TcII. These discoveries add to the debate on the geographic distribution of sylvatic T. infestans populations, the geographic origin of the species, and the epidemiological role of these populations.
Unifocal Bone Paracoccidioidomycosis, Brazil
Authors: Correa-de-Castro Bruna , Pompilio Mauricio A. , Odashiro Danilo N. , Odashiro Maçanori , Arão-Filho Adalberto , Paniago Anamaria M. M.
Published: March 2012

We report a 47 year-old man from the State of Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil, with unifocal tibial paracoccidioidomycosis. A radiograph showed an osteolytic lesion on the tibial middle third diaphysis. The diagnosis was confirmed by histopathologic analysis, and treatment with sulfamethoxazole and trimethoprim was started. After three months, the patient showed significant clinical improvement. Ten months after treatment, the patient showed lesion bone healing. This case describes the rare occurrence of an osteolytic lesion caused by endemic Paracoccidioides brasiliensis in Latin America.