bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Control of a Virtual Leg via EMG Signals from Four Thigh Muscles
Authors: Sartori Massimo  , Chemello Gaetano  , Reggiani Monica  , Pagello Enrico
Published: February 2025

The work presented in this paper is our first step toward the development of an exoskeleton for human gait support. The device we foresee should be suitable for assisting walking in paralyzed subjects and should be based on myoelectrical muscular signals (EMGs) as a communication channel between the human and the machine. This paper concentrates on the design of a biomechanical model of the human lower extremity. The system predicts subject's intentions from the analysis of his/her electromyographical activity. Our model takes into account three main factors. Firstly, the main muscles spanning the knee articulation. Secondly, the gravity affecting the leg during its movement. Finally, it considers the limits within which the leg swings. Furthermore, it is capable of estimating several knee parameters such as joint moment, angular acceleration, angular velocity, and angular position. In order to have a visual feedback of the predicted movements we have implemented a three-dimensional graphical simulation of a human leg which moves in response to the commands computed by the model.
Learning to Extract Line Features: Beyond Split & Merge
Authors: Mastrogiovanni Fulvio  , Sgorbissa Antonio  , Zaccaria Renato
Published: February 2025

The paper deals with the role of line features in self-localization, when an extended Kalman filter is adopted. First, a theoretical analysis is introduced, showing how the amount of range measurements contributing to lines extracted from 2D range data affects the localization accuracy. Second, a novel approach for line extraction, which takes the theoretical analysis into accountis considered. Experimental results are used to discuss the main properties of the system.
SpineCor vs. Natural History – Explanation of the results obtained using a simple biomechanical model
Authors: Weiss H.-R.
Published: February 2025

In the recent peer reviewed literature the SpineCor is described as an effective method of treatment for patients with scoliosis. However until recently no prospective controlled end-result study is presented comparing the results obtained with this soft brace to natural history. The objective was to determine whether the results obtained by the use of the SpineCor are better than natural history during pubertal growth spurt. The method employed prospective comparison of the survival rates of SpineCor treatment vs. natural history with respect to curve progression during pubertal growth spurt. 12 Patients with Cobb angles between 16 and 32 degrees (at average 21 degrees) during pubertal growth spurt are presented as a case series treated with the SpineCor. Survival rate of this sample is described and compared to natural history (SRS brace study 1995). All girls treated in both studies were at risk for being progressive with the first clinical signs of maturation (Tanner 2-3). During the pubertal growth spurt most of the patients (11/12) with SpineCor progressed clinically and radiologically as well (at least 5 degrees). Progression could be stopped changing SpineCor to the Chêneau brace in most of the sample described (7/10). The avarage Cobb angle at the start of treatment with the SpineCor was 21.3 degrees, after an average observation time of 21.5 months 31 degrees. At 24 months of treatment time 33% of the patients with the SpineCor where still under treatment with their original bracing concept, at 72 months follow-up time 8 % of the patients with the SpineCor survived with respect to curvature progression. Survival proportion in the SpineCor sample, though was 0.08, while in the natural history cohort it was 0.34. The SpineCor treatment during pubertal growth spurt seems to lead to a worse outcome than observation only. The use of a simple biomechanical model explains that in the brace the compression forces exceed the lateral forces used for the corrective movement. Therefore SpineCor does not seem to be indicated as a treatment during pubertal growth spurt.
Variations of Semicircular Canals Orientation and Left-right Asymmetry in Adolescent Idiopathic Scoliosis (AIS) Comparing with Normal Controls: MR Morphometry Study Using Advanced Image Computation Techniques
Authors: Chu W.C.W.  , Shi L.  , Wang D.  , Paus T.  , Burwell R.G.  , Man G.C.W.  , Cheng A.  , Yeung H.Y.  , Lee K.M.  , Heng P.A.  , Cheng J.C.-Y.
Published: February 2025

Balance dysfunction has been reported to be associated with adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS). This study sought to investigate for any morphometric difference present in vestibular system between AIS subjects and normal controls. High resolution T2W MR images of vestibular systems were obtained from 13 AIS girls with normal postural balance (PB), 9 PB-abnormal AIS girls and 20 matched controls. The 3D vestibular system surfaces were segmented by automatic computational pipeline. One best fit circle was assigned to each of the three semicircular canals. Shape of each canal was reflected by the radius of its circle while spatial relationship among the three canals was reflected by the length and angle formed between the corresponding lines connecting the centers of each pair of circles. Orientation asymmetry between left and right vestibular systems was measured by the Euler angles calculated to rigidly register the right to left vestibular surface. Statistical analysis was performed using one-way ANOVA. There was significant group difference in the shape and spatial relationship of the semicircular canals. In general, AIS had greater orientation asymmetry between left and right vestibular systems when compared with normal controls (p=0.0265). This difference was more exaggerated in PB-abnormal AIS (p=0.016). Mean values of rotational angles around y-axis were as follows: control=−2.8593, PB-normal AIS=−1.0949, PB-abnormal AIS=3.7309. Rotational asymmetry of the vestibular system might be one of the factors leading to postural dysfunction in AIS. Whether this structural change has any prognostic effect on curve progression warrants further longitudinal investigation.
Association Between Growth Hormone Gene and Adolescent Idiopathic Scoliosis
Authors: Qiu Xu-Sheng  , Tang Nelson Leung-Sang  , Yeung Hiu-Yen  , Cheng Jack Chun-Yiu  , Qiu Yong
Published: February 2025

Curve progression in adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS) is related to growth, and there were also several abnormalities in AIS patients, such as osteopenia, abnormal anthropometric measurement which is related to growth. Growth hormone (GH)/insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF1) axis have been known as the pivot system in the regulation of the axial growth during puberty. GH is one of the most important elements in this axis. A total of 265 AIS girls and 193 normal controls were recruited. The curve severity was measured using Cobb's method. One polymorphism (rs2854184) in the promoter region of GH gene was selected for this study. Genotyping was performed by PCR-RFLP. Both the genotype and allele frequencies were comparable between case and control for rs2854184 (p>0.05). The mean maximum Cobb angle of different genotypes were similar with each other for rs2854184 (p>0.05). From the present study, GH seemed to be neither a disease predisposition gene nor a disease modifying gene of AIS for the studied variant.
mRNA Expressions of Type I collagen, Osteocalcin and Osteoprotegerin in Iliac Cancellous Bone from Girls with Adolescent Idiopathic Scoliosis
Authors: Sun Xu  , Qiu Yong  , Li Wei-Guo  , Wang Bin  , Ma Weiwei  , Zhu Feng  , Zhu Zezhang  , Yu Yang  , Qian Bangping
Published: February 2025

In girls with adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS), osteopenia has been widely reported with unclear molecular mechanism. Type I collagen, osteocalcin and osteoprotegerin are important either in bone structure or in bone biology. This study consisted of 43 girls with AIS. All girls aged 12–18yr, with Cobb angle>40°. Small iliac cancellous bone samples were harvested during the operative procedures. After mRNA extraction, reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) was used to assay mRNA expressions of type I collagen, osteocalcin and osteoprotegerin. Osteocalcin and osteoprotegerin mRNA contents were similar in Group A (normal BMD) and Group B (osteopenia), and significant correlations were not found between osteocalcin and osteoprotegerin mRNA contents and BMD values. However, subjects in Group A had slightly but not significantly higher mRNA contents of type I collagen than in Group B. And a weak positive correlation between mRNA contents of type I collagen and BMD values at both sites. Although significant correlations were not found between mRNA contents of type I collagen, osteocalcin and osteoprotegerin and BMD values, the association between mRNA contents of type I collagen and osteopenia in AIS girls should not be excluded.
Classification of scoliosis deformity 3-D spinal shape by cluster analysis
Authors: Stokes Ian A.F.  , Sangole Archana P.  , Aubin Carl-Eric
Published: February 2025

Subjective or semi-quantitative methods can be used to classify curve types in scoliosis with the goal of rationalizing management and treatment. This paper reports a cluster analysis to determine objectively whether patients with scoliosis can be classified into distinct groups by 3-D curve shape. A cluster analysis was performed on an existing database of spinal shape of 110 patients whose spine was radiographed by a stereo technique at a scoliosis clinic in the period 1982–1990. Fifty-six were studied longitudinally (average 3.4 clinic visits each), providing 245 total observations. All patients had two scoliosis curves with apex between T4 and L3, and both Cobb angles >9 degrees by an automated measurement. Each curve was quantified by its Cobb angle, apex level, apex vertebra rotation and rotation of the plane of maximum curvature (8 variables). When the analysis searched for four clusters, the largest cluster (148 of 245 observations) was the pattern having counter-clockwise rotation of the planes of maximum curvature of both curves (typically a right upper scoliosis curve with kyphosis, and left lower scoliosis curve with lordosis). The other 3 clusters (48, 34, 15 observations) were the other permutations of these variables. Substantial overlap of all the other variables between groups was observed. Of the 56 patients seen longitudinally 25 were consistently grouped at all clinic visits. The group assignments can change with repeated observation, often because a slight curvature in the sagittal plane can change because of postural variation and measurement errors. The groupings according to the rotation of the planes of maximum curvature were distinct, but overlap of the other curve-shape variables between groups suggests that these spinal deformity classifications alone should not determine treatment strategy.
Alteration of Mobility and Trunk Muscle Activation During Walking and Bending in AIS Patients with Posterior Fusion
Authors: Tassone C.  , Liu X.C.  , Jones T.  , Thometz J.  , Lyon R.
Published: February 2025

The purpose of this study is to investigate the differences in joint movement of the lower extremity (LE), postural mobility and paravertebral muscle activity between patients who have undergone posterior fusion procedures for progressive idiopathic scoliosis and healthy volunteers. Kinematics of the LE and trunk were analyzed using an Electromagnetic Tracking System (Polhemus Inc., Colchester, VT) during level walking, and muscular activity measured during stationary flexion, extension, and lateral bending using surface EMG (Noraxon, Scottsdale, AZ). The study included 6 patients who had undergone posterior spinal fusion with instrumentation ranging from T1 to L3, and 10 healthy volunteers without spinal asymmetry. Mean age of patients was 13.6 years at surgery and 15.9 years at follow-up. Standard t-test was used to determine significance (p<0.05). There was a trend towards increased gait velocity and increased cadence in fused patients. Torso displacement in the sagittal plane was increased whereas truncal rotation was decreased post-fusion as compared to normal subjects. Significant reduction in pelvic tilt, as well as hip and knee ROM in both stance and swing phase were measured post-fusion (P<0.05). Dramatic reductions of the area, mean, and peak values of each EMG phase (flexion and relaxation) were seen in trapezius, latissimus dorsi, and multifidus activity during forward flexion, extension, and lateral bending in post-operative patients (P<0.05). Overall, patients who have undergone posterior spinal fusion for idiopathic scoliosis demonstrate altered gait patterns as well as diminished paraspinal muscular recruitment during spinal motions.
Abnormal Proliferative Response of Chondrocytes to Melatonin in Girls with Adolescent Idiopathic Scoliosis
Authors: Wang Wei-Jun  , Yeung Hiu-Yan  , Man Chi-Wai  , Lee Kwong-Man  , Ng Kin-Wah  , Qiu Yong  , Cheng Jack Chun Yiu
Published: February 2025

Melatonin deficiency has been postulated as one of the etiology of adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS). Although the serum melatonin level showed no difference between AIS and control subjects, melatonin signal pathway dysfunction in osteoblast and lymphocyte have been observed in AIS. Moreover, melatonin receptor 2 (MT2) gene was associated with AIS. Previous reports indicated that AIS girls have abnormal skeletal growth which is related to abnormal endochondral development. The present study is to investigate the effect of melatonin on chondrocyte proliferation in girls with AIS and compare it to normal controls. Chondrocytes from 8 AIS and 6 controls were released by serial enzymatic digestion and culture in defined medium for two weeks. Melatonin receptor expression (MT1 and MT2) in chondrocyte were detected by immunocytochemistry. Subconfluence chondrocytes were treated with different concentrations of melatonin for two days before the cell viability was carried out. Both MT1 and MT2 receptors were detected on the cell membrane of the chondrocytes in AIS and control. Inhibition effect of melatonin on chondrocyte proliferation was found in normal controls. Melatonin showed inhibition effect on chondrocyte proliferation in normal controls but not in AIS. Significant difference were found at high dosage level. The effect of non-responsiveness of the chondrocytes to MLT might have important effect on the bone growth and contribute to the etiopathogenesis of AIS. The lack of response could result from underlying dysfunction of MLT signaling pathway.
Quantification of intervertebral efforts during walking: comparison between a healthy and a scoliotic subject
Authors: Raison M.  , Aubin C.-É.  , Detrembleur C.  , Fisette P.  , Samin J.-C.
Published: February 2025

The accurate quantification of internal efforts in the human body is still a challenge in biomechanics. The aim of this study is to quantify the intervertebral efforts along the spine during walking, in order to compare the dynamical behaviours between a healthy and a scoliotic subject. Practically, one healthy subject, one scoliotic patient before an instrumentation surgery (Cobb 41°) and after this instrumentation (Cobb 7.5°) walked on a treadmill at 4 km/h. The acquisition system included optokinetic sensors, recording the 3D-joint coordinates, a treadmill equipped with strain gauges, measuring the external forces independently applied to both feet, and bi-planar radiographs, enabling the 3D reconstruction of the spine from C7 to L5, using a free form interpolation technique. The intervertebral efforts were computed using an inverse dynamical model of the human body in 3D. As results, significant differences of the spine kinematics were recorded which lead to different internal effort behaviour in magnitude, shift, coordination and pattern when normalized to the subject mass. Particularly, the normalized antero-posterior intervertebral torques are less uniform for the scoliotic patient (from min −2.5 to max 1.9 Nm/kg) than the healthy subject (from −1.5 to 1.5 Nm/kg). This disequilibrium in the left-right balance of the scoliotic patient is a bit rectified after surgery (from −1.3 to 1.1 Nm/kg).
A 3-D Skeleton Model & SEMG Approach For Integrated Neck And Low Back Pain Analysis Test Batteries
Authors: D'amico M.  , D'amico G.  , Frascarello M.  , Paniccia M.  , Roncoletta P.  , Vallasciani M.
Published: February 2025

Since several years our group is working on a project to merge into a full 3D reliable and detailed human skeleton representation various segmental biomechanical models presented in literature. The obtained 3D skeleton model is fully parametric and can be fitted to each subject anthropometric characteristics. A non-ionising approach based on 3D opto-electronic measurements of body landmarks labelled by passive markers has been chosen to build the 3D parametric biomechanical skeleton model. A special focus has been devoted to identify and model the spine with a correct degree of accuracy and reliability. In spine pain related pathologies is of major importance the evaluation of functional limitations associated. This requires to integrate morphological characteristics with information deriving from other measurements devices as force platform data, surface EMG, foot pressure maps. The aim of this study is to present a multi-factorial approach which integrates rachis morphological characteristics with full skeleton kinematic, dynamic and SEMG measurements to quantify spine function and mobility in particular for neck and low back pain. A set of clinical-biomechanical tests have been implemented. Static posture characteristics are first evaluated. After that, patient is asked to perform specific motion test batteries in order to fully measure the whole ROMs (spine angles ranges and spine shape modifications) for Axial rotations, forward-backward flexion-extension, lateral bendings per each spine functional units (Skull and neck, thoracic and lumbar districts). During forward bending also a digital Schober test is performed. Such data are correlated to simultaneous SEMG muscle activities recording to investigate motor co-ordination/dysfunction as well as the presence absence of flexion-relaxation phenomena associated to pain.
Evolutionary Optimization of Trading Strategies
Authors: Ni Jiarui  , Cao Longbing  , Zhang Chengqi
Published: February 2025

It is a non-trivial task to effectively and efficiently optimize trading strategies, not to mention the optimization in real-world situations. This paper presents a general definition of this optimization problem, and discusses the application of evolutionary technologies (genetic algorithm in particular) to the optimization of trading strategies. Experimental results show that this approach is promising.
A Quantitative Method for RSS Based Applications
Authors: Yuan Mingwei  , Jiang Ping  , Wu Jian
Published: February 2025

The RSS technique provides a fast and effective way to publish up-to-date information or renew outdated content for information subscribers. So far, RSS information is mostly managed by content publishers and Internet users have less initiative to choose what they really need. More attention needs to be paid on techniques for user-initiated information discovery from RSS feeds. In this paper, a quantitative semantic matchmaking method for RSS based applications is proposed. The semantic information of an RSS feed can be described by numerical vectors and semantic matching can then be conducted in a quantitative form. The ontology is applied to provide a common-agreed matching basis for the quantitative comparison. In order to avoid semantic ambiguity of literal statements from distributed RSS publishers, fuzzy inference is used to transform an individual-dependent vector into an individual-independent vector and semantic similarities can then be revealed as the result.
MTForest: Ensemble Decision Trees based on Multi-Task Learning
Authors: Wang Qing  , Zhang Liang  , Chi Mingmin  , Guo Jiankui
Published: February 2025

Many ensemble methods, such as Bagging, Boosting, Random Forest, etc, have been proposed and widely used in real world applications. Some of them are better than others on noise-free data while some of them are better than others on noisy data. But in reality, ensemble methods that can consistently gain good performance in situations with or without noise are more desirable. In this paper, we propose a new method namely MTForest, to ensemble decision tree learning algorihms by enumerating each input attribute as extra task to introduce different additional inductive bias to generate diverse yet accurate component decision tree learning algorithms in the ensemble. The experimental results show that in situations without classification noise, MTForest is comparable to Boosting and Random Forest and significantly better than Bagging, while in situations with classification noise, MTForest is significantly better than Boosting and Random Forest and is slightly better than Bagging. So MTForest is a good choice for ensemble decision tree learning algorithms in situations with or without noise. We conduct the experiments on the basis of 36 widely used UCI data sets that cover a wide range of domains and data characteristics and run all the algorithms within the Weka platform.
Exploiting locality of interactions using a policy-gradient approach in multiagent learning
Authors: Melo Francisco S.
Published: February 2025

In this paper, we propose a policy gradient reinforcement learning algorithm to address transition-independent Dec-POMDPs. This approach aims at implicitly exploiting the locality of interaction observed in many practical problems. Our algorithms can be described by an actor-critic architecture: the actor component combines natural gradient updates with a varying learning rate; the critic uses only local information to maintain a belief over the joint state-space, and evaluates the current policy as a function of this belief using compatible function approximation. In order to speed the convergence of the algorithm, we use an optimistic initialization of the policy that relies on a fully observable, single agent model of the problem. We illustrate our approach in some simple application problems.
Multilingual Evidence Improves Clustering-based Taxonomy Extraction
Authors: Hjelm Hans  , Buitelaar Paul
Published: February 2025

We present a system for taxonomy extraction, aimed at providing a taxonomic backbone in an ontology learning environment. We follow previous research in using hierarchical clustering based on distributional similarity of the terms in texts. We show that basing the clustering on a comparable corpus in four languages gives a considerable improvement in accuracy compared to using only the monolingual English texts. We also show that hierarchical k-means clustering increases the similarity to the original taxonomy, when compared with a bottom-up agglomerative clustering approach.
Learning context-free grammars to extract relations from text
Authors: Petasis Georgios  , Karkaletsis Vangelis  , Paliouras Georgios  , Spyropoulos Constantine D.
Published: February 2025

In this paper we propose a novel relation extraction method, based on grammatical inference. Following a semisupervised learning approach, the text that connects named entities in an annotated corpus is used to infer a context free grammar. The grammar learning algorithm is able to infer grammars from positive examples only, controlling overgeneralisation through minimum description length. Evaluation results show that the proposed approach performs comparable to the state of the art, while exhibiting a bias towards precision, which is a sign of conservative generalisation.
Improved Statistical Machine Translation Using Monolingual Paraphrases
Authors: Nakov Preslav
Published: February 2025

We propose a novel monolingual sentence paraphrasing method for augmenting the training data for statistical machine translation systems “for free” – by creating it from data that is already available rather than having to create more aligned data. Starting with a syntactic tree, we recursively generate new sentence variants where noun compounds are paraphrased using suitable prepositions, and vice-versa – preposition-containing noun phrases are turned into noun compounds. The evaluation shows an improvement equivalent to 33%–50% of that of doubling the amount of training data.
Comparing Abductive Theories
Authors: Inoue Katsumi  , Sakama Chiaki
Published: February 2025

This paper introduces two methods for comparing explanation power of different abductive theories. One is comparing for observations, and the other is comparing explanation content for observations. Those two measures are represented by generality relations over abductive theories. The generality relations are naturally related to the notion of abductive equivalence introduced by Inoue and Sakama. We also analyze the computational complexity of these relations.
Monitoring the Execution of a Multi-Agent Plan: Dealing with Partial Observability
Authors: Micalizio Roberto  , Torasso Pietro
Published: February 2025

The paper addresses the task of monitoring and diagnosing the execution of a multi-agent plan (MAP) which involves actions concurrently executed by a team of cooperating agents. The paper describes a weak commitment strategy to deal with cases where observability is only partial and it is not sufficient for inferring the outcome of all the actions executed so far. The paper discusses the role of target actions in providing sufficient conditions for inferring the pending outcomes in a finite time window. The action outcome provides the basis for computing plan diagnosis and for singling out the goals which will not be achieved because of an action failure.
Regression for Classical and Nondeterministic Planning
Authors: Rintanen Jussi
Published: February 2025

Many forms of reasoning about actions and planning can be reduced to regression, the computation of the weakest precondition a state has to satisfy to guarantee the satisfaction of another condition in the successor state. In this work we formalize a general syntactic regression operation for ground PDDL operators, show its correctness, and define a composition operation based on regression. As applications we present a very simple yet powerful algorithm for computing invariants, as well as a generalization of the hnheuristic of Haslum and Geffner to PDDL.
Diagnosis of Simple Temporal Networks
Authors: Roos Nico  , Witteveen Cees
Published: February 2025

In many domains successful execution of plans requires careful monitoring and repair. Diagnosis of plan execution supports this process by identifying causes of plan failure.
A decision support system for breast cancer detection in screening programs
Authors: Velikova Marina  , Lucas Peter J.F.  , Ferreira Nivea  , Samulski Maurice  , Karssemeijer Nico
Published: February 2025

The goal of breast cancer screening programs is to detect cancers at an early (preclinical) stage, by using periodic mammographic examinations in asymptomatic women. In evaluating cases, mammographers insist on reading multiple images (at least two) of each breast as a cancerous lesion tends to be observed in different breast projections (views). Most computer-aided detection (CAD) systems, on the other hand, only analyze single views independently, and thus fail to account for the interaction between the views. In this paper, we propose a Bayesian framework for exploiting multi-view dependencies between the suspected regions detected by a single-view CAD system. The results from experiments with real-life data show that our approach outperforms the singleview CAD system in distinguishing between normal and abnormal cases. Such a system can support screening radiologists to improve the evaluation of breast cancer cases.
Data-driven Induction of Functional Programs
Authors: Kitzelmann Emanuel
Published: February 2025

We present a new method and system, called IGOR2, for the induction of recursive functional programs from few nonrecursive, possibly non-ground example equations describing a subset of the input-output behaviour of a function to be implemented.
Dependable Monitoring of Discrete-Event Systems with Uncertain Temporal Observations
Authors: Lamperti Gianfranco  , Zanella Marina
Published: February 2025

In discrete-event system monitoring, a set of candidate diagnoses is output at the reception of each observation fragment. However, when the observation is uncertain, this result may be not dependable: the sets of diagnoses, relevant to consecutive observation fragments, may be unrelated to one another, and, even worse, they may be unrelated to the actual diagnosis. To cope with this problem, the notion of monotonic monitoring is introduced, which is supported by specific constraints on the fragmentation of the uncertain observation, leading to the notion of stratification.
Ontology-Driven Human Language Technology for Semantic-Based Business Intelligence
Authors: Declerck Thierry  , Krieger Hans-Ulrich  , Saggion Horacio  , Spies Marcus
Published: February 2025

In this poster submission, we describe the actual state of development of textual analysis and ontology-based information extraction in real world applications, as they are defined in the context of the European R&D project “MUSING” dealing with Business Intelligence. We present in some details the actual state of ontology development, including a time and domain ontologies, which are guiding information extraction onto an ontology population task.
Evaluation of global system state thanks to local phenomenona
Authors: Jean-Michel Contet  , Franck Gechter  , Pablo Gruer  , Abder Koukam
Published: February 2025

This paper presents a new approach for the evaluation of a system's global state properties. The approach is intented for the application to reactive multiagent system (RMAS) and adresses the evaluation of emergent properties such as global stabilisation. This approach is inspired by statistical physics and thermodynamics, as a way to link the microscopic and a macroscopic points of view. It gives an important role to partition function Z as defined in statistical physics. From this mathematical function can be extracted indicators that represent the global evaluation of the system state based on local phenomena. In this paper, the approach is put into practice by considering a classical reactive multiagent system: bird flocks simulation. The methodology was applied to analyze system stability. Experimental results obtained with a multiagent simulation platform are presented.
A New Approach to Planning in Networks
Authors: Rintanen Jussi
Published: February 2025

Control of networks like those for transportation, power distribution, communication to name a few, provides challenges to planning and scheduling. Many problems can be defined in terms of a basic state space model, but more general problems require an expressive language for talking about the topology and connectivity of the system, which are outside the scope of standard planning languages. In this work we introduce a general framework for defining planning languages for networked systems, with capability to express properties of connectivity and topology of such systems.
Semantics for Containment Belief Revision in the Case of Consistent Complete Theories
Authors: Doukari Omar
Published: February 2025

In this paper, we provide system of spheres semantics for the containment property. First, we extend Parikh's relevance-sensitive model for belief revision by generalizing the idea of a containment property of an inconsistency which is defined in a spatial context and defining a new model for belief representation and local Belief revision. Second, we identify two possible versions of the containment property, namely the strong and the weak versions. Finally, having Grove's system of spheres construction as a base, we consider additional constraints on measuring distance between possible worlds, and we prove that these constraints characterize precisely the containment property in the case of consistent complete theories. The containment property limits the effects of quality which means that an inconsistency cannot have an infinite influence on other information, but in an “area of local effect” which depends on the nature of data. For example, in meteorology, the effect is limited to a continental scale. It also depends on the structure or topology of information and the constraints defined on this structure.
Connecting Distributed Information Using the Semantic Web
Authors: Abe Takahiro  , Wada Daisuke  , Kobayashi Hiromi
Published: February 2025

This paper presents a method of connecting and using information on a distributed network. Web ontology language (OWL) is used to describe and connect information according to the transitive property. Peer to peer (P2P) is used to construct this system. An information management server is used to boost the efficiency for connecting information. Consequently, this system is a hybrid P2P system. A bidirectional depth-first search algorithm is used for seeking an information connection. We develop a prototype system in which reasoning or information association is conducted for ingredients of a dish of cuisine to describe its nutritional characteristics. For this system, JXTA is used as the P2P platform.
Extraction of Children Friendship Relations from Activity Level
Authors: Kaneda Shigeo  , Katsuki Takuya  , Shibata Masahiro  , Haga Hirohide  , Ueda Mari  , Kono Aki  , Shintani Kimio
Published: February 2025

Children learn to fit into society by group interaction through which they are greatly influenced by their relations with friends. Although teachers need to observe them to assist their growth and social progress and support the development of their personalities, only experienced teachers can watch children while simultaneously providing high-quality guidance. To resolve this problem, this paper proposes a mathematical and objective method that assists teachers with observation. It uses the numerical data of activity levels recorded by pedometers from which we make tree diagrams called dendrograms based on hierarchical clustering with recorded activity levels. We also calculate the children's “breadth” and “depth” of friend relations using more than one dendrogram. After the authors recorded the children's activity levels at a kindergarten for two months to evaluate our proposed method, we found that the results generally coincided with teacher remarks and evaluations of the children.
Exploiting Semantics in Collaborative Software Development Tasks
Authors: Panagiotou Dimitris  , Mentzas Gregoris
Published: February 2025

Modern software development is highly knowledge intensive; it requires that software developers create and share new knowledge during their daily work. However, current software development environments are “syntantic”, i.e. they do not facilitate understanding the semantics of software artifacts and hence cannot fully support the knowledge-driven activities of developers. In this paper we present SoWiSE, a Semantic Wiki environment which focuses on the software development domain and strives to address these problems. SoWiSE aims at providing software developers such a tool to ease their daily work and facilitate cooperation, context-aware navigation, ontology-based browsing and searching, concept-based source code documentation and related problem solving.
ARM: Actor Relationship Matrix
Authors: Ibe Komon  , Saito Shinobu  , Yamamoto Shuichiro
Published: February 2025

The SD model which the i* framework includes is used to analyze and describe the requirements among the stakeholders in the business. However, the practical method which supports the stakeholders for checking whether or not the requirements in the SD model are comprehensive is not proposed. This paper introduces a method which we called the ARM (Actor Relationship Matrix). The ARM is two-dimensional matrix that defines the relationship among actors. We also discuss the effectiveness of the proposed method which contributes comprehensive review of requirements.
Deontic Relevant Logic in Knowledge-based Requirements Engineering
Authors: Cheng Jingde
Published: February 2025

Requirements engineering is inherently concerned with discovering and/or predicting purposes, goals, and objectives of software systems. To discover/predict, analyze, elicit, specify, and reason about various requirements of software systems, we need a right fundamental logic system to provide us with a logical validity criterion of reasoning as well as a formal representation and specification language. This short position paper briefly shows that deontic relevant logic is a hopeful candidate for the fundamental logic we need.
Shaping Forms on The Web with a Collective Memory
Authors: Edmonds Ernest  , Amitani Shigeki
Published: February 2025

The paper describes a web-based artwork that uses movement detected by the cameras in each computer that views it to influence its development in terms of colours, timings and shapes. It develops according to a collective history of user behaviour. The Shaping Form series are the latest works arising from Ernest Edmond's preoccupation with interaction and time. These works have previously been made and exhibited as individual wall hanging pieces. A new version has been developed that woks across the WWW and in which the shared experiences at all of the client locations that access it combine to form a distributed network that, in total, influences the shaping form development. Shaping Form on the Web takes a server-client form. The client web application is a Flash application that computes activity levels according to camera inputs and posts the activity levels to Java servlets. A collective history partly determines the behaviour and development of the work as seen at each client. The paper describes the design and development of the software system that is, in essence, the artwork. The work demonstrates a new view of distributed interactive software systems, particularly from the point of view of the interactive experience. We argue that this work provides a new approach to understanding the human-computer systems implications of the Swarm Intelligence approach.
User-Oriented Software Development for Real-Time Online Applications
Authors: Gorlatch Sergei  , Glinka Frank  , Ploss Alexander  , Raed Allaithy  , Fujita Hamido
Published: February 2025

Real-Time Online Interactive Applications (ROIA) are an increasingly important class of applications including multiplayer online computer games and simulation-based e-learning. They are usually expected to support high user numbers and thus require mechanisms to accommodate increasing load by using additional resources. This paper presents first results of the research and development project edutain@grid, including a comprehensive analysis of the application class and the new challenges regarding software development. We propose a novel, high-level development approach for ROIA which integrates three distribution mechanisms in today's online games – zoning, instancing and replication. As a first implementation of the approach, we describe the RTF (Real-Time Framework) middleware system which liberates the developer from low-level tasks and allows him to stay at high level of design abstraction. We explain how RTF supports the implementation of single and multi-server online games and how RTF incorporates various distribution mechanisms during the development process.
The Correlation of Software Testing Efforts and Software Project Estimation: An Empirical Study
Authors: Aziz Junaid  , Ahmed Faheem  , Campbell Piers  , Jaffar Ahmad
Published: February 2025

Software testing efforts covers the major portion of any software development project's cost. Project managers are more inclined towards estimating the testing effort in order to develop strategies to manage resources. A comprehensive empirical investigation to study the impact of the individual structural components of software project estimation on the software testing efforts is presented in this work. The research model of this study establishes a theoretical foundation for structural components of Function Point cost estimation method and software testing efforts in order to evaluate their interrelationship. We used the data of 211 software projects covering a broad range of hardware, software and organizational types from International Standard Benchmark Group data repository to conduct the empirical study. The results of this investigation provide empirical evidence and further support the theoretical foundations that the software project cost is positively related with software testing efforts.
The Pirelli Skyscraper in Milan, Italy
Authors: Ascione Paola
Published: February 2025

Introduction; Features of the Original Design: The Structure and the Curtain Wall; Background to the Restoration; The Restoration: The Curtain Wall – Performance Evaluation and Implementation; Prospects for the Future: Applying Innovation to Preservation; Notes
Certification of Electronic Health Record systems and the Importance of the Validation of Clinical Archetypes
Authors: De Moor Georges  , Kalra Dipak  , Devlies Jos
Published: February 2025

If Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems are to provide an effective contribution to healthcare across Europe, a set of benchmarks need to be set to ensure the quality of such systems. This article describes the results of the EU funded QRec- project and emphasizes the need for validation of clinical archetypes to support the semantic interoperability between EHR systems and other interacting eHealth applications.
An Upper-Level Ontology for Chemistry
Authors: Batchelor Colin
Published: February 2025

Chemical entities are the foundation of biochemistry and biology, but until now there have been few coherent attempts to produce a top-level ontology for chemistry to connect ontological descriptions of reality at the molecular level, such as ChEBI, with upper-level ontologies such as BFO, or indeed familiar laboratory-scale concepts such as mixtures. We work out relationships between chemical types that are compatible with the OBO Relation Ontology, describe macroscopic chemical systems in terms of grains and collectives, and propose a top-level ontology for chemically-relevant continuants and discuss it in relation to BFO and BioTop.
The Ontological Square and its Logic
Authors: Schneider Luc
Published: February 2025

The Ontological Square is a four-categorial scheme that is obtained by crossing two formal distinctions which underpin conceptual modelling languages and top-level ontologies alike: that between types (or universals) and tokens (or particulars) on the one hand, and that between characters (or features) and their bearers (or substrates) on the other hand. Thus the Ontological Square consists of particular substrates, called substances, and universal substrates, called kinds, as well as particular characters, called modes or moments, and universal characters, called attributes. In this article, I try to elucidate the basic ontological assumptions underlying this four-category scheme and I propose a calculus of many-sorted second-order logic that is meant to capture these intuitions by an enrichment of standard atomic logical form. A first-order semantics can be designed for such a Logic of the Ontological Square, with respect to which the latter's soundness can be established.
Privacy in Distributed Meeting Scheduling
Authors: Brito Ismel  , Meseguer Pedro
Published: February 2025

Meetings are an important vehicle for human interaction. The Meeting Scheduling problem (MS) considers several agents, each holding a personal calendar, and a number of meetings which have to be scheduled among subsets of agents. MS is a naturally distributed problem with a clear motivation to avoid centralization: agents desire to keep their personal calendars as private as possible during resolution. MS can be formulated as Distributed CSP, but due to the form of its constraints the PKC model does not bring any benefit here. We take entropy as a measure for privacy, and evaluate several distributed algorithms for MS according to efficiency and privacy loss. Experiments show interesting results with respect to the kind of tested algorithms.
Improving Pseudobagging techniques
Authors: Chieppa Angela  , Gibert Karina  , Gómez-Sebastià Ignasi  , Sànchez-Marrè Miquel
Published: February 2025

We present an important improvement related to the computation and use of Mutual Information index in Pseudobagging, a technique that adapts “bagging” to unsupervised context. The Mutual Information index plays a key role in this technique, assessing the quality of a partition. We propose the use of such an index to improve the Pseudobagging voting scheme for determining the final partition of the data. Issues related to the estimation of Mutual Information index in the multivariate continuous case become crucial for the application of Pseudobagging to real data: we discuss some practical approaches to computation in this situation. Finally, experimental results are presented, related to application of new “pooled voting” scheme and to the evaluation of the impact of different computing methods for Mutual Information.
Using Ensemble-Based Reasoning to Help Experts in Melanoma Diagnosis
Authors: Nicolas Ruben  , Golobardes Elisabet  , Fornells Albert  , Segura Sonia  , Puig Susana  , Carrera Cristina  , Palou Joseph  , Malvehy Josep
Published: February 2025

New habits in solar exposure have caused an important increase of melanoma cancer during the last few years. However, recent studies demonstrate that early diagnosis drastically improves the treatment of this illness. This work presents a platform called MEDIBE that helps experts to diagnose melanoma. MEDIBE is an ensemble-based reasoning system that uses two of the most important non-invasive image techniques: Reflectance Confocal Microscopy and Dermatoscopy. The combination of both image source improves the reliability of diagnosis.
Representation of discrete quasi-copulas through non-square matrices
Authors: Aguiló Isabel  , Suñer Jaume  , Torrens Joan
Published: February 2025

In this paper a matrix representation for discrete quasi-copulas defined on a non-square grid In× Imof [0,1]2with m=kn, k≥1 is given. The special case of irreducible discrete quasi-copulas (those that cannot be expressed as nontrivial convex combination of other ones) is also studied. It is proved that quasi-copulas of minimal range admit a matrix representation through a special class of matrices. In the case of copulas, it is proved that irreducible copulas coincide with those of minimal range. Moreover, an algorithm to express any discrete copula as a convex combination of irreducible ones is given.
The SLAM problem: a survey
Authors: Aulinas Josep  , Petillot Yvan  , Salvi Joaquim  , Lladó Xavier
Published: February 2025

This paper surveys the most recent published techniques in the field of Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM). In particular it is focused on the existing techniques available to speed up the process, with the purpose to handel large scale scenarios. The main research field we plan to investigate is the filtering algorithms as a way of reducing the amount of data. It seems that almost all the current approaches can not perform consistent maps for large areas, mainly due to the increase of the computational cost and due to the uncertainties that become prohibitive when the scenario becomes larger.
An approach for Mail-Robot navigation using a CBR technique
Authors: Navarro Martí  , Heras Stella  , Julián Vicente
Published: February 2025

Multi-Agent System (MAS) paradigm has seemed especially appropriate for developing applications in complex domains, as Real-Time environments are. In this situation, an artificial intelligent technique may require tasks which involve searching in large search spaces in a bounded time. However, the main problem of MAS applications over real-time environments is to merge intelligent deliberative techniques with real-time actions in complex and distributed environments. In this settings, agents must make sure that they will be able to perform a service within a specific time before committing themselves to its performance. This paper proposes the use of a Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) technique to cope with this functionality. The technique is tested in an example where the tasks are bounded and need a temporal control.