bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Sustainable business model experimentation practices: evidence from three start-ups
Authors: Schuit C.S.C.  , Baldassarre B.  , Bocken N.
Published: February 2025

With a growing world population, resource use, and the effects of climate change, it is apparent that our current ‘take-make-dispose’ economy cannot be sustained. Sustainable business model innovation integrates sustainability objectives into business models to achieve a positive impact on society and/or the environment in combination with pursuing profit. Experimentation capabilities are essential for implementation, but established companies struggle with execution. Start-ups are more acquainted with a trial and error approach in which assumptions are gradually validated or adapted to market needs. To contribute to the shift towards sustainable business models, this paper explores how start-ups develop sustainable business model experiments and which elements of the sustainable business model canvas are tested through experimentation. Three start-ups were followed in their experimentation journey to develop profitable sustainable business models. Results indicate that 1) experiments always concerned the value proposition and another building block of the business model with a high-risk profile 2) start-ups use easy accessible resources to execute experiments in a fast paced and iterative manner 3) decisions of continuation of business model ideas were based on the outcomes of experiments in relation to the purpose of the company. In addition, this paper provides examples of experimentation practices of these start-ups to give hands-on examples how sustainable business model experimentation can be developed.
Business experiments as an approach to drive sustainable consumption: the case of HOMIE
Authors: Bocken N.M.P.  , Bom C.A.  , Lemstra H.J.
Published: February 2025

Sustainable business models and in particular Product Service Systems (PSS) are often linked to increased environmental performance. However, such benefits can only be achieved when the business model is intentionally set up to deliver those positive impacts, by incorporating issues around efficiency gains, through-life issues and sustainable consumption patterns into the design. Several start-ups are emerging who are pursuing new PSS business models but sustainability impacts are not always measured. Also, knowledge on how to iterate new sustainable business models through experimentation is sparse. This paper explores how companies can contribute to sustainable consumption through experimentation with new business models and in particular ‘pay per use’ business models. We apply knowledge on influencing consumer behaviour to develop business experiments. This paper includes an in-depth case study of HOMIE, a start-up pursuing a pay per use business model for home appliances (washing machines). An experimentation roadmap is presented for HOMIE. Effects of a range of experiments are included, such as providing information and social comparison. The pay per use business model was found to have the potential to help stimulate sustainable consumption patterns. For example, social comparison could be used effectively to stimulate more sustainable laundry behaviour. Future research could focus on mapping ideal sequences of experiments to achieve the greatest levels of sustainability impacts, and investigating other sustainable business models such as renting and sharing using the experimentation approach.
Interdisciplinary circular economy design education through local and regional partnerships
Authors: Williams M.  , McDonough M.  , Edge S.
Published: February 2025

A review of Educational Sustainable Development (ESD) strategies has found that participatory and collaborative partnerships are the most effective for engaging students with sustainability. To enable students from Higher Education to experience and understand the relevance of the Circular Economy, as opposed to the linear economy, a series of ‘real-life’ collaborative projects have been created for Design students from Product Design, Fashion Design, Commercial Interior Design and Landscape Architecture, bridging the schools of IT Computing and Business with Art and Design. These ‘real life’ projects have been created in collaboration with local and regional charities, local Government and companies. The focus of these ‘real-life’ projects is based upon facets of the Circular Economy, such as ‘Design for Longevity’, ‘Reuse’, ‘Repair’ and ‘Recycling’, with the intention of engaging staff and students with the Circular Economy within each unit of assessment. This work is evaluated using an educational framework based upon the ESD principles, which is embedded throughout the Applied Design degree programmes, with the aim of creating engaging partnerships to improve the quality and impact of the student learning experience. This paper will describe some of the ‘real-life’ case studies, focusing upon first year Design degree students, the outcome of these projects will be discussed and reflections made. Fundamentally it is found these collaborative partnerships have the ability to empower students to become active partners in the Circular Economy and the Sustainability agenda.
Developing a quantitative research method on planned obsolescence in architecture
Authors: Akyurek K.B.  , Ciravoğlu A.
Published: February 2025

Planned obsolescence, a developed theory to maintain the continuity of production by consuming, manifests itself in a large number of products since its first emergence. Through the use of substandard materials, the short-lived products ensure rapidity and continuity in consumption. Additionally, the newer and different options awaken desire of consumers to change their ‘obsolete’ products. Thus, planned obsolescence becomes both a trigger and a consequence of the consumer society. In contrast to broad discussions on the scheduled lifespan of the products in economics and industrial design, a very small number of studies focus on the building lifetimes. Indeed, planned obsolescence is also a problem of architecture but surely has been carried within a different process and approach than with industrial products. The initial aim of this study is to point out the existence of planned obsolescence in architecture by exposing the ambiguity behind the determination of building demolitions (in other words consciously defined ‘expiration dates’). In the framework of the paper, an ongoing urban transformation project in İstanbul: Tarlabaşı Renewal project is examined as a case study. By doing so, the crucial variables that have effects on economic existences of the buildings are underlined in the specific case. Due to the constitution of a basic equation, this study tries to demonstrate the possibility of a developing quantitative research method on building lifetimes in replace of stereotypical assumptions. Consequently, it is envisioned that the subjectivity concerning the demolitions of buildings shall be controlled with the determination of prominent factors and their ratios in overall.
Consumer and user acceptance in the circular economy: what are researchers missing?
Authors: Camacho-Otero J.  , Pettersen I.N.  , Boks C.
Published: February 2025

The circular economy is a platform to transition towards a more resource efficient system. Product service systems (PSS) and remanufacturing have been proposed as strategies to achieve material decoupling. Recent studies have found that their adoption has fallen short in the business-to-consumer sector, due to lack of consumer acceptance. Literature addressing this issue has failed to provide a systematic approach to the problem. By performing a structured search on Scopus and Web of Science, 24 papers focusing on consumer and user acceptance of remanufacturing and PSS were identified. By applying qualitative research methods, the articles were analysed using six categories: problem and research questions, definitions, theoretical background, issues, methods and research gaps. Resulting from the analysis an outline for a research agenda on the topic of consumer and user acceptance of PSS and remanufactured products is suggested. Such program needs to provide a definition of consumption, consumers and users in the circular economy including their role. It should explore external factors influencing acceptance, adoption and diffusion of PSS and remanufacturing such as cultural (norms, beliefs, codes) and demographic and their interaction to each other, to guide action. Answering this questions requires tools and devices from additional fields such as anthropology and sociotechnical studies complement the contributions already made by psychology and sociology.
Ranging the Description Ontology Design Pattern with Literal Values
Authors: Peroni Silvio  , Lodi Giorgia  , Gangemi Aldo
Published: February 2025

This Chapter describes a specialization of the Description Ontology Design Pattern (ODP), i.e., the Description In Range ODP, that allows one to range the conceptualization of a descriptive context within specific borders defined by means of literal values. The specialization emerged within an e-government Linked Open Data (LOD) project named FOOD, where it was required to model in OWL descriptions of raw material and physical, chemical, organoleptic characteristics of European Union (EU) quality schemes for agricultural and food products – i.e., PDO (Protected Designation of Origin), PGI (Protected Geographical Indication) and TSG (Traditional Speciality Guaranteed).
Interest Analysis Based-On Knowledge Websites Through User-Browsing-Behavior
Authors: Guo Junxia  , Han Hao  , Zeng Weijia  , Lu Gang
Published: February 2025

The Internet is becoming more and more important for nearly everybody as it is one of the most forward-looking media for free bidirectional knowledge and information communication than traditional media, such as newspaper and television. In this paper, we analyze the browsing trends and interest levels of different population groups based on Web browsing behaviors reflected by net view dataNet View Data is a log from Japanese users about their web page accessing records. Each record contains the panel user's ID, access time, dwell time, access URL, etc. It is collected and provided by Nielsen Online (http://www.netratings.co.jp/) for research and investigation.
Trajectory Privacy-Preserving Approach for Consecutive Queries Based on K-Anonymity
Authors: Zhu Lin
Published: February 2025

Existing approaches to protecting the privacy of trajectories using k-anonymity when requesting LBSs. However, the problem of anonymization is even harder due to dependencies between consecutive queries. In order to solve problem, a novel trajectory privacy-preserving approach based on k-anonymity is used in this paper. By formulating a query region, a spatial index model of trajectory data is established that can be further used by continuous KNN (K Nearest Neighbor) method to compute a candidate set of trajectory that have the similar area with current trajectory. In order to find the optimal anonymity path from k trajectories, a heuristic based approach is proposed. Empirical results show that the proposed method significantly decreases information losses for the same privacy levels and that information distortion strongly depends on value of parameter k. The k-anonymity based approach can effectively solve the problem arose from dependencies between consecutive queries and strengthen the privacy of trajectory data.
Normative Requirements as Linked Data
Authors: Gandon Fabien  , Governatori Guido  , Villata Serena
Published: February 2025

In this paper, we propose a proof of concept for the ontological representation of normative requirements as Linked Data on the Web. Starting from the LegalRuleML ontology, we present an extension of this ontology to model normative requirements and rules. Furthermore, we define an operational formalization of the deontic reasoning over these concepts on top of the Semantic Web languages.
A Computational Model of Moral and Legal Responsibility via Simplicity Theory
Authors: Sileno Giovanni  , Saillenfest Antoine  , Dessalles Jean-Louis
Published: February 2025

Responsibility, as referred to in everyday life, as explored in moral philosophy and debated in jurisprudence, is a multiform, ill-defined but inescapable notion for reasoning about actions. Its presence in all social constructs suggests the existence of an underlying cognitive base. Following this hypothesis, and building upon simplicity theory, the paper proposes a novel computational approach.
Argument Schemes for Discussing Bayesian Modellings of Complex Criminal Cases
Authors: Prakken Henry
Published: February 2025

In this paper two discussions between experts about Bayesian modellings of complex criminal cases are analysed on their argumentation structure. The usefulness of several recognised argument schemes is confirmed, two new schemes for interpretation arguments and for arguments from statistics are proposed, and an analysis is given of debates about the validity of arguments. From a practical point of view the case study yields insights into the design of support software for discussions about Bayesian modellings of complex criminal cases.
Message-Passing Concurrency Shootout
Authors: Chalmers Kevin
Published: February 2025

In the last few years, there have been a number of new programming languages which incorporate message-passing concurrency. Examples, such as Google's Go and Mozilla's Rust, have shown an increased industry and academic interest in the ideas of message-passing concurrency as a first order concern. These languages have joined existing ones such as occam-π, Erlang, and Ada with strong communication-based concurrency. It is therefore argued that the concurrent systems programmer has a number of options for exploiting message-based concurrency.
High Performance Tape Streaming in Tapr
Authors: Jensen Klaus Birkelund  , Vinter Brian
Published: February 2025

In this paper we describe the design and implementation of the Tapr high performance tape streaming system. Tapr consists of a number of basic processes interacting though message passing on CSP-style communications channels. The system is highly concurrent, uses synchronous as well as asynchronous coordination without the need for complex usage of traditional locks. The system scales to and beyond contemporary enterprise so-called automated tape libraries by representing each and every part of the tape library as a communicating process. This includes the robot changer, each tape drive, all clients and even the loaded tape media.
Towards Lightweight Formal Development of MPI Applications
Authors: Rosa Nelson S.  , Wagner Alan  , Kamal Humaira
Published: February 2025

A significant number of parallel applications are implemented using MPI (Message Passing Interface) and several existing approaches focus on their verification. However, these approaches typically work with complete applications and fixing any undesired behaviour at this late stage of application development is difficult and time consuming. To address this problem, we present a lightweight formal approach that helps developers build safety into the MPI applications from the early stages of the program development. Our approach consists of a methodology that includes verification during the program development process. We provide tools that hide the more difficult formal aspects from developers making it possible to verify properties such as freedom from deadlock as well as automatically generating partial skeletons of the code. We evaluate our approach with respect to its ability and efficiency in detecting deadlocks.
Testing a Knowledge Inquiry System on Question Answering Tasks
Authors: Zafeiroudi Kyriaki D.  , Eckman Leah  , Passonneau Rebecca J.
Published: February 2025

Question-Answering systems enable users to retrieve answers to factual questions from various kinds of knowledge sources, but do not address how to respond cooperatively. We present INK, an initial inquiry system for RDF knowledge graphs that aims to return relevant responses, even when an answer cannot be found. It assembles knowledge relevant to the entities mentioned in the question without translating the input question into a query language. A user study indicates responses are found to be intelligible and relevant. Evaluation of questions with known answers gives high recall of 0.70 averaged on three QA datasets.
Virtual Statistics Knowledge Graph Generation from CSV files
Authors: Chaves-Fraga David  , Priyatna Freddy  , Santana-Perez Idafen  , Corcho Oscar
Published: February 2025

Statistics data is often published as tabular data by statistics offices and governmental agencies. In last years, many of these institutions have addressed an interoperable way of releasing their data, by means of semantic technologies. Existing approaches normally employ ad-hoc techniques to transform this tabular data to the Statistics Knowledge Graph (SKG) and materialize it. This approach imposes the need of periodical maintenance to ensure the synchronization between the dataset and the transformation result. Using R2RML, the W3C mapping language recommendation, the generation of virtual SKG is possible thanks to the capability of its processors. However, as the size of the R2RML mapping documents depends on the number of columns in the tabular data and the number of dimensions to be generated, it may be prohibitively large, hindering its maintenance. In this paper we propose an approach to reduce the size of the mapping document by extending RMLC, a mapping language for tabular data. We provide a mapping translator from RMLC to R2RML and a comparative analysis over two different real statistics datasets.
Can Twitter API Be Bypassed? A New Methodology for Collecting Chronological Information Without Restrictions
Authors: Hernandez-Suarez Aldo  , Sanchez-Perez Gabriel  , Toscano-Medina Karina  , Toscano-Medina Rocio  , Martinez-Hernandez Victor  , Olivares-Mercado Jesus  , Perez-Meana Hector  , Sanchez Victor
Published: February 2025

Retrieving information from social networks is a first and primordial step in many data analysis fields such as Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning. Important data science tasks rely on historical data gathering for further predictive results. Recent works use public platforms for collecting public streams of information like Twitter API, which allows querying chronological tweets from periods no longer than three weeks. In this paper, we present Twitter Scrapy, a new methodology for collecting historical tweets from time periods of arbitrary duration using web scraping techniques that bypass Twitter API restrictions.
Deriving Persuasion Strategies Using Search-Based Model Engineering
Authors: Murphy Josh  , Burdusel Alexandru  , Luck Michael  , Zschaler Steffen  , Black Elizabeth
Published: February 2025

We consider a one-to-many persuasion setting, where a persuader presents arguments to a multi-party audience, aiming to convince them of some particular goal argument. The individual audience members each have differing personal knowledge, which they use, together with the arguments presented by the persuader, to determine whether they are convinced of the goal. The persuader must, therefore, carefully consider its strategy, i.e., which arguments to assert, in order to maximise the number of convinced audience members. Here, we use evolutionary search to find (near-)optimal strategies for the persuader. We implement our approach using search-based model engineering, which provides a natural and efficient encoding for such problems. We investigate the performance of our approach on a range of settings, considering different structures and sizes of argumentation frameworks (representing the underlying knowledge available to the persuader and audience members), and varying the size of audience and of the audience members' personal knowledge bases. We show that we can find effective strategies for problems with more than 200 arguments and more than 100 audience members. Further, we show that the approach supports multiple persuader objectives, finding persuader strategies that aim to minimise arguments to assert while still maximising the number of convinced audience members.
Structure-Based Semantics of Argumentation Frameworks with Higher-Order Attacks and Supports
Authors: Cayrol Claudette  , Fandinno Jorge  , Farinas Del Cerro Luis  , Lagasquie-Schiex M-Christine
Published: February 2025

In this paper, we propose a generalisation of Dung's abstract argumentation framework that allows representing higher-order attacks and supports, that is attacks or supports whose targets are other attacks or supports. We follow the necessary interpretation of the support, based on the intuition that the acceptance of an argument requires the acceptance of each supporter. We propose semantics accounting for acceptability of arguments and validity of interactions, where the standard notion of extension is replaced by a triple of a set of arguments, a set of attacks and a set of supports. Our framework is a conservative generalisation of Argumentation Frameworks with Necessities (AFN). When supports are ignored, Argumentation Frameworks with Recursive Attacks are recovered.
On the Ontology of Part-Whole Relations in Zulu Language and Culture
Authors: Keet C. Maria  , Khumalo Langa
Published: February 2025

Parthood and attendant part-whole relations enjoy interest in ontology authoring for various subject domains, as well as in, e.g., NLP to understand text. The list of common part-whole relations is occasionally slightly modified for languages other than English. For isiZulu, it was shown that there are not always 1:1 mappings and, moreover, dictionaries list many more translations for parthood and part-whole relations. This complicates selecting the semantically appropriate ones for localising ontologies or aligning local ontologies to other ones. It also raises the question whether the ‘common’ part-whole relations are really that common. We aim to investigate the extant part-whole relations in isiZulu and determine their ontological status. We harvested a lexicon of 81 terms from dictionaries, which was reduced to 31 through several iterations of refinement, of which 13 were formalised and aligned to well-known part-whole relations. It showed that in some cases distinctions are made—and for which words exist—that have not been included before in part-whole relations, yet in other cases it is more coarse-grained; e.g., a parthood for portions of cloth, for objects properly contained in the mouth, and for regions with a part-region that has a fiat boundary and objects located in it.
Latvian FrameNet: Cross-Lingual Issues
Authors: Nešpore-Bērzkalne Gunta  , Saulīte Baiba  , Grūzītis Normunds
Published: February 2025

This paper reports the lessons learned while creating a FrameNet-annotated text corpus of Latvian. This is still an ongoing work, a part of a larger project which aims at the creation of a multilayer text corpus, anchored in cross-lingual state-of-the-art representations: Universal Dependencies (UD), FrameNet and PropBank, as well as Abstract Meaning Representation (AMR). For the FrameNet layer, we use the latest frame inventory of Berkeley FrameNet (BFN v1.7), while the annotation itself is done on top of the underlying UD layer. We strictly follow a corpus-driven approach, meaning that lexical units (LU) in Latvian FrameNet are created only based on the annotated corpus examples. Since we are aiming at a medium-sized still general-purpose corpus, an important aspect that we take into account is the variety and balance of the corpus in terms of genres, domains and LUs. We have finished the first phase of the FrameNet corpus annotation, and we have collected and discuss cross-lingual issues and their possible solutions. The issues are relevant for other languages as well, particularly if the goal is to maintain cross-lingual compatibility via BFN.
Towards a Universal Neural Network Encoder for Time Series
Authors: Serrà Joan  , Pascual Santiago  , Karatzoglou Alexandros
Published: February 2025

We study the use of a time series encoder to learn representations that are useful on data set types with which it has not been trained on. The encoder is formed of a convolutional neural network whose temporal output is summarized by a convolutional attention mechanism. This way, we obtain a compact, fixed-length representation from longer, variable-length time series. We evaluate the performance of the proposed approach on a well-known time series classification benchmark, considering full adaptation, partial adaptation, and no adaptation of the encoder to the new data type. Results show that such strategies are competitive with the state-of-the-art, often outperforming conceptually-matching approaches. Besides accuracy scores, the facility of adaptation and the efficiency of pre-trained encoders make them an appealing option for the processing of scarcely- or non-labeled time series.
An O2O E-Commerce Acceptance Model in Local Life Service
Authors: Peng Yan  , Zhang Yafeng  , Wang Jie
Published: February 2025

In this work, we propose a model of the influential factors of the O2O e-commerce acceptability in local services. This model is established on the base of Equation Model Theory, Technology Acceptance Model, and Perceived Risk Theory, and can be used to help enterprises promote e-platforms. Using relevant, domestic and international information, we perform case studies and questionnaire surveys. There are two steps in the development of the model. The first one involves the development of an initial model, which consists of eight latent variables of influential factors, including subjective perception, Social group influences, and perceived risk, as input variables. The second step is the development of the final influential factors of the acceptability model, which is the optimization of the initial model according to the results from the simulation experiments. The results from the simulation experiments reveal the positive effects of Social group influences and subjective perception on willingness. All paths are significant.
Unfair Web Service QoS Feedback Filtering for Service Recommendation
Authors: Xiao Bin  , Su Kai  , Su Xiaoguang  , Yang Lihua
Published: February 2025

In order to recommend the best web service to users, the QoS feedback information provided by advisors are always needed to predict the QoS of candidate services. Attracted by commercial benefit, some advisors may intentionally provide unfair feedback inconsistent with their real experience, which will cause the deviation of prediction results. To attack this problem, an unfair QoS feedback filtering algorithm based on beta reputation model is proposed in this paper. Firstly, several certified center users are obtained to initialize the trustworthy users set. Further, we evaluate the deviation between the target user's feedback and the average value of trustworthy users set. Finally, each user's reputation is calculated based on how many deviated feedback he has submitted. The users whose reputation exceed the trustworthy threshold will be recognized as trustworthy users. After several iterations, a majority of unfair users are filtered out. Experimental results demonstrate that our approach can accurately filter out the unfair users and improve the robustness of QoS prediction algorithms against unfair feedback attacks.
Web Mining on Political Homophily in the Congressional Twitter Community
Authors: Patton Alex  , Strong William  , Lin Shieu-Hong
Published: February 2025

Homophily is the social phenomenon that people who are similar in some aspect interact at a significantly higher rate. We conducted web mining based on Twitter's application programming interfaces to investigate political homophily in the congressional Twitter community. We examined the structures of public Twitter communications among active members of the US congress. Our findings showed strong evidence of homophily with respect to party affiliation and a significant higher rate of communication for members in the same party. In an entirely distinct differentiation, we discovered moderate evidence of inverse homophily with respect to seniority and a significant higher rate of communication between members at different seniority levels.
Cost-Sensitive Multi-Label Feature Selection Algorithm Based on Positive Approximation
Authors: Wu Binglong  , Qian Wenbin  , Huang Qin  , Yu Sudan
Published: February 2025

In data mining and machine learning applications, the cost of collecting the features have to be taken into account in the feature selection. The cost-sensitive feature selection is widely discussed in single-label. However, there is little theoretical analysis on the issue of cost-sensitive multi-label feature selection. In coping with this problem, we propose a novel cost-sensitive multi-label feature selection based on positive approximation. In this proposed model, the feature significance is redefined by combination of the positive approximation and the feature cost on the basis of feature cores. Theoretical analysis and experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed algorithm thoroughly performed on three real multi-label datasets.
Applying Statistical Modeling to Predict Basketball Winning Percentage
Authors: Yao Alan  , Chen Mason  , Yao Sean  , Chen Charles
Published: February 2025

The objective of this paper is to build an empirical model to predict the NBA teams' winning percentages from data collected in the past. The raw data has been standardized through Z-transform to remove any large variance bias effects. A multiple linear regression model was derived to predict the winning percentages. After trimming insignificant regression terms, the derived model can predict the teams' winning percentages with an R-Squared greater than 95%. The multicollinearity issues were addressed by minimizing the variance inflation factors. The redundant terms were removed to avoid the risk of over-fitting. The model has identified that three-point percentage, turnovers per game, and points per game were most critical to the team offensive efficiency. The nonlinearity terms have identified the complexity of basketball team behaviors. Defensive field goal percentage and points per game allowed were identified as the most significant interaction terms. The model accuracy was proved to be within +/-5% winning percentage of the predicted target across all thirty NBA teams.
A Patent Value Evaluation Algorithm Based on Sample Data Analytics
Authors: Zhang Yao  , Zhang Gening
Published: February 2025

Patent value evaluation is very important in the areas of patent transaction and patent financing. By integrating K-means clustering and C-F uncertainty reasoning model with sample data analytics, we propose a patent value evaluation algorithm to quantify patent value according to the aspects of patent content, patent applied ranges and patent research background. The process and implementation method of patent value evaluation algorithm are discussed, and the example to evaluate application value of patents in the area of railway industry in international patent database produced by the European Patent Office is introduced. The results can adequately verify effectiveness of our proposed algorithm.
Semi-Supervised Learning for Spanish Speech Recognition Using Deep Neural Networks
Authors: Campomanes-Álvarez Blanca Rosario  , Quirós Pelayo  , Fernández Bernardo
Published: February 2025

The main purpose of Automatic Speech Recognition systems consists of converting audio signals into text sequences in a reliable way. Most of these recent systems have been developed on English language. In the case of other languages such as Spanish, the development of these techniques is not sufficiently advanced due to the lack of properly transcriptions. As consequence, the implementation of a Spanish speech-to-text system arises as a complex and time-consuming task. Nevertheless, semi-supervised learning approaches can be suitable when low-amount of data supposes a barrier for building precise automatic speech recognition methods. Among the most remarkable approaches for solving the speech-to-text task, Deep Neural Networks have obtained outstanding results thanks to their ability for generalizing with smaller number of parameters in comparison to classical methods such as Gaussian Mixture Models. In this contribution, we propose a Spanish Automatic Speech Recognition system based on a semi-supervised learning approach, which uses Deep Neural Networks for codifying sounds into sequences of words. Hence, a Neural Network is trained in order to obtain an acoustic model. In the test phase, the sentences with the lowest error, following the Word Error Rate and the Fuzzy Match Score metrics, are included into the initial training dataset for re-training the acoustic model. Moreover, our proposal has been compared to a Gaussian Mixture Models-based approach. An improvement of 5% relative Word Error Rate was obtained. These results suggest that our technique obtains promising results by supporting in the task of building an Automatic Speech Recognition System when audio-transcription resources are scarce.
Application of Directional Statistics to Classification of Three-Channel Colour Images
Authors: Tanji Kaori  , Itoh Hayato  , Imiya Atsushi
Published: February 2025

We extend the histogram of oriented gradient method to three-channel images which are captured by commercial RGB cameras. Firstly, we reformulate the oriented gradients (HoG) method from the viewpoints of gradient-based image pattern recognition and the directional statistics. Secondly, we develop operations for unification of three directional histograms constructed in channels of colour images.
Two Lessons from Nuclear Arms Control for the Responsible Governance of Military Artificial Intelligence
Authors: Maas Matthijs M.
Published: February 2025

New technologies which offer potential strategic or military advantages to state principals can disrupt previously stable power distributions and global governance arrangements. Artificial intelligence is one such critical technology, with many anticipating ‘arms races’ amongst major powers to weaponize AI for widespread use on the battlefield. This raises the question of if, or how, one may design stable and effective global governance arrangements to contain or channel the militarization of AI. Two perceptions implicit in many debates are that (i) “AI arms races are inevitable,” and (ii) “states will be deaf to calls for governance where that conflicts with perceived interests.” Drawing a parallel with historical experiences in nuclear arms control, I argue that this history suggests that (1) horizontal proliferation and arms races are not inevitable, but may be slowed, channeled or even averted; and that (2) small communities of experts, appropriately mobilized, can catalyze arms control and curb vertical proliferation of AI weapons.
The Discrete-Event Approach to Simulate Stochastic Multi-Product (r, Q) Inventory Control Systems
Authors: Jackson Ilya  , Tolujevs Jurijs
Published: February 2025

This paper proposes a discrete-event model of a multi-product (r, Q) inventory control system. The described approach provides a computationally efficient method to estimate a current inventory policy and test alternatives. In the considered model, values of the reorder level r and the reorder quantity Q are approached through iterative methods. The modeled inventory system operates under stochastic demand and lead time. Besides, the limited storage capacity is allocated among several products. Unfulfilled demand is interpreted as a lost opportunity and no backlog shall be fulfilled later. Generally, the inventory control system under consideration may be classified as an extended “base stock” with a common storage resource. The paper includes the mathematical description, the simulation algorithm and the numerical example of the model of the three-product (r, Q) inventory control system with detailed risk and reliability analysis.
Clutter Reduction in Parallel Coordinates Using Aesthetic Criteria
Authors: Hismutova Anastasija  , Yatskiv Irina
Published: February 2025

The paper is devoted to the problem of multidimensional data visualization, when an overflow of the image with graphic objects makes it difficult to understand the trends and patterns existing in the data. One of the emerging problems is the visual clutter problem and the aim of the paper is to analyse the criteria which can quantitatively assess the quality of the clutter reduction methods for data visualization in parallel coordinates. An overview of clutter reduction methods, and the aesthetic criteria used to evaluate parallel coordinate plots and chartings, is presented. The study explored the dimension reordering and algorithms based on the clustering. The quality of the results was assessed by the aesthetic criteria. The evaluation criteria system could potentially make it possible to select the best clutter reduction technique automatically.
Analysing the Impact of Legal Change Through Case Classification
Authors: Slingerland Roos  , Boer Alexander  , Winkels Radboud
Published: February 2025

In this paper an automated solution for finding cases for analysing the impact of legal change is proposed and the results are analysed with the help of a legal expert. It focuses on the automatic classification of 15,000 judgments within civil law. We investigated to what extent several machine learning algorithms were able to classify cases ‘correctly’. This was done with accuracies around 0.85. However, the data were scarce and the initial labelling not perfect, so further research should focus on these aspects to improve the analysis of the impact of legal change.
Mapping CSP Networks to MPI Clusters Using Channel Graphs and Dynamic Instrumentation
Authors: Azzopardi Gabriella  , Vella Kevin  , Muscat Adrian
Published: February 2025

This work investigates a range of techniques for automatically mapping CSP process networks onto an MPI cluster. A CSP library was developed to provide the necessary functionality for implementing CSP-based concurrent applications on top of MPI. The library enables seamless communication between processes on the same node and processes across different nodes. A new configuration language was implemented to provide a straightforward way to map processes onto cluster nodes. This was designed in such a way to allow for mapping the same application using different mapping algorithms without having to recompile the application. The resulting proof-of-concept system was then used to evaluate the suitability of well-known graph partitioning algorithms for distributing a suite of CSP-based applications across a compute cluster, with the aim of reducing application execution time in each case. The experimental results are presented in summary form and briefly analyzed.
T42 – Transputer Design in FPGA (Year Three Design Status Report)
Authors: Mielke Uwe  , Zabel Martin  , Bruestle Michael
Published: February 2025

Our IMS-T425 compatible Transputer design in FPGA has so far taken over 300 design days. Up to last year, minimal effort was spent for verification. Now a regression test bench has been brought in place, which is targeted to verify the design conformance after any changes. This T42 Transputer Verification Suite is based on a TVS-1 work from Michael Bruestle, and compares the register output of 54 selected instructions versus a true T425 golden reference for up to thousands of data samples. It has already helped in T42 micro-code debugging and hardware refinement.
aPyCSP – Asynchronous PyCSP Using Python Coroutines and Asyncio
Authors: Bjørndalen John Markus  , Vinter Brian  , Anshus Otto
Published: February 2025

PyCSP provides a CSP (Communicating Sequential Processes) based library for Python, where CSP processes can be executed as threads, operating system processes or greenlets. The main drawback of using threads and processes is that they limit the number of CSP processes that a program can use due to operating system restrictions and memory and synchronisation overheads. This overhead is reduced when using greenlets, but requires the use of an external library. aPyCSP is an experimental implementation of PyCSP that uses recent support for coroutines in Python and the asyncio library. This paper explores two implementation approaches for aPyCSP where the most recent version is shorter, simpler to read and understand and supports more functionality than the original version, including generic channel support and input and output guards. We believe some of the identified implementation techniques can be useful for other CSP libraries. The aPyCSP implementation is also faster and uses less memory per CSP process, allowing us to scale to 15 million processes on a computer with 64 GB memory.
A Majority Vote, Modelled by Asynchronous Readers and Asynchronous Writers
Authors: Boode Antoon H.  , Broenink Jan F.
Published: February 2025

Reading and writing is modelled in CSP using actions containing the symbols ? and !. These reading actions and writing actions are synchronous, and there is a one-to-one relationship between occurrences of pairs of these actions. In the CPA conference 2017, we introduced the extended half-synchronous alphabetised parallel operator XY , which disconnects the writing to and reading from a channel in time; the reading processes are divided into sets which are set-wise asynchronous, but intra-set-wise synchronous, giving full flexibility to the reads.
Evaluating Test Strategies and Frameworks for High-Risk Separation Projects
Authors: Subash Lekshmi Velayudhan
Published: February 2025

This comprehensive article examines the critical aspects of test strategies and frameworks essential for high-risk IT separation projects. The article explores the complexities of separating deeply integrated enterprise systems while maintaining data integrity and business continuity. Through analysis of various case studies, including Oracle ERP and Workday implementations, the article presents a structured approach to testing methodologies, risk mitigation strategies, and quality assurance frameworks. The article addresses the challenges of managing multiple architectural layers, integration points, and organizational dependencies while providing best practices for successful separation initiatives. By examining both technical and organizational dimensions, this article offers valuable insights into effective testing strategies that ensure successful system separation while maintaining operational stability.
ДУХОВНО-АНТРОПОЛОГІЧНИЙ КОНТЕКСТ АГРЕСІЇ РОСІЇ ПРОТИ УКРАЇНИ ЯК ОСНОВА ЇЇ ВЕЛИКОДЕРЖАВНОЇ ПОЛІТИКИ
Authors: ГОЛОВАТИЙ Микола , БОЙКО Світлана
Published: February 2025

У запропонованій статті робиться спроба теоретичного узагальнення історичного досвіду України в галузі зовнішньої політики й національної безпеки останніх років. Ідеться саме про історичний досвід, адже за кілька років українське суспільство й держава пережили і зрозуміли багато. Актуальність означеної теми публікації найбільшою мірою обумовлена ситуацією у відносинах росії і України після розпаду СРСР та проголошення (1991р.) незалежності України, розв’язаною широкомасштабною війною росії проти України, у 2022 році, а також геополітичною ситуацією у Європі, світі в цілому на початку XX століття. Збройне протистояння агресії росії увійшло в затяжну фазу оборонної війни, одночасно виснажуючи та гартуючи українське суспільство.
ІННОВАЦІЙНІ МОДЕЛІ ПУБЛІЧНО-ПРИВАТНОГО ПАРТНЕРСТВА У ВІДБУДОВІ ЗРУЙНОВАНИХ ТЕРИТОРІЙ: ВИКЛИКИ ТА МОЖЛИВОСТІ
Authors: КУЗЬМЕНКО Ганна , ТЕЛЕНДІЙ Андрій
Published: February 2025

У запропонованій статті досліджено роль і значення публічно-приватного партнерства у процесі відбудови зруйнованих територій в Україні, які постраждали внаслідок військових конфліктів. Автором зазначено, що війна, яка розпочалася на сході України у 2014 році, та повномасштабне вторгнення Росії 24 лютого 2022 року спричинили значні руйнування інфраструктури та житлового фонду, створивши критичні соціально-економічні виклики для українського суспільства. У таких умовах ППП стає ключовим інструментом для забезпечення ефективного та швидкого відновлення зруйнованих регіонів. Автор статті підкреслює, що публічно-приватне партнерство дозволяє залучити додаткові фінансові ресурси та технологічну експертизу приватного сектора, що є критично важливим в умовах обмежених державних бюджетів. ППП сприяє покращенню координації зусиль між державними органами, місцевими громадами та приватними компаніями, що забезпечує більш узгоджене і оперативне виконання відновлювальних проєктів. Це особливо важливо для відновлення критичної інфраструктури, такої як дороги, мости, енергетичні системи, житлові будинки, школи та лікарні. У статті також розглянуто ключові моделі ППП, які можуть бути застосовані у відбудові зруйнованих територій України. Серед них виділяються моделі «Build-Operate-Transfer», «Public-Private Innovation Hubs» та «Revenue-Share Partnerships». Автор статті підкреслює важливість інноваційного підходу до відбудови, який включає не лише відновлення зруйнованих об’єктів, але й їх модернізацію відповідно до сучасних стандартів і потреб сталого розвитку. Публічно-приватне партнерство відіграє ключову роль у впровадженні новітніх технологій, що підвищує ефективність та якість відновлювальних робіт. Загалом, стаття демонструє, що публічно-приватне партнерство є потужним інструментом для подолання викликів відбудови зруйнованих територій в Україні. Співпраця між державою та приватним сектором дозволяє не лише забезпечити фінансування та управління проєктами, але й сприяє розвитку інновацій та сталому економічному зростанню.
Trece historias lectoras entre la academia y la ficción
Authors:   Universidad de Guadalajara, Peredo Merlo María Alicia , Córdova Abundis Patricia , Corona Berkin Sarah , de la Peza Casares María del Carmen , Del Palacio Montiel Celia , Gutiérrez Cham Gerardo , Gutiérrez Muller Beatriz , Hernández Lomelí Francisco , Kaltmeier Olaf , Karp Mitastein Sayri , Navarro Navarro Miguel Ángel , Palomar Verea Cristina , Villoro Ruíz Carmen
Published: February 2025

Con el ojo que solo una ávida lectora puede tener para descubrir a otras miradas fascinadas por los libros, María Alicia Peredo Merlo nos revela en este abanico de vivencias un archivo invaluable: bibliotecas diversas, enormes o modestas, bibliografías que contienen historias e historietas, autores clásicos y contemporáneos, textos académicos y literarios y una multiplicidad de voces formidable. Estas trece historias lectoras son la prueba del placer de la lectura, entendida como una forma de la supervivencia y el camino andado por grandes lectores que nos invitan a recorrerlo de nuevo, haciéndonos partícipes de una vida que no es posible imaginar sin la compañía de un buen libro.
The Construction of Multimodal Metaphors in Animation: An Example from "Soul"
Authors: Hu Tengfei
Published: February 2025

Pixar Animation Studios is currently one of the most influential animation studios in the world, and every year Pixar animation is an Oscar favorite. Soul, which won the 78th Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature, is one of  Pixar’s best works. The film tells the story of the main character Joe, who learns that following his heart is the greatest meaning of life in the process of pursuing his dream of playing jazz. And it is loved by audiences for its profound themes and the film’s combination of the reality of the times and imaginary fiction, which conveys metaphorical connotations in childlike humor and meets the psychological needs of audiences in the post-epidemic era.  Multimodal metaphors are metaphors whose source and target domains are represented by different modalities respectively. Based on the multimodal metaphor theory proposed by Forceville, this thesis analyzes the movie in terms of metaphors from different aspects and the construction of meaning under synergy between multimodal metaphors. By studying the issue of multimodal metaphors in Soul, this thesis combines conceptual metaphor theory with multimodal metaphor theory so that viewers can have a deeper understanding of the thematic interpretation, characterization, and plot development of this animated film and enjoy it better.