bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Interaction-Oriented Agent Simulations: From Theory to Implementation
Authors: Kubera Yoann  , Mathieu Philippe  , Picault Sébastien
Published: February 2025

This paper deals with the software architecture for individual-centered simulations, i.e. involving many entities interacting together. Many software architectures have been developped in this context, especially many advanced – but domain specific – frameworks. Yet those frameworks imply tight software dependencies between agents, behaviors and action selection mechanisms, which leads to many difficulties in modelling and programming. We propose a method and an architecture where interactions are reified regardless of agents, in order to obtain a complete interaction-oriented design process for simulations. Then, an agent is only an entity that can perform or undergo a set of interactions, even not specifically developped for it. Thus most interactions can be re-used in many contexts. In addition, our method clearly separates knowledge about behaviors from its processing, and thus makes the design of simulations easier. Moreover, this new and user-friendly approach helps programmers to build simulations with a large number of different behaviors at the same time, especially in the context of large-scale simulations.
Game Theoretical Insights in Strategic Patrolling: Model and Algorithm in Normal-Form
Authors: Gatti Nicola
Published: February 2025

In artificial intelligence literature there is a rising interest in studying strategic interaction situations. In these situations a number of rational agents act strategically, being in competition, and their analysis is carried out by employing game theoretical tools. One of the most challenging strategic interaction situation is the strategic patrolling: a guard patrols a number of houses in the attempt to catch a rob, which, in its turn, chooses a house to rob in the attempt to be not catched by the guard. Our contribution in this paper is twofold. Firstly, we provide a critique concerning the models presented in literature and we propose a model that is game theoretical satisfactory. Secondly, by exploit the game theoretical analysis to design a solving algorithm more efficient than state-of-the-art's ones.
Goal Generation and Adoption from Partially Trusted Beliefs
Authors: da Costa Pereira Célia  , Tettamanzi Andrea G. B.
Published: February 2025

A rational agent adopts (or changes) its goals when new information (beliefs) becomes available or its desires (e.g., tasks it is supposed to carry out) change. In this paper we propose a non-conventional approach for adopting goals which takes the degree of trust in the sources of information into account. Beliefs, desires, and goals, as a consequence, are gradual. Incoming information may be any propositional formula.
Justification-Based Non-Clausal Local Search for SAT
Authors: Järvisalo Matti  , Junttila Tommi  , Niemelä Ilkka
Published: February 2025

While stochastic local search (SLS) techniques are very efficient in solving hard randomly generated propositional satisfiability (SAT) problem instances, a major challenge is to improve SLS on structured problems. Motivated by heuristics applied in complete circuit-level SAT solvers in electronic design automation, we develop novel SLS techniques by harnessing the concept of justification frontiers. This leads to SLS heuristics which concentrate the search into relevant parts of instances, exploit observability don't cares and allow for an early stopping criterion. Experiments with a prototype implementation of the framework presented in this paper show up to a four orders of magnitude decrease in the number of moves on real-world bounded model checking instances when compared to WalkSAT on the standard CNF encodings of the instances.
Probabilistic Reinforcement Rules for Item-Based Recommender Systems
Authors: Castagnos Sylvain  , Brun Armelle  , Boyer Anne
Published: February 2025

The Internet is constantly growing, proposing more and more services and sources of information. Modeling personal preferences enables recommender systems to identify relevant subsets of items. These systems often rely on filtering techniques based on symbolic or numerical approaches in a stochastic context. In this paper, we focus on item-based collaborative filtering (CF) techniques. We propose a new approach combining a classic CF algorithm with a reinforcement model to get a better accuracy. We deal with this issue by exploiting probabilistic skewnesses in triplets of items.
Removed Sets Fusion: Performing Off The Shelf
Authors: Hué Julien  , Würbel Eric  , Papini Odile
Published: February 2025

Merging multiple sources of information is a rising subject in artificial intelligence. Most of the proposals are model-based approaches with very high computational complexity, moreover few experimentations are available. This paper proposes a framework for performing Removed Sets Fusion (RSF) of belief bases consisting of prepositional formulae. It then describes the implementation of RSF which stems from Answer Set Programming (ASP) and can be performed with any ASP solver supporting the minimize statement. It finally presents an experimental study and a comparison.
Using Bibliographic Knowledge for Ranking in Scientific Publication Databases
Authors: Vesely Martin  , Rajman Martin  , Le Meur Jean-Yves
Published: February 2025

Document ranking for scientific publications involves a variety of specialized resources (e.g. author or citation indexes) that are usually difficult to use within standard general purpose search engines that usually operate on large-scale heterogeneous document collections for which the required specialized resources are not always available for all the documents present in the collections. Integrating such resources into specialized information retrieval engines is therefore important to cope with community-specific user expectations that strongly influence the perception of relevance within the considered community. In this perspective, this paper extends the notion of ranking with various methods exploiting different types of bibliographic knowledge that represent a crucial resource for measuring the relevance of scientific publications. In our work, we experimentally evaluated the adequacy of two such ranking methods (one based on freshness, i.e. the publication date, and the other on a novel index, the download-Hirsch index, based on download frequencies) for information retrieval from the CERN scientific publication database in the domain of particle physics. Our experiments show that (i) the considered specialized ranking methods indeed represent promising candidates for extending the base line ranking (relying on the download frequency), as they both lead to fairly small search result overlaps; and (ii) that extending the base line ranking with the specialized ranking method based on freshness significantly improves the quality of the retrieval: 16.2% of relative increase for the Mean Reciprocal Rank (resp. 5.1% of relative increase for the Success@10, i.e. the estimated probability of finding at least one relevant document among the top ten retrieved) when a local rank sum is used for aggregation. We plan to further validate the presented results by carrying out additional experiments with the specialized ranking method based on the download-Hirsch index to further improve the performance of our aggregative approach.
Problems of Data Quality in an Integrated Cadastral Information System
Authors: Cieśla Dariusz  , Telec Zbigniew  , Trawiński Bogdan  , Widz Robert
Published: February 2025

Cadastral systems belong to the most important public systems, since they provide necessary information for economic planning, spatial planning, and tax calculation, real estate denotation in perpetual books, public statistics, and real estate management as well as farm registration. They also provide source data to systems such as IACS and its main component LPIS. Quality of cadastral data has a major impact on the functioning many other systems. Legacy cadastral systems were developed using different data structures and various computer technologies. The quality of those legacy systems was sufficient for accomplishing everyday tasks but it was too low in the case of transferring data into other information systems. A practical approach to assure data quality in the process of transferring descriptive and geometric data from legacy systems into the Kataster OnLine - a modern integrated cadastral information system is presented in the paper.
Cluster-Centric Approach to News Event Extraction
Authors: Piskorski Jakub  , Tanev Hristo  , Atkinson Martin  , Van Der Goot Erik
Published: February 2025

This paper presents a real-time and multilingual news event extraction system developed at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission. It is capable of accurately and efficiently extracting violent and natural disaster events from online news. In particular, a linguistically relatively lightweight approach is deployed, in which clustered news are heavily exploited at all stages of processing. The paper focuses on the system's architecture, real-time news clustering, geolocating clusters, event extraction grammar development, adapting the system to the processing of new languages, cluster-level information fusion, visual event tracking and accuracy evaluation.
Mobile Agents and Processes using Communicating Process Architectures
Authors: Kerridge Jon  , Haschke Jens-Oliver  , Chalmers Kevin
Published: February 2025

The mobile agent concept has been developed over a number of years and is widely accepted as one way of solving problems that require the achievement of a goal that cannot be serviced at a specific node in a network. The concept of a mobile process is less well developed because implicitly it requires a parallel environment within which to operate. In such a parallel environment a mobile agent can be seen as a specialization of a mobile process and both concepts can be incorporated into a single application environment, where both have well defined requirements, implementation and functionality. These concepts are explored using a simple application in which a node in a network of processors is required to undertake some processing of a piece of data for which it does not have the required process. It is known that the required process is available somewhere in the network. The means by which the required process is accessed and utilized is described. As a final demonstration of the capability we show how a mobile meeting organizer could be built that allows friends in a social network to create meetings using their mobile devices given that they each have access to the others' on-line diaries.
YASS: a Scaleable Sensornet Simulator for Large Scale Experimentation
Authors: Tate Jonathan  , Bate Iain
Published: February 2025

Sensornets have been proposed consisting of thousands or tens of thousands of nodes. Economic and logistical considerations imply predeployment evaluation must take place through simulation rather than field trials. However, most current simulators are inadequate for networks with more than a few hundred nodes. In this paper we demonstrate some properties of sensornet application and protocols that only emerge when considered at scale, and cannot be effectively addressed by representative small-scale simulation. We propose a novel multi-phase approach to radio propagation modelling which substantially reduces computational overhead without significant loss in accuracy.
Random SAT Instances à la Carte
Authors: Ansótegui Carlos  , Bonet Maria Luisa  , Levy Jordi
Published: February 2025

Many studies focus on the generation of hard SAT instances. The hardness is usually measured by the time it takes SAT solvers to solve the instances. In this preliminary study, we focus on the generation of instances that have computational properties that are more similar to real-world instances. In particular, instances with the same degree of difficulty, measured in terms of the tree-like resolution space complexity. It is known that industrial instances, even with a great number of variables, can be solved by a clever solver in a reasonable amount of time. One of the reasons may be their relatively small space complexity, compared with randomly generated instances.
Using Electronic Institutions for Hospitals Chronic Disease Management and Purchasing System
Authors: Musavi Ashkan  , Lopez-Sanchez Maite  , Campos Jordi  , Esteva Marc
Published: February 2025

Use of multi-agent systems (MAS) in health-care domains is increasing. MAS is an appropriate technique for many medical domains due to the characteristics of the problems in this area. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) health care systems worldwide are faced with the challenge of responding to the needs of people with chronic conditions such as diabetes, heart failure and mental illness. Chronic disease management (CDM) is a systematic approach to improve health care for people with chronic disease. Electronic Institutions (EI), as agent technology, is considered a suitable paradigm for complex environments providing structured frameworks for multi-agent systems to regulate agents' interactions. In this paper we introduce the HCDMP System which is an electronic institution to improve the Hospitals Chronic Disease Management and Purchasing processes. HCDMP system provides a number of recommended services to the patients and aims to advance the self care as a well proven and highly effective means of improving the care of chronic diseases.
Fundaments of Branching Heuristics
Authors: Kullmann Oliver
Published: February 2025

“Search trees”, “branching trees”, “backtracking trees” or “enumeration trees” are at the heart of many (complete) approaches towards hard combinatorial problems, constraint problems, and, of course, SAT problems. Given many choices for branching, the fundamental question is how to guide the choices so that the resulting trees are (relatively) small. Despite (or perhaps because) of its apparently more narrow scope, especially in the SAT area several approaches from theory and applications have found together, and the rudiments of a theory of branching heuristics emerged. In this chapter the first systematic treatment is given.
Connections to Statistical Physics
Authors: Altarelli Fabrizio  , Monasson Rémi  , Semerjian Guilhem  , Zamponi Francesco
Published: February 2025

This chapter surveys a part of the intense research activity that has been devoted by theoretical physicists to the study of randomly generated k-SAT instances. It can be at first sight surprising that there is a connection between physics and computer science. However low-temperature statistical mechanics concerns precisely the behaviour of the low-lying configurations of an energy landscape, in other words the optimization of a cost function. Moreover the ensemble of random k-SAT instances exhibit phase transitions, a phenomenon mostly studied in physics (think for instance at the transition between liquid and gaseous water). Besides the introduction of general concepts of statistical mechanics and their translations in computer science language, the chapter presents results on the location of the satisfiability transition, the detailed picture of the satisfiable regime and the various phase transitions it undergoes, and algorithmic issues for random k-SAT instances.
Introduction to Identity-Based Cryptography
Authors: Joux Antoine
Published: February 2025

Identity-based cryptography is a new development of public-key cryptography. It was first proposed by Adi Shamir at CRYPTO'84. However, it took the cryptographic community a long while to produce effective identity-based cryptosystems. Indeed, this solution only appeared at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Nowadays, identity-based cryptography has become a very active field of research. This introductory chapter presents the basics of identity-based cryptography and briefly surveys its early history.
Identity-Based Identification and Signature Schemes using Error Correcting Codes
Authors: Cayrel Pierre-Louis  , Gaborit Philippe  , Girault Marc
Published: February 2025

In this chapter, we propose a survey of identity-based identification and signature schemes using error correcting codes. We describe coding theory, its application to cryptography and the different identification and signature schemes using error correcting codes with their new improvements. We also present the first (and unique up to now) identity-based scheme (provably secure) not based on number theory or generic constructions. The scheme combines two well known code-based schemes: the signature scheme of Courtois, Finiasz and Sendrier and the zero-knowledge identification scheme of Stern (which may also be used for signature). The scheme inherits some of the characteristics of the previous schemes: it has a large public key of order 1MB and requires a certain number of exchange rounds. The scheme can also be used as signature but leads to a very large signature of size 1.5 MB. Eventually, we present schemes obtained from the generic construction.
A Process Model of Legal Argument with Hypotheticals
Authors: Ashley Kevin  , Lynch Collin  , Pinkwart Niels  , Aleven Vincent
Published: February 2025

This paper presents a process model of arguing with hypotheticals and uses it to explain examples of oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court that are like those employed in Socratic law teaching. The process model has been partially implemented in the LARGO (Legal ARgument Graph Observer) intelligent tutoring system. The program supports students in diagramming oral argument examples; its feedback on students' diagrammatic reconstructions of the examples enforces the expectations of the process model. The paper presents empirical evidence that features of the argument diagrams made with LARGO are correlated with independent measures of argumentation ability. The examples and empirical results support the model's explanatory and diagnostic utility.
Comparison of Neural Classification Algorithms Applied to Land Cover Mapping
Authors: Thiel Christian  , Giacco Ferdinando  , Schwenker Friedhelm  , Palm Günther
Published: February 2025

We compared the performance of several supervised classification algorithms on multi-source remotely sensed images. Apart from the Multi-Layer Perceptron, K-Nearest-Neighbour and Radial Basis Function network approaches, we looked more in detail at the Support Vector Machine classifier, which recently showed promising results in our setting. In particular, it is able to provide meaningful answers for the analysis of mixed pixels. They correspond to areas on the ground that comprise more than one distinct class, representing a major challenge for the interpretability of the final land-cover maps. To assess their impact, we performed a rejection-based analysis, allowing classifiers to refuse answers on pixels they can not associate mainly with one class.
OpenCityPortal: Promoting E-Participation
Authors: Kusakabe Motoo
Published: February 2025

This article reveals an open-source based platform called “Open City Portal” for developing citizen oriented portal especially at the city level. The Open City Portal will help cities all over the world be affordable to develop their own e-Government portals to promote citizens participation and interaction in the e-Development processes. Its features include: A few clicks to create a Portal Framework, Citizen-Centric, Single Windows for every service category, Participatory content development, Interaction with Citizens, Online Application and Tracking System, Result-Oriented Management and Accountability (ROMA) system and E-Participation, Knowledge Sharing among Cities and Focus on Sustainable Urban Regional Initiatives. The article also features the current stage of e-Government in cities, the impediments, what's wrong with e-government strategy and What is the new e-Government strategy for cities that were surveyed during the World Summit on Cities and Local Government on Information Society in Bilbao 2005. In addition, some brief details on Organizations to support the OpenCityPortal, Installation of OpenCityPortal in a country and cities, Benefits of the Government Portal and Recent Trends in Categorization of Government Services in the Portals are also featured with lastly the Call for Advisory Council Members of the Open City Foundation and Institute.
Waseda University International e-Government Rankings 2005–2009
Authors: Obi Toshio
Published: February 2025

Waseda University International e-Government Ranking was released for the first time since 2005 and conducted by a researcher team and staff of Waseda University. The methodology includes collecting related data and information from its organized survey, from international organizations such as ITU, APEC, OECD and etc. as well as from organizing international seminar and forum on e-Governance. The collected inputs are analyzed and synthesized accordingly to a certain set of indictors and parameters which evolve every year to fit the current development condition and situation. Current 6 areas with 26 parameters to measure 34 countries in the world include Network Preparedness, Required Interface, Functioning Applications, Management optimization, National Portal, Introduction of CIO and Promotion of e-Government. Result of the rankings comprises of the overall scale and categorized area scales.
Establishment of Government CIO Training Model and Network for e-Government Development
Authors: Tubtimhin Jirapon
Published: February 2025

The APECTEL 05/2005 project was aimed to design the Government Chief Information Officer Training Model to deploy in APEC member economies. The training model was established to incorporate related parameters including, GCIO Responsibilities, GCIO Core Competencies, GCIO Institutionalization, Maturity Level of ICT and e-Government Development, Findings from the survey, Educational Background of GCIO and Existing Training Courses/Curricula. The project also promote e-Government development networking through the GCIO capacity building and related activities.
Exploiting Partial Problem Spaces Learned from Users' Interactions to Provide Key Tutoring Services in Procedural and Ill-Defined Domains
Authors: Fournier-Viger Philippe  , Nkambou Roger  , Mephu Nguifo Engelbert
Published: February 2025

In previous works, we showed how sequential pattern mining can be used to extract a partial problem space from logged user interactions for a procedural and ill-defined domain where classic domain knowledge acquisition approaches don't work well. In this paper, we describe in details how such a problem space can support important tutoring services such as (1) recognizing the plan of a learner, (2) providing hints and (3) estimating the profile of a learner including its expertise level and missing or misunderstandood skills.
I learn from you, you learn from me: How to make iList learn from students
Authors: Fossati Davide  , Di Eugenio Barbara  , Ohlsson Stellan  , Brown Christopher  , Chen Lin  , Cosejo David
Published: February 2025

We developed a new model for iList, our system that helps students learn linked list. The model is automatically extracted from past student data, and allows iList to track students' problem-solving behavior in order to provide targeted feedback. We evaluated the new model both intrinsically and extrinsically. We show that the model can match most student actions after a relatively small sequence of observations, and that iList can effectively use the new student tracker to provide feedback and help students learn.
An Intelligent Partner for Organizing a Paragraph
Authors: Kunichika Hidenobu  , Miyazaki Chiaki  , Matsuki Yuto  , Chartrand Robert  , Takeuchi Akira
Published: February 2025

This paper presents a support system for organizing an English paragraph for users who have insufficient knowledge of English paragraph writing. The system infers the user's intention to compose a paragraph, organizes and proposes some outlines of a paragraph, and reports missing information which is necessary for completion of organizing the paragraphs. We have investigated the usefulness of the system by trying out it on subjects who have little knowledge of paragraph writing. Although several points need to be improved, the system was found on trial to be useful for such users.
Implementing Role- and Relationship-based Identity Management in E-learning Environments
Authors: Anwar Mohd  , Greer Jim
Published: February 2025

Role- and relationship-based identity management (RRIM) appears to be a useful identity management paradigm, which contributes to protecting users' privacy. This paper presents an implementation of RRIM in iHelp Discussion, the discussion forum component of an e-learning environment. We include an evaluation of the effectiveness of RRIM in facilitating a privacy-enhanced discussion forum.
Dynamic AspectC++: Generic Advice at Any Time
Authors: Tartler Reinhard  , Lohmann Daniel  , Schröder-Preikschat Wolfgang  , Spinczyk Olaf
Published: February 2025

In theory, the expressive power of an aspect language should be independent of the aspect deployment approach, whether it is static or dynamic weaving. However, in the area of strictly statically typed and compiled languages, such as C or C++, there seems to be a feedback from the weaver implementation to the language level: dynamic aspect languages offer noticeable fewer features than their static counterparts. Especially means for generic aspect implementations are missing, as they are very difficult to implement in dynamic weavers. This hinders reusability of aspects and the application of AOP to scenarios where both, runtime and compile-time adaptation is required. Our solution to overcome these limitations is based on a novel combination of static and dynamic weaving techniques, which facilitates the support of typical static language features, such as generic advice, in dynamic weavers for compiled languages. In our implementation, the same AspectC++ aspect code can now be woven statically or dynamically into the Squid web proxy, providing flexibility and best of bread for many AOP-based adaptation scenarios.
Enhancing Graph-based Automated DoS Attack Response
Authors: Klein Gabriel  , Jahnke Marko  , Tölle Jens  , Martini Peter
Published: February 2025

Timely and appropriate reactions to detected denial-of-service attacks against computer networks are crucial in both civilian and military settings. GrADAR is an intuitive graph-based approach for assessing the effects of DoS attacks against computer networks so that response measures can be automatically selected without human intervention. However, GrADAR has limitations insofar as implicit effects of countermeasures are only taken into account by propagation towards user nodes. Possible effects in the other direction are only considered if they are explicitly specified. For this, they need to be exactly known in advance which is often infeasible. This contribution presents an extension to GrADAR, in which we consider resource workload and processing capabilities and their effects on resource availability. We incorporate workload measurements into the GrADAR model which are done by passive analysis of network traffic. We further augment the active availability probes with passive measurements. This ensures more accurate availability values because additional measurement traffic that might falsify results only needs to be injected when resources are currently not accessed.
On n
Authors: Bilar Daniel
Published: February 2025

An nth order attack seeks to degrade, disable or subvert an end system indirectly by targeting one or more end mission-sustaining ancillary systems. We discuss the vulnerability etiology enabling such attacks. We illustrate the notion of these attacks with concrete historical, current and forward-looking examples; also in the context of cyberwar against advanced computerized societies. We sketch the challenges and requirements to detect and mitigate the effects of nth order attacks.
Text Detection in Urban Scenes
Authors: Escalera Sergio  , Baró Xavier  , Vitrià Jordi  , Radeva Petia
Published: February 2025

Text detection in urban scenes is a hard task due to the high variability of text appearance: different text fonts, changes in the point of view, or partial occlusion are just a few problems. Text detection can be specially suited for georeferencing business, navigation, tourist assistance, or to help visual impaired people. In this paper, we propose a general methodology to deal with the problem of text detection in outdoor scenes. The method is based on learning spatial information of gradient based features and Census Transform images using a cascade of classifiers. The method is applied in the context of Mobile Mapping systems, where a mobile vehicle captures urban image sequences. Moreover, a cover data set is presented and tested with the new methodology. The results show high accuracy when detecting multi-linear text regions with high variability of appearance, at same time that it preserves a low false alarm rate compared to classical approaches.
An Application of CoSMoS Design Methods to Pedestrian Simulation
Authors: Clayton Sarah  , Urquhart Neil  , Kerridge Jon
Published: February 2025

In this paper, we discuss the implementation of a simple pedestrian simulation that uses a multi agent based design pattern developed by the CoSMoS research group. Given the nature of Multi Agent Systems (MAS), parallel processing techniques are inevitably used in their implementation. Most of these approaches rely on conventional parallel programming techniques, such as threads, Message Passing Interface (MPI) and Remote Method Invocation (RMI). The CoSMoS design patterns are founded on the use of Communicating Sequential Processes (CSP), a parallel computing paradigm that emphasises a process oriented rather than object oriented programming perspective.
Toward Process Architectures for Behavioural Robotics
Authors: Simpson Jonathan  , Ritson Carl G.
Published: February 2025

Building robot control programs which function as intended is a challenging task. Roboticists have developed architectures to provide principles, constraints and primitives which simplify the building of these correct, well structured systems. A number of established and prevalent behavioural architectures for robot control make use of explicit parallelism with message passing. Expressing these architectures in terms of a process-oriented programming language, such as occam-π, allows us to distil design rules, structures and primitives for use in the development of process architectures for robot control.
Analysing gCSP Models Using Runtime and Model Analysis Algorithms
Authors: Bezemer M. M.  , Groothuis M. A.  , Broenink J. F.
Published: February 2025

This paper presents two algorithms for analysing gCSP models in order to improve their execution performance. Designers tend to create many small separate processes for each task, which results in many (resource intensive) context switches. The research challenge is to convert the model created from a design point of view to models which have better performance during execution, without limiting the designers in their ways of working. The first algorithm analyses the model during run-time execution in order to find static sequential execution traces that allow for optimisation. The second algorithm analyses the gCSP model for multi-core execution. It tries to find a resource-efficient placement on the available cores for the given target systems. Both algorithms are implemented in two tools and are tested. We conclude that both algorithms complement each other and the analysis results are suitable to create optimised models.
Support Vector Machines and MLP for automatic classification of seismic signals at Stromboli volcano
Authors: Giacco Ferdinando  , Esposito Antonietta Maria  , Scarpetta Silvia  , Giudicepietro Flora  , Marinaro Maria
Published: February 2025

We applied and compared two supervised pattern recognition techniques, namely the Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) and Support Vector Machine (SVM), to classify seismic signals recorded on Stromboli volcano. The available data are firstly preprocessed in order to obtain a compact representation of the raw seismic signals. We extract from data spectral and temporal information so that each input vector is made up of 71 components, containing both spectral and temporal information extracted from the early signal. We implemented two classification strategies to discriminate three different seismic events: landslide, explosion-quake, and volcanic microtremor signals. The first method is a two-layer MLP network, with a Cross-Entropy error function and logistic activation function for the output units. The second method is a Support Vector Machine, whose multi-class setting is accomplished through a 1vsAll architecture with gaussian kernel. The experiments show that although the MLP produces very good results, the SVM accuracy is always higher, both in term of best performance, 99.5%, and average performance, 98.8%, obtained with different sampling permutations of training and test sets.
XDTD as a Simple Validation Language for XML-based Legal Documents
Authors: Barabucci Gioele  , Vitali Fabio
Published: February 2025

Validation of XML documents is required in order to maintain consistency in large XML document bases, including document bases of legal texts such as acts, judgments, hansards. Current W3C standards for XML validation either do not provide enough precision (DTD) or are too complex to be immediately authored and read by humans (XML Schema). DTD++ has been proposed as an alternative, and relevant legal standards such as Norme In Rete (Italy), Akoma Ntoso (UN for Africa) and CEN Metalex (European CEN standard) are first written in DTD++ and then converted for standard purposes into XML schema and/or DTD. XDTD is a followup of DTD++, and is a shorter and simplified syntax for XML Schema. XDTD combines the power of the XML Schema model with the readability of DTD. The whole set of features of the XML Schema language, including the new ones in the forthcoming 1.1 version of the language, is available in XDTD, while maintaining the same readability and compactness of the original DTD language. In this paper we show how XDTD simplifies the compilation of vocabularies, with attention to legal standards such as the Akoma Ntoso, Norme In Rete and CEN Metalex legal standards.
An Ontology for the Implementation of the EU Services Directive
Authors: Liebwald Doris
Published: February 2025

This paper presents an ontology based model for an electronic information and transaction portal developed in regard to the electronic implementation of the EU Services Directive in Austria. The web portal will assist service providers in gathering information about rules on access to and exercise of service activities, and finally guide the service provider to the relevant procedures, formalities and institutions. To reach this goal, information from and about different sources and across diverse authorities and geographical and functional jurisdictions has to be represented. This paper focuses on the design of an ontology capable of goal discovery, of connecting goals to electronic transactions, and of selecting, organizing and interlinking goal-relevant information from different information sources. For a first feasibility check the SeGoF framework was used.
Electrocardiogram
Authors: Carre François
Published: February 2025

In this chapter I will present the ECG physiological basis (cellular action potential, ECG acquisition and representation). I will show the ECG adaptations during acute exercise and I think that it will be interesting to present the main ECG adaptations and their limits observed in the so called Athlete's heart.
Heart Rate Variability
Authors: Garet Martin  , Pichot Vincent  , Roche Frédéric  , Barthelemy Jean-Claude
Published: February 2025

The exploration of heart rate variability (HRV) for clinical purposes in medical sciences as well as for follow-up and monitoring the effects of training in exercise sciences has gained increased popularity in the recent years.
Energetic Cost of Exercise
Authors: Foster Carl  , Lucia Alejandro  , DeKoning Jos J.  , Wright Glenn  , Porcari John P.  , Battista Rebecca A.  , Daniels Jack T.  , Chelstrom Dan  , Ferguson Brooke  , Hayes Courtney  , Schaller Kristen
Published: February 2025

The energetic cost of ambulatory exercise is a significant contributor to the ability for humans to move about. There are generally accepted average values for the aerobic cost of walking and running, in terms of velocity, grade and the effect of air resistance. However, there is enough variation amongst humans for there to be both athletically and clinically important differences in the energetic cost of moving around. Studies from a variety of sources have demonstrated that practice with ambulation (particularly running) may have a meaningful effect on energetic cost, that the cost is related to the nature of weight distribution, including anthropometric characteristics of the individual, and that the energetic cost of moving may be influenced by both sub-clinical and clinical conditions. Despite earlier suggestions that systematic differences in the energetic cost of running was a primary contributor to the competitive success of runners of East African heritage, recent data do not support a uniquely “African” advantage in the cost of ambulation. Evaluation of the energetic cost of moving is also related to the method of evaluation. In running, the aerobic requirement of moving at fixed reference velocities as well as computations of the cost of running a certain distance may impact how the energetic cost of ambulation is appreciated. Lastly, although data about energetic cost is largely based on measured VO2, there are strategies which can potentially account for non-oxidative ATP production.
Substrate Oxidation
Authors: Hawley John A.
Published: February 2025

The immediate source of energy for muscle contraction is provided by the hydrolysis of adenosine triphosphate (ATP). However, muscle ATP stores are not large and would be consumed in only a few seconds of high-intensity exercise if they were not quickly replenished. In most sporting situations a precise matching of ATP demand and ATP provision is accomplished and muscle ATP stores are maintained. Most exercise situations involve a combination of fat- and carbohydrate oxidation to provide the replenishment of ATP through aerobic pathways (oxidative phosphorylation). However, ‘anaerobic’ ATP production is required whenever oxidative phosphorylation cannot provide ATP rapidly enough to sustain the desired muscle contractile force. A major advantage of the provision of ATP via anaerobic pathways is that the rate of ATP synthesis is 5-6 times higher than that from aerobic pathways. Several interrelated factors influence muscle fuel selection during exercise including endogenous substrate stores, the training status of an individual, the prevailing exercise intensity and duration (usually expressed as a percentage of power output or speed that can be sustained by oxidative ATP production), environmental conditions and nutrient intake during exercise. Of these factors, the pre-exercise endogenous fuel stores, especially carbohydrate, are likely to ultimately limit exercise capacity in most situations. Accordingly, a major goal of training and dietary manipulations undertaken by athletes is to increase fuel supply to muscle during exercise and reduce the detrimental effects of a reduction in ATP provision. This chapter will summarize the role of fat and carbohydrate fuels in exercise metabolism and examine nutrient-training interactions that enhance substrate availability during exercise.
A Contemporary Understanding of the Exercise-Related Heat Illnesses
Authors: Noakes Timothy D.
Published: February 2025

This chapter proposes a novel framework classification for the heat illnesses. It argues that heat stroke is the only described condition that is truly a “heat illness” since it is the only condition in which the core body temperature is pathologically elevated as the result of a failure of thermoregulation. Nondescript terms such as heat illness, heat fatigue, heat exhaustion, heat syncopy, siariasis and sunstroke need to be removed from the modern lexicon since in none of these conditions is there evidence for a failure of thermoregulation necessary to justify the term “heat illness”. Rather the evidence is that most cases of post-exercise collapse in athletes are due to the development of (exercise-associated) postural hypotension (EAPH) that develops immediately after the cessation of exercise. It is further proposed that more specific terms such as EAPH should be used, when appropriate, to replace the nondescript term “heat illness”. It is also suggested that heat stroke may not be caused purely by thermoregulatory failure during exercise in severe environmental conditions. Rather athletes who develop heat stroke may have a genetic predisposition that causes an explosive endogenous heat production when exercise and additional triggering agents are active. Furthermore the persistence of an elevated core body temperature may not be the sole cause of a fatal outcome in heat stroke. Rather the uncontrolled biochemical processes responsible for the explosive endogenous heat production in the affected skeletal muscles in athletes with heat stroke may also initiate a whole body inflammatory response that causes the widespread and rampant organ damage that is characteristic especially of fatal cases.
New Insights on Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Exercise Physiopathology
Authors: Ramonatxo Christelle  , Saey Didier  , Maltais François
Published: February 2025

There have been increased awareness and recognition of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in both developed and developing nations. Indeed, this modern disease, associated with smoking, stress, sedentary lifestyle and pollution is currently the fourth cause of mortality and morbility in the developed world. The pathophysiology of COPD is complex and can be attributed to multiple components: mucociliary dysfunction, airway inflammation and structural changes, all contributing to the development of airflow limitation, and specific breathlessness so-called dyspnea. In recent years, COPD has become increasingly thought of as a systemic disease affecting many tissues and organs including locomotor muscles in addition to the lungs. In COPD, the peripheral muscle dysfunction has been the target of much research focusing on whether the universally observed exercise limitation reflects a systemic myopathic effect of COPD, or simply the consequences of inactivity. Dyspnea and peripheral muscle fatigue are the most common symptom of exercise limitation. As core components of pulmonary rehabilitation, exercise training has been shown to be beneficial in improving mortality and health-related quality of life in patients with chronic respiratory disease. In this disease, physical training was found to reduce the peripheral muscle dysfunction. A great deal of research has been conducted to try and fully defines which patients will benefit most from pulmonary rehabilitation. Although progress has been made, many questions remain as to the best means of delivering rehabilitation, particularly with respect to the optimum program of physical training. In this review, the current training strategies in COPD pulmonary rehabilitation, its definition and rational, its organization and modalities will be discussed. Finally, novel promising rehabilitative approaches have attracted the interests of clinicians in the last 10 years. Indeed, growing evidence support that the optimal care of general physical reconditioning in COPD patients generally requires combining non-pharmacologic and pharmacologic therapies to enhance the effectiveness of exercise training in pulmonary rehabilitation. Clinical effects of neuromuscular electric stimulation, non invasive ventilation, bronchodilatator therapy, supplemental oxygen therapy, nutritional supplements and metabolic therapy will be examined and discussed in this chapter.
Human Immunodeficiency Virus
Authors: Cade W. Todd
Published: February 2025

There are over 40 million people globally who live with HIV infection. Once a certain death sentence, the current high availability of highly active anti-retroviral therapy (HAART) in Westernized countries and growing access to HAART in developing countries has transformed HIV infection into a manageable, chronic condition. However, HIV infection and HAART are associated with metabolic side effects including lipodystrophy, elevated cardiovascular risk profile, insulin resistance, osteopenia, skeletal myopathy, muscle wasting, cardiac dysfunction, depression and severely depressed aerobic capacity. These metabolic complications adversely affect physical functioning and quality of life in the HIV+ population. Mechanisms for the low aerobic capacity in HIV are unclear but may include HIV and/or HAART-mediated skeletal muscle mitochondrial myopathy, reduced cardiac function, abnormal cardio-autonomic control, anemia and smoking. Evidence from the literature demonstrates that people infected with HIV are able to safely undergo aerobic exercise training and increase their aerobic capacity to an extent that non-HIV infected people in the general population can, although not completely normalize levels. Aerobic exercise training also can reduce truncal adiposity and improve lipodystrophy, improve the cardiovascular risk profile, improve insulin sensitivity and improve the quality of life in HIV+ people. Additionally, resistance training in people with HIV can improve serum lipid level, decrease truncal fat and increase lean muscle mass and whole-body strength. It is recommended that HIV+ patients who have stable virological and immune status participate in daily exercise for 30–60 minutes that includes aerobic and resistance training in order to improve the cardiovascular risk profile, increase insulin sensitivity, increase bone mineral density, increase aerobic capacity, strength and physical functioning, reduce truncal fat, and improve the quality of life. A combination of aerobic and resistance training may ameliorate or lessen the metabolic side-effects associated with HIV and HAART.
Chapter 10
Authors: Simar David  , Malatesta Davide  , Caillaud Corinne
Published: February 2025

A global ageing of the population in most western countries has been well documented and it is expected that one third of the population will be constituted of people older than 60 by 2050 (United Nations 2006). The ageing process itself involves a wide range of bio-molecular and cellular modifications contributing to the deterioration of the main biological functions. Even in the case of “healthy ageing”, those alterations will contribute to a wide range of modifications including but not restricted to: decreased muscle strength (endurance and power), altered aerobic fitness, limited flexibility, range of motion and balance, resulting in a general decrease of functional capacity and quality of life in elderly people. Numerous studies have shown that physical activity can actively contribute to delay or limit these alterations, maintain the capacity to perform daily living activities and thus promote Health and quality of life. This chapter will then discuss recommendation in terms of physical activity volume and intensity in order to achieve significant physiological and biological effects leading to health improvement. In order to efficiently plan and individualise exercise training, adequate exercise testing should be performed. The role of screening visit will be discussed in line with the evaluation of risk factors and safety. Exercise test evaluating aerobic fitness, muscle strength and flexibility as well as balance will be examined in the light of the population of interest. The basis of exercise prescription in the different fields investigated (aerobic fitness, muscle strength and flexibility, balance) will be presented with a specific focus on the elderly population.