bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Geotechnical aspects of the closure of a tailings dam
Authors: Sagaseta C.  , Cañizal J.  , Da Costa A.
Published: February 2025

The paper describes the geotechnical aspects of the closure of a tailings dam in the North of Spain. The dam has an initial earth embankment, 19 m high, constructed in 1983, and raised upstream in two further steps (1987 and 1993) to a final height of 27 m. It has been closed in 2003. The foundation ground is formed by Cretaceous sandstone and marl, covered by colluvial and residual soils, and also by old mine dumps.
Hydro-mechanical processes in soil desiccation problems. Application to Bogotá clay
Authors: Ávila G.  , Ledesma A.  , Lloret A.
Published: February 2025

In the last 15 years surface cracks have frequently appeared in a rural area close to Bogotá (Colombia). The phenomenon is related to the soil volume changes produced when subjected to desiccation and a comprehensive research work was initiated in order to understand the hydro-mechanical processes involved. The soil from the area is a high plasticity clay, and some basic properties, both in the saturated and unsaturated state were obtained. The paper presents some laboratory experiments involving desiccation of that clay in different moulds. The aim of the work was to find out the conditions of the crack formation and the patterns of the crack propagation. From those tests it was possible to obtain the desiccation rate, the conditions (water content) for crack initiation, the effect of boundary conditions (smooth or rough base, size and shape of the mould), and the effect of a new hydration. Digital pictures were taken and a quantitative analysis of the size of the cracks was also performed. The results have provided some insight into the behaviour of this clay when subjected to water loss processes.
Entrapment and dissolution behavior of DNAPL on subsurface contamination process
Authors: Kamon M.  , Katsumi T.  , Inui T.  , Tsujimoto K.  , Endo K.
Published: February 2025

The multiphase flow and contaminant transport analyses were conducted to examine the influence of the entrapment and dissolution behavior of DNAPL on the spatial distribution in the subsurface and its remedial efficiency by pump–and–treat method. Applicability of the full hysteresis model in DNAPL infiltration characteristics was verified by the result that dynamic DNAPL entrapment behavior (experimentally measured degree of DNAPL saturation) was properly quantified by the two phase flow numerical simulation. Also, analytical results on the DNAPL decontamination in the subsurface demonstrated that entrapment and rate-limited dissolution behavior of DNAPL are key factors of the remediation efficiency in the field.
Risk perception and assessment of a Brownfield Site
Authors: Sarsby R.W.  , Karri Rama Sarma
Published: February 2025

There is an increasing need to redevelop brownfield sites, particularly for housing, because of continuing rise in the demand for residential properties and the need to preserve greenfield sites. However, brownfield sites commonly contain substances and materials, from previous industrial activity, which can be hazardous to human health. This paper concerns the risk assessment of a real brownfield site. The site and the land adjacent to its boundaries formed part of a former industrial area which had been occupied by an abattoir, a milk depot, a plant hire company and an engineering works. As a result of undertaking the hazard identification and hazard assessment stages of the risk assessment process it was determined that the site did not pose a hazard to the proposed end users and this outcome could be demonstrated definitively to members of the public.
Slope failure movements controlled by unloading
Authors: Cavounidis S.  , Bardanis M.
Published: February 2025

A cut-and-cover tunnel was designed for a highway in Northwestern Greece. The temporary cut was approximately 30m high and excavated in tectonically disturbed flysch with layers dipping in the opposite direction of the cut. The water table was found very low but rain water easily seeped through the rock mass. According to strength parameters estimated using the Hoek & Brown failure criterion the geometry of the temporary cut provided sufficient factors of safety for overall stability. When the excavation of the cut had proceeded down to the first 10 m, a wedge failure occurred. Support measures were increased at the time and the first surface markers were placed in order to monitor possible large movements. By the time only 4 m of excavation remained, two additional wedge failures and a larger scale instability recorded by the measurements from the markers and surface cracks occurred. Maximum rate of displacement on the markers in the middle of the instability reached 16 mm per day with displacement vectors from markers on the same cross-sections indicating that a deep-seated slope failure surface had formed in the weak rock mass, geometrically helped by the orientation of fully weathered siltstone layers at the toe and discontinuities of tectonic origin at the scarp. Approximate determination of the position of the slip surface allowed back analyses to be performed. Unloading by excavation at the top led to the gradual decrease of the rate of movement to a final stop. The relation between unloading and movement is presented. After this temporary stabilization a new design with flatter slopes and prestressed anchors ensured the stability of the cut.
Shear strength behaviour of cohesive soils reinforced with vegetation
Authors: Cazzuffi D.  , Crippa E.
Published: February 2025

Vegetation has a great importance in slope stabilization and erosion control, protecting and restraining the soil (at the surface) and increasing the strength of the soil mass (at depth). This paper presents the results of an experimental study developed by CESI S.p.A. particularly focused on the quantitative determination of the increase in soil shear strength due to root systems of four kinds of perennial gramineous plants (Eragrass, Elygrass, Vetiver and Pangrass), imported from abroad and under experimentation in Italy. In order to quantify the contribution of roots to soil mechanical properties, direct shear test on undisturbed samples containing only soil and soil with roots, respectively, were carried out in laboratory. By direct comparison of the tests executed on soil without roots and with roots, it was possible to evaluate the roots' contribution and to underline the direct correlation between the increase in soil shear strength and the root tensile strengths. The results are in good accordance with the few references found in literature and demonstrate the reinforcement capability of the tested plant roots, particularly for stabilization of the superficial soil layers.
Influence of degradation cycles on the mechanical characteristics of natural clays
Authors: Gullà G.  , Mandaglio M.C.  , Moraci N.
Published: February 2025

On low depths, soils are exposed seasonally to frequent wetting-drying and freezing-thawing cycles; the degradation effects of these cycles are more pronounced in clayey soils. The number of cycles is due to periods of rainfall and variations in air temperature. Such processes can trigger shallow instability essentially controlled by the physical weathering of soils. An experimental study was carried out to investigate how the physical weathering, reproduced by laboratory wetting-drying and freezing-thawing cycles, affects the mechanical behaviour of natural clays in the superficial layers. For this purpose block samples of Pliocene clays were taken from a slope in Southern Calabria (Italy). They are overconsolidated stiff clays which can be classified as to high plasticity clays (CH). Different specimens were trimmed from the block samples and they were subjected to different numbers of wetting-drying-freezing-thawing cycles and then tested in oedometer and direct shear tests. Results of oedometer and direct shear tests seem to show that the physical weathering has caused a degradation of the bonding due to an insufficient ability to resist this cyclic process. The variations of peak shear strength are pronounced in the first month then they may be regarded as essentially constant. The wetting-drying-freezing-thawing cycles also cause a decrease in compression index and an increase of swelling index.
Mass movements in the “Serra Do Mar” Cordillera, Sao Paulo, Brazil
Authors: Kanji Milton A.  , Wolle Claudio M.  , Massad Faiçal  , da Cruz Paulo T.
Published: February 2025

The paper initially reviews the several phases of investigation of the slides and debris flows that occurred in the lengthy mountain range along the Southeastern Brazilian coast, called “Serra do Mar”, in the region of the state of São Paulo, starting with the first observations by Terzaghi (1947), Vargas (1957) and others afterwards. The main conclusions on different studies on the mechanisms and occurrences of mass movements, encompassing landslides in residual soils and in colluvium as well as debris flows, are summarized. The paper presents the latest conclusions on the occurrence and mechanisms of mass movements, differentiating the conditions that lead to landslides and to debris flows, mainly in terms of rains that deflagrate these types of movements.
Long-term stability of slopes
Authors: Ter-Martirosian Z.G.  , Proshin M.V.
Published: February 2025

In this article are presented new rheological equations for clay soils, using dependence of speeds of soils' shear strains on a degree of approximation to a limiting condition. For tested versions of clay soils the above-stated dependence is represented as linear dependence of the natural logarithm of shear strains' speed on a degree of approximation to a limiting condition. On the basis of the offered dependence it is possible to carry out the forecast of long-term strains of soils' masses on known values of a degree of approximation to a limiting condition in various points of soils' mass.
Risk evaluation of existing piled foundations in liquefiable soils
Authors: Bhattacharya Gautam  , Bhattacharya Subhamoy  , Madabhushi Gopal
Published: February 2025

The current methods of pile design under earthquake loading is based on a bending mechanism. These codes do not consider the effect of axial load that the pile continues to carry at full liquefaction. Recent research has revealed, however, that buckling can occur in piles due to axial load and loss of soil stiffness owing to liquefaction. It is, therefore, necessary to evaluate the risk of the existing piled foundations designed by the current codes of practice. This paper identifies the dominant parameters for such a risk evaluation.
Provision of liquefaction hazard information: Building resilient communities
Authors: Christensen Steve  , Kingsbury Peter
Published: February 2025

How effectively is knowledge of hazards disseminated throughout New Zealand in various communities? A brief introduction into New Zealand's regulatory planning and development for liquefaction risk evaluation and hazard mitigation is provided. The regulatory authorities have been surveyed on their perception of liquefaction and this showed that there is a wide variation in how liquefaction is perceived and dealt with. Finally, a discussion is provided on techniques that could be utilised to improve knowledge dispersion throughout our communities.
Administrative report: TC5 – Environmental geotechnics
Authors: Manassero M.  , Shackelford C.D.  , Fratalocchi E.
Published: February 2025

This report gives details of the TC5 terms of reference, members and activities over the past 4 years, including information regarding any conferences, symposia or workshops planned for the future. The report gives also details of the TC5 special publication arising directly out of the work of TC5 during the last years. The publication deals with the main themes related to environmental geotechnics: waste disposal by landfills, remediation of contaminated soils and underwater geoenvironmental issues. A summary of the contents and purposes of the TC5 publication is given.
Effect of thermal properties on pavement surface temperatures
Authors: Gustavsson H.
Published: February 2025

This paper discusses pavement surface temperatures and the effect of thermal properties on road surface icing. Friction measurements as well as surface temperature modeling and the effect of an insulation layer and its depth to pavement surface temperatures are also discussed.
Behaviour of a tropical soil under saturated conditions
Authors: Futai M.M.  , Almeida M.S.S.  , Lacerda W.A.
Published: February 2025

The paper reports laboratory investigations carried out in a tropical soil profile to study critical state and yield conditions and their variation with depth. The soil profile is composed of a reddish lateritic layer underlain by a saprolitic soil in which a number of block samples were taken. Compression tests and drained and undrained triaxial tests were conducted at depths between 1.0m and 7.0m, and also in the exposed saprolitic soil. The test programme carried out consisted of compression and strength tests under saturated conditions.
Administrative report of TC-34 on prediction methods in large strain geomechanics
Authors: Oka F.  , Murakami A.
Published: February 2025

This note contains the information concerning the activities of TC34 on the Prediction Methods of Large Strain Geomechanics in the period 2001–2005 in form of an administrative report to the secretary general of the ISSMGE.
A novel true triaxial apparatus for testing unsaturated soils under suction-controlled multi-axial stress states
Authors: Hoyos Laureano R.  , Laikram Arthit  , Puppala Anand J.
Published: February 2025

This paper describes a novel servo-controlled true triaxial apparatus that has been developed to test 3-in (7.5-cm) per side, cubical specimens of unsaturated soil under controlled-suction states for a wide range of stress paths that are not achievable in a conventional cylindrical apparatus. The cell is a mixed-boundary type of device, with the specimen seated on top of a high-air-entry disk(s) and between five flexible (latex) membranes on the remaining sides of the cube. The new cell is an upgraded, more elaborate version of the one recently implemented by Hoyos (1998), featuring two independent pore-air and pore-water pressure control systems via a PCP-5000-UNSAT pressure panel. Matric suction states in the cubical specimens are induced during testing using axis-translation technique. The paper outlines the importance and development of the new cell, including a brief overview of its main components and the initial validation of its suitability for testing unsaturated soils utilizing the s = uatesting concept (uw= 0).
Relative density effects on drained and undrained strengths of sand at high pressures
Authors: Lade Poul V.  , Yamamuro Jerry A.  , Bopp Paul A.
Published: February 2025

Drained and undrained triaxial tests were performed to study effects of sand density on behavior at high pressures in compression and extension. Initial relative densities of 30, 60, and 90% and confining pressures from 0.25 to 60 MPa were used. Isotropic compression curves merge at high pressures resulting in a single compression curve and similar sand response during shearing, independent of initial relative density. Failure envelopes merge at high pressures, and shear strength continues to increase linearly with confining pressure. Total stress interpretation shows that sand at high pressures behaves as normally consolidated clay.
Comportement thermo-hydro-mécanique d'une argile plastique saturée
Authors: Taïbi S.  , Ghembaza M.S.  , Fleureau J.M.
Published: February 2025

Un banc expérimental a été développé pour étudier le comportement thermo-hydro-mécanique d'une argile plastique sur chemins triaxiaux. Le matériau est une kaolinite mélangée avec une faible quantité de sable fin, caractérisée par une limite de liquidité wL= 38 et un indice de plasticité IP=19. Les échantillons ont été préparés dans trois états initiaux: (1) normalement consolidés NC; (2) surconsolidés SC; (3) compactés à l'OPN. Quatre températures ont été imposées (20, 40, 60, 80°C). Les résultats mettent en évidence d'une part l'effet accélérateur de la température sur le temps de consolidation du matériau et, d'autre part, le rôle de l'état initial sur son comportement thermo-hydro-mécanique.
Selecting a seismic source for the SCPT test
Authors: Areias L.  , Van Impe W.F.
Published: February 2025

Different types of sources are currently used to generate horizontal shear (SH) wave signals with the seismic cone penetration (SCPT) test. Yet little is known about their performance and whether they can affect the accuracy of arrival time measurements. This paper presents test results obtained to characterize the performance of two types of SH wave sources. The results show that there are marked differences in performance between the sources investigated. It is also shown that their differences can affect the accuracy of measured time arrivals.
Investigation of dynamic response of cantilever retaining walls using FEM
Authors: Akhlaghi T.  , Nakhodchi A.
Published: February 2025

Dynamic response of cantilever retaining walls under seismic loads is of great importance due to the vast application of this kind of structures in civil engineering field. In this paper, finite element analysis, using Plaxis software, has been employed to investigate the effects of mechanical properties of the soil and wall on the dynamic behavior of a cantilever retaining wall. Also the effects of amplitude and frequency of the source vibration on the response of the wall have been studied and discussed. The results show that wall displacement increases when soil density and amplitude of harmonic load increase, while the dynamic response of the wall decreases with increase in the values of friction angle, cohesion, elasticity and damping of the soil. The response also increases when the stiffness of the retaining wall increases. Finally, it is shown that amplification occurs when input motions coincide with the natural period of the backfill and produce considerably permanent displacements.
3D numerical modeling of a geosynthetic-reinforced pile-supported embankment – stress and displacement analysis
Authors: Huang Jie  , Collin James G.  , Han Jie
Published: February 2025

Piles or columns have been successfully used in combination with geosynthetics to support embankments over soft soil for several decades. The inclusion of geosynthetic reinforcement over piles is to enhance the load transfer from the embankment soil to the piles, reduce total and differential settlements, and increase slope stability. A constructed geosynthetic-reinforced pile-supported embankment to support railways over deep deposits of peat and soft organic soils in Berlin, Germany was selected for numerical modeling and analysis. Precast piles and caps and a load transfer platform consisting of three layers of geogrid reinforcement and granular materials were utilized in this project. A finite difference method, incorporated in the FLAC 3D software, was employed to model this embankment. In the numerical analysis, piles were modeled using pile elements and caps were model as an elastic material. Geogrid elements built in the software were used for representing the geogrid reinforcement. Embankment fill, soft soil, firm soil, and platform fill material were modeled as linearly elastic perfectly plastic materials with Mohr-Coulomb failure criteria. The effects of variations of soft soil modulus below the embankment on the vertical displacements, stresses above pile caps, bending moments on the piles, and tension in reinforcements were investigated. The computed settlements of the embankment and the tension in reinforcements were compared against the measured results.
Applicability of the meshless method to soil-water coupled problems
Authors: Setsuyasu T.  , Arimoto S.  , Murakami A.
Published: February 2025

A formulation of the Element-Free Galerkin Method (EFG) is presented for consolidation under a large deformation and its applicability to soil-water coupled problems is examined through numerical analyses by comparing it with the conventional finite element computation. The accuracy of the proposed numerical strategy is examined through an analysis of unconfined compression and simple shear tests under undrained and plane strain conditions by a comparison of stress paths integrated directly from the finite strain Cam-clay model. The results obtained from the numerical tests show that the use of Delaunay triangles as background cells leads to a higher accuracy of the numerical solutions than those under the usual square background cells. It is also revealed that the particular type of weight functions to be adopted in the moving least-square approximation and the density of the nodal points can determine the resultant shape functions of EFG for both the pore water pressure and the displacement field such that they are advantageous in avoiding spatial instability in the numerical solutions of pore water pressure under the undrained conditions appearing in the patch tests.
Concepts as (Recognition) Abilities
Authors: Giunchiglia Fausto  , Fumagalli Mattia
Published: February 2025

So far, most of the work in Knowledge Representation has modelled concepts as classes, i.e., as sets of instances. However, as from the work in Teleosemantics, concepts can also be thought as abilities of performing certain (biological) functions. The shift is from the study of the means by which the world is represented to the study of the reasons and means by which such representations are generated. In this paper, which is grounded in the seminal contribution by the philosopher Ruth Millikan, we focus on substance concepts, namely on concepts as on recognition abilities, and on how this notion can be mapped to that of concepts as classes. The ultimate goal is to provide a unified theory of perception and knowledge representation that, eventually, will allow us to go beyond the limitations and lack of robustness of current Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems. We provide three main contributions: i) a model of concepts as abilities, with a focus on recognition abilities, ii) an early version of an Ontology of (Recognition) Abilities (called RAO) and iii) the beginning of a methodology for how to use RAO for discovering which classes, among those contained in the state of the art ontologies, correspond to recognition abilities.
Classtering: Joint Classification and Clustering with Mixture of Factor Analysers
Authors: Sansone Emanuele  , Passerini Andrea  , De Natale Francesco G.B.
Published: February 2025

In this work we propose a novel parametric Bayesian model for the problem of semi-supervised classification and clustering. Standard approaches of semi-supervised classification can recognize classes but cannot find groups of data. On the other hand, semi-supervised clustering techniques are able to discover groups of data but cannot find the associations between clusters and classes. The proposed model can classify and cluster samples simultaneously, allowing the analysis of data in the presence of an unknown number of classes and/or an arbitrary number of clusters per class. Experiments on synthetic and real world data show that the proposed model compares favourably to state-of-the-art approaches for semi-supervised clustering and that the discovered clusters can help to enhance classification performance, even in cases where the cluster and the low density separation assumptions do not hold. We finally show that when applied to a challenging real-world problem of subgroup discovery in breast cancer, the method is capable of maximally exploiting the limited information available and identifying highly promising subgroups.
Computing Extensions' Probabilities in Probabilistic Abstract Argumentation: Beyond Independence
Authors: Fazzinga Bettina  , Flesca Sergio  , Furfaro Filippo
Published: February 2025

We characterize the complexity of the problem of computing the probabilities of the extensions in probabilistic abstract argumentation. We consider all the most popular semantics of extensions (admissible, stable, preferred, complete, grounded, ideal-set, ideal and semi-stable) and different forms of correlations that can be defined between arguments and defeats. We show that the complexity of the problem ranges from FP to FP#P-complete, with FP||NP-complete cases, depending on the semantics of the extensions and the imposed correlations.
Explained Activity Recognition with Computational Assumption-Based Argumentation
Authors: Fan Xiuyi  , Liu Siyuan  , Zhang Huiguo  , Leung Cyril  , Miao Chunyan
Published: February 2025

Activity recognition is a key problem in multi-sensor systems. In this work, we introduce Computational Assumption-based Argumentation, an argumentation approach that seamlessly combines sensor data processing with high-level inference. Our method gives classification results comparable to machine learning based approaches with reduced training time while also giving explanations.
Impact of Automated Action Labeling in Classification of Human Actions in RGB-D Videos
Authors: Jardim David  , Nunes Luís  , Dias Miguel
Published: February 2025

For many applications it is important to be able to detect what a human is currently doing. This ability is useful for applications such as surveillance, human computer interfaces, games and health-care. In order to recognize a human action, the typical approach is to use manually labeled data to perform supervised training. This paper aims to compare the performance of several supervised classifiers trained with manually labeled data versus the same classifiers trained with data automatically labeled. In this paper we propose a framework capable of recognizing human actions using supervised classifiers trained with automatically labeled data in RGB-D videos.
Learning a Bayesian Network Classifier by Jointly Maximizing Accuracy and Information
Authors: Halbersberg Dan  , Lerner Boaz
Published: February 2025

Although recent studies have shown that a Bayesian network classifier (BNC) that maximizes the classification accuracy (i.e., minimizes the 0/1 loss function) is a powerful tool in knowledge representation and classification, this classifier focuses on the majority class, is usually uninformative about the distribution of misclassifications, and is insensitive to error severity (making no distinction between misclassification types). We propose to learn a BNC using an information measure (IM) that jointly maximizes classification and information, and evaluate this measure using various databases. We show that an IM-based BNC is superior to BNCs learned using other measures, especially for ordinal classification and imbalanced problems, and does not fall behind state-of-the-art algorithms with respect to accuracy and amount of information provided.
The Post-Modern Homunculus
Authors: Neufeld Eric  , Finnestad Sonje
Published: February 2025

Throughout the ages, magicians, scientists and charlatans have created life-like artifacts, some purported to be intelligent. In one famous case, the Chess Player, the intelligence was a little person hidden inside doing the thinking. Analogously, throughout the history of philosophy, and cognition, theories have arisen to explain intelligence in humans, but a philosophical problem with many such explanations is that they use what is called a homunculus argument – the explanation, upon scrutiny reveals a “little one” (homunculus) in the proposed mental apparatus that is responsible for thinking. For most of the era of computing, the Imitation Game, as so simply yet subtly put forward by Alan Turing, has been considered the gold standard for measuring this mysterious quantity, though recently Hector Levesque has pointedly argued that the time has come to abandon Turing's test for a better one of his own design, which he describes in a series of acclaimed papers. In particular, we argue that Levesque, who has cleverly found the ‘homunculus’ in the arguments of others, has essentially regressed the problem of intelligence to a homunculus in his own system.
Non-Deterministic Planning with Numeric Uncertainty
Authors: Marinescu Liana  , Coles Andrew
Published: February 2025

Uncertainty arises in many compelling real-world applications of planning. There is a large body of work on propositional uncertainty where actions have non-deterministic outcomes. However handling numeric uncertainty has been given less consideration. In this paper, we present a novel offline policy-building approach for problems with numeric uncertainty. In particular, inspired by the planner PRP, we define a numeric constraint representation that captures only relevant numeric information, supporting a more compact policy representation. We also show how numeric dead ends can be generalised to avoid redundant search. Empirical results show we can substantially reduce the time taken to build a policy.
A Simple Account of Multi-Agent Epistemic Planning
Authors: Cooper Martin C.  , Herzig Andreas  , Maffre Faustine  , Maris Frédéric  , Régnier Pierre
Published: February 2025

A realistic model of multi-agent planning must allow us to formalize notions which are absent in classical planning, such as communication and knowledge. We investigate multi-agent planning based on a simple logic of knowledge that is grounded on the visibility of propositional variables. Using such a formal logic allows us to prove the existence of a plan given the description of the individual actions. We present an encoding of multi-agent planning problems expressed in this logic into the standard planning language PDDL. The solvability of a planning task is reduced to a model checking problem in a dynamic extension of our logic, proving its complexity. Feeding the resulting problem into a PDDL planner provides a provably correct plan for the original multi-agent planning problem. We apply our method on several examples such as the gossip problem.
AUC Maximization in Bayesian Hierarchical Models
Authors: Gönen Mehmet
Published: February 2025

The area under the curve (AUC) measures such as the area under the receiver operating characteristics curve (AUROC) and the area under the precision-recall curve (AUPR) are known to be more appropriate than the error rate, especially, for imbalanced data sets. There are several algorithms to optimize AUC measures instead of minimizing the error rate. However, this idea has not been fully exploited in Bayesian hierarchical models owing to the difficulties in inference. Here, we formulate a general Bayesian inference framework, called Bayesian AUC Maximization (BAM), to integrate AUC maximization into Bayesian hierarchical models by borrowing the pairwise and listwise ranking ideas from the information retrieval literature. To showcase our BAM framework, we develop two Bayesian linear classifier variants for two ranking approaches and derive their variational inference procedures. We perform validation experiments on four biomedical data sets to demonstrate the better predictive performance of our framework over its error-minimizing counterpart in terms of average AUROC and AUPR values.
A Dialectical Proof Theory for Universal Acceptance in Coherent Logic-Based Argumentation Frameworks
Authors: Arioua Abdallah  , Croitoru Madalina
Published: February 2025

Given a logic-based argumentation framework built over a knowledge base in a logical language and a query in that language, the query is universally accepted if it is entailed from all extensions. As shown in [2, 14], universal acceptance is different from skeptical acceptance as a query may be entailed from different arguments distributed over all extensions but not necessarily skeptical ones. In this paper we provide a dialectical proof theory for universal acceptance in coherent logic-based argumentation frameworks. We prove its finiteness, soundness, completeness, consistency and study its dispute complexity. We give an exact characterization for non-universal acceptance and provide an upper-bound for universal acceptance.
Randomized Canonical Correlation Discriminant Analysis for Face Recognition
Authors: Ma Bo  , He Hui  , Hu Hongwei  , Wei Meili
Published: February 2025

As an important technique in multivariate statistical analysis, Canonical Correlation Analysis (CCA) has been widely used in face recognition. But existing CCA based face recognition methods need two kinds of expression for the same face sample, and usually suffers high computational complexity in dealing with large samples. In this paper, we present a supervised method called Randomized Canonical Correlation Discriminant Analysis (RCCDA) based on Randomized non-linear Canonical Correlation Analysis (RCCA) to make up for the shortage of CCA based face recognition methods. We first obtain basis vectors approximately with random features instead of the calculation of kernel matrix to improve the efficiency of computation, then we use these basis vectors to compute random optimal discriminant features which can reduce the dimension of face features while preserving as much discriminatory information as possible. The result of experiments on Extended Yale B, AR, ORL and FERET face databases demonstrates that the performance of our method compares favorably with some state-of-the-art algorithms.
A Computational Approach to Consensus-Finding
Authors: Grégoire Eric  , Lagniez Jean-Marie
Published: February 2025

Consensus-finding plays a ubiquitous role in A.I. In this paper, a consensus among agents is defined as a non-contradictory fragment of all the information conveyed by the agents such that this fragment does not logically conflict with any of the agents. This concept is investigated in modal logic S5 in order to meet representation needs that are put in light by this concept of consensus itself. Interestingly, an optimization-based approach to compute maximal consensuses is developed and shown experimentally efficient very often for both the standard Boolean and S5 frameworks.
On Revision of Partially Specified Convex Probabilistic Belief Bases
Authors: Rens Gavin  , Meyer Thomas  , Casini Giovanni
Published: February 2025

We propose a method for an agent to revise its incomplete probabilistic beliefs when a new piece of propositional information is observed. In this work, an agent's beliefs are represented by a set of probabilistic formulae – a belief base. The method involves determining a representative set of ‘boundary’ probability distributions consistent with the current belief base, revising each of these probability distributions and then translating the revised information into a new belief base. We use a version of Lewis Imaging as the revision operation. The correctness of the approach is proved. An analysis of the approach is done against six rationality postulates. The expressivity of the belief bases under consideration are rather restricted, but has some applications. We also discuss methods of belief base revision employing the notion of optimum entropy, and point out some of the benefits and difficulties in those methods. Both the boundary distribution method and the optimum entropy methods are reasonable, yet yield different results.
A Runtime Middleware for Enabling Application Integration and Rapid Re-Engineering
Authors: Komodromos Marios  , Mettouris Christos  , Achilleos Achilleas P.  , Papadopoulos George A.  , Deinhofer Martin  , Veigl Christoph  , Doppler Alfred  , Schurz Stefan
Published: February 2025

Assistive Technologies devices and systems aim to improve the quality of life of people with disabilities by providing a wide range of assistive services. The AsTeRICS framework provides a Runtime Environment and a toolset that can be highly adapted to the changing needs of each individual and targets to reduce time, effort and costs of developing assistive applications. A key limitation of the platform, as well as similar platforms, is that the integration of accessibility features into existing software applications is difficult due to heterogeneous implementation technologies. Moreover, the capabilities offered by sensors, actuators and other mobile devices deployed on different machines cannot be exploited for the development of AT applications. This paper presents substantial improvements and changes to the Runtime Environment that address these issues and offer the capability to integrate applications built with different technologies and thus to improve the accessibility of an application. In fact, the middleware environment enables to rapidly re-engineer existing software applications. Two examples are re-developed in this work, the “FlashWords” and “EURO” applications, which are extended in a way so that they can also be used by children with motor disabilities.
Design Space Descriptions for Logical Generation of Content
Authors: Smith Thomas  , Padget Julian  , Vidler Andrew
Published: February 2025

This paper describes our research-in-progress into providing content-agnostic procedural content generation for computer games via answer set programming and a formal semantic description of the design space. Existing generative approaches are often closely coupled to a particular form of content and/or game, limiting opportunities for re-use—a dungeon level generator in one game is substantially different to a sci-fi weapon generator in another. We propose an approach involving a re-usable generator system that is able to produce and refine a model of any structured content from formal desired properties produced by designers. As an intermediate step towards this system for multi-purpose content generation we present initial work on generating content within a commercial game engine, using answer set programming to generate varied and challenging combat progressions for third-person action/combat games. By using semantic models as input for a content-agnostic generation system, we hope to provide more domain-general content generation.
Preferences in Argumentation for Statistical Model Selection
Authors: Sassoon Isabel  , Keppens Jeroen  , McBurney Peter
Published: February 2025

The increase in routine clinical data collection coupled with an expectation to exploit this in support of evidence based decision making creates a need for an intelligent model selection system to support clinicians when analysing data because clinicians often lack the statistical expertise to do this independently. In a previous position paper, an argumentation based approach to devise a decision support system for such an application was introduced. This approach ignored the relative strength of arguments for and against alternative models. This paper demonstrates how an extended argumentation framework can be employed to capture and reason with statistical and research domain knowledge that affects the relative strength of arguments. The approach is validated by means of a real-world case study.
EventAware: A Context-Aware Tag-Based Mobile Recommender System for Events
Authors: Horowitz Daniel  , Contreras David  , Salamó Maria
Published: February 2025

In this paper we introduce EventAware, a context-aware mobile recommender system to personalize the agenda of users attending to a congress. In particular, we first introduce the EventAware system, which includes an intuitive user interface with an attractive design to enhance user experience. EventAware incorporates some implicit contextual information, automatically initializes both the user's profiles with minimal user interaction and the properties of the items, and it uses a context-aware tag-based recommender algorithm. EventAware has been specifically crafted to assist attending users to a congress by providing them with smart and personalized sessions and exhibitors during the congress. We demonstrate its usability through a live-user case-study in one of the biggest events of mobile technology in the world, held in Barcelona.
Authorship Attribution Using Syntactic Dependencies
Authors: Soler-Company Juan  , Wanner Leo
Published: February 2025

Authorship attribution deals with the prediction of the author of a (usually written) discourse. This is of high relevance to a number of applications, including plagiarism detection, authenticity verification and deception detection. So far, most of the state-of-the-art approaches to author attribution rely mainly upon lexical and token (sequence) distribution features. But this means to neglect numerous linguistic studies that clearly indicate the high relevance of syntactic features to the characterization of a personal style of an author. We show in an experiment with 26 authors that indeed the use of syntactic features helps us to achieve a >77% an accuracy.
Between Diachrony and Synchrony: Evaluation of Lexical Quality of a Digitized Historical Finnish Newspaper and Journal Collection with Morphological Analyzers
Authors: Kettunen Kimmo  , Pääkkönen Tuula  , Koistinen Mika
Published: February 2025

The National Library of Finland has digitized the historical newspapers and journals published in Finland between 1771 and 1910 [1,2]. The size of the whole collection up to 1910 is about 3.1 M pages. The newspaper collection contains approximately 1.961 million pages mostly in Finnish and Swedish. Finnish part of the collection consists of about 1 063 648 pages, and Swedish part of 892 101 pages. Additionally there are 11 548 pages in German and Russian. Finnish part of the collection has about 2.407 billion words. The National Library's Digital Collections are offered via the digi.kansalliskirjasto.fi web service, also known as Digi. An open data delivery package of the whole text material has been produced recently and it will be made publicly available later this year [3]. The quality of OCRed collections is an important topic in digital humanities, as it affects general usability, searchability and advanced processing, such as content mining, of collections [4,5]. There is no single available method to assess the quality of large collections, but different methods can be used to approximate quality. This paper uses corpus analysis style methods to approximate overall lexical quality of the Finnish part of the Digi collection. Methods include usage of parallel samples and word error rates, usage of morphological analyzers, frequency analysis of words and comparisons to comparable edited lexical data of the same era. Our aim in the quality analysis is twofold: firstly to analyze the present state of the lexical data and secondly, to establish a set of methods that build up a compact procedure for quality assessment after e.g. re-OCRing or post-correction of the material.
Tacit Security? Roboethics and Societal Challenges of ‘Social Robotic Information- and Cyberwar’
Authors: Funk Michael
Published: February 2025

In this paper ethical and epistemological challenges of data security, information protection and privacy in social robotics are addressed. Analyzing the characteristics of asymmetric “new wars” including cyberwar and information warfare the IT based problematic of social robots will be elaborated as Social Robotic Information- and Cyberwar. It is argued that a security policy based on tacit knowledge (Tacit Security) is one possible answer to current questions in robot ethics and robot philosophy concerning data security.
Disorders of Branched Chain Amino Acid Metabolism
Authors: Manoli I.  , Venditti C.P.
Published: February 2025

The three essential branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs), leucine, isoleucine and valine, share the first enzymatic steps in their metabolic pathways, including a reversible transamination followed by an irreversible oxidative decarboxylation to coenzyme-A derivatives. The respective oxidative pathways subsequently diverge and at the final steps yield acetyl- and/or propionyl-CoA that enter the Krebs cycle. Many disorders in these pathways are diagnosed through expanded newborn screening by tandem mass spectrometry. Maple syrup urine disease (MSUD) is the only disorder of the group that is associated with elevated body fluid levels of the BCAAs. Due to the irreversible oxidative decarboxylation step distal enzymatic blocks in the pathways don't result in the accumulation of amino acids, but rather to CoA-activated small carboxylic acids identified by gas chromatography mass spectrometry analysis of urine and are therefore classified as organic acidurias. Disorders in these pathways can present with a neonatal onset severe-, or chronic intermittent- or progressive forms. Metabolic instability and increased morbidity and mortality are shared between inborn errors in the BCAA pathways, while treatment options remain limited, comprised mainly of dietary management and in some cases solid organ transplantation.
Cystic Fibrosis
Authors: Schnapf Bruce  , Farrell Philip
Published: February 2025

Cystic fibrosis (CF) is an inherited autosomal recessive disorder that is associated with chronic multi-organ disease. Recurrent sinopulmonary infections, nutritional abnormalities, and malabsorption serve as a hallmark of most of the morbidity and mortality. Major advances into the understanding of the pathophysiology has led directly to improvement in survival and quality of life. Today, CF is most commonly diagnosed through newborn screening. Newer therapies that serve as CF transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) modulators are able to target the basic defect of CF. CFTR mutations are categorized into 5 classes based on the effect of the gene mutation on the CFTR protein function. Best practice is promoted by consensus clinical guidelines from the CF Foundation (CFF). In addition, this centralized Foundation allows for directed and standardized care of the patient that is delivered by multidisciplinary teams of health care providers in an established network of pediatric and adult CF centers accredited and funded by the CFF. Those with CF will continue to benefit from the creation and advancement of novel therapeutic strategies, the continued efforts of clinical research networks, and the support of quality improvement initiatives for treating populations of patients with CF.
Genetic and Metabolic Disorders of the Endocrine System
Authors: Root Allen W.
Published: February 2025

The myriad of identified genes involved in the regulation of the differentiation and functional integrity of the anterior pituitary lobe, neurohypophysis, thyroid and adrenal glands, ovaries, testes, and pancreatic beta cells are listed and the variations in the composition of those genes that alter gland or cell formation, growth, maturation and activity are discussed. Genetic control of the synthesis, secretion, and action of the six major hormonal products of the adenohypophysis (growth hormone, thyrotropin, prolactin, adrenocorticotropin, luteinizing hormone, follicle stimulating hormone) are detailed. Gene variants that result in either decreased or increased secretion of the anterior pituitary lobe hormones and/or tumorigenesis are described. The role of insulin-like growth factor-I in the signaling pathway of growth hormone modulated effects and the consequences of genetic errors in this circuit are discussed. Detailed discussions of the gene mutations resulting in impaired development of the anterior pituitary lobe, decreased or excessive synthesis of its products, and abnormalities of the peripheral activity of these hormones are presented. The clinical and biochemical abnormalities due to genetic variants that lead to impaired formation or function of the posterior pituitary lobe (e.g., diabetes insipidus), thyroid gland (e.g., congenital hypothyroidism), adrenal cortex (e.g., congenital adrenal hyperplasia, familial isolated glucocorticoid deficiency, adrenoleukodystrophy), adrenal medulla (e.g., pheochromocytoma), ovary, testis, and pancreatic beta cells (e.g., congenital hyperinsulinemic hypoglycemia, neonatal diabetes mellitus, maturity onset diabetes of the young) are also recorded. Discussed too are the gene mutations associated with the autoimmune polyendocrinopathies and multiple endocrine neoplastic syndromes. Clinical disorders (e.g., Noonan, Costello, cardio-facial-cutaneous syndromes) that result from genetically mediated malfunction of the intracellular mitogen activated protein kinase signal transduction pathway are explored. Monogenic forms of obesity are also presented.