bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Perspective of Network Government: The Struggle Between Hierarchies, Markets and Networks as Modes of Governance in Contemporary Government
Authors: van Dijk Jan  , Winters-van Beek Anneleen
Published: February 2025

The rise of networks of ICT, the Internet in particular has spurred all kinds of utopian and dystopian views of the revolutionary potential of networks, among others in the context of (E-)government. Presently, a similar hype appears in the perspective of Web 2.0 and e-participation of citizens. The authors advocate a more sober view of network government after the hype and after about twenty years of experience with ICT in government. They describe the current epoch of turning government with a growing importance of network configurations in government. This practice stimulates the projection of a future stage of network government that might have matured after a generation to come. The authors emphasize that three modes of governance are competing and will continue to do so in all epochs of government: hierarchies, markets and networks. Finally, they elaborate ten principles of network management in the context of contemporary hierarchies and markets.
Making Finite-State Methods Applicable to Languages Beyond Context-Freeness via Multi-dimensional Trees
Authors: Kasprzik Anna
Published: February 2025

We provide a new term-like representation for multi-dimensional trees as defined by Rogers [1,2] which establishes them as a direct generalization of classical trees. As a consequence these structures can be used as input for finite-state applications based on classical term-based tree language theory. Via the correspondence between string and tree languages these applications can then be conceived to be able to process even some language classes beyond context-freeness.
Using Learning Decomposition to Analyze Instructional Effectiveness in the ASSISTment System
Authors: Feng Mingyu  , Heffernan Neil  , Beck Joseph E.
Published: February 2025

A basic question of instruction is how effective it is in promoting student learning. This paper presents a study determining the relative efficacy of different instructional content by applying an educational data mining technique, learning decomposition. We use logistic regression to determine how much learning caused by different methods of presenting same skill, relative to each other. We analyze more than 60,000 performance data across 181 items from more than 2,000 students. Our results show that items are not all as effective on promoting student learning. We also did preliminary study on validating our results by comparing them with rankings from human experts. Our study demonstrates an easier and quicker approach of evaluating the quality of ITS contents than experimental studies.
The “DeMAND” coding scheme: A “common language” for representing and analyzing student discourse
Authors: Campbell Gwendolyn E.  , Steinhauser Natalie B.  , Dzikovska Myroslava O.  , Moore Johanna D.  , Callaway Charles B.  , Farrow Elaine
Published: February 2025

We propose that a set of five dimensions forms a foundation underlying a number of prevalent theoretical perspectives on learning. We show how student contributions to instructional dialogue can be reliably annotated with these dimensions. Finally, we provide preliminary validation evidence for our coding scheme and illustrate the potential value of such an approach to analyzing student behavior in tutorial dialogue.
Development of Algorithms for Decision Analysis with Interval Information
Authors: Danielson Mats  , Ekenberg Love
Published: February 2025

Multi-criteria decision analysis can be a useful tool in routing out and ranking different alternatives. However, many such analyses involve imprecise information, including estimates of utilities, outcome probabilities and criteria weights. This paper presents a general multi-criteria approach, allowing the modelling of multi-criteria and probabilistic problems in the same tree form, which includes a decision tree evaluation method integrated with a framework for analyzing decision situations under risk with a criteria hierarchy. The general method of probabilistic multi-criteria analysis extends the use of additive and multiplicative utility functions for supporting evaluation of imprecise and uncertain facts. Thus, it relaxes the requirement for precise numerical estimates of utilities, probabilities, and weights. The evaluation is done relative to a set of decision rules, generalizing the concept of admissibility and computationally handled through the optimization of aggregated utility functions. The approach required design and development of computationally intensive algorithms for which there was no template
Towards a Verification-Based Development Approach for Reactive Systems
Authors: Kameda Tae  , Arai Osamu  , Gorlatch Sergei  , Fujita Hamido
Published: February 2025

Reactive systems work in an online manner, accepting inputs from the environment or from the user and producing outputs which are then consumed by the environment. Important examples of reactive applications include online computer games, operating systems, simulation environments, etc. Software development for reactive systems is a challenge, because the usual verification and testing techniques are hardly applicable for them. We describe a novel development approach based on using the formal mechanism of State Transition Rules (STR) for specifying a reactive system. Our main contribution is the transformation method for refining system's STR into a Lyee program specification, which allows the developer to generate a provably correct target program. We illustrate our approach using an example of the interactive Othello game.
A Role of Ontology in Information Systems for Support of Scientific and Production Activity
Authors: Zagorulko Yury  , Zagorulko Galina
Published: February 2025

In this paper we discuss the specific role which ontology can play within an information system intended to support scientific and production activity. We consider methods and scenarios of ontology using and present an approach where ontology is exploited at both development time and run time of information system. We demonstrate how multilingual content-based access to knowledge and information resources of a certain area of knowledge can be provided on the basis of joint use of ontology and thesaurus. This approach was used in the projects aimed at development of scientific knowledge Internet portals on computational linguistics and archeology intended to provide content-based access to systematized knowledge and information resources relevant to the corresponding area of scientific knowledge.
A Swarm Intelligence Solution for Financial Roadshow Documents
Authors: Issa Raed  , Unland Rainer  , Branki Cherif  , Hildmann Hanno  , Bitterberg Tilmann  , Biegus Lukasz
Published: February 2025

In this paper we aim to find a solution to harvest as much information as possible from unstructured documents. Firstly, we discuss a swarm intelligence (SI) based idea to unstructured documents in the field of financial roadshows. The paper commences by introducing the key concepts of SI. It will then lay out a problem description and discusses a case study with a formal description. Finally it presents a solution for roadshow documents.
A Mobile Decision Support Web 2.0 Service to Improve the Customers Satisfaction in their M-Commerce Experiences
Authors: Pérez I.J.  , Alonso S.  , Cabrerizo F.J.  , Herrera-Viedma E.
Published: February 2025

The aim of this paper is to present a new mobile decision support web service applied to improve the customer satisfaction in decision making situations related with m-commerce. The application is included as a new mobile web service under a social net framework such as web 2.0. It allows that users with the same user profile that the potential customer can act as a set of shop assistants that advices him/her according with their experiences. To facilitate the system-user interaction the service uses computing with words tools and implements an ease to use mobile interface. Therefore, users can provide their advice at anytime and anywhere by using their own mobile devices.
Mobile device based support to enrich initiative games and to facilitate in-game evaluation in experiential education
Authors: Hildmann Hanno
Published: February 2025

Initiative games are widely used e.g. in kindergartens, assessment centers and professional manager training courses. These games traditionally involve a fictional setting and challenge; they rely heavily on the physical aspects of being set in the real world, often even in nature. Their goals and observable aspects are identified and an argument is made for the suitability of mobile device-based applications to enrich such games as well as to facilitate (in-game) evaluation. Recent and ongoing research in related fields is considered to strengthen the argument for the use of mobile devices in the field of experiential education.
Politically Motivated Denial of Service Attacks
Authors: Nazario Jose
Published: February 2025

Cyberwarfare has been waged for well over a decade, utilizing methods such as website defacement, data leakage, and distributed denial of service attacks (DDoS). This paper focuses on the latter, attacks that are easily carried out and designed to overwhelm a victim's network with wasted traffic. The goal of a DDoS attack is to make the use of the network impossible for internal or external users. Through a brief examination of the history of these attacks, we find they previously were designed to inflict punitive damage on the victim but have since grown into sophisticated censorship tools. Our approach measure such attacks by looking at Internet backbone traffic, botnet activities, BGP routing changes, and community chatter about such attacks to provide a robust picture of politically targeted DDoS attacks. Our analysis indicates that most of the attackers are non-state actors but are able to fluidly utilize a growing botnet population to launch massive denial of service attacks. This finding has broad ramifications for the future of these attacks.
Autonomic Computer Network Defence Using Risk State and Reinforcement Learning
Authors: Beaudoin Luc  , Japkowicz Nathalie  , Matwin Stan
Published: February 2025

Computer Network Defence is concerned with the active protection of information technology infrastructure against malicious and accidental incidents. Given the growing complexity of IT systems and the speed at which automated attacks can be launched, implementing timely and efficient network incident mitigating actions, whether proactive or reactive, is a great challenge. We refer to the automation of action selection and implementation in this domain as Autonomic Computer Network Defence. In this work, we suggest that Autonomic Computer Network Defence can be achieved using Reinforcement Learning and dynamic risk assessment to learn the optimal action sequence, or policy, to recover from given computer network risk situations. Such a policy could then be used by commercial network management and security products to implement selected mitigating actions automatically, as risk states are sensed.
Business and Social Evaluation of Denial of Service Attacks in View of Scaling Economic Counter-measures
Authors: Pau Louis-Francois
Published: February 2025

This paper gives an analytical method to determine the economic and indirect implications of denial of service and distributed denial of service attacks. It is based on time preference dynamics applied to the monetary mass for the restoration of capabilities, on long term investments to rebuild capabilities, and of the usability level of the capabilities after an attack. A simple illustrative example is provided for a denial of service on a corporate data centre. The needed data collection methodologies are categorized by classes of targets. The use of the method is explained in the context of legal or policy driven dissuasive, retaliation or compensation/ restoration actions. A concrete set of deployment cases in the communications service and transport industries is discussed. The conclusion includes policy recommendations as well as information exchange requirements.
Virtual Plots, Real Revolution
Authors: Temmingh Roelof  , Geers Kenneth
Published: February 2025

It is increasingly difficult to separate ‘cyberspace’ from what we think of as the ‘real world’. Human beings respond to stimuli from both. Threats to persons, organizations, and governments require timely and accurate evaluation, but cyber attackers can exploit the imperfect and maze-like architecture of the Internet to make threat evaluation difficult. In cyberspace, it is possible to create fraudulent online identities – potentially millions of them – that could programmatically support any personal, political, or military agenda. In the future, computer botnets may evolve from spam and Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) generators to semantic creatures that can post opinions, arguments and threats on the Internet. Counterfeit identities on the World Wide Web (WWW), complete with randomized or stolen biographies, pictures, and multi-year histories of Internet activity, will be difficult to separate from real human beings because there is no quick way to determine whether a virtual person really exists.
Cyber Wars: A Paradigm Shift from Means to Ends
Authors: Sharma Amit
Published: February 2025

The last couple of decades have seen a colossal change in terms of the influence that computers have on the battle field, to an extent that defence pundits claim it to be a dawn of a new era in warfare. The use of computers and information in defence has manifested into various force multipliers such as Information Operations, C4I2SR Systems, Network Centric Warfare, to the extent that commentators are terming this information age as a Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA). These advances have not only revolutionized the way in which wars are fought, but have also initiated a new battle for the control of a new dimension in the current contemporary world: The Cyber Space.
Borders in Cyberspace: Can Sovereignty Adapt to the Challenges of Cyber Security?
Authors: Hare Forrest
Published: February 2025

The new US administration has begun efforts to securitize the substantial problems the United States is currently facing in cyberspace. Recently, President Obama ordered his National Security Council to conduct a rapid review of existing measures being undertaken by the federal government, and provide recommendations for additional ones. Many stakeholders in the US government and private industry are watching these actions closely as there seems to be broad acceptance that the issues call for more extensive security measures. However, many issues will complicate effective securitization of threats in cyberspace. For example, not all stakeholders agree on the priorities or where the focus of security measures should be yet cyber security is a “trans-sovereign” issue affecting both developed and developing countries in an interdependent manner.
A Cryptographic Solution for Private Distributed Simple Meeting Scheduling
Authors: Herranz Javier  , Matwin Stan  , Meseguer Pedro  , Nin Jordi
Published: February 2025

Meeting Scheduling is a suitable application for distributed computation, motivated by its privacy requirements. Previous work on this problem have considered some cryptographic techniques as well as new search strategies. In this paper, we provide a cryptographic and conceptually clear approach to solve a simple case of Meeting Scheduling, even achieving complete privacy.
Coordination motion-tasks using actual robot dynamics
Authors: Pardo Diego  , del Moral Sergi  , Angulo Cecilio
Published: February 2025

This paper presents a methodology for generating coordination motions task performed by articulated mobile robots. It is considered for the case that both, states defining the task dynamics are not completely observable and model-based solutions fail to scale up due to the complexity of unstructured problems. The novel approach try to optimize primitive trajectories to achieve joint coordination emerging as a consequence of the dynamic followed by the actuators. A simple dynamical system is proposed as basic trajectory generator, becoming a nonlinear solution in the task space due to the actual nonlinearities and constraints of the robot. Joints share information while act along its common natural environment, the robot body. Policies gathering and distributing signals to the actuators are optimized based on a measure of the task's performance. Trajectories are generated through the experiences of the robot, rather than computed from a mathematical model of its body. The simulated version of the AIBO robot completing a ball throwing task is used to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.
OpenComRTOS: A Runtime Environment for Interacting Entities
Authors: Sputh Bernhard H.C.  , Faust Oliver  , Verhulst Eric  , Mezhuyev Vitaliy
Published: February 2025

OpenComRTOS is one of the few Real-Time Operating Systems for embedded systems that was developed using formal modelling techniques. The goal was to obtain a proven dependable component with a clean architecture that delivers high performance on a wide variety of networked embedded systems, ranging from a single processor to distributed systems. The result is a scalable relibable communication system with real-time capabilities. Besides, a rigorous formal verification of the kernel algorithms led to an architecture which has several properties that enhance safety and real-time properties of the RTOS. The code size in particular is very small, typically 10 times less than a typical equivalent single processor RTOS. The small code size allows a much better use of the on-chip memory resources, which increases the speed of execution due to the reduction of wait states caused by the use of external memory. To this point we ported OpenComRTOS to the MicroBlaze processor from Xilinx, the Leon3 from ESA, the ARM Cortex-M3, the Melexis MLX16, and the XMOS. In this paper we concentrate on the Microblaze port, which is an environment where OpenComRTOS competes with a number of different operating systems, including the standard operating system Xilinx Micro Kernel. This paper reports code size figures of the OpenComRTOS on a MicroBlaze target. We found that this code size is considerably smaller compared with published code sizes of other operating systems.
HW/SW Design Space Exploration on the Production Cell Setup
Authors: Groothuis Marcel A.  , Broenink Jan F.
Published: February 2025

This paper describes and compares five CSP based and two CSP related process-oriented motion control system implementations that are made for our Production Cell demonstration setup. Five implementations are software-based and two are FPGA hardware-based. All implementations were originally made with different purposes and investigating different areas of the design space for embedded control software resulting in an interesting comparison between approaches, tools and software and hardware implementations. Common for all implementations is the usage of a model-driven design method, a communicating process structure, the combination of discrete event and continuous time and that real-time behaviour is essential. This paper shows that many small decisions made during the design of all these embedded control software implementations influence our route through the design space for the same setup, resulting in seven different solutions with different key properties. None of the implementations is perfect, but they give us valuable information for future improvements of our design methods and tools.
First Approach to Micro-temporality Generation for Clinical Algorithms
Authors: Kamišalić Aida  , Riaño David  , Welzer Tatjana
Published: February 2025

Clinical Algorithms (CAs) are obtained from Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPGs) using all the healthcare knowledge available to assist patients that suffer from one or several diseases. For some diseases CAs can be explicitly given, while for others we have to use other mechanisms for their generation. Explicitly given CAs use to be atemporal. To provide the time dimension of CAs it is necessary to obtain temporal knowledge from physicians or by some other mechanism. Often, physicians have difficulties in providing temporal knowledge or the knowledge engineering mechanism and tools used are difficult to apply or extremely time consuming. However, as data saved in clinical databases are time dependent, they can be used to implicitly obtain temporal constraints for CAs. We have identified two sorts of temporal constraints (micro- and macro-temporality) and have proposed an approach to generate micro-temporalities that complements previous works. We have decided to use the SDA (state-decision-action) formalism for CA representation. The generated micro-temporality constraints are introduced in the SDA representation of a particular CA. As the final CAs have a time dimension, they are no longer atemporal, which helps physicians making temporal predictions in healthcare procedures.
Cross-Cultural Collaborative Systems: Towards Cultural Computing
Authors: Heimbürger Anneli  , Sasaki Shiori  , Yoshida Naofumi  , Venäläinen Teijo  , Linna Petri  , Welzer Tatjana
Published: February 2025

Cultural computing is an emerging field of multidisciplinary computer science. In the near future, cultural computing will have several important applications in the fields of business, knowledge society, environmental issues, health care, education and research. Our paper is written in collaboration with the authors, who are also participants in the collaborative research project “Ubiquitous Cross-Cultural Multimedia Systems for Mobile Computing Societies/Ubiquitous Cross-Cultural Knowledge Space”. The issues discussed in our paper cover background knowledge related to cultural computing, general discussion of culture as a concept, an introduction to the concept and basic design of the Electronic Assistant for Cross-Cultural Communication, and an introduction to the design and implementation of the 3D Cross-Cultural Multimedia Museum" system and its applications. The 3D Cross-Cultural Multimedia Museum has been implemented as a prototype system of Cross-Cultural Cyber Space. The global changes caused not only by scientific and technological development, but by environmental issues as well, are our driving forces towards the era of cultural computing. Our paper is based on the presentations of the panel discussion at the EJC 2009 Conference.
Heart Anatomy, Mechanisms of Contraction, and Cardiac Function During Exercise
Authors: Yared Kibar  , Baggish Aaron L.
Published: February 2025

Performance of the cardiovascular system is one of the primary determinants of exercise potential. Coordinated biventricular function with the ability to augment of cardiac output underlies the ability to obtain normal and supra-normal levels of peak exercise capacity. This chapter will provide an overview of cardiac structure and function as it relates to exercise capacity. Specifically, characteristics of both the left and right ventricle will discussed with emphasis on their differential structure and function during physical activity. Mechanisms of contraction, relaxation, and chronotropic function during exercise and at rest in sedentary individuals and in trained athlete will be reviewed. Next, we will address the established findings and the areas of uncertainty regarding how the heart responds to exercise training and deconditioning. Focus topics will include structural change, functional adaptation, and underlying cellular modifications. Finally, a brief discussion about the impact and causality of intrinsic structural heart disease on exercise capacity limitations will be provided.
Blood Rheology and Exercise
Authors: Connes Philippe  , Brun Jean-Frédéric  , Baskurt Oguz K.
Published: February 2025

Hemorheology is the science of the deformation and flow of blood and its formed elements (mainly red blood cells and to a lesser part white blood cells and platelets). This field includes investigating the bulk properties of blood, determined in viscometric experiments in macroscopic samples, and its microscopic properties. The present review will first consider the known and postulated effects of blood rheological properties on aerobic performance as related to its effects on oxygen delivery and second, the acute and long term effects of exercise on blood rheology. Blood and plasma viscosities are among main determinants of blood flow resistance both in macro- and microcirculation and of cardiac function. Red blood cell (RBC) deformability and local hematocrit have also been demonstrated to influence the oxygen diffusion capacity at the pulmonary and the muscular levels. At least, RBC aggregation properties may have either a negative or positive effect on blood flow, and thus on aerobic performance, depending on the orientation of the vessels, the shear rate in those vessels and the interaction of RBC aggregates with endothelium. During exercise, plasma viscosity and hematocrit usually increase leading to an increase of blood viscosity. Controversial results are frequently found about the influence of acute exercise on RBC deformability and aggregation, with some studies describing alterations, improvement or no changes, depending on the kind of exercise performed and on the population studied. The mechanisms underlying these changes might be attributed to white cell activation and/or lactic acid production. Also, we will discuss the effects of training, with aerobic training decreasing blood and plasma viscosities, lowering hematocrit and RBC aggregation, increasing RBC deformability.
Endothelial Function and Physical Activity
Authors: Baskurt Oguz K.  , Meiselman Herbert J.
Published: February 2025

Endothelium serves as the permeability barrier between the blood and interstitial space. Endothelial function includes the production, secretion and metabolisation of bio-active molecules. Endothelium also plays significant roles in cell migration, remodeling of the vasculature (including proliferation and apoptosis). Finally, endothelial function is an important effector in the regulatory processes of vascular tonus which in turn determines the flow resistance. The role of hemodynamic shear forces in modulating the endothelial function is now well established. Cardiac output and flow rate in the vasculature significantly increases during exercise, resulting in enhanced wall shear stress affecting on the endothelium. Alterations in endothelial function were demonstrated in response to various exercise protocols in human beings and also in various experimental animals. Blood rheology may also be affected by acute exercise episodes and training, with the potential of modulating endothelial function.
Hormonal and Cellular Control of Bioenergetics
Authors: Karagounis Leonidas G.  , Hawley John A.
Published: February 2025

A single bout of contractile activity produces a multitude of time- and intensity-dependent hormonal and cellular perturbations within skeletal muscle. With the onset of contractile activity, cytosolic and mitochondrial [Ca2+] levels are rapidly increased and, depending on the relative intensity of the exercise, metabolite concentrations change. These contraction-induced metabolic disturbances activate several key kinases and phosphatases involved in signal transduction. Chief among these are the calcium-dependent signalling pathways that respond to elevated Ca2+concentrations (including Ca2+/calmodulin-dependent kinase [CaMK], Ca2+-dependent protein kinase C [PKC] and the Ca2+/calmodulin-dependent phosphatase calcineurin); the 5'-adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinase (AMPK), several of the mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPK), and protein kinase B/Akt. In addition, there are exercise-induced central nervous system (CNS) stimulatory effects on various hormones and endocrine organs that promote the oxidation of carbohydrate-based fuels. With repeated bouts of contractile activity (i.e. exercise training) there are numerous and coordinated biochemical adaptations in skeletal muscle that decrease the reliance on carbohydrate-based fuels and enhance the oxidation of lipid-based fuels via reduced sympathetic nervous system responses to any given submaximal exercise intensity. These adaptations serve to minimize cellular disturbances during subsequent exercise bouts. Accordingly, chronic adaptations in skeletal muscle are likely to be the result of the cumulative effects of repeated bouts of exercise, with the initial signaling responses leading to such adaptations occurring after each (acute) training session. This chapter will summarize our current understanding of the hormonal and cellular control of bioenergetics in human skeletal muscle.
Sudden Cardiac Death Related to Physical Exercise
Authors: Carre François
Published: February 2025

Cardiovascular system is involved in more than 90 % of sports related sudden death. Direct and indirect cardiovascular benefits of regular and moderate physical activity are well described. However it is also well known that during intense physical exercise hazard of acute cardiovascular events are also transitorily increased. It is called the exercise paradox. Sport does not induce myocardial pathology, it revealed it. In this chapter we'll see, first the main causes of physical activity related cardiovascular events which are different in two people groups, before and after 35 years old. Cardiac arrhythmias are the main cause of sudden death. Thus we'll see the pathophysiology of these sports practice related arrhythmias. In the last part of this chapter we'll describe the different parts of the medical prevention actions which can be proposed. We'll see that they involve the physicians, the athletes and the sports events organisations.
Hypertension and Exercise
Authors: Gremeaux Vincent  , Philip Jean-Luc  , Laurent Yves  , Casillas Jean-Marie
Published: February 2025

Hypertension (HT) is a major public health problem. Complications, including stroke, coronary artery diseases, renal diseases, make it one of the principal factors that can be modified to reduce medical risk burden. Today, it is well established that physical activity (PA) can reduce the risk of developing HT, and helps in HT control, alone or in association with drug therapy. The mechanisms underlying the effects of PA on blood pressure (BP) remain poorly understood. A decrease in peripheral arterial resistance and a more effective adaptation of cardiac output during effort have been reported. Improvements in vascular endothelial and neuro-vegetative dysfunctions are also involved. Genetic and environmental factors may slightly influence the impact of physical training on blood pressure. In elderly subjects, it seems that the impact of PA is not as great and mainly affects diastolic pressure.
Future Strategies for Next Generation Networks in an ICT Society in the View of NTT
Authors: Miura Satoshi
Published: February 2025

This paper describes the structural changes in the ICT industry, the role of ICT in the future in the view of NTT, as well as trends that might appear and against this backdrop, what NTT is now doing to address the requirements of the future.
Global Strategies for Japan in the 21st Century – Panel Discussion
Authors: Negoro Tatsuyuki  , Motegi Toshimitsu  , Utsumi Yoshio  , Shinohara Naoyuki
Published: February 2025

This is a transcript of a panel discussion at the Japan 2009 International Academy of CIO Conference. The panellists discuss and propose strategies to overcome some of the challenges facing Japan such as declining population, English speaking ability, competitiveness in foreign markets, the current financial situation, and innovative practices in the country.
Next Generation e-Government in Taiwan
Authors: Sung Yu-Hsieh  , Yeh Shang-Ching
Published: February 2025

Efforts over the past two decades, has led to Taiwan becoming one of the world leaders in e-government practice. People have benefited from the increased efficiency and convenience of dealing with the government through e-government services. The Taiwan government will continue to focus on developing the next stage of e-government, which is integrative, innovative, instant, interactive, and individualized, to establish a virtual trusted society where everyone is connected to each other via the Internet.
A core ontology of instruments used for neurological, behavioral and cognitive assessments
Authors: Batrancourt Bénédicte  , Dojat Michel  , Gibaud Bernard  , Kassel Gilles
Published: February 2025

Neurosciences are progressively moving into a mass computational intensive era with the fusion of numerous large heterogeneous data sets from cellular to system level. To process and share this mass of information in a consistent and computational amenable form, computerized techniques – among them, ontologies – are currently designed to store, analyze and access this information. Recently, we proposed a multi-layered and multi-components ontology to deal with MR images and regions-of-interest that can be represented onto the images. In the present paper, we extend our initial ontology by adding a core ontology of subject data acquisition instruments modeling neuroclinical, neuropsychological and neurobehavioral tests used for neurological, behavioral and cognitive skills assessment. This ontology deals with instruments per se as specific artefacts, their variables and measured scores, and actions performed using instruments. In the paper, we underline the major aspects of our approach and emphasize its potential interest as a semantic reference for various neuroscience applications.
BI and Data Warehouse Solutions for Energy Production Industry: Application of the CRISP-DM methodology
Authors: Mendes Armando B.
Published: February 2025

This paper reports two projects for supporting decisions of the Company of Electricity in Azores Islands, Electricidade dos Açores. There were several decisions to support, such as whether communications between islands should moved from the present telephone lines to VoIP, and if better models to support forecast power consumption should be adopted. The solution established integrates OLAP cubes in a data mining project, based on CRISP-DM process model. Both for strategic and more operational decisions the objective was always to get accurate data, build a data warehouse and to get tools to analyze it in order to properly inform the decision makers. These DSS's translates big CSV flat files or acquire data in real time from operational Data Bases to update a data warehouse, including importing, evaluating data quality and populating relational tables. Multidimensional data cubes with numerous dimensions and measures were used for operational decisions and as exploration tools in the strategic ones. Data mining models for forecasting, clustering, decision trees and association rules identified several inefficient procedures and even fraud situations. Not only was possible to support the necessary decisions, but several models were also displayed so that control decision makers and strategists could support new problems.
The Role of Domain Ontology for Medical Emergency Management in Mass Gatherings
Authors: Delir Haghighi Pari  , Burstein Frada  , Zaslavsky Arkady  , Arbon Paul  , Krishnaswami Shonali
Published: February 2025

Mass gatherings are common events that typically attract large crowds of people. If such events are not properly planned, coordinated and managed with regard to health and safety issues, they can become hazardous and lead to injuries, illnesses and deaths. Conducting a safe and successful mass gathering event requires effective planning and management including the provision of timely medical care and response. To achieve these goals, there is a need for a unifying and formal model/framework of mass gatherings that can be applied across all the emergency agencies and events, and used in support of time-critical decision making for medical emergency management in this context. However, the absence of a common knowledge structure and conceptual model in Medical Emergency Management in Mass Gathering (MEMMG), acknowledged in the literature, limits our understanding of such events and impedes the effectiveness of decision support systems in these environments. In this paper, we propose domain ontology for MEMMG that represents main concepts of mass gatherings and their characteristics and relationships in a standard and formal manner. The proposed domain ontology is an instantiation and extension of DOEM (Domain Ontology for Emergency Management) that represents major generic concepts in the emergency management and can be used as information structure for the development of various emergency management decision support systems. We illustrate application of such an ontology to the classical Intelligence-Design-Choice-Implementation decision support model.
Implementing the “Design for Emergence” Principle in GDSS
Authors: Zamfirescu Constantin-Bala  , Duta Luminita  , Cândea Ciprian
Published: February 2025

In the general context of Group Decision Support System (GDSS), the paper investigates the possibility to externalize and support, from a metacognitive perspective, the effective use of facilitation knowledge with self-development capabilities. The experimental results make evident that these capabilities may be easily engineered by adopting the basic principles of the design for emergence in constructing an e-meeting facilitation tool that act as a stigmergic collaborative environment for the participants. Basically, the GDSS needs to provide a minimal structure for modeling the group decision process (GDP) which enables a participant-driven approach to group facilitation and magnify the sense of social participation. In this way the GDSS may provide a collaborative environment where unpredictable and more effective models of GDP design will emerge through the exploration of the problem space.
Collective Sensor Configuration in Uncharted Environments
Authors: Salazar Norman  , Rodriguez-Aguilar Juan A.  , Arcos Josep Ll.
Published: February 2025

Sensor networks (SN) are rapidly becoming the tool of choice for monitoring. Their versatility makes them useful in numerous and diverse application domains. However, most SN deployments assume that the area and events to monitor/control are well known/understood at design time. Thus, sensors' configurations can be defined prior to their deployment. Nevertheless, when the purpose of an SN is to monitor the events of an uncharted environment, where the distribution and nature of events is uncertain, it is rather intricate to configure its sensors at design time. Instead, sensors should be able to self-configure at run time. In this paper, we propose a low-cost (in terms of energy and computation) collective approach that allows the sensors in an SN to collaboratively search for their most appropriate configurations only using their local knowledge. We empirically show that our approach can help sensors efficiently monitor environments where various dynamic events exist.
Joint handling of Rational and Behavioral reactions in Assistant Conversational Agents
Authors: Sansonnet Jean-Paul  , Bouchet François
Published: February 2025

We describe here a framework dedicated to studies and experimentations upon the nature of the relationships between the rational reasoning process of an artificial agent and its psychological counterpart, namely its behavioral reasoning process. This study is focused on the domain of Assistant Conversational Agents which are software tools providing various kinds of assistance to people of the general public interacting with computer based applications or services. In this context, we show on some examples how the agents must exhibit both rational reasoning about the system functioning and a human-like believable dialogical interaction with the users.
Improving the Global Constraint SoftPrec
Authors: Lesaint David  , Mehta Deepak  , O'Sullivan Barry  , Quesada Luis  , Wilson Nic
Published: February 2025

A soft global constraint SOFTPREC has been proposed recently for solving optimisation problems involving precedence relations. In this paper we present new pruning rules for this global constraint. We introduce a pruning rule that improves propagation from the objective variable to the decision variables, which is believed to be harder to achieve. We further introduce a pruning rule based on linear programming, and thereby make SOFTPREC a hybrid of constraint programming and linear programming. We present results demonstrating the efficiency of the pruning rules.
Analysis of Inverse Reinforcement Learning with Perturbed Demonstrations
Authors: Melo Francisco S.  , Lopes Manuel  , Ferreira Ricardo
Published: February 2025

Inverse reinforcement learning (IRL) addresses the problem of recovering the unknown reward function for a given Markov decision problem (MDP) given the corresponding optimal policy or a perturbed version thereof. This paper studies the space of possible solutions to the general IRL problem, when the agent is provided with incomplete/imperfect information regarding the optimal policy for the MDP whose reward must be estimated. We focus on scenarios with finite state-action spaces and discuss the constraints imposed on the set of possible solutions when the agent is provided with (i) perturbed policies; (ii) optimal policies; and (iii) incomplete policies. We discuss previous works on IRL in light of our analysis and show that, with our characterization of the solution space, it is possible to determine non-trivial closed-form solutions for the IRL problem. We also discuss several other interesting aspects of the IRL problem that stem from our analysis.
Case-Based Multiagent Reinforcement Learning: Cases as Heuristics for Selection of Actions
Authors: Bianchi Reinaldo A.C.  , López de Màntaras Ramón
Published: February 2025

This work presents a new approach that allows the use of cases in a case base as heuristics to speed up Multiagent Reinforcement Learning algorithms, combining Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) and Multiagent Reinforcement Learning (MRL) techniques. This approach, called Case-Based Heuristically Accelerated Multiagent Reinforcement Learning (CB-HAMRL), builds upon an emerging technique, Heuristic Accelerated Reinforcement Learning (HARL), in which RL methods are accelerated by making use of heuristic information. CB-HAMRL is a subset of MRL that makes use of a heuristic function ℋ derived from a case base, in a Case-Based Reasoning manner. An algorithm that incorporates CBR techniques into the Heuristically Accelerated Minimax–Q is also proposed and a set of empirical evaluations were conducted in a simulator for the Littman's robot soccer domain, comparing the three solutions for this problem: MRL, HAMRL and CB-HAMRL. Experimental results show that using CB-HAMRL, the agents learn faster than using RL or HAMRL methods.
A Hybrid Continuous Max-Sum Algorithm for Decentralised Coordination
Authors: Voice Thomas  , Stranders Ruben  , Rogers Alex  , Jennings Nicholas R.
Published: February 2025

In this paper we tackle the problem of coordinating multiple decentralised agents with continuous state variables. Specifically we propose a hybrid approach, which combines the max-sum algorithm with continuous non-linear optimisation methods. We show that, for problems with acyclic factor graph representations, for suitable parameter choices and sufficiently fine state space discretisations, our proposed algorithm converges to a state with utility close to the global optimum. We empirically evaluate our approach for cyclic constraint graphs in a multi-sensor target classification problem, and compare its performance to the discrete max-sum algorithm, as well as a non-oordinated approach and the distributed stochastic algorithm (DSA). We show that our hybrid max-sum algorithm outperforms the non-coordinated algorithm, DSA and discrete max-sum by up to 40% in this problem domain. Furthermore, the improvements in outcome over discrete max-sum come without significant increases in running time nor communication cost.
Mining Outliers with Adaptive Cutoff Update and Space Utilization (RACAS)
Authors: Szeto Chi-Cheong  , Hung Edward
Published: February 2025

Recently the efficiency of an outlier detection algorithm ORCA was improved by RCS (Randomization with faster Cutoff update and Space utilization after pruning), which changes the frequencies of updating the cutoff value and reclaiming the memory space at some pre-specified time. How and when to change the frequencies were only determined empirically. However, the optimal setting may vary for different data sets and computers with different CPU and disk I/O performance. In this paper, we theoretically formulate two methods to further reduce the execution time of RCS by dynamically adapting the frequencies at each step to different data sets and computers with different CPU and disk I/O performance. We conducted experiments on a KDD CUP real data set from a network intrusion detection problem under different conditions. The results show that our substantial time-saving from optimized ORCA is up to five times that of RCS and increases with the relative disk I/O cost, the percentage of outliers to find and the data set size.
Recognising Agent Behaviour During Variable Length Activities
Authors: Baxter Rolf  , Lane David  , Petillot Yvan
Published: February 2025

In this paper we present a new method for obtaining situation awareness via the automatic recognition of agent behaviours. In contrast to many other approaches, the presented method models different behaviour durations without using a fixed classification window, and does not require a distribution of behaviour durations. We introduce the Variable Window Layered Hidden Markov Model (VW-LHMM) as an extension of the LHMM to specifically address behaviours with irregular duration. We validate our approach by simulating three high-level behaviours within the harbour and coastline security domain. We compare performance against the LHMM and show that our approach provides a 10% improvement in classification accuracy, in addition to earlier classification.
Open-ended Grounded Semantics
Authors: Spranger Michael  , Loetzsch Martin  , Pauw Simon
Published: February 2025

Artificial agents trying to achieve communicative goals in situated interactions in the real-world need powerful computational systems for conceptualizing their environment. In order to provide embodied artificial systems with rich semantics reminiscent of human language complexity, agents need ways of both conceptualizing complex compositional semantic structure and actively reconstructing semantic structure, due to uncertainty and ambiguity in transmission. Furthermore, the systems must be open-ended and adaptive and allow agents to adjust their semantic inventories in order to reach their goals. This paper presents recent progress in modeling open-ended, grounded semantics through a unified software system that addresses these problems.
Diagnosis discrimination for ontology debugging
Authors: Shchekotykhin Kostyantyn  , Friedrich Gerhard
Published: February 2025

Debugging is an important prerequisite for the wide-spread application of ontologies, especially in areas that rely upon everyday users to create and maintain knowledge bases, such as the Semantic Web. Recent approaches use diagnosis methods to identify sources of inconsistency. However, in most debugging cases these methods return many alternative diagnoses, thus placing the burden of fault localization on the user. This paper demonstrates how the target diagnosis can be identified by performing a sequence of observations, that is, by querying an oracle about entailments of the target ontology. We exploit probabilities of typical user errors to formulate information theoretic concepts for query selection. Our evaluation showed that the suggested method reduces the number of required observations compared to myopic strategies.