bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Analysis of the binary complexity of asymptotically fast algorithms for linear system solving
Authors: Gregory Brent , Kaltofen Erich
Published: January 2007

Two significant developments can be distinguished in the theory of algebraic algorithm design. One is that of fast algorithms in terms of counting the arithmetic operations, such as the asymptotically fast matrix multiplication procedures and related linear algebra algorithms or the asymptotically fast polynomial multiplication procedures and related polynomial manipulation algorithms. The other is to observe the actual bit complexity when such algorithms are performed for concrete fields, in particular the rational numbers. It was discovered in the mid-1960s that for rational polynomial GCD operations the classical algorithm can lead to exponential coefficient size growth. The beautiful theory of subresultants by Collins [7] and Brown & Traub [5] explains, however, that the size growth is not inherent but a consequence of over-simplified rational arithmetic. Similar phenomena were observed for the Gaussian elimination procedure [2], [9].
A note on Einstein metrics—a simple application of a symbolic algebra system
Authors: Nielsen Birger , Pedersen Hendrik
Published: January 2007

The Einstein equations consist of ten 2nd order non-linear coupled differential equations for a metric. It is not only hard to solve these equations, but also difficult just to check whether a conjectured metric works. We describe how we verified a conjecture on a generalization of a recent metric of Gegenberg and Das via the REDUCE symbolic computation system.
Fortran 8X discussion
Authors: Dolan Kent Paul
Published: January 2007

ED NOTE: This item has a rather unusual format for Fortran Forum. It is an outgrowth of an E-mail discussion between Kent Paul Dolan of ODU and Presley Smith of Convex Computer Corp. Kent sent a note, and Presley sent a rather negative reply. What we now see is Presley's reply, somewhat edited by Kent and interspersed with Kent's counter-reply. After sending this message to Presley, Kent decided to post it on the USENET notes system. Carl Burch of Hewlett Packard picked it up and distributed it at the X3J3 meeting in February 1988. I saw a copy in the X3J3 distribution mailing, and asked Carl for a cleaner copy to publish in Fortran Forum.
Aging in the CAD business
Authors: Paroli Flo
Published: January 2007

Recently, GQ published a list of achievements that a 30-year-old should have reached. Of course, very few were applicable to anyone but the editors of said magazine. Here is a list of accomplishments that is more relevant to members of the DA community:
COLAB: NEXT GENERATION MEETINGS
Authors: Foster Gregg
Published: January 2007

Most human enterprises require cooperation and communication. Our work is usually bound up with a spectrum of involvements with other people. Although computer tools for individuals are widely used, when we gather to work together as a group we leave our computational tools behind and rely on passive media such as blackboards and flip charts.
Solving (cyclic) tridiagonal systems
Authors: Reuter Richard
Published: January 2007

An APL2 function is presented for solving cyclic tridiagonal and tridiagonal systems of linear equations. Those systems frequently occur in various areas, e. g. interpolation by spline functions, numerical solution of elliptic differential equations, etc.. The function is based on a modification of the cyclic reduction method [1], [2]. Time measurements show impressive speed-ups over the domino ( ) function and the APL2 versions of the Gaussian elimination method, specialized for cyclic tridiagonal and tridiagonal systems.
Book review: THE T PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE A Dialect of LISP by Stephen Slade
Authors: Cochrane Katherine W.
Published: January 2007

The T language is a derivative of SCHEME LISP, intended to be used for teaching T to individuals who have some programming background in languages other than LISP. T was developed at the Yale University Computer Science Department and Artificial intelligence Project. The author cites several serious applications which have been written at Yale using T, including "text editors, circuit design tools, graphics editors, compilers, and numerous artificial intelligence programs." [Slade, p. 2] The author does not explain the reason for yet another dialect of LISP, except to extoll T's extensions of that language. As well as praise T, Slade offers code to enable users of Common LISP and SCHEME to create an imitation of T. Several avenues are outlined for obtaining T on a number of popular computers, also, including ARPANET addresses.
Book review: A QUICK REVIEW OF THE ELEMENTS OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: An Introduction Using Lisp by Steven L. Tanimoto (Computer Science Press, 1987)
Authors: Schneider Victor
Published: January 2007

This is a really fine book for a first course in Al. Its examples are written in a subset of Common LISP compatible with other LISP dialects, so that they can easily be rewritten to run on say, CDC ALisp, or public-domain, DLisp, or some vendor-supplied system, like Translisp. (I have his version of Eliza running on XLisp and Translisp with minor changes. The "Doctor" program in the earlier edition of Winston's Al textbook will also run in place of Tanimoto's "Shrink," with only minor changes.)
The effects of restricted syntax on menu-based interaction
Authors: Hedeen Allen
Published: January 2007

The computer sciencestudy compared the interaction of two different menu-based language processors. One of the language processors had unrestricted dialog in its menus. The other was command restricted. Four people solved two problems on the two different language processors. The study showed that a command restricted language processor offers a better interface than an unrestricted language processor.
Monte Carlo simulation through APL computer language
Authors: Danial Edward J. , Katti S. K.
Published: January 2007

Two convenient APL functions with the capability of simulating random frequencies and sample, through the widely used Monte Carlo method, are introduced. Documentations and examples are presented.
Book review: ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE. Edited by S. C. Shapiro (Wiley-lnterscience, 1987)
Authors: Anonymous
Published: January 2007

When a field gets big enough to merit its own encyclopedia, it is unlikely that any single reviewer can have the broad expertise to review the entire work. This "topical review" will therefore confine itself to the articles that deal with or are related to computer vision. These articles are listed below.
Selected AI-related dissertations
Authors: Humphrey Susanne M.
Published: January 2007

The following are citations selected by title and abstract as being related to Al, resulting from a computer search, using the BRS Information Technologies retrieval service, of the Dissertation Abstracts International (DAI) database produced by University Microfilms International.
An expert system for an idiosyncratic domain: love, intimacy, and friendship
Authors: Fulda Joseph
Published: January 2007

Expert systems conceived and developed thus far have dealt with problems, such as medical diagnosis, circuit design, and mineral exploration, which have objective solutions. Humans, however, are also experts in reasoning about domains where the key concepts are not objectively fixed. We do form subjective, but sound, judgments about idiosyncratic--i.e., person-specific-- domains. One such domain is that of love, intimacy, and friendship. Despite the fact that our notions of love, intimacy, and friendship vary greatly and that these relationships have been the subject of poets, novelists, biographers, psychologists, and other students of human nature for centuries, there is enough of a common consensus to make communication and, very frequently, common judgments about this domain possible.
SOME LESSONS FROM AN EXERCISE IN SPECIFICATION USING FOLEY AND VAN DAM'S INTERFACE DOCUMENTATION METHOD
Authors: Frohlich D. M. , Luff P.
Published: January 2007

Formulating precise descriptions of human-computer interactions is a prerequisite for the principled design, implementation and evaluation of interactive systems. This poster reports an exercise in interaction specification using Foley and Van Dam's (1982) multi-layered method of documenting the design of a user-computer interface. The specification was used to communicate the intended behaviour of a
Forms Helper
system from a design team to an implementation team. The ease with which the interaction could be represented at each of Foley and Van Dam's four levels of abstraction is discussed, and recommendations are made for improving the method in places where its guidance was unclear or inadequate. The value of the specification to the implementors of the system is examined prior to a discussion of the potential role of such specifications in the design and development cycle.The main conclusions of the exercise are as follows. The power of the method for expressing system behaviour was lacking at the semantic and syntactic levels, and checking the specification for consistency was difficult between levels. However, with regard to the understandability of the specification our impression is that the multi-layered descriptions worked well as a vehicle for communication. In general, the specification was precise enough to allow the complete Forms Helper system to be implemented from it. The fact that it could be produced from a description of the interaction alone indicates that for certain systems at least, the Foley and Van Dam method of interface documentation can serve as a means of interactive system specification.
HELP FOR THE DESIGNERS OF ONLINE HELP SYSTEMS
Authors: Mehlenbacher Brad , Duffy Tom , Palmer Jim , Truschel Maria , Denchfield Karen , Aaron Ann
Published: January 2007

The online help team at the Communications Design Center (CDC), funded through a contract with the U.S. Army Human Engineering Laboratory, is currently building a system to aid in the design and evaluation of online help systems. There are three components to the system:•
Help Design Software
to assist developers in incorporating sound design principles;•
Prototype Testing System
to enable developers to collect user performance data on alternative menu designs and navigation systems;•
Online Help Evaluation Survey
to provide developers with a hardcopy document for use in evaluating existing help systems.
Knowledge Bases and Tools for Building Integrated Multimedia Intelligent Interfaces
Authors: Hollan James , Miller James , Rich Elaine , Wilner Wayne
Published: January 2007

A multimedia interface is one that supports more than one medium through which users and application programs can communicate. For example, such an interface might support graphics, gestures, natural language, menus, sketching, and video. An intelligent interface is one that exploits knowledge about the task, the application, the interface, and the user in ways that help the user accomplish the task effectively. This includes interpreting ambiguous inputs correctly in the current context, phrasing outputs appropriately for the current user, and providing advice on efficient ways to use the system to accomplish the user's goals. An integrated interface is one in which events and objects in one part of the interface are accessible in the other parts so that a single task can be split across interface components as appropriate. In this paper, we present an architecture for an integrated set of tools now under development, called Human Interface Tools, or HITS. These tools are intended to support both the construction and the run-time execution of integrated multimedia intelligent interfaces. This paper describes our design of HITS, with some examples from parts of the system that have already been implemented. We will not attempt to articulate clearly the line between the current working toolset and our vision of a more complete system but will summarize the current state of the system at the close of the paper.
Intelligent Multi-Media Interface Technology
Authors: Neal Jeannette G. , Shapiro Stuart C.
Published: January 2007

Current user interfaces cast users into one of two roles: telling a system everything it must do, or answering questions that it poses to them. In neither case is it possible for a dialogue to emerge between user and system. We describe a strategy to bring dialogue-like structure to user-system interaction. This strategy is based on explicitly representing the "plans" of programs, and introducing those plans explicitly into the interface. Both programs and users can conveniently communicate how their actions relate to these plans. A data graphics presentation editor is described as an illustrative example.
An Architecture for Knowledge-Based Graphical Interfaces
Authors: Feiner Steven
Published: January 2007

The construction of intelligent interfaces can be greatly facilitated by classifying the information that users and programs communicate, and by separating the user interface from the functionality of a program. This paper presents a scheme for classifying this information, and show how, by structuring the interface around this scheme, the user interface and functionality of a program can be separated, and tools can be built that provide assistance to both users and developers of user interfaces.
Construction Kits and Design Environments
Authors: Fischer Gerhard , Lemke Andreas C.
Published: January 2007

Our goal is to build cooperative computer systems to augment human intelligence. In these systems the communication between the user and the computer plays a crucial role. To provide the user with the appropriate level of control and a better understanding, we have to replace human-computer communication with human problem-domain communication, which allows users to concentrate on the problems of their domain and to ignore the fact that they are using a computer tool.Construction kits and design environments are tools that represent steps towards human problem-domain communication. A construction kit is a set of building blocks that models a problem domain. The building blocks define a design space (the set of all possible designs that can be created by combining these blocks). Design environments go beyond construction kits in that they bring to bear general knowledge about design (e.g., which meaningful artifacts can be constructed, how and which blocks can be combined with each other that is useful for the designer. Prototypical examples of these systems (especially in the area of user interface design) are described in detail and the feasibility of this approach is evaluated.
A Keystroke Analysis of Learning and Transfer in Text Editing
Authors: Singley Mark K. , Anderson John R.
Published: January 2007

Two experiments studied the acquisition and transfer of text-editing skill. The first experiment, originally reported in Singley & Anderson (1985) but reanalyzed in greater detail here, found nearly total transfer between two similar line editors and partial transfer from the line editors to a screen editor. Analyses of the keystroke data revealed that the majority of the improvement during both learning and transfer was concentrated in the planning components of the skill. The second experiment found little evidence for negative transfer between a pair of screen editors designed for maximal interference using a classic interference paradigm. The few instances of negative transfer observed were better characterized as the positive transfer of non-optimal methods rather than instances of true procedural interference. These results support an identical elements model of transfer based on a production system representation of cognitive skill. The relative magnitudes of transfer observed were consistent with detailed measures of production system overlap. In addition, localized transfer sites were hypothesized and identified through a series of microanalyses. Finally, specific transfer predictions based on the differential practice of general and specific components were tested and confirmed.
The standards factor
Authors: Grudin Jonathan
Published: January 2007

As described in past columns, several national and international standards development groups are undertaking new work items in the user interface area. This report describes the work of one such group, X3V1.9, and its relationship to standards activity in ANSI, ISO, the Human Factors Society Human-Computer Interaction Standards Committee, and other groups. If ACM SIGCHI or its members wish to become more involved in standards activity, X3V1.9 might be a logical focus, both strategically and tactically, for such an effort. This report is intended to provide background information for deciding whether we should be more involved; it concludes with some alternatives for what form such involvement might take.
History, state and future of user interface management systems
Authors: Löwgren Jonas
Published: January 2007

This paper is an attempt to survey the topic of User Interface Management Systems (UIMSs). We give a short account of the historical development of UIMSs, try to capture what is regarded as state of the art in the area, and examine the role of a UIMS in the process of software development. We also summarize several future research directions commonly recognized as important.
NOOBIE: the animal design playstation
Authors: Druin Allison
Published: January 2007

For a year and a half, I lead a group of researchers in building an alternative to the traditional computer terminal. Instead of building a design workstation complete with keyboard and mouse, we built an animal design playstation complete with fur, feathers, and an irridescent fish tail. We used the tools of puppetry, animation, and computer electronics, to build what is now called
Noobie
(short for "New Beast"). By sitting or standing in the lap of this computer creature, a child can build fantasy or real animals. When one squeezes a part on Noobie, the selected animal part can be seen on the screen in Noobie's stomach, and a sound can be heard.This paper documents the ideas behind the conception and creation of Noobie, along with how it fits into the short history of the Vivarium research group. This group is a collection of people, ideas, and projects that focus on creating a multi-media environment for children to learn about animal behavior.
HUFIT-HUMAN FACTOR LABORATORIES IN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Authors: Fähnrich K. P. , Ziegler J. , Galer M.
Published: January 2007

The preparatory work for HUFIT began in 1982 and 1983. Working for the commission of the European communities, Brian Shackel of the HUSAT Research Centre, Loughborough University, conducted a study on "Ergonomics in Information Technology (IT) in Europe - A review" (Shackel 1984) comparing it to work done in the rest of the world.
A change of mind or the story of Fuzzies in Purgatory
Authors: Luebking Scott
Published: January 2007

A user interface enables a person to enter data, which are values for attributes, into an application. A good interface allows the user to change his mind while entering these values. The user might choose a new value or restore a previous value with an "undo" feature. If an interface is to have this flexibility, the underlying data structures must be designed to facilitate these changes in attribute values with minimum execution overhead.
Parallelism and algorithms for algebraic manipulation: current work
Authors: Ponder Carl G.
Published: January 2007

We outline recent results relating to the use of parallelism for solving problems in algebraic manipulation. Practical issues are discussed.
View from the floor (DAC trade show review)
Authors: Hefferan P. M.
Published: January 2007

This is the fourth annual review of the Design Automation Conference. Each year new concepts and ideas arise in the commercial DA community, and this year was no exception. Logic synthesis has emerged as the new CAE tool of 88, with a number of well-funded companies showing sophisticated offerings. Also, this year's conference will go down as the year when a standard (EDIF) was actually implemented and demonstrated, not just talked about. Additionally, there was a massive emergence of CAE and CAD tools on personal computers. A large number of quite sophisticated routers are now available for PC platform ("almost a commodity" one old router expert commented).
Homotopies and polynomial system solving I
Authors: Kotsireas Ilias S.
Published: January 2007

We present a survey of some basic ideas involved in the use of homotopies for solving systems of polynomial equations. These ideas are illustrated with many concrete examples. An introductory section on systems of polynomial equations and their solutions contains some necessary terminology that will be used in the sequel. We also describe a general algorithm to solve polynomial systems of
n
equations in
n
unknowns using homotopies. A Maple V implementation of the algorithm as well as a few accompanying Maple 6 worksheets are publicly available from the author's web page.
Requirements for clustering data streams
Authors: Barbará Daniel
Published: January 2007

Scientific and industrial examples of data streams abound in astronomy, telecommunication operations, banking and stock-market applications, e-commerce and other fields. A challenge imposed by continuously arriving data streams is to analyze them and to modify the models that explain them as new data arrives. In this paper, we analyze the requirements needed for clustering data streams. We review some of the latest algorithms in the literature and assess if they meet these requirements.
Genetic subtyping using cluster analysis
Authors: Burr Tom , Gattiker James R. , LaBerge Greggory S.
Published: January 2007

In this paper we (1) describe state-of-the-art methods to identify clusters in DNA sequence data for taxonomic analysis; (2) describe a new method with better scaling properties based on model-based clustering, and (3) present examples using the nucleoprotein and hemagglutin regions of influenza and theenvandgagregions of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
KDnuggets interview with Usama Fayyad
Authors: Piatetsky-Shapiro Gregory
Published: January 2007

KDnuggets newsletter has a new section of interviews with leaders in the field. This article presents the interview with Usama Fayyad, President and CEO of digiMine.
Asymptotic expansions for probability distributions in large loss and closed queueing networks
Authors: Kogan Yaakov
Published: January 2007

Using integral representation in complex space and the saddle point method asymptotic expansions for probability distributions are derived for the generalised Engset model and a closed queueing network with multiple classes. The results can be applied to bandwidth engineering and admission control in data networks.
Stability comparison in single-server-multiple-queue systems
Authors: Lam S. , Chang Rocky K. C.
Published: January 2007

In this paper we study stability comparison among queues in single-server-multiple-queue systems. We establish trichotomy between two queues in terms of stability. We introduce a concept of degree of instability which reflects the stability level of an individual queue. Through comparing the degrees of instabilities of two queues, we give conditions under which two queues are as stable as each other and, one queue is more (less) stable than the other. We also generalize previous results regarding to stability ranking or stability ordering, and accommodate them into our general form.
GI
/
G
/1 type processes
Authors: Szlávik Árpád
Published: January 2007

A new general solution method is derived for the general
GI
/
G
/1 type processes --- for the steady-state distribution of infinite block-structured Markov chains with repetitive structure. While matrix inversion is needed in each iterational step of other general (and of more special) matrix analytical procedures, the method presented here uses matrix addition and matrix multiplication only. In exchange, the computational complexity and the memory requirement is increasing in each iterational step of the proposed method. This paper, however, lays priority on the theoretical aspect of the general solution.
Abstracts of the Sixth Spanish Meeting on Computer Algebra and Applications
Authors: Montes Antonio
Published: January 2007

This is the collection of the abstracts of the talks given during the EACA-2000, the Sixth Spanish Meeting on Computer Algebra and Applications held in Barcelona (Spain) on September 6-8, 2000.The main goal of the EACA Meetings is to provide a forum for researchers from Computer Algebra and researchers that essentially use these techniques in their investigation. As in previous events of the series (Santander 1995, Sevilla 1996, Granada 1997, Sigüenza 1998 and Tenerife 1999), participation of young researchers was specially encouraged.
Abstracts of the Seventh Spanish Meeting on Computer Algebra and Applications
Authors: Rubio Julio
Published: January 2007

This is the collection of the abstracts of the talks given during the EACA-2001, the Seventh Spanish Meeting on Computer Algebra and Applications held in Ezcaray (La Rioja, Spain) on September 12-14, 2001.The main goal of the EACA-Meetings is to provide a forum for researchers from Computer Algebra and researchers that essentially use these techniques in their investigation. As in previous events of the series (Santander 1995, Sevilla 1996, Granada 1997, Sigüenza 1998, Tenerife 1999 and Barcelona 2000), participation of young researchers was specially encouraged.
Adaptive random sampling for load change detection
Authors: Choi Baek-Young , Park Jaesung , Zhang Zhi-Li
Published: January 2007

Timely detection of changes in traffic load is critical for initiating appropriate traffic engineering mechanisms. Accurate measurement of traffic is essential since the efficacy of change detection depends on the accuracy of traffic estimation. However,
precise
traffic measurement involves inspecting
every
packet traversing a link, resulting in significant overhead, particularly on high speed links.
Sampling
techniques for traffic load
estimation
are proposed as a way to limit the measurement overhead. In this paper, we address the problem of
bounding
sampling error within a pre-specified tolerance level and propose an
adaptive random sampling
technique that determines the
minimum
sampling probability adaptively according to traffic dynamics. Using real network traffic traces, we show that the proposed adaptive random sampling technique indeed produces the desired accuracy, while also yielding significant reduction in the amount of traffic samples. We also investigate the impact of sampling errors on the performance of load change detection.
Simple analytic modeling of software contention
Authors: Menascé Daniel A.
Published: January 2007

Being able to model contention for software resources (e.g., a critical section or database lock) is paramount to building performance models that capture all aspects of the delay encountered by a process as it executes. Several methods have been offered for dealing with software contention and with message blocking in client-server systems. We present in this paper a simple, straightforward, easy to understand and implement, approach to modeling software contention using queuing networks. The approach consists of a two-level iterative process. Two queuing networks are considered: one represents software resources and the other hardware resources. Multiclass models are allowed and both open and closed queuing networks can be used at the software layer. Any solution technique----exact or approximate--can be used at any of the levels. This technique falls in the general nature of fixed-point approximate models and is similar in nature to other approaches. The main difference lies in its simplicity.
Maintaining the spirit of excitement in growing companies
Authors: Garden A.-M.
Published: January 2007

One of the most critical issues facing managers of high tech companies is how to retain the spirit of excitement and energy as the company grows. Interviews with managers of these companies reflected the view that the spirit of excitement and energy which is so palatable in smaller software companies, somehow dissipates in a seemingly inevitable way as the company increases in size. (The notion that "something happens" when a company gets "too big" is a common one.) The question arising from this for managers is how that spirit of excitement or high level of motivation is created in the first place, and how it can be retained. In this commentary, some preliminary findings concerning the excitement levels in different size high tech companies are presented.The findings are based on the questionnaire results of 339 people from 11 high tech software companies; 7 "small" companies with less than 50 employees, 3 "medium" sized companies with between 150-250 employees and 1 "large" company with over 2, 000 employees in total.The average response rate for all companies was 55%. For the small companies it was much higher, at 68%, but in the large company it was 51%. The average age of the sample was 28 years, average years in present company was 2.5 years, 80 were women with 259 men. Most (96%) have at least a Bachelors degree so they represent a highly educated sample.
An interview with Roy Sykes
Authors: Polivka Ray
Published: January 2007

An interview with Roy Sykes at APL99.
Designing real-time, decision support computer-human interaction
Authors: Hefley William E.
Published: January 2007

Many complex software-intensive systems are being developed today. When developing complex systems, operations and support development must form a third complementary component of system development, along with hardware and software development. This paper proposes four key components of operations and support development which are needed for successful design of real-time, decision support computer-human interaction.
Graph cutting algorithms for distributed applications partitioning
Authors: Hogstedt Karin , Kimelman Doug , Rajan V T , Roth Tova , Wegman Mark
Published: January 2007

The problem of optimally allocating the components of a distributed program over several machines can be shown to reduce to a multi-terminal graph cutting problem. In case of three of more terminals, this problem has been shown to be NP-hard. This paper introduces a number of heuristic graph algorithms for use in partitioning distributed object applications --- that is, for deciding which objects should be placed on which machines in order to minimize communication and achieve best overall performance of the application. These heuristics are particularly effective for graphs with characteristics specific to representative distributed object applications.
Condor grid computing from mobile handheld devices
Authors: González-Castaño Francisco J. , Vales-Alonso Javier , Livny Miron , Costa-Montenegro Enrique , Anido-Rifón Luis
Published: January 2007

In this paper, we propose a hierarchical design methodology for grid access from handheld devices. After determining all user interactions required and technologies available, they are arranged in layers. All functions in a layer are also supported by all underlying layers. By doing so, the designer is less conditioned by the constraints of a specific, out-of-context platform. Additionally, in a stratified modular design, many software components can be re-used. We present a prototype to access Condor from two neighbor layers: PDAs and cell phones.
A taxonomy of wireless micro-sensor network models
Authors: Tilak Sameer , Abu-Ghazaleh Nael B. , Heinzelman Wendi
Published: January 2007

In future smart environments, wireless sensor networks will play a key role in sensing, collecting, and disseminating information about environmental phenomena. Sensing applications represent a new paradigm for network operation, one that has different goals from more traditional wireless networks. This paper examines this emerging field to classify wireless micro-sensor networks according to different communication functions, data delivery models, and network dynamics. This taxonomy will aid in defining appropriate communication infrastructures for different sensor network application sub-spaces, allowing network designers to choose the protocol architecture that best matches the goals of their application. In addition, this taxonomy will enable new sensor network models to be defined for use in further research in this area.
An integrated platform for reliable multicast support in the regional mobile-IP environment
Authors: Omar Hassan , Saadawi Tarek , Lee Myung
Published: January 2007

Supporting reliable delivery of multicast datagrams, in IP networks, may necessitate the introduction of new elements and features. Further, considerable additional signaling may be required to support this service. Providing a platform that efficiently supports IP multicast delivery, in an environment where the multicast group members frequently change their locations, is a challenge for systems supporting mobility. In this paper, we describe a platform that allows the application of an internal reliable multicast delivery scheme in the regional registration mobile-IP domain. The proposed datagram local delivery scheme allows interoperability with other external reliable multicast protocols. The described platform capitalizes on existing elements that support the multicast service, avoiding the introduction of new elements. Additional signaling messages are minimized, taking advantage of the inherent characteristics of local registration structure. We identify schemes to retrieve datagrams lost due to links congestion, host mobility and agent failure. Aggregated and expedited retransmission request types are introduced to achieve better performance in responding to datagrams loss events. A simple adaptive flow control scheme is considered to take advantage of the characteristics associated with the regional registration environment. Also, aspects of the reliable delivery support that can be leveraged to provide QoS are demonstrated. Performance aspects such as average delay in retrieving lost datagrams and the effect on the multicast source are demonstrated under different conditions, using simulation.
Software architecture recovery and modelling
Authors: van Deursen Arie
Published: January 2007

This paper covers current trends and issues in software architecture recovery. It consists of a summary of the presentations and discussions of the
Software Architecture Recovery and Modelling
discussion forum held during WCRE 2001, the
Working Conference on Reverse Engineering,
Stuttgart, Germany, October 2, 2001.
Using XML as a means to access legislative documents
Authors: Marchetti Andrea , Megale Fabrizio , Seta Enrico , Vitali Fabio
Published: January 2007

In this paper we describe the goals and the organisation of the ongoing project "Norme in Rete" (NIR --- http://www.normeinrete.it), which involves several important Italian institutions and organisations. This project aims at the production of tools for the access to Italian normative documents, and data formats for the standardisation of the text of laws and rules both national and local. One of its many goals is the conversion of the national law corpus into XML.Within the context of this project, our effort has concentrated on the development of an XML DTD already, and of an XML Schema very soon, to describe Italian national and local laws. We illustrate in this paper the overall structure of the DTDs. They are organised in a stricter, normative set of rules, with normative power, for new law drafts, and of a looser, descriptive set of rules for existing documents over which no rules can be imposed. In this paper we examine both types of DTD (strict and loose), their global organisation, the modules for legal elements, for textual and tabular tags (resembling HTML), and for modular, generic elements, that allow easy extendibility to the DTD. Also the treatment of meta-information is examined in this paper.We produce a short account of several analogous experiences in Northern Europe, carried out by both public institutions and private legal publishers. Mention is also made of the European Union's similar projects.
A training program for information technology organizations transitioning to enterprise-wide client/server computing
Authors: Galup Stuart D.
Published: January 2007

Islands of information are still common place in many organizations. Yet, the growth of electronic-business and the increased use of enterprise resource planning software suggest the transition to enterprise-wide information systems will be one of the most important challenges facing information technology organizations during this millenium.Facing a major "year 2000" software rewrite during the beginning of 1990, the organization in this case study decided to revamp their information systems using client/server technologies and establish a new way of doing business (PCISS Board Minutes, 1995). Their plan was to share data and software across organizational boundaries in an effort to reduce software development costs and increase data quality (PCTTP, 1995).Transitioning to this new paradigm required rethinking how the information technology organization was organized and managed. It also required updating the employee's skills (Lee, Trauth, & Farwell, 1995) and the building of team-based structures (DeSanctis & Jackson, 1994). This case study discusses the training program used to transition the employees to an enterprise-wide client/server computing model, a strategy that supports adult learning issues and fosters the creation of cross-functional teams.
Why so many clustering algorithms
Authors: Estivill-Castro Vladimir
Published: January 2007

We argue that there are many clustering algorithms, because the notion of "cluster" cannot be precisely defined. Clustering is in the eye of the beholder, and as such, researchers have proposed many induction principles and models whose corresponding optimization problem can only be approximately solved by an even larger number of algorithms. Therefore, comparing clustering algorithms, must take into account a careful understanding of the inductive principles involved.
Enhancing nonverbal human computer interaction with expression recognition
Authors: Karpouzis Kostas , Tsapatsoulis Nicolas , Raouzaiou Amaryllis , Moshovitis George , Kollias Stefanos
Published: January 2007

This paper describes an integrated system for human emotion recognition, which is used to provide feedback about the relevance or impact of the information that is presented to the user. Other techniques in this field extract explicit motion fields from the areas of interest and classify them with the help of templates or training sets; the proposed system, however, compares indication of muscle activation from the human face to data taken from similar actions of a 3-d head model. This comparison takes place at curve level, with each curve being drawn from detected feature points in an image sequence or from selected vertices of the polygonal model. The result of this process is identification of the muscles that contribute to the detected motion; this conclusion can then be used in conjunction with the Mimic Language, a table structure that maps groups of muscles to emotions. This method can be applied to either frontal or rotated views, as the curves that are calculated are easier to rotate in 3-d space than motion vector fields. The notion of describing motion with specific points is also supported in MPEG-4 and the relevant encoded data can be used in the same context, to eliminate the need to use machine vision techniques.
MathBraille; a system to transform LATEX documents into Braille
Authors: Hara Shunsuke , Ohtake Nobuyuki , Higuchi Mika , Miyazaki Noriko , Watanabe Ayako , Kusunoki Kanako , Sato Hiroshi
Published: January 2007

LATEX[1] is a very well-known document preparation system which is particularly useful to produce documents containing mathematical formulae. Many scientific articles are presented in LATEX. But raw LATEX document is not suitable for the blind to read in Braille; that is, to read LATEX command as a sequence of symbols and alphabets is not a good way for understanding LATEX text. It is desirable to develop a system which transforms mathematical formula expressed by LATEX notation into corresponding Braille.In Japan, there exist several softwares which transform electronic documents into Braille[2]. However, they can cope only with literal documents. Therefore, almost all of the scientific Braille texts have been produced by human power who knows Braille rule for mathematics. There are many organizations and volunteer groups which are keen to prepare Braille texts. Nevertheless, Japanese Braille rule for mathematics is so complicated that very few can produce scientific texts. This causes lots of trouble to the blind who wants to study sciences. Shortage of Braille texts in science and technology is one of the most serious problems for blind students at high school and university. Therefore, it is also desirable to construct an automatic transformation system with which scientific Braille texts are produced easily.The aim of this research is to resolve these two problems. We have developed a system MathBraille[3] which transforms JLATEX (an extension of LATEX that contains Chinese characters and Japanese syllabaries fonts for typesetting) documents into Braille. Furthermore, by utilizing this system, one can produce Braille text for mathematics without knowing Braille rule. To prepare the input file for MathBraille, one must have a basic knowledge of LATEX commands. Nevertheless, to learn basic LATEX commands is not so difficult as to master complicated Japanese Braille rule for mathematics. One can confirm the correctness of written mathematical formulae by previewer in LATEX instead of reading the mathematical formulae in Braille.In this report, the system MathBraille is explained. The programme for the system is coded using the programming language C and compiled by Microsoft 32-bit C/C++ Standard Compiler Version 10.00. MathBraille works on the DOS/V computers.
A security architecture and design for mobile intelligent agent systems
Authors: Vuong Son T. , Fu Peng
Published: January 2007

Although mobile intelligent agent technology greatly promises to provide an elegant and efficient way of solving complex distributed problems as well as offering a new approach to human-computer-interaction, the general lack of security measures in existing mobile intelligent agent systems severely restricts their scope of applicability. In this paper, we focus on the security design issues for mobile intelligent systems. We propose a security architecture and implement a security system based on the architecture for a novel mobile intelligent system, Actigen. This security system makes use of a rich security model that provides an identification capability to each principal and supports system resource access control to a very fine level of granularity. The security system also offers some methods to detect if the behavior or data of an Actigen agent is tampered. Although the security architecture was developed for Actigen, its applicability can be generally suited to any mobile intelligent systems.
Scheduling and caching strategies for correlated data in push-based information systems
Authors: Yajima Etsuko , Hara Takahiro , Tsukamoto Masahiko , Nishio Shojiro
Published: January 2007

Recently, there has been increasing interest in information systems that deliver data using broadcast in both wired and wireless environments. The strategy in which a server repeatedly broadcasts data to clients can result in a larger throughput, and various methods have been studied to reduce the average response time to data requests in such systems. In this paper, we propose a strategy for scheduling the broadcast program which takes into account the correlation among data items. This strategy puts data items with strong correlation side by side in the broadcast program in order to reduce the average response time. We also propose a caching strategy which extends a conventional caching strategy so that it can take advantage of correlation among broadcast data items for greater efficiency. Finally: we use simulation studies to evaluate the performance of our proposed strategies.
Scripting distributed agents
Authors: Jamison Wilfred C. , Lea Doug
Published: January 2007

The TRUCE language and ACACIA distributed infrastructure extend common notions of scripting to the realm of distributed agents. This paper provides an overview of how TRUCE and ACACIA approach the issues of openness, concurrency, and decentralization encountered when trying to apply scripting to autonomous distributed components.
Preparing the information technology workforce for the new millennium
Authors: Bailey Janet L. , Stefaniak Greg
Published: January 2007

In an era when information technology (IT) is an integral part of society, many organizations are finding it difficult to hire adequate numbers of information technology personnel. Computer systems have permeated virtually every facet of organizations, creating a demand for individuals with IT skills at every level. The situation is complicated by the fact that finding personnel with the appropriate skills mix is even more problematic. As we move into the new millennium, IT roles are shifting at a rapidly increasing pace. Technical skills alone are not sufficient for success in the IT profession --- soft skills like communication, problem solving, and teamwork are increasingly important. Recognizing that no curriculum can provide all training needed by every employee in every position, the issue then becomes to identify which specific sets of knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) are most important to IT organizations. This paper presents the findings of an initial case study undertaken to identify the necessary KSAs that can be used in the development of academic and industry training programs. The focus of this paper is on the findings for soft skill KSAs.
The effect of organizational size and program status on information systems managers' perceptions of telecommuting
Authors: Ellis T. Selwyn , Webster Robert L.
Published: January 2007

This study documents responses relating to advantages and disadvantages of telecommuting from a national survey mailed to information systems (IS) managers. These managers were selected because of both the explicit and implicit roles they play in technology decisions, including those related to telecommuting. Two variables thought to be associated with IS managers beliefs about telecommuting are isolated for measurement and testing. The two variables are firm size and whether the organization currently has a telecommuting program in place. Results indicate that neither firm size nor the existence of a telecommuting program affect beliefs of IS managers concerning the advantages and disadvantages of telecommuting. These results lend credence to the hypothesis that a consensus is forming regarding the benefits and drawbacks associated with this innovative and alternate work arrangement.
Career plateau and professional plateau
Authors: Lee Patrick C. B.
Published: January 2007

Career plateau is a popular construct that has been associated with a number of work outcomes. This study introduced a related construct called professional plateau. It is defined as the point where employees find their job unchallenging and it provides few opportunities for professional development and future employability. The study proposed that career plateau and professional plateau are related to three work outcomes: namely, career satisfaction, job satisfaction, and turnover intentions. It also proposed that professional plateau accounts for a significant variance in the three outcomes beyond those accounted for by the objective and perceptual measures of career plateau. The hypotheses were tested using data collected from a questionnaire survey. The results support the hypotheses. One practical implication of these results is that employers need to understand that career plateau and professional plateau are two types of plateau that have impact on the attitudes and intentions of information technology professionals.