pinecone/core-2020-05-10-deduplication huggingface dataset:
Type-safe evolution of spreadsheets

Lecture Notes in Computer Science Volume 6603, 2011Spreadsheets are notoriously error-prone. To help avoid the introduction of errors when changing spreadsheets, models that capture the structure and interdependencies of spreadsheets at a conceptual level have been proposed. Thus, spreadsheet evolution can be made safe within the confines of a model. As in any other model/instance setting, evolution may not only require changes at the instance level but also at the model level. When model changes are required, the safety of instance evolution can not be guarded by the model alone. We have designed an appropriate representation of spreadsheet models, including the fundamental notions of formulæand references. For these models and their instances, we have designed coupled transformation rules that cover specific spreadsheet evolution steps, such as the insertion of columns in all occurrences of a repeated block of cells. Each model-level transformation rule is coupled with instance level migration rules from the source to the target model and vice versa. These coupled rules can be composed to create compound transformations at the model level inducing compound transformations at the instance level. This approach guarantees safe evolution of spreadsheets even when models change.Supported by Fundac ao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia, grant no. SFRH/BD/30231/2006. Supported by Fundac ao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia, grant no. SFRH/BD/30215/2006. Work supported by the SSaaPP project, FCT contract no. PTDC/EIA-CCO/108613/200
Theoretical aspects of compositional symbolic execution

Given a program and an assertion in that program, determining if the assertion can fail is one of the key applications of program analysis. Symbolic execution is a well-known technique for finding such assertion violations that can enjoy the following two interesting properties. First, symbolic execution can be precise: if it reports that an assertion can fail, then there is an execution of the program that will make the assertion fail. Second, it can be progressing: if there is an execution that makes the assertion fail, it will eventually be found. A symbolic execution algorithm that is both precise and progressing is a semi-decision procedure. 

Recently, compositional symbolic execution has been proposed. It improves scalability by analyzing each execution path of each method only once. However, proving precision and progress is more challenging for these compositional algorithms. This paper investigates under what conditions a compositional algorithm is precise and progressing (and hence a semi-decision procedure).status: publishe
An interface theory for service-oriented design

We revisit the notions of interface and component algebra proposed by de Alfaro and Henzinger in [7] for component-based design and put forward elements of a corresponding interface theory for service-oriented design. We view services as a layer that can be added over a component infrastructure and propose a notion of service interface for a component algebra that is an asynchronous version of relational nets adapted to SCA (the Service Component Architecture developed by the Open Service-Oriented Architecture collaboration). © 2011 Springer-Verlag
Flexible sketch-based requirements modeling

[Context and motivation] Requirements engineers and stakeholders like to create informal, sketchy models in order to communicate ideas and to make them persistent. They prefer pen and paper over current software modeling tools, because the former allow for any kind of sketches and do not break the creative flow. [Question/problem] To facilitate requirements management, engineers then need to manually transform the sketches into more formal models of requirements. This is a tedious, time-consuming task. Furthermore, there is a risk that the original intentions of the sketched models and informal annotations get lost in the transition. [Principal ideas/results] We present the idea for a seamless, tool-supported transition from informal, sketchy drafts to more formal models such as UML diagrams. Our approach uses an existing sketch recognizer together with a dynamic library of modeling symbols. This library can be augmented and modified by the user anytime during the sketching/modeling process. Thus, an engineer can start sketching without any restrictions, and can add both syntax and semantics later. Or the engineer can define a domain-specific modeling language with any degree of formality and adapt it on the fly. [Contribution] In this paper we describe how our approach combines the advantages of modeling with the freedom and ease of sketching in a way other modeling tools cannot provide
Mining Requirements Links

[Context & motivation] Obtaining traceability among requirements and between requirements and other artifacts is an extremely important activity in practice, an interesting area for theoretical study, and a major hurdle in common industrial experience. Substantial effort is spent on establishing and updating such links in any large project, even more so when requirements refer to a product family. [Question/problem]. While most research is concerned with ways to reduce the effort needed to establish and maintain traceability links, a different question can also be asked: how is it possible to harness the vast amount of implicit (and tacit) knowledge embedded in already-established links? Is there something to be learned about a specific problem or domain, or about the humans who establish traces, by studying such traces
Research preview: Supporting end-user requirements elicitation using product line variability models

[Context and motivation] Product line variability models have been primarily used for product configuration purposes. We suggest that such models contain information that is relevant for early software engineering activities too. [Question/Problem] So far, the knowledge contained in variability models has not been used to improve requirements elicitation activities. State-of-the-art requirements elicitation approaches furthermore do not focus on the cost-effective identification of individual end-user needs, which, for example, is highly relevant for the customization of service-oriented systems. [Principal idea/results] The planned research will investigate how end-users can be empowered to document their individual needs themselves. We propose a tentative solution which facilitates end-users requirements elicitation by providing contextual information codified in software product line variability models. [Contribution] We present the idea of a “smart” tool for end-users allowing them to specify their needs and to customize, for example, a service-oriented system based on contextual information in variability models
Path-Based Distance with Varying Weights and Neighborhood Sequences

International audienceThis paper presents a path-based distance where local displacement costs vary both according to the displacement vector and with the travelled distance. The corresponding distance transform algorithm is similar in its form to classical propagation-based algorithms, but the more variable distance increments are either stored in look-up-tables or computed on-the-fly. These distances and distance transform extend neighborhood-sequence distances, chamfer distances and generalized distances based on Minkowski sums. We introduce algorithms to compute, in Z2, a translated version of a neighborhood sequence distance map with a limited number of neighbors, both for periodic and aperiodic sequences. A method to recover the centered distance map from the translated one is also introduced. Overall, the distance transform can be computed with minimal delay, without the need to wait for the whole input image before beginning to provide the result image
Weighing communication overhead against travel time reduction in advanced traffic information systems

In this paper we develop a multi-agent based traffic simulator by considering traffic flows as emergent phenomena over two layered multi-agent systems. The first layer is composed of vehicle agents and the second layer is composed of signal agents. The system can naturally express actual road networks and can reproduce various traffic congestions induced by means of local interactions among vehicle agents. We show the system is useful for the road enhancing problem to guess the most suitable place when a new road is constructed. Further, we study a traffic control system which dissolves congestions at intersections by monitoring the traffic flow at the first layer.status: publishe
An Agent-Based Dialog Simulation Technique to Develop and Evaluate Conversational Agents

Proceedings of: 9th International Conference on Practical Applications of Agents and Multiagent Systems (PAAMS 11). Salamanca, 6-8 April, 2011In this paper, we present an agent-based dialog simulation technique for learning new dialog strategies and evaluate conversational agents. Using this technique the effort necessary to acquire data required to train the dialog model and then explore new dialog strategies is considerably reduced. A set of measures has also been defined to evaluate the dialog strategy that is automatically learned and compare different dialog corpora. We have applied this technique to explore the space of possible dialog strategies and evaluate the dialogs acquired for a conversational agent that collects monitored data from patients suffering from diabetes.Funded by projects CICYT TIN2008-06742-C02-02/TSI, CICYT TEC2008-06732-C02-
02/TEC, CAM CONTEXTS (S2009/TIC-1485), and DPS2008-07029-C02-02.Publicad
Aesthetic design using multi-objective evolutionary algorithms

The use of computational methodologies for the optimization
of aesthetic parameters is not frequent mainly due to the fact that
these parameters are not quantifiable and are subjective. In this work an
interactive methodology based on the use of multi-objective optimization
algorithms is proposed. This strategy associates the results of different
optimization runs considering the existent quantifiable objectives and
different sets of boundary conditions concerning the decision variables,
as defined by an expert decision maker. The associated results will serve
as initial population of solutions for a final optimization run. The idea
is that a more global picture of potential ”good” solutions can be found.
At the end this will facilitate the work of the expert decision maker since
more solutions are available. The method was applied to a case study and
the preliminary results obtained showed the potentially of the strategy
adopted.One of the authors acknowledges the financial support received by the Portuguese Science Foundation under grant SFRH/BD/44600/ 2008
Integrating Multicamera Surveillance Systems into Multiagent Location Systems

Proceedings of: Workshop on User-Centric Technologies and Applications (CONTEXTS 2011) Salamanca, April 6-8 , 2011Users are increasingly demanding personalized services based on their context, being one of the key features of that context the user's position. There are a wide number of possible solutions to deal with the positioning issue, which, for different situations, may have different accuracy requirements. This paper presents this issue from the point of view of an existing multicamera surveillance system which requires to be integrated into a multiagent positioning system, including a tracking example with the presented architecture.This work was supported in part by Projects CICYT TIN2008-06742-C02-02/TSI, CICYT TEC2008-06732-C02-02/TEC, CAM CONTEXTS (S2009/TIC-1485) and DPS2008-07029-C02-02.Publicad
Context-Aware Conversational Agents Using POMDPs and Agenda-Based Simulation

Proceedings of: Workshop on User-Centric Technologies and Applications (CONTEXTS 2011), Salamanca, April 6-8, 2011Context-aware systems in combination with mobile devices offer new opportunities in the areas of knowledge representation, natural language processing and intelligent information retrieval. Our vision is that natural spoken conversation with these devices can eventually become the preferred mode for managing their services by means of conversational agents. In this paper, we describe the application of POMDPs and agenda-based user simulation to learn optimal dialog policies for the dialog manager in a conversational agent. We have applied this approach to develop a statistical dialog manager for a conversational agent which acts as a voice logbook to collect home monitored data from patients suffering from diabetes.Funded by projects CICYT TIN2008-06742-C02-02/TSI, CICYT TEC2008-06732-C02-02/TEC, CAM CONTEXTS (S2009/TIC-1485), and DPS2008-07029-C02-02.Publicad
Multi-camera Control and Video Transmission Architecture for Distributed Systems

Proceedings of: Workshop on User-Centric Technologies and Applications (CONTEXTS 2011)The increasing number of autonomous systems monitoring and controlling visual sensor networks, make it necessary an homogeneous (deviceindependent), flexible (accessible from various places), and efficient (real-time)
access to all their underlying video devices. This paper describes an architecture for camera control and video transmission in a distributed system like existing in a cooperative multi-agent video surveillance scenario. The proposed system enables the access to a limited-access resource (video sensors) in an easy, transparent and
efficient way both for local and remote processes. It is particularly suitable for Pan-Tilt-Zoom (PTZ) cameras in which a remote control is essential.This work was supported in part by Projects CICYT TIN2008-06742-C02-02/TSI,CICYT TEC2008-06732-C02-02/TEC, SINPROB, CAM CONTEXTS S2009/TIC-1485 and DPS2008-07029-C02-02.Publicad
A Structured Representation to the Group Behavior Recognition Issue

Proceedings of: Workshop on User-Centric Technologies and Applications (CONTEXTS 2011), Salamanca, April 6-8, 2011The behavior recognition is one of the most prolific lines of research in recent decades in the field of computer vision. Within this field, the majority of researches have focused on the recognition of the activities carried out by a single individual, however this paper deals with the problem of recognizing the behavior of a group of individuals, in which relations between the component elements are of great importance. For this purpose it is exposed a new representation that concentrates all necessary information concerning relations peer to peer present in the group, and the semantics of the different groups formed by individuals and training (or structure) of each one of them. The work is presented with the dataset created in CVBASE06 dealing the European handball.This work was supported in part by Projects CICYT TIN2008-06742-C02-02/TSI, CICYT TEC2008-06732-C02-02/TEC, CAM CONTEXTS (S2009/ TIC-1485) and DPS2008-07029-C02-02.Publicad
Opportunistic Multi-sensor Fusion for Robust Navigation in Smart Environments

Proceedings of: Workshop on User-Centric Technologies and Applications (CONTEXTS 2011), Salamanca, April 6-8, 2011This paper presents the design of a navigation system for multiple autonomous robotic platforms. It performs multisensor fusion using a Monte Carlo Bayesian filter, and has been designed to maximize information acquisition. Apart from sensors equipped in the mobile platform, the system can dynamically integrate observations from friendly external sensing entities, increasing robustness and making it suitable for both indoor and outdoor operation. A multi-agent layer manages the information acquisition process, making it transparent for the core filtering solution. As a proof of concept, some preliminary results are presented over a real platform using the part of the system specialized in outdoor navigationThis work was supported in part by Projects CICYT TIN2008-06742-C02-02/TSI, CICYT TEC2008-06732-C02-02/TEC, CAM CONTEXTS (S2009/ TIC-1485) and DPS2008-07029-C02-02.publicad
Automatically Updating a Dynamic Region Connection Calculus for Topological Reasoning

Proceedings of: Workshop on User-Centric Technologies and Applications (CONTEXTS 2011), Salamanca, Spain, April 6-8, 2011During the last years ontology-based applications have been thought without taking in account their limitations in terms of upgradeability. In parallel, new capabilities such as topological sorting of instances with spatial characteristics have been developed. Both facts may lead to a collapse in the operational capacity of this kind of applications. This paper presents an ontology-centric architecture to solve the topological relationships between spatial objects automatically. The capability for automatic assertion is given by an object model based on geometries. The object model seeks to prioritize the optimization using a dynamic data structure of spatial data. The ultimate goal of this architecture is the automatic storage of the spatial relationships without a noticeable loss of efficiency.This work was supported in part by Projects CICYT TIN2008-06742-C02-02/TSI, CICYT TEC2008-06732-C02-02/TEC, CAM CONTEXTS (S2009/ TIC-1485) and DPS2008-07029-C02-02.Publicad
Integrative analysis of the Regulatory Region of the FGFR3 Oncogene

The study of transcriptional regulation often needs the integration of diverse yet independent data. In the present work, sequence conservation, predic-tion of transcription factor binding sites (TFBS) and gene expression analysis have been applied to the detection of putative transcription factor (TF) modules in the regulatory region of the FGFR3 oncogene. Several TFs with conserved binding sites in the FGFR3 regulatory region have shown high positive or negative corre-lation with FGFR3 expression both in urothelial carcinoma and in benign nevi. By means of conserved TF cluster analysis, two different TF modules have been iden-tified in the promoter and first intron of FGFR3 gene. These modules contain acti-vating AP2, E2F, E47 and SP1 binding sites plus motifs for EGR with possible repressor function
NcPred for Accurate Nuclear Protein Prediction Using n-mer Statistics with Various Classification Algorithms

Prediction of nuclear proteins is one of the major challenges in genome annotation. A method, NcPred is described, for predicting nuclear proteins with higher accuracy exploiting n − mer statistics with different classification algorithms namely Alternating Decision (AD) Tree, Best First (BF) Tree, Random Tree and Adaptive (Ada) Boost. On BaCello dataset [1], NcPred improves about 20% accuracy with Random Tree and about 10% sensitivity with Ada Boost for Animal proteins compared to existing techniques. It also increases the accuracy of Fungal protein prediction by 20% and recall by 4% with AD Tree. In case of Human protein, the accuracy is improved by about 25% and sensitivity about 10% with BF Tree. Performance analysis of NcPred clearly demonstrates its suitability over the contemporary in-silico nuclear protein classification research.Full Tex
Interpreting the regulatory interplay in E. coli metabolic pathways

Many regulatory processes in the cell are based on the control of gene
expression through the interaction of transcription factors. However, enzymatic
regulation often overlays transcriptional regulation and even, in some metabolic
pathways, enzymatic regulation prevails. The present study addresses the regulatory
network of Escherichia coli and offers a global view of the regulation of its
metabolic pathways. It identifies the regulatory mechanisms responsible for key
metabolic activities and details the structures behind such mechanisms. This
knowledge is considered of relevance to further studies on the bacteria’s system
and its industrial application, namely for understanding the signal cascades comprised
in the responses to various environmental stresses.FCT funded MIT-Portugal Program in Bioengineering (MIT-Pt/BSBB/ 0082/2008); PhD grants from FCT (ref. SFRH/BD/22863/2005 and SFRH/BD/41763/2007)
A study on the robustness of strain optimization algorithms

5th International Conference on Practical Applications of Computational Biology & Bioinformatics (PACBB 2011), ISBN 978-3-642-19913-4In recent years, there have been considerable advances in the use of
genome-scale metabolic models to provide accurate phenotype simulation methods,
which in turn enabled the development of efficient strain optimization algorithms for
Metabolic Engineering. In this work, we address some of the limitations of previous
studies regarding strain optimization algorithms, mainly its use of Flux Balance
Analysis in the simulation layer.We perform a thorough analysis of previous results
by relying on Flux Variability Analysis and on alternative methods for phenotype
simulation, such as ROOM. This last method is also used in the simulation layer,
as a basis for optimization, and the results obtained are also the target of thorough
analysis and comparison with previous ones.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) - project MIT-PT/BS-BB/0082/200
BBMS + +  – basic bioinformatics meta-searcher

In this paper we present a Basic Bioinformatics Meta-searcher (BBMS), a web-based service aiming to simplify and integrate biological data searching through selected biological databases. BBMS facilitates biological data searching enabling multiple sources transparently, increasing research productivity as it avoids time consuming learning and parameterization of different search engines. As a complementary service, BBMS provides insight and links to common online bioinformatics tools. Users’ feedback when evaluating BBMS in terms of usability, usefulness and efficiency was very positive
Adaptive multi agent system for guiding groups of people in urban areas

This article presents a new approach for guiding a group of people using an adaptive\ud
multi agent system. For the simulations of the group of people we use social forces, with theses forces human motion is controlled depending on the dynamic environment. To get the group of people being guide we use a set of agents that work cooperatively and they adapt their behavior according to the situation where they are working and how people react. For that reason, we present a model that overcomes the limitations of existing approaches, which\ud
are either tailored to tightly bounded environments, or based on unrealistic human behaviors.\ud
In particular we define a Discrete-Time- Motion model, which from one side represents the environment by means of a potential field, and on the other hand the motion models for people and robots respond to realistic situations, and for instance human behaviors such as leaving the group are considered. Furthermore, we present an analysis of forces actuating among agents and humans throughout simulations of different situations of robot and human\ud
configurations and behaviors. Finally, a new model of multi-robot task allocation applied to people guidance in urban settings is presented. The developed architecture overcomes some of the limitations of existing approaches, such as emergent cooperation or resource sharing.Postprint (author’s final draft
Advances in Global and Local Helioseismology: an Introductory Review

Helioseismology studies the structure and dynamics of the Sun's interior by
observing oscillations on the surface. These studies provide information about
the physical processes that control the evolution and magnetic activity of the
Sun. In recent years, helioseismology has made substantial progress towards the
understanding of the physics of solar oscillations and the physical processes
inside the Sun, thanks to observational, theoretical and modeling efforts. In
addition to the global seismology of the Sun based on measurements of global
oscillation modes, a new field of local helioseismology, which studies
oscillation travel times and local frequency shifts, has been developed. It is
capable of providing 3D images of the subsurface structures and flows. The
basic principles, recent advances and perspectives of global and local
helioseismology are reviewed in this article.Comment: 86 pages, 46 figures; "Pulsation of the Sun and Stars", Lecture Notes
  in Physics, Vol. 832, Rozelot, Jean-Pierre; Neiner, Coralie (Eds.), 201