pinecone/core-2020-05-10-deduplication huggingface dataset:
Immersiveness of ubiquitous computing environments prototypes: A case study

The development of ubiquitous computing (ubicomp) environments raises several challenges in terms of their evaluation. Ubicomp virtual reality prototyping tools enable users to experience the system to be developed and are of great help to face those challenges, as they support developers in assessing the consequences of a design decision in the early phases of development. Given the situated nature of ubicomp environments, a particular issue to consider is the level of realism provided by the prototypes. This work presents a case study where two ubicomp prototypes, featuring different levels of immersion (desktop-based versus CAVE-based), were developed and compared. The goal was to determine the cost/beneﬁts relation of both solutions, which provided better user experience results, and whether or not simpler solutions provide the same user experience results as more elaborate one.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) through Projecto Estratégico – LA 9 – 2014-2015 (PEst-OE/EEI/LA0009/201
The robustness of periodic orchestrations in uncertain evolving environments

A framework for assessing the robustness of  long-duration repetitive orchestrations in  uncertain evolving environments is proposed. The model assumes that service-based evaluation environments are stable over short time-frames only; over longer periods service-based environments evolve as demand fluctuates and contention for shared resources varies.\ud
The behaviour of a short-duration orchestration E in a stable environment is assessed by an uncertainty profile U and a corresponding zero-sum angel-daemon game Gamma (U). \ud
Here the angel-daemon approach is extended to assess evolving environments by means of a subfamily of  stochastic games. These games are called strategy oblivious  because their transition probabilities are strategy independent. It is shown that the value of a strategy oblivious stochastic game is  well defined and that it can be computed by solving a linear system. Finally, the proposed stochastic framework is used to assess the evolution of the  Gabrmn IT system.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft
Uncertainty in the cloud: an angel-daemon approach to modelling performance

Uncertainty profiles are used to study the effects of contention within cloud and service-based environments. An uncertainty profile provides a qualitative description of an environment whose quality of service (QoS) may fluctuate unpredictably.\ud
\ud
For example, the performance of an application running on a virtual machine can be affected both by the way in which resources are allocated at run-time as well as by hardware contention issues. The aim of this paper is to model the influence that cloud (or service-based) environments can have on  an application's performance. \ud
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Uncertain environments are modelled by strategic games with two agents; a daemon  is used to represent overload and high resource contention; an angel is used to represent an idealised resource allocation situation with no underlying contention.\ud
%An assessment of mixed-stress situations is found by finding the Nash equilibria of games constructed from uncertainty profiles.\ud
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Assessments of uncertainty profiles are useful in two ways: firstly,\ud
they provide a broad understanding of how environmental stress  can effect an application's performance\ud
(and reliability); secondly, they allow the  effects of introducing redundancy into a computation to be assessed.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft
Consistency-Based Reliability Assessment

This paper addresses the question of assessing the relative reliability of unknown information sources. We propose to consider a phase during which the consistency of information they report is analysed, whether it is the consistency of each single report, or the consistency of a report w.r.t. some trusted knowledge or the consistency of different reports together. We adopt an axiomatic approach by first giving postulates which characterize how the resulting reliability preorder should be; then we define a family of operators for building this preorder and demonstrate that it satisfies the proposed postulates
Dynamic time warping distance for message propagation classification in
  Twitter

Social messages classification is a research domain that has attracted the
attention of many researchers in these last years. Indeed, the social message
is different from ordinary text because it has some special characteristics
like its shortness. Then the development of new approaches for the processing
of the social message is now essential to make its classification more
efficient. In this paper, we are mainly interested in the classification of
social messages based on their spreading on online social networks (OSN). We
proposed a new distance metric based on the Dynamic Time Warping distance and
we use it with the probabilistic and the evidential k Nearest Neighbors (k-NN)
classifiers to classify propagation networks (PrNets) of messages. The
propagation network is a directed acyclic graph (DAG) that is used to record
propagation traces of the message, the traversed links and their types. We
tested the proposed metric with the chosen k-NN classifiers on real world
propagation traces that were collected from Twitter social network and we got
good classification accuracies.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figure ECSQARU 2015, Proceedings of the 13th European
  Conferences on Symbolic and Quantitative Approaches to Reasoning with
  Uncertainty, 201
Possibilistic Conditional Preference Networks

The paper discusses the use of product-based possibilistic networks for representing conditional preference statements on discrete variables. The approach uses non-instantiated possibility weights to define conditional preference tables. Moreover, additional information about the relative strengths of symbolic weights can be taken into account. It yields a partial preference order among possible choices corresponding to a symmetric form of Pareto ordering. In the case of Boolean variables, this partial ordering coincides with the inclusion between the sets of preference statements that are violated. Furthermore, this graphical model has two logical counterparts in terms of possibilistic logic and penalty logic. The flexibility and the representational power of the approach are stressed. Besides, algorithms for handling optimization and dominance queries are provided
Symbolic Possibilistic Logic: Completeness and Inference Methods

This paper studies the extension of possibilistic logic to the case when weights attached to formulas are symbolic and stand for variables that lie in a totally ordered scale, and only partial knowledge is available on the relative strength of these weights. A proof of the soundness and the completeness of this logic according to the relative certainty semantics in the sense of necessity measures is provided. Based on this result, two syntactic inference methods are presented. The first one calculates the necessity degree of a possibilistic formula using the notion of minimal inconsistent sub-base. A second method is proposed that takes inspiration from the concept of ATMS. Notions introduced in that area, such as nogoods and labels, are used to calculate the necessity degree of a possibilistic formula. A comparison of the two methods is provided, as well as a comparison with the original version of symbolic possibilistic logic
Representing and reasoning about arguments mined from texts and dialogues

This paper presents a target language for representing arguments mined from natural language. The key features are the connection between possible reasons and possible claims and recursive embedding of such connections. Given a base of these arguments and counterarguments mined from texts or dialogues, we want be able combine them, deconstruct them, and to analyse them (for instance to check whether the set is inconsistent). To address these needs, we propose a formal language for representing reasons and claims, and a framework for inferencing with the arguments and counterarguments in this formal language
Moment Semantics for Reversible Rule-Based Systems

International audienceWe develop a notion of stochastic rewriting over marked graphs – i.e. directed multigraphs with degree constraints. The approach is based on double-pushout (DPO) graph rewriting. Marked graphs are expressive enough to internalize the 'no-dangling-edge' condition inherent in DPO rewriting. Our main result is that the linear span of marked graph occurrence-counting functions – or motif functions – form an algebra which is closed under the infinitesimal generator of (the Markov chain associated with) any such rewriting system. This gives a general procedure to derive the moment semantics of any such rewriting system, as a countable (and recursively enumerable) system of differential equations indexed by motif functions. The differential system describes the time evolution of moments (of any order) of these motif functions under the rewriting system. We illustrate the semantics using the example of preferential attachment networks; a well-studied complex system, which meshes well with our notion of marked graph rewriting. We show how in this case our procedure obtains a finite description of all moments of degree counts for a fixed degree
Reversibility in the Extended Measurement-based Quantum Computation

When applied on some particular quantum entangled states, measurements are
universal for quantum computing. In particular, despite the fondamental
probabilistic evolution of quantum measurements, any unitary evolution can be
simulated by a measurement-based quantum computer (MBQC). We consider the
extended version of the MBQC where each measurement can occur not only in the
(X,Y)-plane of the Bloch sphere but also in the (X,Z)- and (Y,Z)-planes. The
existence of a gflow in the underlying graph of the computation is a necessary
and sufficient condition for a certain kind of determinism. We extend the
focused gflow (a gflow in a particular normal form) defined for the (X,Y)-plane
to the extended case, and we provide necessary and sufficient conditions for
the existence of such normal forms
A Regular Representation of Quantum Circuits

We present a quantum circuit representation consisting entirely of qubit
initialisations (I), a network of controlled-NOT gates (C) and measurements
with respect to different bases (M). The ICM representation is useful for
optimisation of quantum circuits that include teleportation, which is required
for fault-tolerant, error corrected quantum computation. The non-deterministic
nature of teleportation necessitates the conditional introduction of corrective
quantum gates and additional ancillae during circuit execution. Therefore, the
standard optimisation objectives, gate count and number of wires, are not
well-defined for general teleportation-based circuits. The transformation of a
circuit into the ICM representation provides a canonical form for an exact
fault-tolerant, error corrected circuit needed for optimisation prior to the
final implementation in a realistic hardware model.Comment: Shorter Computer Science focused version of arXiv:1509.0200
Scenario analysis as a tool for informing the design of behaviour change interventions

This paper was published in the journal Lecture notes in Computer Science. The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20886-2_50This article presents the design process behind the specification of a behaviour change intervention method to promote energy saving. The amount of energy used for food preparation is highly influenced by people’s behaviours. A user-centred design approach based on scenario analysis was applied to provide understanding of context of use and specification of user requirements. This knowledge was applied to the design of behaviour change interventions to motivate sustainable behaviours
A feasibility study of the effect of phone-based feedback of other commuters’ subjective experiences on driver intentions to change

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20886-2_51Encouraging people to make sustainable transport choices remains a global challenge and many interventions have been attempted. This study investigated the reflection on own/others’ subjective experiences (SE) as an intervention using a smartphone application as the intervention tool. Participants were car drivers and used the app to automatically capture and reflect on their commute journeys and experiences. The experimental group were also able to reflect upon others’ experiences across car, walk and cycle modes. Others’ experiences were designed based on a previous self-report study. Results of the study showed that quantitative measures of intentions to change were not affected by the intervention but that qualitative data showed that the positive experience of the active transport modes did bring about reflection on behaviour and a potential influence on opinions and intentions which warrants further study
Robot-era project: Preliminary results on the system usability

The European project Robot-Era is an ambitious integrated project (FP7-ICT-2011.5.4), which objective is the development of advanced robotic services, integrated in intelligent environments, to provide independent living to older people. In order to guarantee the matching of the users’ need and the demands, two loops of experimentation were conceived, in realistic and real setting. The aim of the paper is to described the methods applied and the main results coming from the first experimental loop, concerning the degree of usability of the interfaces and provide guidelines for testing socially assistive robots with older people. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015
Ease-of-Use of Tactile Interaction for Novice Older Adults

Usability, particularly ease-of-use, is a main factor affecting the acceptance of technologies by older adults. Mobile devices offer great possibilities for well-being applications, but they are often equipped with touchscreen. In order to evaluate the ease-of-use of tactile interaction, this study compares the performances of 16 novice (mean age 74) and 8 experienced older adults (mean 75) during the execution of drag-and-drop interaction for achieving tactile puzzle games on smartphone and tablet, with pen and fingers. Results show that novice users were able accomplish interaction accurately with longer times but no significant difference of errors of accuracy
Transcending disciplinary, cultural and national boundaries: Emergent technologies, new education landscape and the cloud workshop project

As technology continues to become more accessible, miniaturised and diffused into the environment, the potential of wearable technology to impact our lives in significant ways becomes increasingly viable. Wearables afford unique interaction, communication and functional capabilities between users, their environment as well as access to information and digital data. Wearables also demand an inter-disciplinary approach and, depending on the purpose, can be fashioned to transcend cultural, national and spatial boundaries. This paper presents the Cloud Workshop project based on the theme of ‘Wearables and Wellbeing; Enriching connections between citizens in the Asia-Pacific region’, initiated through a cooperative partnership between Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU) and Griffith University (GU). The project was unique due to its inter-disciplinary, inter-cultural and inter-national scope that occurred simultaneously between Australia and Hong Kong
Incorporating marketing strategies to improve usability assurance in user-centered design processes

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20901-2_14Proceedings of 17th International Conference, HCI International 2015, Los Angeles, CA, USA, August 2-7, 2015Nowadays, international companies have been using different strategies in order to obtain more attractive products and get a higher impact on the market. But when referring to software products, it is necessary to keep in mind that such strategies are affected by specific quality criteria as usability. Usability and marketing can be combined to offer more attractive products. In fact, specific instances of marketing technics have been gradually adopted by software engineers to improve usability. All in all, there is a lack of systematic approaches dealing with the integration of both marketing and usability through activities in a user-centered development process. To face such challenge, in this paper we have selected the most important marketing strategies to be integrated as activities in a user-centered process model. Activities were classified into Pre-Development, Development and Post-Development, and they have been sorted out depending on the marketing processes taking place before, during and after the development of a software product, respectively.This work has been supported by the funding project S2013/ICE-2715 granted by the Madrid Research Counci
Identify Error-Sensitive Patterns by Decision Tree

When errors are inevitable during data classification, finding a particular part of the classification model which may be more susceptible to error than others, when compared to finding an Achilles’ heel of the model in a casual way, may help uncover specific error-sensitive value patterns and lead to additional error reduction measures. As an initial phase of the investigation, this study narrows the scope of problem by focusing on decision trees as a pilot model, develops a simple and effective tagging method to digitize individual nodes of a binary decision tree for node-level analysis, to link and track classification statistics for each node in a transparent way, to facilitate the identification and examination of the potentially “weakest” nodes and error-sensitive value patterns in decision trees, to assist cause analysis and enhancement development. This digitization method is not an attempt to re-develop or transform the existing decision tree model, but rather, a pragmatic node ID formulation that crafts numeric values to reflect the tree structure and decision making paths, to expand post-classification analysis to detailed node-level. Initial experiments have shown successful results in locating potentially high-risk attribute and value patterns; this is an encouraging sign to believe this study worth further exploration
Development of Automatic Speech Recognition Techniques for Elderly Home Support: Applications and Challenges

International audienceVocal command may have considerable advantages in terms of usability in the AAL domain. However, efficient audio analysis in smart home environment is a challenging task in large part because of bad speech recognition results in the case of elderly people. Dedicated speech corpora were recorded and employed to adapted generic speech recog-nizers to this type of population. Evaluation results of a first experiment allowed to draw conclusions about the distress call detection. A second experiments involved participants who played fall scenarios in a realistic smart home, 67% of the distress calls were detected online. These results show the difficulty of the task and serve as basis to discuss the stakes and the challenges of this promising technology for AAL
RICHIE: A Step-by-step Navigation Widget to Enhance Broad Hierarchy Exploration on Handheld Tactile Devices

International audienceExploring large hierarchies is still a challenging task, especially for handheld tactile devices, due to the lack of visualization space and finger's occlusion. In this paper, we propose the RICHIE (Radial In-Cremental HIerarchy Exploration) tool, a new radial widget that allows step-by-step navigation through large hierarchies. We designed it to fit handheld tactile requirements such as target reaching and space optimization. Depth exploration is made by shifting two levels of hierarchy at the same time, for reducing the screen occupation. This widget was implemented in order to adapt a Command and Control (C2) system to mobile tactile devices, as these systems require the on-screen presence of an important unit's hierarchy (the ORder of BATtle). Nevertheless, we are convinced that RICHIE could be used on several systems that require hierarchical data exploration, such as phylogenetic trees or file browsing
Toward Usable Intelligent User Interface

Context-awareness of interaction with intelligent user interface has been considered as a potentially important factor of their usability. A fair amount of research has been conducted to identify and help developing advanced adaptations in order to streamline interaction with systems. However, it has to be noted that adaptations could have an adverse impact when it does not meet users expectations. Thereby ‘Context-awareness’ as well as ‘usercenteredness’ become more crucial to improve the quality of interaction as well as UIs. Inter-twinned with intelligent techniques, HCI proved an ability to be more intuitive, nevertheless a significant lack of transparency and controllability and predictability were detected. This work is aimed to improve the quality of interaction to fit intelligent user interface performance. We focus on interaction as a key factor for improving the user satisfaction and the interface usability during use. This paper considers major issues and challenges of improving interaction with user interfaces during their use by considering the ISO2941. It presents a methodological proposal for guiding UI developers to designs predict and evaluates interaction quality with regards to well-defined dialog principles
Submarine mass movements and their consequences

This sixth edition of the Submarine Mass Movements and Their\ud
Consequences volume, coincident with the seventh eponymous conference includes\ud
61 papers that span a variety of topics and are organized into nine parts as follows:\ud
(1) Submarine mass movement in margin construction and economic significance;\ud
(2) Failure dynamics from landslide geomorphology; (3) Geotechnical aspects of\ud
\ud
mass movement; (4) Multidisciplinary case studies; (5) Tectonics and mass move-\ud
ment processes; (6) Fluid flow and gas hydrates, (7) Mass transport deposits in\ud
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modern and outcrop sedimentology; (8) Numerical and statistical analysis; and,\ud
(9) Tsunami generation from slope failure. The breath and quality of this body of\ud
work underpins a positive outlook and our enthusiasm for the future direction of\ud
research in this area of science as it moves towards ever more detailed analysis and\ud
monitoring. We also emphasize in this volume the need to look at mountain-scale outcrops to better understand our seismic imaging, to carry out statistical studies\ud
that draw on global data sets to better constrain broad behavioural characteristics,\ud
and to undertake numerical modelling to understand the sensitivity of a range of\ud
natural slopes.peer-reviewe