ppxscal/embedding_network huggingface dataset:
On servers in series with losses in descrete time
Authors: P. P. Bocharov, E. A. Nadaev
Venue: Automation and Remote Control (2006)

We study a m-phase queueing system without buffers, operating in discrete time. The input flow is Bernoulli with parameter a. Service times in server i have geometric distribution with parameter b i. A customer, trying to enter a server at an instant, when it is busy, is lost. There have been obtained system of equilibrium equations and recurrence relations for its coefficients which enable us to formulate the algorithm to build the system. Recurrence formulas for computation of the empty system probability and some other performance characteristics of the system, are determined. The problem of optimal allocation of the servers is studied numerically.
HCLP Based Service Composition
Authors: Ying Guan, Aditya K. Ghose, Zheng Lu
Venue: Proceedings of the 2006 IEEE/WIC/ACM international conference on Web Intelligence and Intelligent Agent Technology (2006)

A key impediment to the widespread adoption of web services is the relatively limited set of tools available to deal with Quality-of-Service (QoS) factors. QoS factors pose several difficult challenges in how they may be articulated. While the functional requirements of a service can be represented as predicates to be satisfied by the target system, QoS factors are effectively statements of objectives to be maximized or minimized. QoS requirements occur naturally as local specifications of preference. Dealing with QoS factors is therefore a multi-objective optimization problem. In effect, these objectives are never fully satisfied, but satisficed to varying degrees. In evaluating alternative design decisions, we need to trade-off varying degrees of satisfaction of potentially mutually contradictory non-functional requirements. One key contribution of this work is the use of the Hierarchical Constraint Logical Programming (HCLP) framework in dealing with functional requirements, business process rules and Quality of Service (QoS) factors. We show how functional requirements and business process rules can be defined as hard constraints, QoS factors can be formulated as soft constraints and how the machinery associated with constraint hierarchies can be used to evaluate the alternative trade-offs involved in seeking to satisfy a set of QoS factors that might pull in different directions. We apply also this approach to the problem of reasoning about web service selection and composition, and establish that significant value can be derived from such an exercise.
Automatic Retinal Vasculature Structure Tracing and Vascular Landmark Extraction from Human Eye Image
Authors: Eunhwa Jung, Kyungho Hong
Venue: Proceedings of the 2006 International Conference on Hybrid Information Technology - Volume 02 (2006)

We present an effective algorithm for automatic tracing of vasculature structures and vascular landmark extraction of bifurcations and ending points. In this paper we deal with vascular patterns from digital images for personal identification. Vessel tracing algorithms are of interest in a variety of biometric and medical application such as personal identification, biometrics, and ophthalmic disorders like vessel change detection. However eye surface vasculature tracing has many problems which are subject to improper illumination, glare, fade-out, shadow and artifacts arising from reflection, refraction, and dispersion. The proposed algorithm on vascular tracing employs multi-stage processing of ten-layers as followings: Image Acquisition, Image Enhancement by gray scale retinal image enhancement, reducing background artifact and illuminations and removing interlacing minute characteristics of vessels, Vascular Structure Extraction by connecting broken vessels, extracting vascular structure using eight directional information, and extracting retinal vascular structure. Vascular Landmark Extraction of bifurcations and ending points. The results of automatic retinal vessel extraction using five different thresholds applied 34 eye images are presented. The results of vasculature tracing algorithm shows that the suggested algorithm can obtain not only robust and accurate vessel tracing but also vascular landmarks according to thresholds.
Personalization in privacy-aware highly dynamic systems
Authors: Stefan Sackmann, Jens Strüker, Rafael Accorsi
Venue: Communications of the ACM (2006)

Enabling novel ways to personalize the relationship with customers without sacrificing their privacy.
Learning communities and laptops: a design experiment
Authors: Todd C. Reimer, Felicia Rader
Venue: Proceedings of the 7th international conference on Learning sciences (2006)

In order to create a technologically fluent community of learners, one College of Education implemented a Laptop Initiative for pre-service teachers. The laptop requirement was a design experiment created to form a community of practice within the College of Education, centered around ubiquitous computing and situating technology use into the classroom practice. The experiences of a cohort of foreign language pre-service teachers are highlighted as an example of this situated community of practice.
Applying privacy on the dissemination of location information
Authors: G. F. Marias, L. Kazatzopoulos, C. Delakouridis, P. Georgiadis
Venue: Telematics and Informatics (2006)

Recent achievements in the positioning technology enable the provision of location-based services that require high accuracy. On the other hand, location privacy is important, since position information is considered as personal information. Thus, anonymity and location privacy in mobile and pervasive environments has been receiving increasing attention during the last few years, and several mechanisms and architectures have been proposed to prevent "big brother" phenomena. In this paper, we discuss an architecture to shield the location of a mobile user and preserve the anonymity on the service delivery. This architecture relies on un-trusted entities to distribute segments of anonymous location information, and authorizes other entities to combine these portions and derive the actual location of a user. The paper describes how the proposed architecture takes into account the location privacy requirements, and how it is used by the end users' devices, e.g., mobile phones, for the dissemination of location information to Service Providers. Furthermore, it discusses performance study experiments, based on real location data, and summarizes the threats analysis results.
Air cargo operations evaluation and analysis through simulation
Authors: Aaron L. Nsakanda, Michel Turcotte, Moustapha Diaby
Venue: Proceedings of the 36th conference on Winter simulation (2004)

This paper illustrates the use of simulation for evaluating and analyzing air cargo operations at one of the new state-of-the art cargo facilities at Toronto Pearson Airport. The establishment of a facility equipped with some of the latest in modern material handling systems available today and a computerized-based inventory control system that interfaces with all aspects of its cargo operations, has driven the airline company involved in this study to developing new processes to ensure that products and services are aligned with customers' needs. One of the challenges faced is a lack of an evaluation tool that can be used to quantitatively evaluate and compare different policies, business practices and processes within a given set of operational and business constraints. This work aims in developing such an evaluation tool. We describe the modeling approach, the challenges involved and the potential use of the simulation tool. Preliminary results are also reported.
SDF^3: SDF For Free
Authors: Sander Stuijk, Marc Geilen, Twan Basten
Venue: Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Application of Concurrency to System Design (2006)

SDF^3 is a tool for generating random Synchronous DataFlow Graphs (SDFGs), if desirable with certain guaranteed properties like strongly connectedness. It includes an extensive library of SDFG analysis and transformation algorithms as well as functionality to visualize them. The tool can create SDFG benchmarks that mimic DSP or multimedia applications.
Learning trust strategies in reputation exchange networks
Authors: Karen K. Fullam, K. Suzanne Barber
Venue: Proceedings of the fifth international joint conference on Autonomous agents and multiagent systems (2006)

An agent's trust decision strategy consists of the agent's policies for making trust-related decisions, such as who to trust, how trustworthy to be, what reputations to believe, and when to tell truthful reputations. In reputation exchange networks, learning trust decision strategies is complex, compared to non-reputation-communicating systems. When potential partners may exchange reputation information about an agent, the agent's interactions with one partner are no longer independent from interactions with another; partners may tell each other about their experiences with the agent, influencing future behavior. This research enumerates the types of decisions an agent faces in reputation exchange networks, explains the interdependencies between these decisions, and correlates rewards to each decision. Experimental results using the Agent Reputation and Trust (ART) Testbed demonstrate the success of strategy-learning agents over agents employing naive strategies. The variation in performance of reputation-based learning vs. experience-based learning over different opponents illustrates the need to dynamically determine when to utilize reputations vs. experience in making trust decisions.
Design and Implementation of an Instructional Foundation Fieldbus-based Pilot Plant
Authors: Javad karami, Karim Salahshoor
Venue: Proceedings of the International Multi-Conference on Computing in the Global Information Technology (2006)

Ability and at the same time the simplicity, has significantly enhanced the applications of Fieldbus technology in the industrial activities especially in process automation. The ultimate purpose of the enforcement of this project is to display the ability and efficiency of the Foundation Fieldbus technology in the planning, installation, maintenance and renovation phases of the process automation projects in the framework of designing, implementing and execution on an Instructional Pilot Plant. Having an instructional plant at one's disposal in order to carry out the standard tests and the training directions related to the above technology for the purpose of proving the above claims is amongst other objectives for fulfillment of this project. In this thesis, it will be demonstrated that how by taking advantage of the products of the Smar company under the names of System302 Enterprise Edition, Series302 Fieldbus Instruments, DFI302 Universal Bridge, DF65 Coproccessor and applying them on an Instructional Pilot Plant, the above purposes can be realized.
Performance of two-stage tandem queues with blocking: the impact of several flows of signals
Authors: A. Gómez-Corral, M. E. Martos
Venue: Performance Evaluation (2006)

This paper considers a two-stage tandem G-queue with blocking, service requirements of phase type and arrivals of units and of signals - which cancel one unit waiting in line or in service - both assumed to be Markovian arrival processes. The main characteristic of the service process in this tandem queue is blocking, which occurs according to a BAS (blocking after service) mechanism. A finite queue of capacity K ≥ 0 is allowed between servers, so that a unit having completed processing on Station 1 attempts to join Station 2. If K + 1 units are accommodated into Station 2, then the completed unit is forced to wait at Station 1 occupying the server space until a space becomes available at Station 2. Thus the first server becomes blocked or not available for service on incoming units. Our purpose is to study the influence of several flows of signals on the performance evaluation of the queueing model through various probabilistic descriptors. By means of a numerical investigation, we study four two-stage tandem G-queues with blocking depending on the existence of flows of signals affecting Station 1 and/or Station 2. The essential tool in our analysis is the general theory of quasi-birth-and-death processes.
Asymptotical analysis of MUSIC and ESPRIT frequency estimates
Authors: A. Eriksson, P. Stoica, T. Soderstrom
Venue: Proceedings of the Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing, 1993. ICASSP-93 Vol 4., 1993 IEEE International Conference on - Volume 04 (1993)

The authors present expressions for the variance of the multiple signal classification (MUSIC) and ESPRIT frequency estimates derived under the assumption that the sample covariance matrix is close to its asymptotical value. This assumption is valid for a sufficiently high signal-to-noise ratio, but also for a large number of data samples. It is shown that the expressions derived here encompass both the high SNR analysis presented earlier and the large sample analysis described by P. Stoica and T. Soderstrom (IEEE Trans. vol.SP-39, no.8, p.1836-47, Aug. 1991). The theoretical results are supported by the results obtained from Monte Carlo simulations.
Chalklets: Developing Applications for a Board Environment
Authors: Lars Knipping, Marcus Liwicki
Venue: Proceedings of the Eighth IEEE International Symposium on Multimedia (2006)

This paper presents a novel software framework and methodology to run applications on an interactive whiteboard. A new type of application called "Chalklets" has been designed. Chalklets use the chalkboard as an interface metaphor replacing the desktop. This allows the seamless integration of educational mini applications into electronic-whiteboard-supported lectures. This article describes the framework, presents a number of Chalklets, and discusses the concept, using the example of a Chalklet for simulating logic circuits sketched on the whiteboard.
Comparative study of the server-initiated lowest algorithm using a load balancing index based on the process behavior for heterogeneous environment
Authors: R. F. Mello, L. C. Trevelin, M. S. Paiva, Laurence T. Yang
Venue: Cluster Computing (2006)

The availability of low cost microcomputers and the evolution of computer networks have increased the development of distributed systems. In order to get a better process allocation on distributed environments, several load balancing algorithms have been proposed. Generally, these algorithms consider as the information policy's load index the length of the CPU's process waiting queue. This paper modifies the Server-Initiated Lowest algorithm by using a load index based on the resource occupation. Using this load index the Server-Initiated Lowest algorithm is compared to the Stable symmetrically initiated, which nowadays is defined as the best choice. The comparisons are made by using simulations. The simulations showed that the modified Server-Initiated Lowest algorithm had better results than the Symmetrically Initiated one.
Hop-Efficient and Power-Optimized Routing Strategy in a Decentralized Mesh Network Using Directional Antenna
Authors: Sanjay Chatterjee, Siuli Roy, Somprakash Bandyopadhyay
Venue: Proceedings of the Proceedings of The Fifth International Symposium on Parallel and Distributed Computing (2006)

This paper addresses a new routing strategy keeping the power of each node as an important constraint for routing in a fully decentralized mesh networks utilizing the additional advantages of a directional antenna. Unlike the most widely used principles in routing this strategy doesn't always focus on minimizing the number of hops but also ensures that the battery power of each node is utilized optimally as well. In this proposed strategy if the node has depleted its power then alternate paths would be calculated for routing, selecting the nodes such that it is hop-efficient and power-optimized. This strategy also ensures a perfect load balancing or load sharing among the network. Using directional antenna ensures that its range extension capabilities coupled with the space division multiple access mechanism provide additional enhancements to the strategy. Moreover the power requirement of the directional antenna is also much less then its omni directional counterpart. We clearly illustrate and quantify the benefits of the proposed strategy and protocol scalability using simulations.
Using cognitive ethnography to study instruction
Authors: Robert F. Williams
Venue: Proceedings of the 7th international conference on Learning sciences (2006)

Advances in digital media support a form of inquiry called cognitive ethnography. Cognitive ethnography employs traditional ethnographic methods to build knowledge of a community of practice and then applies this knowledge to the micro-level analysis of specific episodes of activity. The principal aim of cognitive ethnography is to reveal how cognitive activities are accomplished in real-world settings. Cognitive ethnography is a particularly apt method for studying instruction in both formal and informal settings. This paper discusses the practicalities of doing cognitive ethnographic research, including such issues as deciding what to record, selecting data for analysis, re-representing data, and analyzing data. Illustrative examples are provided from a recent cognitive ethnographic study of time-telling instruction.
Font Adaptive Word Indexing of Modern Printed Documents
Authors: Simone Marinai Emanuele Marino Giovanni Soda
Venue: IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence (2006)

We propose an approach for the word-level indexing of modern printed documents which are difficult to recognize using current OCR engines. By means of word-level indexing, it is possible to retrieve the position of words in a document, enabling queries involving proximity of terms. Web search engines implement this kind of indexing, allowing users to retrieve Web pages on the basis of their textual content. Nowadays, digital libraries hold collections of digitized documents that can be retrieved either by browsing the document images or relying on appropriate metadata assembled by domain experts. Word indexing tools would therefore increase the access to these collections. The proposed system is designed to index homogeneous document collections by automatically adapting to different languages and font styles without relying on OCR engines for character recognition. The approach is based on three main ideas: the use of Self Organizing Maps (SOM) to perform unsupervised character clustering, the definition of one suitable vector-based word representation whose size depends on the word aspect-ratio, and the run-time alignment of the query word with indexed words to deal with broken and touching characters. The most appropriate applications are for processing modern printed documents (17th to 19th centuries) where current OCR engines are less accurate. Our experimental analysis addresses six data sets containing documents ranging from books of the 17th century to contemporary journals.
Repseek, a tool to retrieve approximate repeats from large DNA sequences
Authors: Guillaume Achaz, Frédéric Boyer, Eduardo P. C. Rocha, Alain Viari, Eric Coissac
Venue: Bioinformatics (2007)

Summary: Chromosomes or other long DNA sequences contain many highly similar repeated sub-sequences. While there are efficient methods for detecting strict repeats or detecting already characterized repeats, there is no software available for detecting approximate repeats in large DNA sequences allowing for weighted substitutions and indels in a coherent statistical framework. Here, we present an implementation of a two-steps method (seed detection followed by their extension) that detects those approximate repeats. Our method is computationally efficient enough to handle large sequences and is flexible enough to account for influencing factors, such as sequence-composition biases both at the seed detection and alignment levels. Availability: http://wwwabi.snv.jussieu.fr/public/RepSeek/ Contact: achaz@abi.snv.jussieu.fr http://www.repetmasker.org
A Data Allocation Scheme using Data Mining for Wireless Cellular Network
Authors: John Tsiligaridis, Raj Acharya
Venue: Proceedings of the International Symposium on Collaborative Technologies and Systems (2006)

A centralized collaborative system between nodes, servers and Base Stations (BSs) is developed, and a new data allocation scheme based on group and query prediction mobility scheme with Data Mining techniques is proposed. With this approach we minimize the cost of remote access by reducing the number of network messages and improve the response time of the queries. A series of algorithms is developed so that the system can provide the "prefetch" operation for the group of users according to their mobility. The data have to follow the users' moves. Our new approach contains Call Admission Control (CAC) with a prediction scheme for Group and Query Mobility (GQM) based on two phases: the Merge Itemsets Algorithm (MIA) and the one step dynamic Replication Algorithm (RAL1) respectively. The RAL1, providing two data replication policies, can guarantee the acceleration of the query execution. The proposed system can be used for site selection or reduction of the number of sites in query optimization, and also the design of any new architecture for distributed query processing. Simulation results are provided.
Sequential testing of two composite statistical hypotheses
Authors: B. S. Darkhovskii
Venue: Automation and Remote Control (2006)

Consideration was given to the sequential testing of two composite statistical hypotheses. Each hypothesis is described by the density depending on the parameter which can belong to any of the two disjoint sets. A sequential procedure minimizing the Bayes risk which is maximal in the family of the a priori parameter distributions was proposed. The family of a priori distributions consists of all probabilistic distributions over the parametric set for which the a priori probability of validity of one of the composite hypotheses is equal to the given value. It was established that this procedure minimizes the parameter-maximal mean observation time under an additional condition and with the assumption of validity of any of the hypotheses in the class of rules for which the parameter-maximal error probabilities do not exceed the given values. The results obtained change over to the Wald classical results for the case of testing simple hypotheses.
Reconstruction in the Round Using Photometric Normals and Silhouettes.
Authors: George Vogiatzis, Carlos Hernandez, Roberto Cipolla
Venue: Proceedings of the 2006 IEEE Computer Society Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition - Volume 2 (2006)

This paper addresses the problem of obtaining complete, detailed reconstructions of shiny textureless objects. We present an algorithm which uses silhouettes of the object, as well as images obtained under varying illumination conditions. In contrast with previous photometric stereo techniques, ours is not limited to a single viewpoint and produces accurate reconstructions in full 3D. A number of images of the object are obtained from multiple viewpoints, under varying lighting conditions. Starting from the silhouettes, the algorithm recovers camera motion and constructs the object's visual hull. This is then used to recover the illumination and initialise a multi-view photometric stereo scheme to obtain a closed surface reconstruction. The contributions of the paper are twofold: Firstly we describe a robust technique to estimate light directions and intensities and secondly, we introduce a novel formulation of photometric stereo which combines multiple viewpoints and hence allows closed surface reconstructions. The algorithm has been implemented as a practical model acquisition system. Here, a quantitative evaluation of the algorithm on synthetic data is presented together with a complete reconstruction of a challenging real object.