ppxscal/embedding_network huggingface dataset:
A high-end virtual reality setup for the study of mental rotations
Authors: Alexandre Lehmann, Manuel Vidal, Heinrich H. Bülthoff
Venue: Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments (2008)

Mental rotation is the capacity to predict the orientation of an object or the layout of a scene after a change in viewpoint. Previous studies have shown that the cognitive cost of mental rotations is reduced when the viewpoint change results from the observer's motion rather than the object or spatial layout's rotation. The classical interpretation for these findings involves the use of automatic updating mechanisms triggered during self-motion. Nevertheless, little is known about how this process is triggered and particularly how sensory cues combine in order to facilitate mental rotations. The previously existing setups, either real or virtual, did not allow disentangling the different sensory contributions, which motivated the development of a new high-end virtual reality platform overcoming these technical limitations. In the present paper we will start by a didactic review of the literature on mental rotations and expose the current technical limitations. Then we will fully describe the experimental platform that was developed at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tübingen. The setup consisted of a cabin mounted on the top of a six degree-of-freedom Stewart platform inside of which was an adjustable seat, a physical table with a screen embedded, and a large projection screen. A 5-PC cluster running Virtools was used to drive the platform and render the two passive stereovision scenes that were displayed on the table and background screens. Finally, we will present the experiment using this setup that allowed replicating the classical advantage found for a moving observer, which validates our setup. We will conclude by discussing the experimental validation and the advantages of such a setup.
A Semantic Retrieval Approach by Color and Spatial Location of Image Regions
Authors: Rong-bing Huang, Shui-lian Dong, Ming-hui Du
Venue: Proceedings of the 2008 Congress on Image and Signal Processing, Vol. 2 - Volume 02 (2008)

The traditional content-based image retrieval system can not meet the users’ needs due to the ‘semantic gap’ between low-level features and the richness of human semantics. In an attempt to narrow the ‘semantic gap’, an approach which combines region-based image retrieval (RBIR) and relevance feedback (RF) with semantic color and spatial location features is presented in this paper. This method segments images into homogeneous regions and gives name for each region. In addition, the importance of each region is also taken into account. The Earth Mover’s Distance (EMD) is employed to measure the image similarity. To further improve the efficiency and accuracy of retrieval system, relevance feedback techniques are introduced in this paper. Experimental results on 1000 images database demonstrate the effectiveness and the efficiency of our approach is encouraging.
Persuasive Technology for Shaping Social Beliefs of Rural Women in India: An Approach Based on the Theory of Planned Behaviour
Authors: Vikram Parmar, David Keyson, Cees Debont
Venue: Proceedings of the 3rd international conference on Persuasive Technology (2008)

This paper presents the Personal Health Information system (PHI), which has been designed to influence health behaviours of rural women. The objective of the PHI is to offer health information to rural women to increase their awareness about menses and maternal health. The design and development process of the PHI is based on the theory of planned behaviour and employs social cues of persuasive technology to increase perceived behaviour control of rural women. In order to measure users' level of engagement, a comparative study between the PHI and conventional health information system was conducted. The results of the interactive sessions with women of different age groups and literacy levels illustrates the usefulness of PHI in motivating rural women to challenge existing social beliefs and practices, thereby persuading them to follow correct health practices. In this paper, design process of PHI, preliminary results of the initial study, and future research plans are discussed.
Ambiguity Modeling in Latent Spaces
Authors: Carl Henrik Ek, Jon Rihan, Philip H. Torr, Grégory Rogez, Neil D. Lawrence
Venue: Proceedings of the 5th international workshop on Machine Learning for Multimodal Interaction (2008)

We are interested in the situation where we have two or more representations of an underlying phenomenon. In particular we are interested in the scenario where the representation are complementary. This implies that a single individual representation is not sufficient to fully discriminate a specific instance of the underlying phenomenon, it also means that each representation is an ambiguous representation of the other complementary spaces. In this paper we present a latent variable model capable of consolidating multiple complementary representations. Our method extends canonical correlation analysis by introducing additional latent spaces that are specific to the different representations, thereby explaining the full variance of the observations. These additional spaces, explaining representation specific variance, separately model the variance in a representation ambiguous to the other. We develop a spectral algorithm for fast computation of the embeddings and a probabilistic model (based on Gaussian processes) for validation and inference. The proposed model has several potential application areas, we demonstrate its use for multi-modal regression on a benchmark human pose estimation data set.
Building a Large and Efficient Hybrid Peer-to-Peer Internet Caching System
Authors: Li Xiao, Xiaodong Zhang, Artur Andrzejak Songqing Chen
Venue: IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering (2004)

Proxy hit ratios tend to decrease as the demand and supply of Web contents are becoming more diverse. By case studies, we quantitatively confirm this trend and observe significant document duplications among a proxy and its client browsers' caches. One reason behind this trend is that the client/server Web caching model does not support direct resource sharing among clients, causing the Web contents and the network bandwidths among clients to be relatively underutilized. To address these limits and improve Web caching performance, we have extensively enhanced and deployed our browsers-aware framework, a peer-to-peer Web caching management scheme. We make the browsers and their proxy share the contents to exploit the neglected but rich data locality in browsers and reduce document duplications among the proxy and browsers' caches to effectively utilize the Web contents and network bandwidth among clients. The objective of our scheme is to improve the scalability of proxy-based caching both in the number of connected clients and in the diversity of Web documents. In this paper, we show that building such a caching system with considerations of sharing contents among clients, minimizing document duplications, and achieving data integrity and communication anonymity is not only feasible but also highly effective.
Is Dense Optic Flow Useful to Compute the Fundamental Matrix?
Authors: Markus Mainberger, Andrés Bruhn, Joachim Weickert
Venue: Proceedings of the 5th international conference on Image Analysis and Recognition (2008)

Estimating the fundamental matrix from a pair of stereo images is one of the central problems in stereo vision. Typically, this estimation is based on a sparse set of point correspondences that has been obtained by a matching of characteristic image features. In this paper, however, we propose a completely different strategy: Motivated by the high precision of recent variational methods for computing the optic flow, we investigate the usefulness of their dense flow fields for recovering the fundamental matrix. To this end, we consider the state-of-the-art optic flow method of Brox et al. (ECCV 2004). Using non-robust and robust estimation techniques for determining the fundamental matrix, we compare the results computed from its dense flow fields to the ones estimated from a RANSAC method that is based on a sparse set of SIFT-matches. Scenarios for both converging and ortho-parallel camera settings are considered. In all cases, the computed results are significantly better than the ones obtained by the RANSAC method --- even without the explicit removal of outliers.
Automated source code measurement environment for software quality
Authors: Kai H. Chang
Venue:  (2007)

Measuring how well software component can be reused and maintained helps programmers not only write reusable and maintainable software, but also identifies reusable or maintainable components. We develop an automated measurement tool, JamTool, for object-oriented software system and describe how this tool can guide a programmer through measuring internal characteristics of a program for software reuse and maintenance. In this research, primitive but comprehensive metrics for object-oriented language are extensively studied and statistically analyzed to show internal characteristics from classes selected from various applications. Also, the automatically identified connected unit, reusable unit, and maintainable unit are discussed. We demonstrate JamTool&rsquo;s ability through case studies. The first case study investigates whether JamTool can be used to assess the reusability on the evolution of an open software system. The second case study investigates whether JamTool can be used to capture the difference between two consecutive versions on the evolution of the open software system. The third case study investigates whether the metrics defined and implemented in JamTool are related to each other.
Natural Language Meets Spatial Calculi
Authors: Joana Hois, Oliver Kutz
Venue: Proceedings of the international conference on Spatial Cognition VI: Learning, Reasoning, and Talking about Space (2008)

We address the problem of relating natural language descriptions of spatial situations with spatial logical calculi, focusing on projective terms (orientations). We provide a formalism based on the theory of $\mathcal{E}$-connections that connects natural language and spatial calculi. Semantics of linguistic expressions are specified in a linguistically motivated ontology, the Generalized Upper Model. Spatial information is specified as qualitative spatial relationships, namely orientations from the double-cross calculus.This linguistic-spatial connection cannot be adequately formulated without certain contextual, domain-specific aspects. We therefore extend the framework of $\mathcal{E}$-connections twofold: (1) external descriptions narrow down the class of intended models, and (2) context-dependencies inherent in natural language descriptions feed back into the representation finite descriptions of necessary context information.
Bi-directional Search for Bugs: A Tool for Accelerating Knowledge Acquisition for Equation-Based Tutoring Systems
Authors: Sung-Young Jung, Kurt Vanlehn
Venue: Proceedings of the 9th international conference on Intelligent Tutoring Systems (2008)

Authoring the knowledge base for an intelligent tutoring system (ITS) is difficult and time consuming. In many ITS, the knowledge base is used for solving problems, so authoring it is an instance of the notoriously difficult knowledge acquisition problem of expert systems. General tools for knowledge acquisition have shown only limited success, which suggests developing tools that apply only to specific kinds of knowledge bases. Pyrenees is an ITS whose knowledge base is composed mostly of conditioned equations. We have developed several tools for authoring Pyrenees knowledge bases. This paper focuses on a novel and particularly powerful tool that uses bidirectional search to locate bugs in the knowledge base. In several evaluations, human authoring was significantly faster when the tool was available than when it was unavailable
Diagram Rewriting for Orthogonal Matrices: A Study of Critical Peaks
Authors: Yves Lafont, Pierre Rannou
Venue: Proceedings of the 19th international conference on Rewriting Techniques and Applications (2008)

Orthogonal diagrams represent decompositions of isometries of ¿ n into symmetries and rotations. Some convergent (that is noetherian and confluent) rewrite system for this structure was introduced by the first author. One of the rules is similar to Yang-Baxter equation. It involves a map h : ]0, ¿[3 ¿]0, ¿[3.In order to obtain the algebraic properties of h, we study the confluence of critical peaks (or critical pairs) for our rewrite system. For that purpose, we introduce parametric diagrams describing the calculation of angles of rotations generated by rewriting. In particular, one of those properties is related to the tetrahedron equation (also called Zamolodchikov equation).
An Adaptive Fuzzy Clustering Method for Query-by-Multiple-Example Image Retrieval
Authors: Haifeng Zhao, Wenhua Jia
Venue: Proceedings of the 2007 Third International IEEE Conference on Signal-Image Technologies and Internet-Based System (2007)

Content-based image retrieval (CBIR) methods usually adopt color, texture and structure as image feature vector. Recent research indicates that since these features are not exactly associated with image semantic meaning, Query-By-One-Example (QBOE), which means to query with only one image, usually is insufficient to achieve good performance. Thus, Query-By-Multiple-Examples (QBME) methods are introduced and applied in many content-based image retrieval systems. However, how to maximize major features and minimize minor ones of these inputs while matching could influence retrieval results significantly. Some previous researchers divided input images to groups according to their relevance to desired image class. They kept important features of relevant group and discard obvious features of irrelevant group while matching. These methods did improve the retrieval results but have defects in some situations. This paper presents an improved QBME system which optimizes retrieval result. It adopts clustering method to cope with the defects of previous methods. Uniquely, to decrease the complexity of user input and reduce user-computer interaction, a modified fuzzy clustering algorithm will be introduced. It not only presents good performance but also requires no parameters from users. In this article, both the defects of previous methods and new methods to cope with them will be explained in detail.
Enhancing the Efficiency of the ECGA
Authors: Thyago S. Duque, David E. Goldberg, Kumara Sastry
Venue: Proceedings of the 10th international conference on Parallel Problem Solving from Nature: PPSN X (2008)

In this paper we show preliminary results of two efficiency enhancements proposed for Extended Compact Genetic Algorithm. First, a model building enhancement was used to reduce the complexity of the process from O(n 3) to O(n 2), speeding up the algorithm by 1000 times on a 4096 bits problem. Then, a local-search hybridization was used to reduce the population size by at least 32 times, reducing the memory and running time required by the algorithm. These results are the first steps toward a competent and efficient Genetic Algorithm.
On Backoff in Fading Wireless Channels
Authors: Seonyeong Han, Nael B. Abu-Ghazaleh
Venue: Proceedings of the 7th international conference on Ad-hoc, Mobile and Wireless Networks (2008)

We consider the impact of transmission errors on the backoff algorithm behavior in the IEEE 802.11 protocol. Specifically, since the backoff algorithm assumes that all packet losses are due to collisions, it unnecessarily backs off when a packet is lost due to a transmission error. Two performance problems arise as a result: (1) low throughput, due to unnecessary loss of transmission time; and (2) unfairness when two competing links have different transmission error rates. In this paper, we characterize this problem and propose three solutions to it. The solutions aim to provide discrimination between transmission errors and collisions such that the sender can back off appropriately. The first algorithm relies on receiver discrimination and feedback; the receiving radio can in many instances differentiate between collisions and transmission errors. The second algorithm estimates the clear channel quality, and backs off if the observed quality deviates from the clear channel quality (indicating collisions). The third algorithm develops the probability of collision as a function of the number of observed idle slots during contention, and uses this probability to control the backoff algorithm. We show via simulation that the techniques significantly improve both performance and fairness of IEEE 802.11 in the presence of transmission errors.
Efficient Bounds in Finding Aggregate Nearest Neighbors
Authors: Sansarkhuu Namnandorj, Hanxiong Chen, Kazutaka Furuse, Nobuo Ohbo
Venue: Proceedings of the 19th international conference on Database and Expert Systems Applications (2008)

Developed from Nearest Neighbor (NN) queries, Aggregate Nearest Neighbor (ANN) queries return the object that minimizes an aggregate distance function with respect to a set of query points. Because of the multiple query points, ANN queries are much more complex than NN queries. For optimizing the query processing and improving the query efficiency, many ANN queries algorithms utilizes pruning strategies, with or without an index structure. Obviously, the pruning effect highly depends on the tightness of the bound estimation. In this paper, we figure out a property in vector space and develop some efficient bound estimations for two most popular types of ANN queries. Based on these bounds, we design the indexed and non-index ANN algorithms, and conduct experimental studies. Our algorithms show good performance, especially for high dimensional queries, for both real dataset and synthetic datasets.
Power management for an electric propulsion system using fuel cells
Authors: H. Maker, H. Gualous, R. Outbib
Venue: Proceedings of the 9th WSEAS International Conference on International Conference on Automation and Information (2008)

This paper is a contribution to the problem of power management of an hybrid system. More precisely, it concerns a system constituted by a fuel cell and supercapacitors. The methodology used to establish the strategy of the management is based on optimal control theory. Simulation results are given in order to illustrate the pertinence of the proposed result.
Local distance-based classification
Authors: Manuel Laguıa, Juan Luis Castro
Venue: Knowledge-Based Systems (2008)

In this paper, we have introduced a new method in which every training point learns what is happening in its neighborhood. So, a hyperplane is learned and associated to each point. With this hyperplane we can define the bands distance, a distance measure that bring closer or move away points depending on its classes. We have used this new distance in classification tasks and have performed tests over 68 datasets: 18 well-known UCI-Repository datasets, one private dataset, and 49 ad hoc synthetic datasets. We have used 10-fold cross-validation and, in order to compare the results of the classifiers, we have considered the mean accuracy and have also performed a paired two-tailored t-Student's test with a significance level of 95%. The results are encouraging and confirm the good behavior of the new proposed classification method. The bands distance has obtained the best overall results with 1-NN and k-NN classifiers when compared with other distances. Finally, we extract conclusions and outline some lines of future work.
A Rotation Angle Calculation Method about Bearing Images Based on Edge Image Correlations
Authors: Lin Liu
Venue: Proceedings of the 4th international conference on Intelligent Computing: Advanced Intelligent Computing Theories and Applications - with Aspects of Theoretical and Methodological Issues (2008)

In Industrial automation field rotation angle calculation between successive bearing images is frequently required and the rotation angle is used for locating the oil feeder. Because bearing images are rotational symmetric, also they have perspective distortion, the phase correlation method in frequency domain usually cannot find reasonable rotation angle. This paper presents a new method based on edge images' correlations, at first original images' Canny edges are got after polar coordinate transform, then Hamming distance is used to calculate spatial correlation between bearing images, at last reasonable rotation angles are got when Hamming distance get the minimum value. For this kind of rotational symmetric images with rich edges, experiments show that the proposed method can efficiently solve this problem with much low computation cost.
Adaboost Video Tracking
Authors: Jia Jingping, Chai Yanmei, Zhang Feizhou
Venue: Proceedings of the 5th international conference on Image Analysis and Recognition (2008)

A new approach of tracking objects in image sequences is proposed, in which tracking is seen as a binary classification problem. For each incoming image frame, a likelihood image for the object is created according to the classification results of pixels by a Adaboost feature classifier. In the likelihood image the object's region turns into a blob. The scale of this blob can be determined by the local maxima of differential scale-space filter. We employ the QP_TR trust region algorithm to search for the local maxima of the multi-scale normalized Laplacian filter of the likelihood image so as to locate the object as well as determine its scale. The object's appearance change is dealt with in the update step of the feature classifier. Based on the tracking results of sequence examples, the novel method has been proven to be capable of describing the object more accurately and thus achieves much better tracking precision.
Male Bodily Responses during an Interaction with a Virtual Woman
Authors: Xueni Pan, Marco Gillies, Mel Slater
Venue: Proceedings of the 8th international conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents (2008)

This work presents the analysis of the body movement of male participants, while talking with a life-size virtual woman in a virtual social encounter within a CAVE-like system. We consider independent and explanatory variables including whether the participant is the centre of attention in the scenario, whether the participant is shy or confident, and his relationship status. We also examine whether this interaction between the participant and the virtual character changes as the conversation progresses. The results show that the participants tend to have different hand movements, head movements, and posture depending on these conditions. This research therefore provides strong evidence for using body movement as a systematic method to assess the responses of people within a virtual environment, especially when the participant interacts with a virtual character. These results also point the way towards the application of this technology to the treatment of social phobic males.