ppxscal/embedding_network huggingface dataset:
A Self-Healing Plug-in Parser for NMEA Streams
Authors: Ron Coleman
Venue: Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Information Technology: New Generations (2008)

This paper develops a novel approach to parsing NMEA 0183 Standard streams on mobile information devices. The parser architecture is extensible, based on the model view controller design pattern. It enables application layers to “plug-in” vendor- and/or application-specific protocols, reusing the pattern and saving time and labor. The parser is furthermore “self-healing,” namely, to improve robustness and recover gracefully from errors. We analyze the parser design which we compare with other parsers in the public domain. We also measure the space and time characteristics using data from a GPS transceiver connected by Bluetooth to a mobile information device.
Hybrid genetic algorithm for dual selection
Authors: Frederic Ros, Serge Guillaume, Marco Pintore, Jacques R. Chr&#x00e9;tien
Venue: Pattern Analysis Applications (2008)

In this paper, a hybrid genetic approach is proposed to solve the problem of designing a subdatabase of the original one with the highest classification performances, the lowest number of features and the highest number of patterns. The method can simultaneously treat the double problem of editing instance patterns and selecting features as a single optimization problem, and therefore aims at providing a better level of information. The search is optimized by dividing the algorithm into self-controlled phases managed by a combination of pure genetic process and dedicated local approaches. Different heuristics such as an adapted chromosome structure and evolutionary memory are introduced to promote diversity and elitism in the genetic population. They particularly facilitate the resolution of real applications in the chemometric field presenting databases with large feature sizes and medium cardinalities. The study focuses on the double objective of enhancing the reliability of results while reducing the time consumed by combining genetic exploration and a local approach in such a way that excessive computational CPU costs are avoided. The usefulness of the method is demonstrated with artificial and real data and its performance is compared to other approaches.
Dynamic multi-hop clustering for mobile hybrid wireless networks
Authors: Matthias R. Brust, Hannes Frey, Steffen Rothkugel
Venue: Proceedings of the 2nd international conference on Ubiquitous information management and communication (2008)

In mobile wireless networks communication is often improved by sending messages along a stable backbone of more reliable communication paths. Building such a backbone requires efficient clustering algorithms which aggregate network nodes into logical groups, each group being managed by a clusterhead and any two neighboring clusters being interconnected by at least one gateway node or gateway path. In this concept k-hop clustering refers to cluster structures where cluster members are at most k hops away from their clusterhead. While the dynamicity of mobile wireless network is often considered as a challenge, in this work we explicitly exploit node mobility in order to support cluster formation and maintenance of k-hop clusters. The described KHOPCA algorithm consists of a set of easy to implement rules which form and maintain k-hop sized clusters in a purely localized way. In a static network cluster formation is limited to a constant number of messages exchanges among neighboring nodes. In dynamic networks the localized nature of the described rules promise a fast cluster convergence and low communication complexity in case of mobility triggered cluster reconfiguration.
Curated databases
Authors: Peter Buneman, James Cheney, Wang-Chiew Tan, Stijn Vansummeren
Venue: Proceedings of the twenty-seventh ACM SIGMOD-SIGACT-SIGART symposium on Principles of database systems (2008)

Curated databases are databases that are populated and updated with a great deal of human effort. Most reference works that one traditionally found on the reference shelves of libraries -- dictionaries, encyclopedias, gazetteers etc. -- are now curated databases. Since it is now easy to publish databases on the web, there has been an explosion in the number of new curated databases used in scientific research. The value of curated databases lies in the organization and the quality of the data they contain. Like the paper reference works they have replaced, they usually represent the efforts of a dedicated group of people to produce a definitive description of some subject area. Curated databases present a number of challenges for database research. The topics of annotation, provenance, and citation are central, because curated databases are heavily cross-referenced with, and include data from, other databases, and much of the work of a curator is annotating existing data. Evolution of structure is important because these databases often evolve from semistructured representations, and because they have to accommodate new scientific discoveries. Much of the work in these areas is in its infancy, but it is beginning to provide suggest new research for both theory and practice. We discuss some of this research and emphasize the need to find appropriate models of the processes associated with curated databases.
Third international workshop on sharing and reusing architectural knowledge (SHARK 2008)
Authors: Paris Avgeriou, Patricia Lago, Philippe Kruchten
Venue: Companion of the 30th international conference on Software engineering (2008)

The shift of the software architecture community towards architectural knowledge has brought along some promising research directions. In this workshop we discuss the issues that lead to the application of architectural knowledge in research and industrial practice; ongoing research and new ideas to advance the field. In its previous editions we examined the state of the art and practice, future challenges and trends. This third edition will discuss, among others, architectural knowledge as perceived by different research communities, including requirements engineering, service-oriented computing and international standardization.
Towards a framework for understanding the relationships between classical software engineering and agile methodologies
Authors: Li Jiang, Armin Eberlein
Venue: Proceedings of the 2008 international workshop on Scrutinizing agile practices or shoot-out at the agile corral (2008)

There is an ongoing debate in the software engineering (SE) community over the usefulness and applicability of classical SE methodologies versus agile methodologies. Based on an investigation of the philosophical origins, the history and the technological support of representative classical SE methodologies and agile methodologies, a framework is proposed in this paper to help understand the relationship between these different approaches. The framework proposed provides a novel, five-dimensional ways in which to consider the concepts, historical and technological background of the methodologies, the characteristic differences between them, the variety of skills, and the economic, technological and organisational conditions needed to execute them. The framework has been formed by combining five techniques of research analysis: Contextual; Historical; Analysis by analogy; Phenomenological; and Linguistic. This framework (CHAPL) helps software engineers understand the nature of SE methodologies more objectively and at a fundamental level in order to select the best practices and suitable SE methodologies for a software project.
Knowledge discovery on customer churn prediction
Authors: Li-Shang Yang, Chaochang Chiu
Venue: Proceedings of the 10th WSEAS International Conference on APPLIED MATHEMATICS (2006)

As customer churn has become a critical business issue for most mobile telecommunications providers, predictive modeling based on knowledge discovery of data mining is an approach being used to facilitate customer retention more effectively and proactively. This paper reports a preliminary study of applying data mining to solve a real-world customer attrition problem. It uses customer information to make predictions about the likelihood of churn. The target rate is very small, around 0.5% monthly churn rate. Nevertheless, by scrutinizing data to extract a large number of independent variables and by using a large training data set, the predictive model delivers excellent performance in field test. Issues in the practical application of data mining are also discussed.
Optimization with multivariate stochastic dominance constraints
Authors: Darinka Dentcheva, Andrzej Ruszczy&#x0144;ski
Venue: Mathematical Programming: Series A and B (2008)

We consider stochastic optimization problems where risk-aversion is expressed by a stochastic ordering constraint. The constraint requires that a random vector depending on our decisions stochastically dominates a given benchmark random vector. We identify a suitable multivariate stochastic order and describe its generator in terms of von Neumann&#x2013;Morgenstern utility functions. We develop necessary and sufficient conditions of optimality and duality relations for optimization problems with this constraint. Assuming convexity we show that the Lagrange multipliers corresponding to dominance constraints are elements of the generator of this order, thus refining and generalizing earlier results for optimization under univariate stochastic dominance constraints. Furthermore, we obtain necessary conditions of optimality for non-convex problems under additional smoothness assumptions.
The Metaphysical Character of the Criticisms Raised Against the Use of Probability for Dealing with Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence
Authors: Carlotta Piscopo, Mauro Birattari
Venue: Minds and Machines (2008)

In artificial intelligence (AI), a number of criticisms were raised against the use of probability for dealing with uncertainty. All these criticisms, except what in this article we call the non-adequacy claim, have been eventually confuted. The non-adequacy claim is an exception because, unlike the other criticisms, it is exquisitely philosophical and, possibly for this reason, it was not discussed in the technical literature. A lack of clarity and understanding of this claim had a major impact on AI. Indeed, mostly leaning on this claim, some scientists developed an alternative research direction and, as a result, the AI community split in two schools: a probabilistic and an alternative one. In this article, we argue that the non-adequacy claim has a strongly metaphysical character and, as such, should not be accepted as a conclusive argument against the adequacy of probability.
Implementing virtual collaborative inquiry practises in a middle-school context
Authors: M. Lakkala, L. Ilomäki, T. Palonen
Venue: Behaviour & Information Technology (2007)

The aim of the present study was to investigate the challenges that relate to the implementation of virtual inquiry practises in middle school. The case was a school course in which a group of Finnish students (N = 14) and teachers (N = 7) completed group inquiries through virtual collaboration, using a web-based learning environment. The task was to accomplish a cross-disciplinary inquiry into cultural issues. The students worked mainly at home and took much responsibility for their course achievements. The investigators analysed the pedagogical design of the course and the content of the participants' interaction patterns in the web-based environment, using qualitative content analysis and social network analysis. The findings suggest that the students succeeded in producing distinctive cultural products, and both the students and the teachers adopted novel roles during the inquiry. The web-based learning environment was used more as a coordination tool for organizing the collaborative work than as a forum for epistemic inquiry. The tension between the school curriculum and the inquiry practises was manifest in the participants' discussions of the assessment criteria of the course.
Empirical studies of agile software development: A systematic review
Authors: Tore Dybå, Torgeir Dingsøyr
Venue: Information and Software Technology (2008)

Agile software development represents a major departure from traditional, plan-based approaches to software engineering. A systematic review of empirical studies of agile software development up to and including 2005 was conducted. The search strategy identified 1996 studies, of which 36 were identified as empirical studies. The studies were grouped into four themes: introduction and adoption, human and social factors, perceptions on agile methods, and comparative studies. The review investigates what is currently known about the benefits and limitations of, and the strength of evidence for, agile methods. Implications for research and practice are presented. The main implication for research is a need for more and better empirical studies of agile software development within a common research agenda. For the industrial readership, the review provides a map of findings, according to topic, that can be compared for relevance to their own settings and situations.
Multivariate volatility in environmental finance
Authors: Suhejla Hoti, Michael McAleer, Laurent L. Pauwels
Venue: Mathematics and Computers in Simulation (2008)

There exist several important benchmark indexes in environmental finance, some computed by well-known financial index providers such as the Dow Jones group and others by independent agencies specializing in environmentally and socially responsible investing in finance. The construction of these sustainability indexes relies on two distinct screening methods, positive and negative, which aim to include or exclude candidate companies according to sustainable economic, environmental, social and ethical criteria. We investigate the presence and the importance of multivariate effects in conditional volatility in two major financial time-series indexes, namely the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) World and the Ethibel Sustainability Index (ESI) Global, as a way to analyse their relative inherent risk. We further investigate empirically the existence of risk spillovers across these four indexes as a mean to assess the impact of the different screening criteria. Finally, the trends and volatility of two prominent financial indexes, the DJIA and S&P500, are analysed in the same manner to provide a comparison of the performance of the two types of indexes.
Non-dominated Rank based Sorting Genetic Algorithms
Authors: Ashish Ghosh, Mrinal Kanti Das
Venue: Fundamenta Informaticae (2008)

In this paper a new concept of ranking among the solutions of the same front, along with elite preservation mechanism and ensuring diversity through the nearest neighbor method is proposed for multi-objective genetic algorithms. This algorithm is applied on a set of benchmark multi-objective test problems and the results are compared with that of NSGA-II (a similar algorithm). The proposed algorithm is seen to over perform the existing algorithm. More specifically, the new approach has been used to solve the deceptive multi-objective optimization problems in a better way.
Causal modelling combining instantaneous and lagged effects: an identifiable model based on non-Gaussianity
Authors: Aapo Hyvärinen, Shohei Shimizu, Patrik O. Hoyer
Venue: Proceedings of the 25th international conference on Machine learning (2008)

Causal analysis of continuous-valued variables typically uses either autoregressive models or linear Gaussian Bayesian networks with instantaneous effects. Estimation of Gaussian Bayesian networks poses serious identifiability problems, which is why it was recently proposed to use non-Gaussian models. Here, we show how to combine the non-Gaussian instantaneous model with autoregressive models. We show that such a non-Gaussian model is identifiable without prior knowledge of network structure, and we propose an estimation method shown to be consistent. This approach also points out how neglecting instantaneous effects can lead to completely wrong estimates of the autoregressive coefficients.
Meteor: a middleware infrastructure for content-based decoupled interactions in pervasive grid environments
Authors: Nanyan Jiang, Andres Quiroz, Cristina Schmidt, Manish Parashar
Venue: Concurrency and Computation: Practice Experience (2008)

Emerging pervasive information and computational environments require a content-based middleware infrastructure that is scalable, self-managing, and asynchronous. In this paper, we propose associative rendezvous (AR) as a paradigm for content-based decoupled interactions for pervasive grid applications. We also present Meteor, a content-based middleware infrastructure to support AR interactions. The design, implementation, and experimental evaluation of Meteor are presented. Evaluations include experiments using deployments on a local area network, the wireless ORBIT testbed at Rutgers University, and the PlanetLab wide-area testbed, as well as simulations. Evaluation results demonstrate the scalability, effectiveness, and performance of Meteor to support pervasive grid applications. Copyright &copy; 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
2008 Special Issue: Where neuroscience and dynamic system theory meet autonomous robotics: A contracting basal ganglia model for action selection
Authors: B. Girard, N. Tabareau, Q. C. Pham, A. Berthoz, J. -J. Slotine
Venue: Neural Networks (2008)

Action selection, the problem of choosing what to do next, is central to any autonomous agent architecture. We use here a multi-disciplinary approach at the convergence of neuroscience, dynamical system theory and autonomous robotics, in order to propose an efficient action selection mechanism based on a new model of the basal ganglia. We first describe new developments of contraction theory regarding locally projected dynamical systems. We exploit these results to design a stable computational model of the cortico-baso-thalamo-cortical loops. Based on recent anatomical data, we include usually neglected neural projections, which participate in performing accurate selection. Finally, the efficiency of this model as an autonomous robot action selection mechanism is assessed in a standard survival task. The model exhibits valuable dithering avoidance and energy-saving properties, when compared with a simple if-then-else decision rule.
Automated contrail and cirrus detection using stochastic properties
Authors: H. Hetzheim
Venue: International Journal of Remote Sensing (2007)

For the detection of contrails and cirrus clouds, new mathematical methods are developed and applied for different kinds of satellite images (AVHRR, MOS, MOMS, ATSR). As edges and skeletons are not sufficiently representative enough for the description and distinction of clouds, different stochastic properties in their combination are applied. The stochastic properties are represented mathematically by a system of coupled stochastic differential equations. Methods are developed to obtain estimation values from stochastic differential equations. The solutions obtained are given as sequential procedures using grey values of neighbouring pixels, though this is very time consuming so these procedures are approximated for usage of simpler array procedures working on the entire image. For the combination of diverse stochastic and non-stochastic properties, different kinds of properties are represented by generalized measures. This is realized by fuzzy measures and fuzzy functions, relating to selected fuzzy measures. Whereas the fuzzy function describes rather isolated stochastic variations over small isolated regions, the fuzzy measures describe more extended regions by their stochastic properties. Both of these represented stochastic properties that are fused by a fuzzy integral. These results are used as new fuzzy measures or fuzzy functions and generate iterative procedures to select desired properties for the detection of contrails.
Multihop wireless networks: capacity limits and how to approach them
Authors: Leandros Tassiulas
Venue: Proceedings of the 9th ACM international symposium on Mobile ad hoc networking and computing (2008)

Wireless technology advances over the last few years lead to sophisticated physical layer designs that may interact with the access and network layer in multiple modes. Link quality related information is passed from the physical layer, to be used in access and network layer actions. At the same time several considerations belonging naturally to the physical layer, like channel coding rate, signal constellation selection, power level adjustments, frequency selection and beam steering in multiple antenna systems are to the disposal of the access layer, that may control them in various time scales. That interaction is particularly useful for full exploitation of the volatile error-prone mobile channel and the establishment of reliable broadband wireless links in the interference limited radio medium. It is clear that novel approaches are needed for architecting networks that seamlessly integrate wired and wireless components and offer the grade of service people are accustomed from the internet. In this presentation we will review a number of theoretical advances towards characterizing the capacity of wireless networks and present an optimization based framework for developing algorithms towards achieving that capacity. The necessary interaction among the different network layers will be discussed while implementation challenges both in terms of computational complexity as well as state information availability will be presented. Implications on the scaling properties of those algorithms will be given.
Software Security; A Vulnerability Activity Revisit
Authors: Mohammad Ali Hadavi, Hossein Shirazi, Hasan Mokhtari Sangchi, Vahid Saber Hamishagi
Venue: Proceedings of the 2008 Third International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security (2008)

This paper attempts to introduce a method for developing secure software based on the vulnerabilities which are already known. In the proposed method, the most prevalent vulnerabilities are selected. For each vulnerability its location of appearance within the software development process, as well as methods of mitigation through design-level or implementation-level activities is discussed. Mapping vulnerabilities to design and implementation within software development process not only results to a better understanding of vulnerability emergence, but also allows countermeasures to be applied during initial steps of vulnerability creation, and thus better software security.This mapping shows that choosing a suitable programming language and enforcing the least privileges are the most vital design time decisions. Also, security code review and server side input validation are implementation-level activities assumed to cover most of the vulnerabilities.