ppxscal/embedding_network huggingface dataset:
A regression-based restoration technique for automated watermark removal
Authors: Andreas Westfeld
Venue: Proceedings of the 10th ACM workshop on Multimedia and security (2008)

The second Break our Watermarking System (BOWS-2) contest exposed a technology named "Broken Arrows" to attacks from all over the world. For a successful attack participants had to render the watermark unreadable to the online detector in three given images while preserving a minimum quality level of 20 dB PSNR. We applied a generic approach to remove the independent elements of the watermark from dependent media elements. Its core part does not need to interact with the online detector to remove the watermark. In a postprocessing step with ten detector calls the quality was increased by about 1 dB. The first episode of the second Break Our Watermarking System (BOWS-2) contest was aiming to investigate when an image watermarking system can be broken by image processing operations. During this period, from July to October 2007, no information about the watermarking algorithm was provided and only 30 trials per day were allowed. We describe the attack that preserved the highest quality of the content.
Network Simulations for Relationality Design - An Approach Toward Complex Systems
Authors: Katsunori Shimohara
Venue: Proceedings of the 12th international conference on Knowledge-Based Intelligent Information and Engineering Systems, Part II (2008)

We have been conducting research on how to design relationality in complex systems composed of intelligent tangible or intangible, artificial artifacts, by using evolutionary algorithms and network science as methodologies. In addition, we have developed a special machine called Network Simulator as a research tool to conduct massively parallel and ultra-high speed simulations on relationality design. This paper describes the research concept of relationality design and network simulations characterized by automatic hypothesis-finding and verification.
Editors' Introduction
Authors: Marcus Hutter, Rocco A. Servedio, Eiji Takimoto
Venue: Proceedings of the 18th international conference on Algorithmic Learning Theory (2007)

Philosophers have pondered the phenomenon of learning for millennia; scientists and psychologists have studied learning for more than a century. But the analysis of learning as a computational and algorithmic phenomenon is much more recent, going back only a few decades. Learning theory is now an active research area that incorporates ideas, problems, and techniques from a wide range of disciplines including statistics, artificial intelligence, information theory, pattern recognition, and theoretical computer science. Learning theory has many robust connections with more applied research in machine learning and has made significant contributions to the development of applied systems and to fields such as electronic commerce and computational biology.
Perfect Recall on the Lernmatrix
Authors: Israel Román-Godínez, Itzamá López-Yáñez, Cornelio Yáñez-Márquez
Venue: Proceedings of the 4th international symposium on Neural Networks: Part II--Advances in Neural Networks (2007)

The Lernmatrix, which is the first known model of associative memory, is a hetereoassociative memory that presents the problem of incorrect pattern recall, even in the fundamental set, depending on the associations. In this work we propose a new algorithm and the corresponding theoretical support to improve the recalling capacity of the original model.
Responding to Anomalous Database Requests
Authors: Ashish Kamra, Elisa Bertino, Rimma Nehme
Venue: Proceedings of the 5th VLDB workshop on Secure Data Management (2008)

Organizations have recently shown increased interest in database activity monitoring and anomaly detection techniques to safeguard their internal databases. Once an anomaly is detected, a response from the database is needed to contain the effects of the anomaly. However, the problem of issuing an appropriate response to a detected database anomaly has received little attention so far. In this paper, we propose a framework and policy language for issuing a response to a database anomaly based on the characteristics of the anomaly. We also propose a novel approach to dynamically change the state of the access control system in order to contain the damage that may be caused by the anomalous request. We have implemented our mechanisms in PostgreSQL and in the paper we discuss relevant implementation issues. We have also carried out an experimental evaluation to assess the performance overhead introduced by our response mechanism. The experimental results show that the techniques are very efficient.
A Neuro Fuzzy Approach for Handling Structured Data
Authors: Alessio Ferone, Alfredo Petrosino
Venue: Proceedings of the 2nd international conference on Scalable Uncertainty Management (2008)

Dealing with structured data has always represented a huge problem for classical neural methods. Although many efforts have been performed, they usually pre-process data and then use classic machine learning algorithm. Another problem that machine learning algorithm have to face is the intrinsic uncertainty of data, where in such situations classic algorithm do not have the means to handle them. In this work a novel neuro-fuzzy model for structured data is presented that exploits both neural and fuzzy methods. The proposed model called Fuzzy Graph Neural Network (F-GNN) is based on GNN, a model able to handle structure data. A proof of F-GNN approximation properties is provided together with a training algorithm.
Three-Level Image Segmentation Based on Maximum Fuzzy Partition Entropy of 2-D Histogram and Quantum Genetic Algorithm
Authors: Hai-Yan Yu, Jiu-Lun Fan
Venue: Proceedings of the 4th international conference on Intelligent Computing: Advanced Intelligent Computing Theories and Applications - with Aspects of Artificial Intelligence (2008)

A method is presented for three-level image segmentation through maximizing the fuzzy partition entropy of two-dimensional histogram. Two groups, each including three member functions, namely Z-function, ¿-function and S-function, are used for fuzzy division of two-dimensional histogram to get nine fuzzy sets. And the nine fuzzy sets are classified to three parts, corresponding to dark, gray and white part of the image, respectively, while a fuzzy partition is obtained for the two-dimensional space. Then a fuzzy partition entropy is defined based on multi-dimensional fuzzy partition and entropy theory. The parameters of the six membership functions can be determined by maximizing fuzzy partition entropy of two-dimensional histogram and the procedure for finding the optimal combination of all the fuzzy parameters is implemented by quantum genetic algorithm with an appropriate coding method. The experiment results show that the proposed method gives better performance than onedimensional three-level thresholding method under noise case.
Applying six-sigma concepts to the software engineering: myths and facts
Authors: Rafa E. Al-Qutaish, Khalid T. Al-Sarayreh
Venue: Proceedings of the 7th WSEAS International Conference on Software Engineering, Parallel and Distributed Systems (2008)

Six-sigma has been invented by Motorola Company in 1986. Since that time, it has been widely used in the manufacturing. The success stories of applying six-sigma in manufacturing during the last years have encouraged the practitioners and researchers to explore the applicability of six-sigma in software industry. For the applicability of six-sigma in software engineering, some researchers came up with good results, while the others came up with a number of uncertainties on applying six-sigma to software engineering. In this paper, we will discuss these two opinions to present a clear view of both of them.
Phase Aberration Correction of Ultrasonic Phased Array Signals
Authors: Xia Zhao, Zhaoba Wang, Bin Liu
Venue: Proceedings of the 2008 Congress on Image and Signal Processing, Vol. 5 - Volume 05 (2008)

By properly adjusting the time delays, phased arrays can dynamically phase-steer and focus the ultrasonic beams. But phase aberration due to perturbation of system and materials degrade ultrasound performance by disrupting the ultrasound beam focus. Such phase aberration exists both in phased array transmission and reception focusing procedure. Currently, phase correction methods are implemented by adjusting the electronic phase delays used to steer and focus the ultrasound beam. In this article, time reversal method, take advantage of the invariance of the wave equation in a lossless medium under a time reversal operation, is proposed to correct the phase aberration. It is suggested to be implemented in reception focusing process instead of transmission focusing process. The correction experiments are applied to the signals obtained from defect in a specimen in ultrasonic phased array non-destructive testing. Correction results show that time reversal method has good phase correction capacity and super performance in terms of high resolution, contrast and signal-to-noise ratio.
Symbolic Context-Bounded Analysis of Multithreaded Java Programs
Authors: Dejvuth Suwimonteerabuth, Javier Esparza, Stefan Schwoon
Venue: Proceedings of the 15th international workshop on Model Checking Software (2008)

The reachability problem is undecidable for programs with both recursive procedures and multiple threads with shared memory. Approaches to this problem have been the focus of much recent research. One of these is to use context-bounded reachability, i.e. to consider only those runs in which the active thread changes at most k times, where k is fixed. However, to the best of our knowledge, context-bounded reachability has not been implemented in any tool so far, primarily because its worst-case runtime is prohibitively high, i.e. O(n k ), where n is the size of the shared memory. Moreover, existing algorithms for context-bounded reachability do not admit a meaningful symbolic implementation (e.g., using BDDs) to reduce the run-time in practice. In this paper, we propose an improvement that overcomes this problem. We have implemented our approach in the tool jMoped and report on experiments.
Computational Challenges and Opportunities in the Design of Unconventional Machines from Nucleic Acids
Authors: Anne Condon
Venue: Proceedings of the 7th international conference on Unconventional Computing (2008)

DNA and RNA molecules have proven to be very versatile materials for programmable construction of nano-scale structures and for controlling motion in molecular machines. RNA molecules are also increasingly in the spotlight in recognition of their important regulatory and catalytic roles in the cell and their promise in therapeutics. Function follows form in the molecular world and so our ability to understand nucleic acid function in the cell, as well as to design novel structures, is enhanced by reliable means for structure prediction.Prediction methods for designed molecules typically rely on a thermodynamic model of structure formation. The model associates free energies with loops in the structure, and the overall energy of a structure is the sum of its free energies. From the energy model, the folding pathway, the structure with minimum free energy, or the probabilities of base pair formation, can be computed, Thus, the quality of predictions is limited by the quality of the energy model. In this talk, we will describe progress towards more accurate structure prediction, enabled by improved inference of energy parameters and by new algorithms. We will also describe some interesting problems in design of nucleic acids that have prescribed structure or folding pathways.
Early Aspects: Aspect-Oriented Requirements and Architecture for Product Lines (EA@SPLC.08)
Authors: Vander Alves, Christa Schwanninger, Paul Clements, Awais Rashid, Ana Moreira, João Araújo, Elisa Baniassad, Bedir Tekinerdogan
Venue: Proceedings of the 2008 12th International Software Product Line Conference (2008)

Early aspects deal with crosscutting concerns in requirements analysis, domain analysis and architecture design [1]. Work on early aspects focuses on systematically identifying, modularizing, and analyzing such crosscutting concerns and their impact at the early phases of the software development life cycle.
An Attacker Model for Normative Multi-agent Systems
Authors: Guido Boella, Leendert Torre
Venue: Proceedings of the 5th international Central and Eastern European conference on Multi-Agent Systems and Applications V (2007)

In this paper we introduce a formal attacker model for normative multi-agent systems. In this context, an attacker is an agent trying to profit from norm violation, for example because the violation is not detected, it is not being sanctioned, or the sanction is less than the profit of violation. To deliberate about norm violations, an attacker has a self model and a model of the normative multi-agent system, which in our case have the same structure. Moreover, we assume that an attacker violates a norm only when it profits from it, and the attacker therefore plays a violation game with the system. On a variety of examples, we show also how our model of violation games based also on agent abilities or power extends our earlier model based on motivations only.
Semantics of Place: Ontology Enrichment
Authors: Bruno Antunes, Ana Alves, Francisco C. Pereira
Venue: Proceedings of the 11th Ibero-American conference on AI: Advances in Artificial Intelligence (2008)

In this paper, we present an approach to a challenge well known from the area of Ubiquitous Computing: extracting meaning out of geo-referenced information. The importance of this "semantics of place" problem is proportional to the number of available services and data that are common nowadays. Having rich knowledge about a place, we open up a new realm of "Location Based Services" that can behave more intelligently. Our approach builds on Ontology Engineering techniques in order to build a network of semantic associations between a place and related concepts. We briefly describe the KUSCO system and present some preliminary results.
Wikipedia Ad Hoc Passage Retrieval and Wikipedia Document Linking
Authors: Dylan Jenkinson, Andrew Trotman
Venue: Focused Access to XML Documents: 6th International Workshop of the Initiative for the Evaluation of XML Retrieval, INEX 2007 Dagstuhl Castle, Germany, December 17-19, 2007. Selected Papers (2008)

Ad hoc passage retrieval within the Wikipedia is examined in the context of INEX 2007. An analysis of the INEX 2006 assessments suggests that fixed sized window of about 300 terms is consistently seen and that this might be a good retrieval strategy. In runs submitted to INEX, potentially relevant documents were identified using BM25 (trained on INEX 2006 data). For each potentially relevant document the location of every search term was identified and the center (mean) located. A fixed sized window was then centered on this location. A method of removing outliers was examined in which all terms occurring outside one standard deviation of the center were considered outliers and the center recomputed without them. Both techniques were examined with and without stemming.For Wikipedia linking we identified terms within the document that were over-represented and from the top few generated queries of different lengths. A BM25 ranking search engine was used to identify potentially relevant documents. Links from the source document to the potentially relevant documents (and back) were constructed (at a granularity of whole document). The best performing run used the 4 most over-represented search terms to retrieve 200 documents, and the next 4 to retrieve 50 more.
Fault-Tolerant Partial Replication in Large-Scale Database Systems
Authors: Pierre Sutra, Marc Shapiro
Venue: Proceedings of the 14th international Euro-Par conference on Parallel Processing (2008)

We investigate a decentralised approach to committing transactions in a replicated database, under partial replication. Previous protocols either reexecute transactions entirely and/or compute a total order of transactions. In contrast, ours applies update values, and generate a partial order between mutually conflicting transactions only. Transactions execute faster, and distributed databases commit in small committees. Both effects contribute to preserve scalability as the number of databases and transactions increase. Our algorithm ensures serializability, and is live and safe in spite of faults.
A Quiz Game Console Based on a Generic Embodied Conversational Agent Framework
Authors: Hung-Hsuan Huang, Taku Inoue, Aleksandra Cerekovic, Igor S. Pandzic, Yukiko Nakano, Toyoaki Nishida
Venue: Proceedings of the 7th international conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents (2007)

This article describes an attempt to build a quiz game kiosk for show-room use based on the Generic Embodied Conversational Agent (GECA) Framework [1] that provides a general purpose architecture for connecting modularized ECA functional components for multimodal human-agent interactions.
A Single Initialization Server for Multi-party Cryptography
Authors: Hugue Blier, Alain Tapp
Venue: Proceedings of the 3rd international conference on Information Theoretic Security (2008)

We present information-theoretically secure bit commitment, zero-knowledge and multi-party computation based on the assistance of an initialization server. In the initialization phase, the players interact with the server to gather resources that are later used to perform useful protocols. This initialization phase does not depend on the input of the protocol it will later enable. Once the initialization is complete, the server's assistance is no longer required. This paper improves on previous work as there is only one server and it does not need to be trusted. If the server is honest, the protocols are secure against any coalition of dishonest players. If all players are honest, then there is an exponentially small probability that both the initialization phase succeeds and that later the protocol fails. That is, the server cannot create a situation in the initialization phase that would lead honest players to accuse each other. The protocols are built in a modular fashion and achieve linear complexity for the players in terms of the security parameter, number of players and the size of the circuit.
Data Analysis Strategy for Revealing Multivariate Structures in Social-Economic Data Warehouses
Authors: Dale Dzemydiene, Vitalija Rudzkiene
Venue: Informatica (2003)

This research work is aimed at the development of data analysis strategy in a complex, multidimensional, and dynamic domain. Our universe of discourse is concerned with the data mining techniques of data warehouses revealing the importance of multivariate structures of social-economic data which influence criminality. Distinct tasks require different data structures and various data mining exercises in data warehouses. The proposed problem solution strategy allows choosing an appropriate method in recognition processes. The ensembles of diverse and accurate classifiers are constructed on the base of multidimensional classification and clusterisation methods. Factor analysis is introduced into data mining process for revealing influencing impacts of factors. The temporal nature and multidimensionality of the target object is revealed in dynamic model using multidimension regression estimates. The paper describes the strategy of integrating the methods of multiple statistical analysis in cases, where a great set of variables is observed in short time period. The demonstration of the data analysis strategy is performed using real social and economic development of data warehouses in different regions of Lithuania.
Constructing Efficient Cache Invalidation Schemes in Mobile Environments
Authors: Po-Jen Chuang, Yu-Shian Chiu
Venue: Proceedings of the 2007 Third International IEEE Conference on Signal-Image Technologies and Internet-Based System (2007)

Cache invalidation is an effective approach to maintaining data consistency between the server and mobile clients in a mobile environment. This paper presents two new cache invalidation schemes which are designed according to the real situations and are therefore able to comply with the more practical needs in a mobile environment. The ABI+HCQU divides data into different groups based on their utilization rates (Hot/ Cold/ Query/ Update) and adapts their broadcasting intervals (ABI) accordingly to suit the actual needs. The SWRCC + MUVI (Sleep/ Wakeup/ Recovery/ Check/ Confirm + Modified/ Uncertain/ Valid/ Invalid) aims to solve the validity problem of cached data after a client is disconnected from the server. The new cache invalidation schemes are shown through experimental evaluation to outperform most existing schemes in terms of data access time, cache miss rates and bandwidth consumption.
SyncRerank: Reranking Multi Search Results Based on Vertical and Horizontal Propagation of User Intention
Authors: Satoshi Nakamura, Takehiro Yamamoto, Katsumi Tanaka
Venue: Proceedings of the 9th international conference on Web Information Systems Engineering (2008)

This paper proposes novel interaction techniques for parallel search tasks. The system displays multiple search results, returned by a search engine, side-by-side for each search query. The system enables the user to rerank search results using a reranking algorithm based on vertical and horizontal propagation of his/her intention. A method of recommending operations for specific keywords is also proposed, supporting operations such as a shift to a parallel search with an alternate term, upgrading or downgrading results in terms of a specific viewpoint, and so on. Applications for the proposed system are also discussed.
A Bayesian regression approach to the prediction of MHC-II binding affinity
Authors: Wen Zhang, Juan Liu, Yan Qing Niu, Lian Wang, Xihao Hu
Venue: Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine (2008)

Peptide-major histocompatibility complex (MHC) binding is an important prerequisite event and has immediate consequences to immune response. Those peptides binding to MHC molecules can activate the T-cell immunity, and they are useful for understanding the immune mechanism and developing vaccines for diseases. Recently, researchers are interested in making prediction about binding affinity instead of differentiating the peptides as binder or non-binder. In this paper, we use sparse Bayesian regression algorithm proposed by Tipping [M.E. Tipping, Sparse Bayesian learning and the relevance vector machine. J. Mach. Learn. Res. (2001)] to derive position-specific scoring matrices from allele-related peptides, and develop the models allowing for the prediction of MHC-II binding affinity. We explore the peptide length and peptide flanking residue length's impact on binding affinity, and incorporate these factors into our models to enhance prediction performance. When applied to the datasets from AntiJen database and IEDB database, our method produces better performances than several popular quantitative methods.
A Novel Clock Duty-Cycle Corrector of DSP Systems
Authors: Xianjun Zeng, Rong Ji, Shizhen Huang, Liang Chen, Gang Luo, Junfeng Zhang
Venue: Proceedings of the 2008 Congress on Image and Signal Processing, Vol. 2 - Volume 02 (2008)

A novel 50% duty-cycle corrector (DCC) of digital signal processing (DSP) systems, designed with a purely digital phase-blending technique, is presented in this paper. The novel features of the proposed DCC includes a higher reliability against process, voltage and temperature variation due to the use of the synchronous mirror delay (SMD) technique, no-skew output clock, and a much faster duty-cycle correction speed compared to conventional DCC's. When designed with a 0.13-μm CMOS technology, the acceptable duty-cycle of the input signal ranges from 10% to 90% when the clock frequency is 400 MHz and the correction operation spends 4 clock cycles with the corrected duty-cycle varying from 48% to 52%.