ppxscal/embedding_network huggingface dataset:
Plenary lecture I: game-based learning in higher education and lifelong learning: bridging the gap between theory and practice
Authors: Andreja Istenic Starcic
Venue: Proceedings of the 8th WSEAS international conference on Distance learning and web engineering (2008)

Game-based learning virtual environments are tailored for diversified university and lifelong student groups preparing them to enter national, European and global environments. They foster collaboration at various levels between university and industry providing knowledge and innovation exchange. In learning processes support collaboration among teachers/educators and learners at the international level. Representing a real life phenomenon - complex and dynamic systems in which the variables for manipulation illustrate variables in real life situations. Learners are offered to learn in an authentic environment of imitating concrete activities which they will face in their professional life. Learning about complex phenomena and systems is more meaningful in collaboration because knowledge is distributed among learners and the cognition is socially shared. Currently there are many initiatives at European and global level aiming at agreements for arranging new learning environments which will offer learning linking theory and practice, university and industry. Paper provide framework for new solutions at institutional level facing challenges of game-based learning in virtual environments.
Audio watermarking scheme based on embedding strategy in low frequency components with a binary image
Authors: Ergun Erçelebi, Leyla Batakçı
Venue: Digital Signal Processing (2009)

With the recent development of information technology and computer network, digital format of data has become more and more popular. However, a major problem faced by digital data providers and owners is protecting data from unauthorized copying and distribution. As a solution to the problem, digital watermark technology is now attracting attention as new method of protection against said unauthorized copying and distribution. The aim of the digital audio watermarking is to take prespecified data that carries certain information and hide it within the audio stream such that it is not audible to the human ear (i.e., transparent) but at the same time renders the file more resistant to removal (i.e., robust). In this paper, we propose a new method for embedding digital watermarks into audio signals in low frequency components, which method mitigates these and other related shortcomings. The proposed method uses the wavelet transform constructed by lifting-based wavelet transform (LBWT) in order to provide a fast implementation between watermark embedding and extraction parts. In the first stage of the proposed method, the original audio host signal is converted to a wavelet domain using LBWT. The signal is thus decomposed into low and high frequency components. Approximation coefficients correspond to low frequency components of the signal. Next, the watermark generated by pseudorandom numbers is embedded into wavelet approximation coefficients of the segmented host audio signal depending on the binary value of the binary image. The reason for embedding the watermark in the low frequency components is that these components' energy is greater than that of high frequency components in such a way that the watermark is inaudible; therefore, it should not alter the audible content and should not be easy to remove. The proposed method uses a binary image to decide whether or not the watermark generated by pseudorandom numbers is embedded in the audio host signal. To evaluate the performance of the proposed audio watermarking method, subjective and objective quality tests including bit error rate (BER) and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) are conducted. The tests' results show that the proposed method yields a high recovery rate after attacks by commonly used audio data manipulations such as low-pass filtering, requantization, resampling and MP3 compression.
Software Development Effort Estimation: Formal Models or Expert Judgment?
Authors: Magne Jørgensen, Barry Boehm, Stan Rifkin
Venue: IEEE Software (2009)

Which is better for estimating software project resources: formal models, as instantiated in estimation tools, or expert judgment? Two luminaries, Magne Jørgensen and Barry Boehm, debate this question.
Real Time Simulation in Floating Point Precision Using FPGA Computing
Authors: Beniamin Apopei, Andy Mills, Tony Dodd, Haydn Thompson
Venue: Proceedings of the 5th International Workshop on Reconfigurable Computing: Architectures, Tools and Applications (2009)

Real time simulations are indispensable for evaluation of new components, control system development, and system integration. There is a trade-off between model fidelity and the computational demands of the model; often lower fidelity models are chosen to speed development and to enable real time testing. FPGA technology offers an advantage over software simulation by exploiting bit and instruction level parallelism by default, but traditionally at the expense of coding effort and the need for experienced hardware engineers. The high cost of developing a model to execute on a FPGA is particularly prohibitive due to modifications occurring during system development. The work presents a process enabling an engineer to avoid hand-coded VHDL programming, yet take full advantage of the technology. The process described comes as a complete package: creating the model using pre-defined libraries, compilation and execution using specialized FPGA tools, simulation, co-simulation and interfacing with other technologies using in-house developed drivers.
TQM measurement model for the biotechnology industry in Taiwan
Authors: Jui-Kuei Chen, I-Shuo Chen
Venue: Expert Systems with Applications: An International Journal (2009)

Due to the importance of the growth of biotechnology in Taiwan, the question of how the operation performance of the industry can be upgraded to sustain its competitive advantages has become an important question for Taiwanese biotechnology insiders. Recently, a growing number of organizations have implemented TQM in order to give them a competitive advantage [Chan, T. H., & Quazi, H. A. (2002). Overview of quality management practices in selected Asian countries. Quality Management Journal, 9(1), 172-180; Nilsson, L., Johnson, M. D., & Gustafsson, A. (2001). The impact of quality practices on customer satisfaction and business results: Product versus service organizations. Journal of Quality Management, 6, 5-27]. Meanwhile, quality related awards are also appearing for examining and identifying whether or not the overall quality of a firm is high. Each award, however, focuses only on examining certain items. It is impossible for a firm to make each examined item perfect. In addition to this, since the overall quality of the technology and products of some Taiwanese biotechnology corporations has been decreasing, the prestige of the Taiwanese biotechnology industry as a whole has decreased in the global market. Thus, in order to solve the above difficulties, this study attempts to find the most suitable measurement model for the biotechnology industry to enact quality improvement. The study first reviews a substantial body of literature on total quality management and categorizes measurement criteria. The study then proceeds with in-depth interviews with relevant background experts in order to extract and verify the most suitable measurement criteria. In addition to this, a FANP is utilized in order to analyze the weights of different measurement dimensions and criteria. The value of this study is its construction of a TQM measurement model for the Taiwanese biotechnology industry that can be used to improve its quality as well as to regain a higher market share of the global market.
History of FORTRAN standardization
Authors: Martin N. Greenfield
Venue: Proceedings of the June 7-10, 1982, national computer conference (1982)

The history of FORTRAN Standardization, ranging from the original efforts in the early 60s up to the present, is presented. Some of the precedent-setting development during the initial cycle in handling problems common to all language standardization is discussed. The background in introducing some of the features in FORTRAN 77 is covered. The nature and reasoning behind the current activity are described.
Target localization in camera wireless networks
Authors: Ryan Farrell, Roberto Garcia, Dennis Lucarelli, Andreas Terzis, I-Jeng Wang
Venue: Pervasive and Mobile Computing (2009)

Target localization is an application of wireless sensor networks with wide applicability in homeland security scenarios including surveillance and asset protection. In this paper we present a novel sensor network that localizes with the help of two modalities: cameras and non-imaging sensors. A set of two cameras is initially used to localize the motes of a wireless sensor network. Motes subsequently collaborate to estimate the location of a target using their non-imaging sensors. Our results show that the combination of imaging and non-imaging modalities successfully achieves the dual goal of self- and target-localization. Specifically, we found through simulation and experimental validation that cameras can localize motes deployed in a 100 mx100 m area with a few cm error. Moreover, a network of motes equipped with magnetometers can, once localized, estimate the location of magnetic targets within a few cm.
Collection/item metadata relationships
Authors: Allen H. Renear, Karen M. Wickett, Richard J. Urban, David Dubin, Sarah L. Shreeves
Venue: Proceedings of the 2008 International Conference on Dublin Core and Metadata Applications (2008)

Contemporary retrieval systems, which search across collections, usually ignore collection-level metadata. Alternative approaches, exploiting collection-level information, will require an understanding of the various kinds of relationships that can obtain between collection-level and item-level metadata. This paper outlines the problem and describes a project that is developing a logic-based framework for classifying collection/item metadata relationships. This framework will support (i) metadata specification developers defining metadata elements, (ii) metadata creators describing objects, and (iii) system designers implementing systems that take advantage of collection-level metadata. We present three examples of collection/item metadata relationship categories, attribute/value-propagation, value-propagations, and value-constraint and show that even in these simple cases a precise formulation requires modal notions in addition to first-order logic. These formulations are related to recent work in information retrieval and ontology evaluation.
Multiple interference cancellation performance for GPS receivers with dual-polarized antenna arrays
Authors: Jing Wang, Moeness G. Amin
Venue: EURASIP Journal on Advances in Signal Processing (2008)

This paper examines the interference cancellation performance in global positioning system (GPS) receivers equipped with dual-polarized antenna arrays. In dense jamming environment, different types of interferers can be mitigated by the dual-polarized antennas, either acting individually or in conjunction with other receiver antennas. We apply minimum variance distorntionless response (MVDR) method to a uniform circular dual-polarized antenna array. The MVDR beamformer is constructed for each satellite. Analysis of the eigenstructures of the covariance matrix and the corresponding weight vector polarization characteristics are provided. Depending on the number of jammers and jammer polarizations, the array chooses to expend its degrees of freedom to counter the jammer polarization or/and use phase coherence to form jammer spatial nulls. Results of interference cancellations demonstrate that applying multiple MVDR beamformers, each for one satellite, has a superior cancellation performance compared to using only one MVDR beamformer for all satellites in the field of view.
Plenary lecture I: chaos and its applicability to communications and security
Authors: Stamatios Kartalopoulos
Venue: Proceedings of the 7th conference on Circuits, systems, electronics, control and signal processing (2008)

The number of security breaches and network attacks increases as well as the sophistication of intruders and bad actors. To increase information integrity and network security, very complex processes are enlisted in cryptographic systems, such as chaos theory and quantum theory. Chaos is based on the particular behavior of certain non-linear functions, which for a minute change of parameters produce a very large and unstable output, known as the chaotic regime. However, this chaos is reproducible, which makes it attractive to secure communications. Quantum theory defines the non-classical qubit, which is a superposition of quantum states. In addition, it defines the no cloning or no copying (of qubit) theorem. Both, the qubit and the no-cloning theorem, along with the quanto-mechanical properties of photons, find applicability to a new breed of cryptography and secure optical communications known as quantum cryptography and quantum networks, respectively. In this talk we explain chaos and chaotic processes with simple examples, as well as quantum cryptography. We then describe how chaos functions are used in quantum cryptography to increase efficiency and speed of the quantum key establishment.
Policy, values and EFT research: anatomy of a research agenda
Authors: Kenneth L. Kraemer, Kent W. Colton
Venue: Proceedings of the May 19-22, 1980, national computer conference (1980)

In its Final Report of February 1977, the National Commission on Electronic Fund Transfers (NCEFT) defined EFT as: "... a payments system in which the processing and communications necessary to effect economic exchange, and the processing and communications necessary for the production and distribution of services incidental or related to economic exchange, are dependent wholly or in large part on the use of electrons."
CMOS based capacitive sensor laboratory-on-chip: a multidisciplinary approach
Authors: Ebrahim Ghafar-Zadeh, Mohamad Sawan, Daniel Therriault
Venue: Analog Integrated Circuits and Signal Processing (2009)

In this paper, we review the recent advances of CMOS-based capacitive sensors for Lab-on-chip (LoC) applications. LoC design is a multidisciplinary approach of adapting classical biochemical assays to a miniaturized platform by exploiting advances in microelectronic and microfluidic technologies. By offering low cost and integrated devices, CMOS based LoCs could be amenable to a large number of biological and biochemical assays for disease diagnostics and biotechnology in the near future. While an exhaustive, all-encompassing review of CMOS-based LoCs is beyond the scope of this review, we have focused on the design and implementation of CMOS-based capacitive sensor LoCs for the most important biochemical applications. For each application, the corresponding biochemical sensing layer, interface circuit and microfluidic packaging technique are discussed based on the recent literature studies.
A decision procedure for subset constraints over regular languages
Authors: Pieter Hooimeijer, Westley Weimer
Venue: ACM SIGPLAN Notices (2009)

Reasoning about string variables, in particular program inputs, is an important aspect of many program analyses and testing frameworks. Program inputs invariably arrive as strings, and are often manipulated using high-level string operations such as equality checks, regular expression matching, and string concatenation. It is difficult to reason about these operations because they are not well-integrated into current constraint solvers. We present a decision procedure that solves systems of equations over regular language variables. Given such a system of constraints, our algorithm finds satisfying assignments for the variables in the system. We define this problem formally and render a mechanized correctness proof of the core of the algorithm. We evaluate its scalability and practical utility by applying it to the problem of automatically finding inputs that cause SQL injection vulnerabilities.
On Extension of Dependency and Consistency Degrees of Two Knowledges Represented by Covering
Authors: P. Samanta, Mihir K. Chakraborty
Venue: Transactions on Rough Sets IX (2008)

Knowledge of an agent depends on the granulation procedure adopted by the agent. The knowledge granules may form a partition of the universe or a covering. In this paper dependency degrees of two knowledges have been considered in both the cases. A measure of consistency and inconsistency of knowledges are also discussed. This paper is a continuation of our earlier work [3].
Cyclostationarity-Based Spectrum Sensing for Wideband Cognitive Radio
Authors: Qi Yuan, Peng Tao, Wang Wenbo, Qian Rongrong
Venue: Proceedings of the 2009 WRI International Conference on Communications and Mobile Computing - Volume 01 (2009)

This paper addresses the problem of cyclostationary detection when the signal spectrum is partly intercepted. The signal model for partial interception of spectrum is presented. Cyclostationary feature of signal is analyzed in this scenario and cyclic spectrum present region is also defined. An improved cyclic spectrum estimator as well as detection strategy for unknown feature location is proposed. Simulation results verify that performance of proposed algorithm can satisfy the requirement of feature detection.
A metric-based analysis of web sites in Serbia: first findings
Authors: Zorica M. Mihajlovic, Nikos E. Mastorakis
Venue: Proceedings of the 8th conference on Applied informatics and communications (2008)

Web engineering can be defined as a disciplined and systematic approach to development, deployment and maintenance of high-quality web applications. It borrows many principles, processes, methods and tools from software engineering and measurements and metrics are among them. The research on web metrics already done provides evidence that even simple HTML tag based metrics can be useful in evaluating quality attributes of web applications and in information retrieval. In this paper we study a number of web sites in Serbia in terms of HTML metrics gathered from the sites' web pages in order to compare the statistics of metrics with the results coming from a more advanced domain of the Web and presented in a previous work. We want to determine if our web pages are high-quality pages. The study covers web sites from educational and financial topics. Our analysis shows that the results obtained from web sites of banks in Serbia are very close to the results given in the previous work. The foreign banks in Serbia contribute to this mostly. In addition, our analysis finds out that schools of engineering of the University of Belgrade have the best web sites when the statistical features of HTML metrics are compared to those given in the previous work. A special tool for extracting metrics from HTML code automatically, named SMeterH, has been used in our analysis.
Detecting Photographic Composites of People
Authors: Micah K. Johnson, Hany Farid
Venue: Proceedings of the 6th International Workshop on Digital Watermarking (2008)

The compositing of two or more people into a single image is a common form of manipulation. We describe how such composites can be detected by estimating a camera's intrinsic parameters from the image of a person's eyes. Differences in these parameters across the image are used as evidence of tampering.
The C# Programming Language, 3rd edition
Authors: Anders Hejlsberg, Mads Torgersen, Scott Wiltamuth, Peter Golde
Venue: Microsoft .Net Development Series (2008)

Based on my own experience, I can safely say that every .NET developer who reads this will have at least one aha moment and will be a better developer for it. From the Foreword by Don BoxThe popular C# programming language combines the high productivity of rapid application development languages with the raw power of C and C++. Now, C# 3.0 adds functional programming techniques and LINQ, Language INtegrated Query. The C# Programming Language, Third Edition, is the authoritative and annotated technical reference for C# 3.0.Written by Anders Hejlsberg, the languages architect, and his colleagues, Mads Torgersen, Scott Wiltamuth, and Peter Golde, this volume has been completely updated and reorganized for C# 3.0. The book provides the complete specification of the language, along with descriptions, reference materials, code samples, and annotations from nine prominent C# gurus. The many annotationsa new feature in this editionbring a depth and breadth of understanding rarely found in any programming book. As the main text of the book introduces the concepts of the C# language, cogent annotations explain why they are important, how they are used, how they relate to other languages, and even how they evolved.This book is the definitive, must-have reference for any developer who wants to understand C#.
A rewriting logic approach to operational semantics
Authors: Traian Florin Şerbănuţă, Grigore Roşu, José Meseguer
Venue: Information and Computation (2009)

This paper shows how rewriting logic semantics (RLS) can be used as a computational logic framework for operational semantic definitions of programming languages. Several operational semantics styles are addressed: big-step and small-step structural operational semantics (SOS), modular SOS, reduction semantics with evaluation contexts, continuation-based semantics, and the chemical abstract machine. Each of these language definitional styles can be faithfully captured as an RLS theory, in the sense that there is a one-to-one correspondence between computational steps in the original language definition and computational steps in the corresponding RLS theory. A major goal of this paper is to show that RLS does not force or pre-impose any given language definitional style, and that its flexibility and ease of use makes RLS an appealing framework for exploring new definitional styles.
Software project effort estimation with voting rules
Authors: Stefan Koch, Johann Mitlöhner
Venue: Decision Support Systems (2009)

Social choice deals with aggregating the preferences of a number of voters into a collective preference. We will use this idea for software project effort estimation, substituting the voters by project attributes. Therefore, instead of supplying numeric values for various project attributes that are then used in regression or similar methods, a new project only needs to be placed into one ranking per attribute, necessitating only ordinal values. Using the resulting aggregate ranking the new project is again placed between other projects whose actual expended effort can be used to derive an estimation. In this paper we will present this method and extensions using weightings derived from genetic algorithms. We detail a validation based on several well-known data sets and show that estimation accuracy similar to classic methods can be achieved with considerably lower demands on input data.
Algorithms for optimal outlier removal
Authors: Rossen Atanassov, Prosenjit Bose, Mathieu Couture, Anil Maheshwari, Pat Morin, Michel Paquette, Michiel Smid, Stefanie Wuhrer
Venue: Journal of Discrete Algorithms (2009)

We consider the problem of removing c points from a set S of n points so that the remaining point set is optimal in some sense. Definitions of optimality we consider include having minimum diameter, having minimum area (perimeter) bounding box, having minimum area (perimeter) convex hull. For constant values of c, all our algorithms run in O(nlogn) time.