ppxscal/embedding_network huggingface dataset:
Demand for online government services: Case studies from St. Petersburg
Authors: Anastasia Golubeva, Irina Merkuryeva
Venue: Information Polity (2006)

This paper describes methods that can be applied to the analysis of demand for e-government services and presents the results of e-government demand study in St. Petersburg. In order to extend the knowledge of public expectations, we considered three groups of e-government stakeholders: civil servants, business, and nonprofit organizations. We further analyzed awareness of available e-government services among representatives of the three groups and their attitudes towards these offerings in St. Petersburg. Obtained results allow to formulate recommendations for further e-government development in St. Petersburg and can be extrapolated to other regions of the Russian Federation.
Virtual Education System for the C Programming Language
Authors: Ilhyun Moon, Saeron Han, Kwansun Choi, Dongsik Kim, Changwan Jeon, Sunheum Lee, Heunggu Jeon
Venue: Proceedings of the 7th international conference on Advances in Web Based Learning (2008)

Web-based interactive learning is an important educational trend. In this paper, we implemented web-based virtual education courseware for the C programming language. It consists of two major components: a creative lecture component for students and an evaluation component for lecturers. The lecture component contains HTML-based lecture notes with creative multimedia content, such as flash movies and video clips, and an effective web-based compiler which compiles C programs at the server. These are submitted by students through the Web and the program returns their execution results to the students' PCs. There is also a submission component of a student's reports and an online examination. The administration and management system for attendance checking, report assignment, online examination and scoring, etc is implemented using web technologies such as HTML, Java, Java script, PHP and MySQL database. This system enables students to easily understand the content and programming techniques of the C programming language. It enables lecturers to achieve higher productivity, saving them time and labor.
Numerical Simulation of Threshold-Crossing Problem for Random Fields of Environmental Contamination
Authors: Robert Jankowski
Venue: Proceedings of the 8th international conference on Computational Science, Part II (2008)

The present paper deals with the numerical simulation of threshold-crossing problem allowing us to assess the probability that a random field of contamination does not exceed a fixed level in a certain two-dimensional (2-D) spatial domain. A real-valued, homogeneous random field described by the mean value and the covariance (differentiable) function is assumed as the basic theoretical model of the contamination field. In the numerical simulation, a suitable discrete model defined on a regular or irregular grid has been developed and tested by the conditional simulation method. The practical example concerns a case study of heavy metals concentration in soil of the northern part of Poland. The results of the study indicate that theoretical modelling of the level crossings in 2-D random fields with the continuous parameter shows a good agreement with the numerical simulations of the fields with the discretised parameter.
Public Key Encryption of Images and Videos in Real Time Using Chebyshev Maps
Authors: K. Ganesan, Ishan Singh, Mansi Narain
Venue: Proceedings of the 2008 Fifth International Conference on Computer Graphics, Imaging and Visualisation (2008)

Due to rapid developments in limits and possibilities of communications and information transmissions, there is a growing demand of cryptographic techniques, which has spurred a great deal of intensive research activities in the study of cryptography. This paper describes a public key encryption based on chebyshev polynomials [1]. We discuss the algorithm for textual data and present the cryptanalysis which can be performed on this algorithm for the recovery of encrypted data [2]. We also describe a simple hashing algorithm for making this algorithm more secure, and which can also be used for digital signature [3]. The main scope of this paper is to propose an extension of this algorithm to images and videos and making it secure using multilevel scrambling and hash. Software implementations and experimental results are also discussed in detail.
On the numerical solution of nonlinear systems of Volterra integro-differential equations with delay arguments
Authors: M. Shakourifar, M. Dehghan
Venue: Computing (2008)

Particular cases of nonlinear systems of delay Volterra integro-differential equations (denoted by DVIDEs) with constant delay &#x03c4;&#x00a0;>&#x00a0;0, arise in mathematical modelling of &#x2018;predator&#x2013;prey&#x2019; dynamics in Ecology. In this paper, we give an analysis of the global convergence and local superconvergence properties of piecewise polynomial collocation for systems of this type. Then, from the perspective of applied mathematics, we consider the Volterra&#x2019;s integro-differential system of &#x2018;predator&#x2013;prey&#x2019; dynamics arising in Ecology. We analyze the numerical issues of the introduced collocation method applied to the &#x2018;predator&#x2013;prey&#x2019; system and confirm that we can achieve the expected theoretical orders of convergence.
Feature Selection Based on a New Formulation of the Minimal-Redundancy-Maximal-Relevance Criterion
Authors: Daniel Ponsa, Antonio López
Venue: Proceedings of the 3rd Iberian conference on Pattern Recognition and Image Analysis, Part I (2007)

This paper proposes an incremental method for feature selection, aimed at identifying attributes in a dataset that allow to buid good classifiers at low computational cost. The basis of the approach is the minimal-redundancy-maximal-relevance (mRMR) framework, which attempts to select features relevant for a given classification task, avoiding redundancy among them. Relevance and redundancy have been popularly defined in terms of information theory concepts. In this paper a modification of the mRMR framework is proposed, based on a more proper quantification of the redundancy among features. Experimental work on discrete---valued datasets shows that classifiers built using features selected by the proposed method are more accurate than the ones obtained using original mRMR features.
Nonnegative Least Squares Learning for the Random Neural Network
Authors: Stelios Timotheou
Venue: Proceedings of the 18th international conference on Artificial Neural Networks, Part I (2008)

In this paper, a novel supervised batch learning algorithm for the Random Neural Network (RNN) is proposed. The RNN equations associated with training are purposively approximated to obtain a linear Nonnegative Least Squares (NNLS) problem that is strictly convex and can be solved to optimality. Following a review of selected algorithms, a simple and efficient approach is employed after being identified to be able to deal with large scale NNLS problems. The proposed algorithm is applied to a combinatorial optimization problem emerging in disaster management, and is shown to have better performance than the standard gradient descent algorithm for the RNN.
Supporting Service-Oriented Design with Metrics
Authors: Helge Hofmeister, Guido Wirtz
Venue: Proceedings of the 2008 12th International IEEE Enterprise Distributed Object Computing Conference (2008)

The service-oriented architectural style is widely perceived today. However, service orientation is a very general concept and its application in real-life situations is somewhat ambiguous. This is partially due to the fact that service-oriented principles are subject to interpretation rather than elements of the style.In this paper we propose a set of design metrics for service-oriented design. Based on an established metric for the coupling of component-based systems we introduce a complexity metric by the means of service coupling. We argue that service aggregators and the centralization of a system's control flow is appropriate to address a system's complexity. In order to approach an objective design that incorporates these principles, we introduce four metrics for the analysis of how a system handles its complexity with service-oriented means. Finally, we apply the presented metrics to an enterprise-scale real-life case study that we have conducted.
Compositional Modeling and Minimization of Time-Inhomogeneous Markov Chains
Authors: Tingting Han, Joost-Pieter Katoen, Alexandru Mereacre
Venue: Proceedings of the 11th international workshop on Hybrid Systems: Computation and Control (2008)

This paper presents a compositional framework for the modeling of interactive continuous-time Markov chains with time-dependent rates, a subclass of communicating piecewise deterministic Markov processes. A poly-time algorithm is presented for computing the coarsest quotient under strong bisimulation for rate functions that are either piecewise uniform or (piecewise) polynomial. Strong as well as weak bisimulation are shown to be congruence relations for the compositional framework, thus allowing component-wise minimization. In addition, a new characterization of transient probabilities in time-inhomogeneous Markov chains with piecewise uniform rates is provided.
Computational aspects in simulation of free convection flow in porous medium
Authors: Aurel Chirita, Horia Ene, Bogdan Nicolescu, Ion Carstea
Venue: Proceedings of the 9th WSEAS International Conference on International Conference on Automation and Information (2008)

In the present work, natural convection heat transfer along a vertical flat plate embedded in a fluid saturated porous medium is considered. The prescribed wall temperature and heat flux are boundary conditions in the form of some power functions. The mathematical model of the phenomen is based on assumptions that the physical properties of the medium are constant except the fluid density related to buoyancy term. The governing equations of the phenomenon that are partial derivative equations are transformed in ordinary differential equations by using the similarity method. Similarity solutions can be obtained by solving the simplified models based on Prandtl boundary layer equations.
Speed Scaling Functions for Flow Time Scheduling Based on Active Job Count
Authors: Tak-Wah Lam, Lap-Kei Lee, Isaac K. To, Prudence W. Wong
Venue: Proceedings of the 16th annual European symposium on Algorithms (2008)

We study online scheduling to minimize flow time plus energy usage in the dynamic speed scaling model. We devise new speed scaling functions that depend on the number of active jobs, replacing the existing speed scaling functions in the literature that depend on the remaining work of active jobs. The new speed functions are more stable and also more efficient. They can support better job selection strategies to improve the competitive ratios of existing algorithms [8,5], and, more importantly, to remove the requirement of extra speed. These functions further distinguish themselves from others as they can readily be used in the non-clairvoyant model (where the size of a job is only known when the job finishes). As a first step, we study the scheduling of batched jobs (i.e., jobs with the same release time) in the non-clairvoyant model and present the first competitive algorithm for minimizing flow time plus energy (as well as for weighted flow time plus energy); the performance is close to optimal.
Topic 5: Parallel and Distributed Databases
Authors: Domenico Talia, Josep Lluis Larriba-Pey, Hillol Kargupta, Esther Pacitti
Venue: Proceedings of the 14th international Euro-Par conference on Parallel Processing (2008)

Advances in data management, including store, access, query, retrieval, and analysis, are inherent to current and future information systems. Today, accessing very large volumes of information is a reality. Tomorrow data intensive management systems will enable huge user communities to transparently access multiple preexisting autonomous, distributed and heterogeneous resources (data, documents, images, and services). Existing data management solutions do not provide efficient techniques for exploiting and mining Tera-datasets available in clusters, P2P andGrid architectures. Parallel and distributed file systems, databases, datawarehouses, and digital libraries are a key element for achieving scalable, efficient systems that will both cost-effectively manage and extract knowledge from huge amounts of highly distributed and heterogeneous digital data repositories.
Five Determinisation Algorithms
Authors: Rob Glabbeek, Bas Ploeger
Venue: Proceedings of the 13th international conference on Implementation and Applications of Automata (2008)

Determinisation of nondeterministic finite automata is a well-studied problem that plays an important role in compiler theory and system verification. In the latter field, one often encounters automata consisting of millions or even billions of states. On such input, the memory usage of analysis tools becomes the major bottleneck. In this paper we present several determinisation algorithms, all variants of the well-known subset construction, that aim to reduce memory usage and produce smaller output automata. One of them produces automata that are already minimal. We apply our algorithms to determinise automata that describe the possible sequences appearing after a fixed-length run of cellular automaton 110, and obtain a significant improvement in both memory and time efficiency.
A Gray Scale Watermarking Algorithm Based on LU Factorization
Authors: Shumei Wang, Weidong Zhao, Zhicheng Wang
Venue: Proceedings of the 2008 International Symposiums on Information Processing (2008)

LU Factorization is a triangular decomposition approach of non-singular matrix, and the digital image can be seen as a matrix. Based on the characteristics of the LU Factorization, this paper presents a novel robust watermarking algorithm in wavelet domain of digital image. Firstly, the original image will be transformed into wavelet domain by DWT, and the level of which is decided by the volume of watermark information. Next to do is computing the variances of the last details, and select detail matrix information whose variance is the max one among details. Then it will be preprocessed, if the image matrix is singular matrix, it will be converted into a non-singular matrix by permutation matrix which can be as a key; Secondly, the preprocessed image is decomposed into two triangular matrices including the upper one and the lower one with 1's on the main diagonal, and which have good distribution; Finally, the scrambled meaningful watermark is embedded into the non-zero pixels of two triangular matrixes adaptively. The experimental results show that the algorithm is simple, with better robustness and security.
Deadlock-Free Dynamic Network Reconfiguration Based on Close Up*/Down* Graphs
Authors: Antonio Robles-Gómez, Aurelio Bermúdez, Rafael Casado, Åshild Grønstad Solheim
Venue: Proceedings of the 14th international Euro-Par conference on Parallel Processing (2008)

Current high-performance distributed systems use a switch-based interconnection network. After the occurrence of a topological change, a management mechanism must reestablish connectivity between network devices. This mechanism discovers the new topology, calculates a new set of routing paths, and updates the routing tables within the network. The main challenge related to network reconfiguration (the change-over from one routing function to another) is avoiding deadlocks. Former reconfiguration techniques significantly reduce network service. In addition, most recent proposals either need extra network resources (such as virtual channels) or their computation complexities are prohibitive. For up*/down* routed networks we propose a new reconfiguration method that supports a virtually unaffected network service at a minor computational cost. This method is suitable for both source and distributed routing networks, and does neither restrict the injection of packets nor the updating of routing tables during the topology-change assimilation.
Trip Around the HMPerceptron Algorithm: Empirical Findings and Theoretical Tenets
Authors: Roberto Esposito, Daniele P. Radicioni
Venue: Proceedings of the 10th Congress of the Italian Association for Artificial Intelligence on AI*IA 2007: Artificial Intelligence and Human-Oriented Computing (2007)

In a recent work we have carried out CarpeDiem, a novel algorithm for the fast evaluation of Supervised Sequential Learning (SSL) classifiers. In this paper we point out some interesting unexpected aspects of the learning behavior of the HMPerceptron algorithm that affect CarpeDiem performances. This observation is the starting point of an investigation about the internal working of the HMPerceptron, which unveils crucial details of the internal working of the HMPerceptron learning strategy. The understanding of these details, augment the comprehension of the algorithm meanwhile suggesting further enhancements.
The equivalence problem of multidimensional multitape automata
Authors: Haik Grigorian, Samvel Shoukourian
Venue: Journal of Computer and System Sciences (2008)

This article considers the equivalence problem of multitape automata with multidimensional tapes, where the motion of the heads is monotone in all directions (no backward motion). It is shown that this problem can be reduced to the equivalence problem of ordinary multitape automata. Some applications of the result are adduced.
Users' Perception and Usability Study of a Parser for Headings
Authors: Safiriyu A. Elegbede, Mukaila A. Rahman, Imran A. Adeleke
Venue: Proceedings of the 8th Asia-Pacific conference on Computer-Human Interaction (2008)

Headings as used in many research articles play a significant role in helping readers to easily understand the organization of documents as well as the relative importance of sections. These headings are usually words or word-sequences which do not constitute full sentences. Despite the available text and speech parsing applications, none is designed towards parsing of such fragmentary word-sequences. We tackle this challenge by designing an application which implements active chart parser (ACP) using java technology. The system is designed to parse headings using context free phrase structure grammar. We present in this paper the study of the evaluators' perception and usability of the system. The result shows that most of the users rated the system very efficient, easy to use, and satisfactory. Apart from the system's heading parsing ability, the available text and speech processing systems can benefit immensely from integration with the application.
Interface agents as social models for female students: The effects of agent visual presence and appearance on female students' attitudes and beliefs
Authors: Rinat B. Rosenberg-Kima, Amy L. Baylor, E. Ashby Plant, Celeste E. Doerr
Venue: Computers in Human Behavior (2008)

The current work investigates the use of interface agents as anthropomorphic social models to influence young women's negative beliefs and low self-efficacy regarding engineering. Experiment 1 focused on the impact of agent model visual presence vs. voice alone for changing the women's beliefs. Based on literature on human social models we hypothesized that the visual presence of the interface agent would result in more positive attitudes toward engineering and greater self-efficacy than the presence of a human voice alone. Experiment 2 focused on the impact of model appearance-related characteristics for changing the women's beliefs. Previous work with human social models suggests that people are more persuaded by models that are similar to them. Therefore, models that were young, female, and ''cool'' were predicted to be more effective in influencing young women's attitudes. In accordance with our hypothesis, results revealed that participants who interacted with the visible agents reported significantly greater utility for engineering, greater self-efficacy, and greater interest in engineering-related fields than those who interacted with a human voice. In addition, the agent models that were similar to the young women tended to be the most effective for positively influencing the women's stereotypes and self-efficacy.
Composing Different Models of Computation in Kepler and Ptolemy II
Authors: Antoon Goderis, Christopher Brooks, Ilkay Altintas, Edward A. Lee, Carole Goble
Venue: Proceedings of the 7th international conference on Computational Science, Part III: ICCS 2007 (2007)

A model of computation (MoC) is a formal abstraction of execution in a computer. There is a need for composing MoCs in e-science. Kepler, which is based on Ptolemy II, is a scientific workflow environment that allows for MoC composition. This paper explains how MoCs are combined in Kepler and Ptolemy II and analyzes which combinations of MoCs are currently possible and useful. It demonstrates the approach by combining MoCs involving dataflow and finite state machines. The resulting classification should be relevant to other workflow environments wishing to combine multiple MoCs.
A Comparison of Region Detectors for Tracking
Authors: Andreas Haja, Steffen Abraham, Bernd Jähne
Venue: Proceedings of the 30th DAGM symposium on Pattern Recognition (2008)

In this work, the performance of five popular region detectors is compared in the context of tracking. Firstly, conventional nearest-neighbor matching based on the similarity of region descriptors is used to assemble trajectories from unique region-to-region correspondences. Based on carefully estimated homographies between planar object surfaces in neighboring frames of an image sequence, both their localization accuracy and length, as well as the percentage of successfully tracked regions is evaluated and compared. The evaluation results serve as a supplement to existing studies and facilitate the selection of appropriate detectors suited to the requirements of a specific application. Secondly, a novel tracking method is presented, which integrates for each region all potential matches into directed multi-edge graphs. From these, trajectories are extracted using Dijkstra's algorithm. It is shown, that the resulting localization error is significantly lower than with nearest-neighbor matching while at the same time, the percentage of tracked regions is increased.
Emergence of Social Rumor: Modeling, Analysis, and Simulations
Authors: Zhengyou Xia, Lailei Huang
Venue: Proceedings of the 7th international conference on Computational Science, Part IV: ICCS 2007 (2007)

We define the notion of social rumor in a standard game-theoretic framework, and assume each agent in the rumor game with individual rationality. In this framework, individual agent can interact with its neighboring agents, and word-of-mouth communication is employed during interaction. We introduce a simple and natural strategy-select rule, called behavior update rule (BUR). The BUR uses an accumulative influence force (CIF) with considering the authority influence of neighboring agents rather than simple accumulative number of information from neighboring agents. The BUR can provide rules to restrict agents' behavior to one particular strategy and lead to emergence of social rumor or anti-rumor. Most importantly, we give simple natural rules of rumor and anti-rumor information transmission, and investigate the efficiency with which social rumors and anti-rumors (agent claims that rumor information is false or doesn't exist) are achieved.