ppxscal/embedding_network huggingface dataset:
A simulation based learning meachanism for scheduling systems with continuous control and update structure
Authors: Gokhan Metan, Ihsan Sabuncuoglu
Venue: Proceedings of the 37th conference on Winter simulation (2005)

A simulation based learning mechanism is proposed in this study. The system learns in the manufacturing environment by constructing a learning tree and selects a dispatching rule from the tree for each scheduling period. The system utilizes the process control charts to monitor the performance of the learning tree which is automatically updated whenever necessary. Therefore, the system adapts itself for the changes in the manufacturing environment and works well over time. Extensive simulation experiments are conducted for the system parameters such as monitoring (MPL) and scheduling period lengths (SPL) on a job shop problem with objective of minimizing average tardiness. Simulation results show that the performance of the proposed system is considerably better than the simulation-based single-pass and multi-pass scheduling algorithms available in the literature.
Dealing with practical limitations of distributed timed model checking for timed automata
Authors: V. Braberman, A. Olivero, F. Schapachnik
Venue: Formal Methods in System Design (2006)

Two base algorithms are known for reachability verification over timed automata. They are called forward and backwards, and traverse the automata edges using either successors or predecessors. Both usually work with a data structure called Difference Bound Matrices (DBMs). Although forward is better suited for on-the-fly construction of the model, the one known as backwards provides the basis for the verification of arbitrary formulae of the TCTL logic, and more importantly, for controller synthesis. Zeus is a distributed model checker for timed automata that uses the backwards algorithm. It works assigning each automata location to only one processor. This design choice seems the only reasonable way to deal with some complex operations involving many DBMs in order to avoid huge overheads due to distribution. This article explores the limitations of Zeus-like approaches for the distribution of timed model checkers.Our findings justify why close-to-linear speedups are so difficult ---and sometimes impossible--- to achieve in the general case. Nevertheless, we present mechanisms based on the way model checking is usually applied. Among others, these include model-topology-aware partitioning and on-the-fly workload redistribution. Combined, they have a positive impact on the speedups obtained.
Dealing with Heterogeneity in Load Balancing Algorithms
Authors: Marta Beltran, Antonio Guzman, Jose Luis Bosque
Venue: Proceedings of the Proceedings of The Fifth International Symposium on Parallel and Distributed Computing (2006)

Cluster heterogeneity increases the difficulty of balancing the load across the system nodes. Although the relationship between heterogeneity and load balancing is difficult to describe analytically, in this paper an exhaustive analysis of the effects of this system feature on load balancing algorithms performance is presented. Considering the performed analysis, there are two main challenges that need to be faced when dealing with cluster heterogeneity in load balancing algorithms: one related to the state measurement stage and another to the initiation rule. In this paper techniques to deal with heterogeneity in these two algorithm stages are proposed. Furthermore, suggestions to improve the performance of the rest of algorithm stages in heterogeneous environments are made too.
Virtual Instructor and Pedagogical Issues
Authors: Avgoustos A. Tsinakos
Venue: Proceedings of the Sixth IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies (2006)

The scope of implementing a virtual instructor is to achieve enhanced learning outcomes during an autonomous training (education) sessions of a human learner. Based on the evidence of traditional education, the desired outcomes are also depending on the effectiveness of the instructor (trainer). A good and effective instructor often implies improved learning outcomes. But what makes a traditional instructor effective? How virtual instructor technology can benefit from traditional instructors? Will distance education become potential affected of the findings? Those are some of the issues discussed in the current paper.
Parametric delay differentiation between packet flows using multiple reserved spaces
Authors: Stijn De Vuyst, Sabine Wittevrongel, Herwig Bruneel
Venue: Proceedings of the 1st international conference on Performance evaluation methodolgies and tools (2006)

We analyse a discrete-time queueing model with packet arrivals that are either classified as delay-sensitive (type 1) or delay-tolerant (type 2). The queue has a single server and each packet requires a service time of exactly one slot. The prominent feature of this model is its reservation-based queueing discipline, which has the purpose of reducing the queueing delay perceived by the 1-packets at the cost of allowing higher delays for the 2-packets. Our suggestion is to introduce a total of N reserved spaces in the queue, intended for future arrivals of type 1. Specifically, whenever a 1-packet enters the queue, it takes the position of the most advanced reservation and creates a new reservation at the end of the queue. Type 2 arrivals on the other hand, are always stored in the usual FIFO (First-In First-Out) manner. This way, it is possible for a 1-packet to jump over already queued 2-packets, resulting in the desired prioritisation of type 1 over type 2 packets. The amount of stochastic delay difference between 1- and 2-packets can be controlled smoothly by the parameter N. As a result of our analysis, we obtain the probability generating function, the mean value and the tail distribution of the delay experienced by both 1- and 2-packets. In each case, fast computational algorithms are provided, as well as some numerical examples.
RTSAT-- An Optimal and Efficient Approach to the Task Allocation Problem in Distributed Architectures
Authors: Alexander Metzner, Christian Herde
Venue: Proceedings of the 27th IEEE International Real-Time Systems Symposium (2006)

We present an advanced SAT-based approach to the task and message allocation problem of distributed real-time systems. In contrast to the heuristic approaches usually applied to this problem, our approach is guaranteed to find an optimal allocation for realistic task systems running on complex target architectures. Our method is based on the transformation of such scheduling problems into nonlinear integer optimization problems. The core of the numerical optimization procedure we use to discharge those problems is a solver for arbitrary boolean combinations of integer constraints. While the determination of the task and message placement is done within the satisfiability checking based solver, checking for feasibility w.r.t real-time requirements is performed in a specialized real-time engine under control of the satisfiability solver. Optimal solutions are obtained by imposing a binary search scheme on top of that solver. Experiments show the applicability of our approach to industrial-size task systems.
Intentional dynamic systems: Fundamental concepts and applications: Introduction
Authors: Robert Kozma, Toshio Fukuda
Venue: International Journal of Intelligent Systems (2006)

The concepts of meaning and intentionality play a central role in understanding animal and human intelligence, and they are crucial for creating artifacts with intelligent behavior and robust autonomy in real-life scenarios. The Intentional Dynamical Systems Symposium IDS'04 was held in Memphis, Tennessee, April 26&ndash;27, 2004, and it gave a forum to researchers working on the intensively developing interdisciplinary area of dynamical approaches to embedded cognition, based on self-organized development of autonomous systems. The present issue contains selected papers from the symposium addressing dynamical aspects of intentionality and intelligent behavior. All papers have been carefully peer reviewed to meet the standards of the journal. Contributions to this issue cover neuro-physiological foundations of human cortical dynamics, computational neuro-pharmacology and hippocampal modeling, development of KIII models for cognitive map generation, utilization of KII and KIII sets as logical gates and associative memories for odor recognition, evolutionary development of control for autonomous robot, and incorporating emotional representations in interactive robots. &copy; 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Int Syst 21: 875&ndash;879, 2006.
Facilitating User Access to the Grid: A Lightweight Application Hosting Environment for Grid Enabled Computational Science
Authors: S. J. Zasada, R. Saksena, P. V. Coveney, M. Mc Keown, S. Pickles
Venue: Proceedings of the Second IEEE International Conference on e-Science and Grid Computing (2006)

While great strides have been made in the field of grid middleware technology, difficulties deploying and configuring current grid middleware technologies from an end user perspective have led to many of the people who would benefit most from the technology, namely application scientists, to avoid using it. In response to this we have developed the Application Hosting Environment (AHE), a lightweight, easily deployable environment designed to simplify the way the scientist interacts with the grid. The AHE builds a layer of middleware on top of existing technologies such as Globus, abstracting the details of the particular underlying grid middleware in use. The functionality of the AHE is exposed as web services using the WSRF::Lite toolkit; the user interacts with these services to launch and monitor applications. The resulting system provides a great deal of flexibility, allowing clients to be developed for a range of devices from PDAs to desktop machines, and command line clients which can be scripted to produce complicated application workflows.
Duration Analysis for Malayalam Text-To-Speech Systems
Authors: Deepa P. Gopinath, J. Divya Sree, Reshmi Mathew, S. J. Rekhila, Achuthsankar S. Nair
Venue: Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Information Technology (2006)

Naturalness can be achieved in a Text-To-Speech (TTS) by incorporating prosodic features which include duration of basic units, intonation patterns and stress. This paper presents the preliminary duration analysis required for a speech synthesis system for Malayalam, one among the 17 languages spoken in India. The statistical analysis of the duration of phonemes has yielded results, which can effectively be used for developing a duration model for the language. The durational patterns of vowels and consonants are compared. The study shows that, it is the duration of vowels that get significantly modified and hence duration modelling has to focus primarily on vowels. For vowels, the positional factors have more effect on duration than the contextual factors. The results obtained in this study can simplify a rather complex task of framing rules for duration variation.
The design and implementation of WiMAX module for ns-2 simulator
Authors: Jenhui Chen, Chih-Chieh Wang, Frank Chee-Da Tsai, Chiang-Wei Chang, Syao-Syuan Liu, Jhenjhong Guo, Wei-Jen Lien, Jui-Hsiang Sum, Chih-Hsin Hung
Venue: Proceeding from the 2006 workshop on ns-2: the IP network simulator (2006)

The network simulator 2 (ns-2) is a popular and powerful simulation tool for the simulation of packet-switched networks, which provides substantial support for simulation of TCP, routing, and MAC protocols over wired and wireless networks, such as wireless LANs, mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs), and satellite communications, etc, and is widely used in both academia and industry. Although many protocol modules have been implemented in the ns-2, the IEEE 802.16 broadband wireless access networks (BWANs) or WiMAX module has not been contributed yet. Thus, in this paper, we present our detailed design and implementation of the WiMAX module based on the IEEE 802.16 standard with the point-to-multipoint (PMP) mode for the ns-2. The implemented module comprises fundamental functions of the service-specific convergence sublayer (CS), the MAC common part sublayer (CPS), and the PHY layer. A simple call admission control (CAC) mechanism and the scheduler are also included in this module.
Categorizing and Individuating Others: The Neural Substrates of Person Perception
Authors: Malia F. Mason, C. Neil Macrae
Venue: Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (2004)

People are remarkably adroit at understanding other social agents. Quite how these information-processing abilities are realized, however, remains open to debate and empirical scrutiny. In particular, little is known about basic aspects of person perception, such as the operations that support people's ability to categorize (i. e., assign persons to groups) and individuate (i. e., discriminate among group members) others. In an attempt to rectify this situation, the current research focused on the initial perceptual stages of person construal and considered: (i) hemispheric differences in the efficiency of categorization and individuation; and (ii) the neural activity that supports these social-cognitive operations. Noting the greater role played by configural processing in individuation than categorization, it was expected that performance on the former task would be enhanced when stimuli (i. e., faces) were presented to the right rather than to the left cerebral hemisphere. The results of two experiments (Experiment 1&mdash;healthy individuals; Experiment 2&mdash;split-brain patient) confirmed this prediction. Extending these findings, a final neuroimaging investigation revealed that individuation is accompanied by neural activity in regions of the temporal and prefrontal cortices, especially in the right hemisphere. We consider the implications of these findings for contemporary treatments of person perception.
Generalized Multiclass AdaBoost and Its Applications to Multimedia Classification
Authors: Wei Hao, Jiebo Luo
Venue: Proceedings of the 2006 Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Workshop (2006)

AdaBoost has received considerable attention in the vision and multimedia research community in recent years. It is originally designed for two-class classification problems. To handle multiple classes, many AdaBoost extensions have been developed primarily based on various schemes for reducing multiclass classification to multiple two-class problems. From a statistical prospective, AdaBoost can be viewed as a forward stepwise additive model using an exponential loss function. In this paper, we derive a generalized form of AdaBoost for multiclass classification based on a multiclass exponential loss function. To prove its effectiveness, we benchmarked a number of multimedia problems of different nature. Experimental results show that the new boosting algorithm outperforms other multiclass alternatives. In addition, the generalized boosting algorithm can be used to either boost a multiclass classifier, or build a multiclass classifier from a binary one.
Content Grid: A Novel Approach to Address Pervasive Internet Access
Authors: Su Mu, Chi-Hung Chi, Henry Palit, Lin Liu
Venue: Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Semantics, Knowledge, and Grid (2006)

In this paper, we propose a new grid architecture that focuses on the pervasive delivery of content service. This grid structure integrates Web and P2P systems, and leverages on the respective advantages of these dissimilar sub-systems for better quality and higher efficiency of content and application delivery. We implemented the Content Grid architecture using Globus Toolkit 4 platform to illustrate its potential performance benefit.
Influence of interfacial layers on resonance phonon transport
Authors: E. S. Syrkin, P. A. Minaev, A. G. Shkorbatov, A. Feher
Venue: Microelectronic Engineering (2005)

The resonance transport of phonons considered in the present work is characteristic of heat transport between two media. This effect is essential one, for example, in transmission of heat between solids and liquid helium in the presence of interface layer. The resonance phonon transport permits to control heat flow between two media with introduction of impurity layers weakly bound with contact edges. In the point contacts the molecules of water or solidified inert gases can serve as a resonance layer. The peaks of the reduced heat flow (RHF) were observed in point contacts KBr-KBr, KBr-Cu Si-Cu. We explain the maximum of RHF observed at temperature 5.7K by the theory of the resonance transport and introduce the model of multichannel resonance phonon transport for the interface of point contact Si-Cu. Phonon transport is calculated using the capillary effects theory. The characteristics of the phonon transmission channels are calculated. The calculated temperature dependence of RHF is in a good agreement with the experimental data.
Simulated maximum likelihood method for estimating kinetic rates in gene expression
Authors: Tianhai Tian, Songlin Xu, Junbin Gao, Kevin Burrage
Venue: Bioinformatics (2007)

Motivation: Kinetic rate in gene expression is a key measurement of the stability of gene products and gives important information for the reconstruction of genetic regulatory networks. Recent developments in experimental technologies have made it possible to measure the numbers of transcripts and protein molecules in single cells. Although estimation methods based on deterministic models have been proposed aimed at evaluating kinetic rates from experimental observations, these methods cannot tackle noise in gene expression that may arise from discrete processes of gene expression, small numbers of mRNA transcript, fluctuations in the activity of transcriptional factors and variability in the experimental environment. Results: In this paper, we develop effective methods for estimating kinetic rates in genetic regulatory networks. The simulated maximum likelihood method is used to evaluate parameters in stochastic models described by either stochastic differential equations or discrete biochemical reactions. Different types of non-parametric density functions are used to measure the transitional probability of experimental observations. For stochastic models described by biochemical reactions, we propose to use the simulated frequency distribution to evaluate the transitional density based on the discrete nature of stochastic simulations. The genetic optimization algorithm is used as an efficient tool to search for optimal reaction rates. Numerical results indicate that the proposed methods can give robust estimations of kinetic rates with good accuracy. Contact: tian@maths.uq.edu.au
A major impediment to B2C success is...the concept 'B2C'
Authors: Roger Clarke
Venue: Proceedings of the 8th international conference on Electronic commerce: The new e-commerce: innovations for conquering current barriers, obstacles and limitations to conducting successful business on the internet (2006)

It's been over a decade now. We've forgotten how slow the adoption of consumer Internet commerce has been compared to other Internet growth metrics. And we're surprised when security scares like spyware and phishing result in lurches in consumer use.This paper re-visits an old theme, and finds that consumer marketing is still characterised by aggression and dominance, not sensitivity to customer needs. This conclusion is based on an examination of terms and privacy policy statements, which shows that businesses are confronting the people who buy from them with fixed, unyielding interfaces. Instead of generating trust, marketers prefer to wield power.These hard-headed approaches can work in a number of circumstances. Compelling content is one, but not everyone sells sex, gambling services, short-shelf-life news, and even shorter-shelf-life fashion goods. And, after decades of mass-media-conditioned consumer psychology research and experimentation, it's far from clear that advertising can convert everyone into salivating consumers who 'just have to have' products and services brand-linked to every new trend, especially if what you sell is groceries or handyman supplies.The thesis of this paper is that the one-dimensional, aggressive concept of B2C has long passed its use-by date. Trading is two-way -- consumers' attention, money and loyalty, in return for marketers' products and services, and vice versa.So B2C is conceptually wrong, and needs to be replaced by some buzzphrase that better conveys 'B-with-C' rather than 'to-C' and 'at-C'. Implementations of 'customised' services through 'portals' have to mature beyond data-mining-based manipulation to support two-sided relationships, and customer-managed profiles.It's all been said before, but now it's time to listen.
Computing the maximum similarity bi-clusters of gene expression data
Authors: Xiaowen Liu, Lusheng Wang
Venue: Bioinformatics (2007)

Motivations: Bi-clustering is an important approach in microarray data analysis. The underlying bases for using bi-clustering in the analysis of gene expression data are (1) similar genes may exhibit similar behaviors only under a subset of conditions, not all conditions, (2) genes may participate in more than one function, resulting in one regulation pattern in one context and a different pattern in another. Using bi-clustering algorithms, one can obtain sets of genes that are co-regulated under subsets of conditions. Results: We develop a polynomial time algorithm to find an optimal bi-cluster with the maximum similarity score. To our knowledge, this is the first formulation for bi-cluster problems that admits a polynomial time algorithm for optimal solutions. The algorithm works for a special case, where the bi-clusters are approximately squares. We then extend the algorithm to handle various kinds of other cases. Experiments on simulation data and real data show that the new algorithms outperform most of the existing methods in many cases. Our new algorithms have the following advantages: (1) no discretization procedure is required, (2) performs well for overlapping bi-clusters and (3) works well for additive bi-clusters. Availability: The software is available at http://www.cs.cityu.edu.hk/~liuxw/msbe/help.html. Contact: lwang@cs.cityu.edu.hk Supplementary information: The Supplementary Data is available at http://www.cs.cityu.edu.hk/~liuxw/msbe/supp.html.
Proceedings of the 7th ACM SIGCHI New Zealand chapter's international conference on Computer-human interaction: design centered HCI
Venue: ACM International Conference Proceeding Series; Vol. 158 (2006)

CHINZ 2006 is the seventh event organised by the New Zealand Chapter of the ACM Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction. The Chapter was established in 1999, providing a forum for researchers and practitioners to share ideas. Conferences have been held in many different locations: Palmerston North, Hamilton, Rotorua, Dunedin and Auckland. This year, of course, the conference is being held here in Christchurch with its thriving IT industry. It has been pleasing to see over the years, that this conference has run in such a large number of places, reflecting the interest in interface issues throughout New Zealand.The theme of this year's conference, "Design centered HCI", is an important one given the many challenges that have to be faced in ensuring that people can easily use the web, mobile phones etc. Those of us who teach students about this topic often find that many of our students are focussed on the technology and not the interaction. It is a challenging task to make people in the computing industry aware of the needs of users and how the principles of good design can be applied to meet these. The authors of the papers presented here have considered these issues. Only twenty papers were submitted but the standard was very high and sixteen were accepted as full papers. All of these papers were blind reviewed by three reviewers.