ppxscal/embedding_network huggingface dataset:
Regression for Classical and Nondeterministic Planning
Authors: Jussi Rintanen
Venue: Proceeding of the 2008 conference on ECAI 2008: 18th European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (2008)

Many forms of reasoning about actions and planning can be reduced to regression, the computation of the weakest precondition a state has to satisfy to guarantee the satisfaction of another condition in the successor state. In this work we formalize a general syntactic regression operation for ground PDDL operators, show its correctness, and define a composition operation based on regression. As applications we present a very simple yet powerful algorithm for computing invariants, as well as a generalization of the hn heuristic of Haslum and Geffner to PDDL.
Seat allocation for massive events based on region growing techniques
Authors: Víctor Muòoz, Miquel Montaner, Josep Lluís de la Rosa
Venue: Proceeding of the 2006 conference on Artificial Intelligence Research and Development (2006)

This paper provides a technique for resolving the seat allocation problem for massive events, that consists in distributing people across the stadium keeping the spectators preferences and satisfying rules from the administration. The method is based on a region growing technique inherited from the Computer Vision field, with which a first candidate to the solution is obtained, followed by an improvement process.
Performance analysis and network path characterization for scalable internet streaming
Authors: Dmitri Loguinov
Venue:  (2008)

Delivering high-quality of video to end users over the best-effort Internet is a challenging task since quality of streaming video is highly subject to network conditions. A fundamental issue in this area is how real-time applications cope with network dynamics and adapt their operational behavior to offer a favorable streaming environment to end users. As an effort towards providing such streaming environment, the first half of this work focuses on analyzing the performance of video streaming in best-effort networks and developing a new streaming framework that effectively utilizes unequal importance of video packets in rate control and achieves a near-optimal performance for a given network packet loss rate. In addition, we study error concealment methods such as FEC (Forward-Error Correction) that is often used to protect multimedia data over lossy network channels. We investigate the impact of FEC on the quality of video and develop models that can provide insights into understanding how inclusion of FEC affects streaming performance and its optimality and resilience characteristics under dynamically changing network conditions. In the second part of this thesis, we focus on measuring bandwidth of network paths, which plays an important role in characterizing Internet paths and can benefit many applications including multimedia streaming. We conduct a stochastic analysis of an end-to-end path and develop novel bandwidth sampling techniques that can produce asymptotically accurate capacity and available bandwidth of the path under non-trivial cross-traffic conditions. In addition, we conduct comparative performance study of existing bandwidth estimation tools in non-simulated networks where various timing irregularities affect delay measurements. We find that when high-precision packet timing is not available due to hardware interrupt moderation, the majority of existing algorithms are not robust to measure end-to-end paths with high accuracy. We overcome this problem by using signal de-noising techniques in bandwidth measurement. We also develop a new measurement tool called PRC-MT based on theoretical models that simultaneously measures the capacity and available bandwidth of the tight link with asymptotic accuracy.
Penetration Tester's Open Source Toolkit, Volume 2
Authors: Chris Hurley
Venue:  (2007)

Penetration testing a network requires a delicate balance of art and science. A penetration tester must be creative enough to think outside of the box to determine the best attack vector into his own network, and also be expert in using the literally hundreds of tools required to execute the plan. This second volume adds over 300 new pentesting applications included with BackTrack 2 to the pen tester's toolkit. It includes the latest information on Snort, Nessus, Wireshark, Metasploit, Kismet and all of the other major Open Source platforms. .Perform Network ReconnaissanceMaster the objectives, methodology, and tools of the least understood aspect of a penetration test..Demystify Enumeration and ScanningIdentify the purpose and type of the target systems, obtain specific information about the versions of the services that are running on the systems, and list the targets and services..Hack Database ServicesUnderstand and identify common database service vulnerabilities, discover database services, attack database authentication mechanisms, analyze the contents of the database, and use the database to obtain access to the host operating system..Test Web Servers and ApplicationsCompromise the Web server due to vulnerabilities on the server daemon itself, its unhardened state, or vulnerabilities within the Web applications..Test Wireless Networks and DevicesUnderstand WLAN vulnerabilities, attack WLAN encryption, master information gathering tools, and deploy exploitation tools..Examine Vulnerabilities on Network Routers and SwitchesUse Traceroute, Nmap, ike-scan, Cisco Torch, Finger, Nessus, onesixtyone, Hydra, Ettercap, and more to attack your network devices..Customize BackTrack 2Torque BackTrack 2 for your specialized needs through module management, unique hard drive installations, and USB installations..Perform Forensic Discovery and Analysis with BackTrack 2Use BackTrack in the field for forensic analysis, image acquisition, and file carving..Build Your Own PenTesting LabEverything you need to build your own fully functional attack lab. The ACM Portal is published by the Association for Computing Machinery. Copyright © 2010 ACM, Inc. Terms of Usage Privacy Policy Code of Ethics Contact Us Useful downloads: Adobe Acrobat QuickTime Windows Media Player Real Player
Reaping Deep Web Rewards Is a Matter of Semantics
Authors: Greg Goth
Venue: IEEE Internet Computing (2009)

New semantic Web technologies are emerging as viable alternatives to the orthodox Semantic Web framework defined by W3C, creating taxonomies and ontologies for deep Web databases.
Assembling approximately optimal binary search trees efficiently using arithmetics
Authors: Jussi Kujala
Venue: Information Processing Letters (2009)

We introduce a new algorithm for computing an approximately optimal binary search tree with known access probabilities or weights on items. The algorithm is simple to implement and it has two contributions. First, a randomized variant of the algorithm produces a binary search tree with expected performance that improves the previous theoretical guarantees (the performance is dependent on the value of the input random variable). More precisely, if p is the probability of accessing an item, then under expectation the item is found after searching lg1/p+0.087+lg"2(1+p"m"a"x) nodes, where p"m"a"x is the maximal probability among items. The previous best bound was lg1/p+1, albeit deterministic. For the optimal tree our upper bound implies a non-constructive performance bound of H+0.087+lg"2(1+p"m"a"x), where H is the entropy on the item distribution and the previous bound was H+1. The second contribution of the algorithm is a low cost in i/o models of cost such as the cache-oblivious model, while attaining simultaneously the above bound for the produced tree.
Modular Verification of Recursive Programs
Authors: Krzysztof R. Apt, Frank S. Boer, Ernst-Rüdiger Olderog
Venue: Languages: From Formal to Natural: Essays Dedicated to Nissim Francez on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday (2009)

We argue that verification of recursive programs by means of the assertional method of C.A.R. Hoare can be conceptually simplified using a modular reasoning. In this approach some properties of the program are established first and subsequently used to establish other program properties. We illustrate this approach by providing a modular correctness proof of the Quicksort program.
Fast variational interconnect delay and slew computation using quadratic models
Authors: Xiaoji Ye, Frank Liu, Peng Li
Venue: IEEE Transactions on Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) Systems (2007)

Interconnects constitute a dominant source of circuit delay for modern chip designs. The variations of critical dimensions in modern VLSI technologies lead to variability in interconnect performance that must be fully accounted for in timing verification. However, handling a multitude of inter-die/intra-die variations and assessing their impacts on circuit performance can dramatically complicate the timing analysis. In this paper, a practical interconnect delay and slew analysis technique is presented to facilitate efficient evaluation of wire performance variability. By harnessing a collection of computationally efficient procedures and closed-form formulas, process variations are directly mapped into the variability of the output delay and slew. An efficient method based on sensitivity analysis is implemented to calculate driving point models under variations for gate-level timing analysis. The proposed adjoint technique not only provides statistical performance variations of the interconnect network under analysis, but also produces delay and slew expressions parameterized in the underlying process variations in a quadratic parametric form. As such, it can be harnessed to enable statistical timing analysis while considering important statistical correlations. Our experimental results have indicated that the presented analysis is accurate regardless of location of sink nodes and it is also robust over a wide range of process variations.
Building Parallel Programs: SMPs, Clusters & Java, 1st edition
Authors: Alan Kaminsky
Venue:  (2009)

Readers learn the craft of designing and building parallel programsspecifically programs that employ multiple processors operating at once to solve a large computational problemwith the clear presentation and fresh, contemporary approach found in Kaminsky's BUILDING PARALLEL PROGRAMS. Written by experienced instructor and industry developer Alan Kaminsky, this book addresses techniques for parallel programming on both major categories of parallel computersSMPs and clusters. Readers gain first-hand experience working with the increasingly popular programming language, Java, as they complete programs from the text written in Java and work with a unique, author-developed Java class library. The book even emphasizes how to use performance metrics in the design of parallel programs, a topic not even addressed in most other texts.
From Representing the Knowledge to Offering Appropriate Remediation --a Road Map for Virtual Learning Process
Authors: Mehdi Najjar
Venue: Proceeding of the 2005 conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education: Supporting Learning through Intelligent and Socially Informed Technology (2005)

The paper describes a proposal of a 'from A to Z' virtual learning process and its preliminary validation which consists of representing the knowledge, authoring graphically the subject-matter domain, modelling the students' believes and offering to each learner a personalised suitable feedback.
Algorithms for graphs of bounded treewidth via orthogonal range searching
Authors: Sergio Cabello, Christian Knauer
Venue: Computational Geometry: Theory and Applications (2009)

We show that, for any fixed constant k>=3, the sum of the distances between all pairs of vertices of an abstract graph with n vertices and treewidth at most k can be computed in O(nlog^k^-^1n) time. We also show that, for any fixed constant k>=2, the dilation of a geometric graph (i.e., a graph drawn in the plane with straight-line segments) with n vertices and treewidth at most k can be computed in O(nlog^k^+^1n) expected time. The dilation (or stretch-factor) of a geometric graph is defined as the largest ratio, taken over all pairs of vertices, between the distance measured along the graph and the Euclidean distance. The algorithms for both problems are based on the same principle: data structures for orthogonal range searching in bounded dimension provide a compact representation of distances in abstract graphs of bounded treewidth.
The science and engineering in networks of networks
Authors: Frederica Darema
Venue: Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Future Internet Technologies (2009)

Communication networks have advanced in many respects and to levels where they can provide revolutionary capabilities in every business, governmental and societal sectors. In spite of present successes and achievements, there are many remaining challenges, and emerging classes of networks including multiple levels of networks, together with new application drivers, accentuate these challenges and engender at the same time new capabilities and new requirements in engineered networks. Such characteristics include: ubiquitous interconnectedness and integration across classes of heterogeneous networks, including communication networks as part of other network systems; networks that are neither closed nor static and which exhibit dynamicity in many respects, such as in the numbers and the kind of entities in the network, the interconnectedness structure and properties, the medium in which they operate, and in the behavior of individual nodes as well as of the collective system; networks that need to be self-organizing, self configuring, synchronized, with assured communications, continuous, robust, secure and invulnerable, such as for example mobile ad-hoc networks; and SuperGrids of dynamically integrated computational, communication, and sensor- and instrumentation-resources, and moving beyond the present Internet, to InterNets or "networks of networks" of such resources. We need new paradigms for designing, building, and managing such dynamic, interactive and mutually interdependent networks. We need to develop new and more systematic fundamental ideas and new approaches; that is: the science and the engineering for understanding, building and managing or manipulating the behavior of such systems, and enabling and ensuring efficient and optimized performance, resilience and fault-tolerance, recovery, security, etc, and managing such requirements under dynamically changing conditions. The talk will address the challenges and the opportunities presented to us.
On the Graph Connectivity of Skeleta of Convex Polytopes
Authors: Christos A. Athanasiadis
Venue: Discrete Computational Geometry (2009)

Given a d-dimensional convex polytope P and nonnegative integer k not exceeding d&#x2212;1, let ${\mathcal{G}}_{k}(P)$denote the simple graph on the node set of k-dimensional faces of P in which two such faces are adjacent if there exists a (k+1)-dimensional face of P which contains them both. The graph ${\mathcal{G}}_{k}(P)$is isomorphic to the dual graph of the (d&#x2212;k)-dimensional skeleton of the normal fan of P. For fixed values of k and d, the largest integer m such that ${\mathcal{G}}_{k}(P)$is m-vertex-connected for all d-dimensional polytopes P is determined. This result generalizes Balinski&#x2019;s theorem on the one-dimensional skeleton of a d-dimensional convex polytope.
Agricultural productivity potential assessment by using rainfall contribution index in Sub-Sahara Africa
Authors: Yu-Min Wang, Seydou Traore, Willy Namaona, Tienfuan Kerh
Venue: WSEAS Transactions on Information Science and Applications (2009)

Food deficit alleviation is the most important aspect for poverty reduction in the entire Sub-Sahara African (SSA) region. This alleviation can be achieved by increasing agricultural productivity. The deficit is in one way or the other attributed to inefficient and insufficient use of rainwater. This paper therefore, examines the scope for meeting the crop water demand under rainfed condition based on the suitable planting period approach in SSA, in order to take advantage of the favorable climatic condition. Climatic data collected from 1996 to 2005 in Ouagadougou and Ngabu, located in Burkina Faso and Malawi, respectively were used in this study. The rainfall contribution index and yield estimation model were introduced to examine the availability of rainwater to suffice the crop water demand and then predicting the yields. Rainfed agriculture in the study sites is characterized by a short and monomodal rainy season starting from May to September and November to April, in Ouagadougou and Ngabu respectively. Ngabu receives annually, an average of 912 mm rainfall, while Ouagadougou receives 698 mm. Based on the index, it has been realized that there is higher crop water requirement in Ouagadougou than in Ngabu regardless of the crop and planting dates. It was also observed that, the rainwater is more sufficient in Ngabu than Ouagadougou. Following the suitable planting periods determined in this study might increase the yield of maize, bean, millet, and groundnuts by 10.31, 16.22, 10.57, and 4.82 % in Ouagadougou, and 5.00, 7.41, 7.14, and 4.30 % in Ngabu, respectively. The suitable planting periods should therefore be recommended for reducing the gap between supply and demand for the selected crops under rainfed condition, so that crop productivity may increase.
Equivalence of nested queries with mixed semantics
Authors: David DeHaan
Venue: Proceedings of the twenty-eighth ACM SIGMOD-SIGACT-SIGART symposium on Principles of database systems (2009)

We consider the problem of deciding query equivalence for a conjunctive language in which queries output complex objects composed from a mixture of nested, unordered collection types. Using an encoding of nested objects as flat relations, we translate the problem to deciding the equivalence between encodings output by relational conjunctive queries. This encoding equivalence cleanly unifies and generalizes previous results for deciding equivalence of conjunctive queries evaluated under various processing semantics. As part of our characterization of encoding equivalence, we define a normal form for encoding queries and contend that this normal form offers new insight into the fundamental principles governing the behaviour of nested aggregation.
A design theory for managing software process improvement
Authors: Jan Pries-Heje, Richard Baskerville
Venue: Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Design Science Research in Information Systems and Technology (2009)

This article summarizes a management design theory in the form of technological rules for software process improvement. A general model of the improvement recommendation process can include four elements: agenda, observation, analysis and synthesis. This model supports a design theory in the form of technological rules for each of the four elements. This design theory is useful as a framework in which practitioners can better manage their software process improvement process through more precise orientation of their organization and their goals.
SEEDEEP: A System for Exploring and Querying Scientific Deep Web Data Sources
Authors: Fan Wang, Gagan Agrawal
Venue: Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Scientific and Statistical Database Management (2009)

A recent and emerging trend in scientific data dissemination involves online databases that are hidden behind query forms, thus forming what is referred to as the deep web. In this paper, we propose SEEDEEP, a System for Exploring and quErying scientific DEEP web data sources. SEEDEEP is able to automatically mine deep web data source schemas, integrate heterogeneous data sources, answer cross-source keyword queries, and incorporates features like caching and fault-tolerance. Currently, SEEDEEP integrates 16 deep web data sources in the biological domain. We demonstrate how an integrated model for correlated deep web data sources is constructed, how a complex cross-source keyword query is answered efficiently and correctly, and how important performance issues are addressed.
Technology-Based Tools That Facilitate Data-Driven Decision Making
Authors: Ellen B. Mandinach, Margaret Honey, Daniel Light, Juliette Heinze, Luz Rivas
Venue: Proceeding of the 2005 conference on Towards Sustainable and Scalable Educational Innovations Informed by the Learning Sciences: Sharing Good Practices of Research, Experimentation and Innovation (2005)

In this paper, we describe how technology-based tools support data-driven decision making in US schools. We examine how three different applications used in six different school districts either impede or facilitate decision making by educators across various levels of school districts. One of the major objectives of this work is to develop a theoretical model for data-driven decision making based on the outcomes of this research.
Handle Flags: efficient and flexible selections for inking applications
Authors: Tovi Grossman, Patrick Baudisch, Ken Hinckley
Venue: Proceedings of Graphics Interface 2009 (2009)

There are a number of challenges associated with content selection in pen-based interfaces. Supplementary buttons to enter a selection mode may not be available, and selections may require a careful and error prone lasso stroke. In this paper we describe the design and evaluation of Handle Flags, a new localized technique used to select and perform commands on ink strokes in pen-operated interfaces. When the user positions the pen near an ink stroke, Handle Flags are displayed for the potential selections that the ink stroke could belong to (such as proximal strokes comprising a word or drawing). Tapping the handle allows the user to access the corresponding selection, without requiring a complex lasso stroke. Our studies show that Handle Flags offer significant benefits in comparison to traditional techniques, and are a promising technique for pen-based applications.
Building Pedestrian Contour Hierarchies for Improving Detection in Traffic Scenes
Authors: Ion Giosan, Sergiu Nedevschi
Venue: Proceedings of the International Conference on Computer Vision and Graphics: Revised Papers (2008)

This paper presents a new method for extracting pedestrian contours from images using 2D and 3D information obtained from a stereo-vision acquisition system. Two pedestrian contour types are extracted. First is obtained from static pedestrian confidence images using fixed background scenes and second from general traffic scenes having variable background. A robust approach for building contour hierarchies of these contours is then presented. First hierarchy is built of "perfect" contours extracted from fixed background scenes and the second one is built of "imperfect" contours extracted from images with variable background. The objective is to evaluate the two hierarchies in order to identify the best one for real time pedestrian detection.
Contouring of Knowledge for Intelligent Searching for Arguments
Authors: Anthony Hunter
Venue: Proceeding of the 2006 conference on ECAI 2006: 17th European Conference on Artificial Intelligence August 29 -- September 1, 2006, Riva del Garda, Italy (2006)

A common assumption for logic-based argumentation is that an argument is a pair <Φ, α> where Φ is a minimal subset of the knowledgebase such that Φ is consistent and Φ entails the claim α. Different logics are based on different definitions for entailment and consistency, and these give us different options for argumentation. For a variety of logics, in particular for classical logic, there is a need to develop intelligent techniques for generating arguments. Since building a constellation of arguments and counterarguments involves repeatedly querying a knowledgebase, we propose a framework based on what we call “contours” for storing information about a knowledgebase that provides boundaries on what is provable in the knowledgebase. Using contours allows for more intelligent searching of a knowledgebase for arguments and counterarguments.