ppxscal/embedding_network huggingface dataset:
A Bayesian approach for on-line max and min auditing
Authors: Gerardo Canfora, Bice Cavallo
Venue: Proceedings of the 2008 international workshop on Privacy and anonymity in information society (2008)

In this paper we consider the on-line max and min query auditing problem: given a private association between fields in a data set, a sequence of max and min queries that have already been posed about the data, their corresponding answers and a new query, deny the answer if a private information is inferred or give the true answer otherwise. We give a probabilistic definition of privacy and demonstrate that max and min queries, without "no duplicates" assumption, can be audited by means of a Bayesian network. Moreover, we show how our auditing approach is able to manage user prior-knowledge.
A Novel Enterprise Mobile E-mail System Using the SyncML Protocol
Authors: Jing Xie, Dan Yu, Shilong Ma
Venue: Proceedings of the Seventh IEEE/ACIS International Conference on Computer and Information Science (icis 2008) (2008)

We have learned that the existing mobile e-mail solutions have some deficiencies, such as unsatisfied real-time features, poor mobility and so on. To avoid these problems, we propose a new way to design and implement an Enterprise Mobile E-mail System (EMES) with SyncML protocol. Our method explicitly takes into account the applications and the new needs of EMES. The result shows that we can resolve real-time, security, mobility, economy and synchronous problems in EMES.
Soil moisture mapping based on ASAR/ENVISAT radar data over a Sahelian region
Authors: M. Zribi, S. Saux-Picart, C. André, L. Descroix, C. Ottlé, A. Kallel
Venue: International Journal of Remote Sensing (2007)

The analysis of feedbacks between continental surfaces and the atmosphere is one of the key factors to understanding African Monsoon dynamics. For this reason, the monitoring of surface parameters, in particular soil moisture, is very important. Satellite remote sensing appears to be the most suitable means of obtaining data relevant to such parameters. The present paper presents a methodology applied to the mapping and monitoring of surface soil moisture over the Kori Dantiandou region in Niger, using data provided by the ASAR/ENVISAT radar instrument. The study is based on 15 sets of ASAR/ENVISAT C-band radar data, acquired during the 2004 and 2005 rainy seasons. Simultaneously with radar acquisitions, ground soil moisture measurements were carried out in a large number of test fields. Soil moisture was estimated only for fields with bare soil or low-density vegetation, using low-incidence-angle radar data (IS1 configuration). A mask was developed, using SPOT/HRV data and DTM, for use over areas characterized by high-density vegetation cover, pools, and areas with high slopes. Soil moisture estimations are based on horizontal-and vertical-polarization radar data. In order to double the temporal frequency of soil moisture estimations, IS2 data were used with IS1 data, with all data normalized to a single incidence angle. A high correlation is observed between in situ measurements and processed radar data. An empirical inversion technique is proposed, to estimate surface soil moisture from dual-polarization data with a spatial resolution of approximately 1 km. Surface soil moisture maps are presented for all the studied sites, at various dates in 2004 and 2005. Of particular interest, these maps reveal convective precipitation scales associated with strong spatial variations in surface soil moisture.
Ontologies Integration for University Institutions: Approach to an Alignment Evaluation
Authors: Richard GIl, Ana María Borges, Luís Ramos, Leonardo Contreras
Venue: Proceedings of the 19th Australian Conference on Software Engineering (2008)

Knowledge representation for specific dominions through ontologies has received great interest, although it is no yet evident an appropriate integration of sub-dominions that contemplate complementary spaces of interpretation. From ontology of dominion of University Institutions developed by the authors, it is tried to improve that supported on integration strategic tools. A methodological variant suggested by APFEL is tested, under the context of FOAM incorporated in Protégé-PROMPT. This proposal considers the Systemic Quality Cube as a reference framework to determine the proportions to the quality of the process and product of incremental integration when “adding and/or adapting” significant semantic and logics, “from the excellent knowledge” from the experts. They were taken from other two public ontologies about the similar domains developed by other ones. A partial evaluation of the resulting ontology was made combining technical of validation complemented with the visual interaction experts through a process based on the support-cognitive paradigm.
There's a Lot of It About
Authors: Stan Kelly-Bootle
Venue: Queue (2008)

"A lot of what, and about where?" I hear you cry. One question at a time, I reply. First, there's too much of everything these days, and, second, it's happening all over. Furthermore, everybody's doing it. As a contemporary Wordsworth might say: "The Web is too much with us, late and soon, getting and browsing we lay waste our powers." There is a glut of unfiltered information proving more dangerous than Alexander Pope's "A Little Learning" where "shallow draughts intoxicate the brain."
Low Bandwidth Self-Healing Key Distribution for Broadcast Encryption
Authors: Ratna Dutta, Sourav Mukhopadhyay, Sabu Emmanuel
Venue: Proceedings of the 2008 Second Asia International Conference on Modelling & Simulation (AMS) (2008)

We introduce a new self-healing key distribution scheme with revocation capability. The main improvement that our proposed construction achieves over previously suggested self-healing key distribution schemes is that our self-healing technique reduces communication overhead from O(tj) to O(t+j) without any additional increment in the storage cost as compared to the earlier approaches, where j is the current session number and t is the maximum number of compromised group members that may collude. We provide rigorous treatment of security of our scheme in an appropriate security framework and show that it is unconditionally secure with forward and backward secrecy
Remote sensing techniques for rapid detection of soil physical degradation
Authors: C. T. Omuto, D. P. Shrestha
Venue: International Journal of Remote Sensing (2007)

Physical degradation undermines soils' ability to perform their many biophysical functions. Currently, there is lack of rapid methods to facilitate timely large-area assessment for effective control of the degradation. This study tested the combined applications of point-measurements of physical properties, soil spectral reflectance, and remote sensing for prediction of the degradation in a large watershed. Infiltration and water retention measurements at selected sites were used to aid definition of the degradation classes. A tree classification was then developed with diffuse spectral reflectance to predict the degradation classes. 93% accuracy with holdout cross-validation was achieved and the tree used to predict the degradation at multiple points in the study area. In addition, standardized deviations of land surface temperature (LST) and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) from long-term Landsat scenes were used to study the thermal and vegetation conditions at the sampled points. The deviations of LST and NDVI were effectively incorporated in the prediction of the degradation at other places with 80% accuracy of ground reference data. This approach has the potential as a useful tool for guiding policy decision on sustainable land management.
European Union privacy and data protection principles: Compatibility with culture and legal frameworks in Islamic states
Authors: Mireille M. Caruana, Joseph A. Cannataci
Venue: Information and Communications Technology Law (2007)

Information Communications Technology (ICT) law has developed rapidly during the past 15 years within the European Union (EU). The Directives on Data Protection, Databases, Software and the Internet (to mention but a few) have together formed a corpus representing various layers of legal principles of varying importance. Some of these, like Directive 95/46, essentially are designed to protect fundamental human rights principles such as the right to private life. Recent events such as the negotiations over personal data transfer issues to the United States highlight the importance of such legal instruments and their transnational impact outside the boundaries of the EU. While much attention has been focused on EU 95/46 and transborder data flows to/from North America and G7 countries, little attention has been paid to the impact/compatibility of such laws vis-à-vis North African and Middle Eastern states where Islamic culture or Islamic law underlies much of everyday legal practice. This article attempts to identify the extent to which the principles of European Charter on Human Rights Articles 8 and 10 are to some extent established/respected within North African and Middle Eastern states and consequently the extent to which data protection laws are in (or could conceivably be brought into) place in a way that would ensure de facto compatibility with the requirements of EU 95/46. This issue is becoming of greater importance as more and more EU-based industries move their operations to North African and Islamic law states in order to take advantage of lower labour costs.
A low diffusion particle method for simulating compressible inviscid flows
Authors: Jonathan M. Burt, Iain D. Boyd
Venue: Journal of Computational Physics (2008)

A new particle method is presented for the numerical simulation of compressible inviscid gas flows, through procedures which involve relatively small modifications to an existing direct simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) algorithm. Implementation steps are outlined for simulations involving various grid geometries and for gas mixtures comprising an arbitrary number of species. The proposed method is compared with other numerical schemes through a series of one-dimensional and two-dimensional test cases, and is shown to provide a significant reduction in both artificial diffusion and statistical scatter effects relative to existing DSMC-based equilibrium particle methods.
Design and implementation of a PC-based simulator for tarasht power plant
Authors: Alireza Yazdizadeh, Fathieh Majnon Mehrizi
Venue: Proceedings of the 2nd WSEAS International Conference on Computer Engineering and Applications (2008)

Economical operation of large scale systems like a power plant depends on the operators and their skills. The operators need to know how to operate the plant under different conditions especially in emergency cases. There are some specific training courses which are presented by experts for the operators, but the operators need to experience in their own way. A methodology for increasing skills of the operators with less cost is to use power system simulators. Power system simulators can easily simulate different circumstances and show the effects of any action during operation. By working with simulators, operators can achieve different experience without affecting the main system. Power plant simulators are designed and manufactured by large companied that supply the main system. The TARASHT power plant 4000 mini-computer with VMS operating system. Due to the high price of mini-computers and the simulators, power industry in Iran decided to manufacture pc-based simulators. In a research work supported by the industry, a simulator with the same capabilities was redesigned and manufactured by Abbaspour Technical University. In this paper the result of the project id presented.
On The Limits To Speed Up Parallel Machines By Large Hardware And Unbounded Communication
Authors: F. Meyer auf der Heide
Venue: Proceedings of the 25th Annual Symposium onFoundations of Computer Science, 1984 (1984)

Lower bounds for sequential and parallel random access machines (RAM's, WRAM's) and distributed systems of RAM's (DRAM's) are proved. We show that, when p processors instead of one are available, the computation of certain functions cannot be speeded up by a factor p but only by a factor 0 (log(p)). For DRAM's with communication graph of degree c a maximal speedup 0 (log(c)) can be achieved for these problems. We apply these results to testing the solvability of linear diophantine equations. This generalizes a lower bond of Yao for parallel computation trees. Improving results of Dobkin/Lipton and Klein/Meyer auf der Heide, we establish large lower bounds for the above problem on RAM's. Finnaly we prove that at least log (n) + 1 steps are necessary for computing the sum of n integers by a WRAM regardless of the number of processors and the solution of write conflicts.
Evenness preserving operations on musical rhythms
Authors: Francisco Gomez-Martin, Perouz Taslakian, Godfried T. Toussaint
Venue: Proceedings of the 2008 C3S2E conference (2008)

In this paper we define four operations on musical rhythms that preserve a property called maximal evenness. The operations we describe are shadow, complementation, concatenation, and alternation.
From Processes Via Workflows To Services: An Overview
Authors: Gottfried Vossen
Venue: Journal of Integrated Design Process Science (2006)

The intention of this paper is to present, in a nutshell, important contributing developments of the last decade that have resulted in a better understanding of applications and technologies needed for present-day service incarnations. We start from process modelling and management, which has its origins in the early 1990s, and which has paved the way for a new understanding of business dynamics and interactions. Technically, process modelling has first led to workflow management, in an attempt to (further) automate internal and external process executions. Yet what is well-understood by now is that process modelling alone is not sufficient, but needs to be complemented by an adequate process management. Once processes and workflows are in place, a common desire nowadays is their outsourcing, and this is a typical situation where Web services enter the picture. Services can also be seen as yet another approach to application integration, whose history has included such diverse directions as remote procedure call (RPC), object-oriented middleware and brokering, or application service provisioning (ASP). Web services have recently emerged as a primarily industrial paradigm for which there are many standards around already, yet their conceptual underpinnings are still in their infancy. The latter include, among others, quality of service (QoS) aspects, and the derivation of a service specification from a given workflow (or process) model.
Samurai: protecting critical data in unsafe languages
Authors: Karthik Pattabiraman, Vinod Grover, Benjamin G. Zorn
Venue: ACM SIGOPS Operating Systems Review (2008)

Programs written in type-unsafe languages such as C and C++ incur costly memory errors that result in corrupted data structures, program crashes, and incorrect results. We present a data-centric solution to memory corruption called critical memory, a memory model that allows programmers to identify and protect data that is critical for correct program execution. Critical memory defines operations to consistently read and update critical data, and ensures that other non-critical updates in the program will not corrupt it. We also present Samurai, a runtime system that implements critical memory in software. Samurai uses replication and forward error correction to provide probabilistic guarantees of critical memory semantics. Because Samurai does not modify memory operations on non-critical data, the majority of memory operations in programs run at full speed, and Samurai is compatible with third party libraries. Using both applications, including a Web server, and libraries (an STL list class and a memory allocator), we evaluate the performance overhead and fault tolerance that Samurai provides. We find that Samurai is a useful and practical approach for the majority of the applications and libraries considered.
Observations of forest stand top height and mean height from interferometric SAR and LiDAR over a conifer plantation at Thetford Forest, UK
Authors: H. Balzter, A. Luckman, L. Skinner, C. Rowland, T. Dawson
Venue: International Journal of Remote Sensing (2007)

Estimates of forest stand mean height using airborne LiDAR (light detection and ranging) instruments have been reported previously with accuracies comparable to traditional ground-based measurements. However, the small area covered by a LiDAR sensor in a single aircraft overpass is a significant hindrance for large-scale forest inventories. In comparison, airborne interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) systems are also able to make estimates of surface height, but the swath coverage is often far greater, typically five or ten times that of the LiDAR coverage. A set of interferometric data takes was acquired by the ESAR airborne sensor over a managed pine plantation at Thetford Forest, UK. Scattering phase centre height estimates were made from two single-pass X-band acquisitions and polarimetric repeat-pass L-band acquisitions and compared with height estimates made from a separate LiDAR acquisition. The relationship between the scattering phase centre heights and stand top heights estimated, and the accuracy of stand top height estimates estimated from InSAR and LiDAR is quantified by the root mean square error (rmse). General yield class models by the Forestry Commission (UK) were used to estimate stand top height from a GIS database used for forest management. The longer wavelength L-band radiation penetrates deeper into the canopy than the X-band, and the scattering phase centre height is affected by both forest structural parameters (canopy density, understorey, and gaps) and sensor parameters (look-angle and reduced coherence through temporal and volume decorrelation). Consequently, a simple translation of scattering phase centre height into stand top height gives noisy results for L-band, with observed rmse values between ±3.1 m in the near-range and ±6.4 m in the far-range. The X-band based top height estimates are more accurate, with rmse between ±2.9 m in the near-and ±4.1 m in the far-range, which can be further reduced by an empirical incidence angle correction. Stand top height estimates from LiDAR achieved an rmse of only ±2.0 m. The X-band scattering phase centre heights have also been related to mean stand height and are comparable with heights observed from the LiDAR sensor and field measurements. An rmse of ±2.5 m for the mean stand height estimates based on the X-band dataset was found. Finally, we briefly discuss error propagation from the use of a terrain model, here provided by the Ordnance Survey.
SPS: a middleware for multi-user sensor systems
Authors: Salman Taherian, Jean Bacon
Venue: Proceedings of the 5th international workshop on Middleware for pervasive and ad-hoc computing: held at the ACM/IFIP/USENIX 8th International Middleware Conference (2007)

With the increased realisation of the benefits of studying environmental data, sensor networks are rapidly scaling in size, heterogeneity of data, and applications. In this paper, we present a State-based Publish/Subscribe (SPS) framework for sensor systems with many distributed and independent application clients. SPS provides a state-based information deduction model that is suited to many classes of sensor network applications. State Maintenance Components (SMCs) are introduced that are simple in operation, flexible in placement, and decomposable for distributed processing. Publish/Subscribe communication forms the core messaging component of the framework. SPS uses the decoupling feature of Pub/Sub and extends this across the SMCs to support a more flexible and dynamic system structure. Our evaluation, using real sensor data, shows that SPS is expressive in capturing conditions, and scalable in performance.
Foundations of Agile Python Development
Authors: Jeff Younker
Venue:  (2008)

Youve long been enamored with the Python language, and have mastered its many nuances. Yet something seems to be missinga productivity boost that you know is possible but youre not sure how to go about it. This was the sentiment of so many developers before discovering Agile programming paradigm, which embraces concepts such as automation, effective code management, and testdriven development. Foundations of Agile Python Development is the first book to apply these soughtafter principles to Python developers, introducing both the tools and techniques built and supported by the Python community. Authored by Jeff Younker, a wellknown member of Pythons agile community who is perhaps best known for his creation of a popular Python testing framework, this book is sure to be a hit among readers who may have reached their limits of knowledge regarding the Python language, yet are seeking to improve their understanding of how sound processes can boost productivity to unparalleled heights. What youll learn Understand why the Agile movement is increasing productivity and decreasing programmer stress the world around. Use Eclipse and Subversion to add a whole new level of efficiency to your daily programming activities. Change your perspective on testing from a necessary evil to a compelling and crucial part of your development process. Automate your build process, eliminating much of the tedium surrounding testing and deployment tasks. Who is this book for? Python developers seeking to take advantage of efficient developer tools and techniques to boost productivity Related Titles Beginning Game Development with Python and Pygame: From Novice to Professional The Definitive Guide to Django: Web Development Done Right Foundations of Python Network Programming
Simulation and Re-Engineering of Truck Assembly Line
Authors: Arya Wirabhuana, Habibollah Haron, Muhammad Rofi Imtihan
Venue: Proceedings of the 2008 Second Asia International Conference on Modelling & Simulation (AMS) (2008)

Simulation is one of tools that has been used widely in several manufacturing areas and organizations as well as in automotive industries. Using a valid simulation model may give several advantages in creating better manufacturing design in order to improve the system performances. This paper presents result of implementing a computer based simulation model to design Manufacturing Process Re-engineering for performances improvement. The basic problem is that the current manufacturing system performances have to be improved to deal with the business environment. Projects objective is to design four improvement alternatives design using valid computer simulation model. Three approaches applied as the foundation in creating improvement alternative of the real system are Line Balancing, Facilities re-layout and process enhancement, and manufacturing process. Simulation models were developed using ARENA version 7.1 while Statfit and Microsoft Excel were used for statistical analysis. The case study was taken from the Job Shop Manufacturing line of Body Welding and Metal Finish operations of truck assembly line. The result derived from simulation model of current system and four proposed simulation models that are based on three approaches are analyzed and presented to be considered as new strategy in improving the truck assembly line.