ppxscal/embedding_network huggingface dataset:
Characterizing fMRI Activations within Regions of Interest (ROIs) Using 3D Moment Invariants
Authors: Bernard Ng, Rafeef Abugharbieh, Xuemei Huang, Martin J. McKeown
Venue: Proceedings of the 2006 Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Workshop (2006)

A novel method is proposed for characterizing spatial distribution changes in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) activation statistics under different experimental conditions. The proposed technique, based on three dimensional (3D) invariant moment descriptors, was applied to fMRI data recorded from eight healthy subjects performing internally or externally-cued finger tapping sequences. Voxel-based activation statistics were characterized in several regions of interest (ROIs), including the supplementary motor area (SMA), cerebellum, primary motor cortex, prefrontal cortex, and caudate. Examining the activation patterns of these neural regions using 3D moment invariants revealed that the patterns of activation regions were significantly different during externally and internally cued tasks when computed across subjects. In contrast, traditional methods that are based on amplitude of the activation statistics demonstrated reduced discriminability. The results suggest that the spatial distribution of activation is a more sensitive measure of activation changes, and complements conventional fMRI analyses.
A Scenario of Tolerating Interaction Faults Between Otherwise Correct Systems
Authors: Bogdan Tomoyuki Nassu, Takashi Nanya
Venue: Proceedings of the 12th Pacific Rim International Symposium on Dependable Computing (2006)

More and more, monolithic systems are giving place to systems built from interconnected systems, designed by independent parties. These systems employ communication standards to interact. Sometimes, one of the systems does not implement the standard correctly, or implements it only partially. This may occur, for example, if the specification of the standard was misinterpreted, or if there was insufficient debugging or testing. In those situations, interaction faults may occur when the systems try to communicate. In this paper, a new scenario for tolerating interaction faults is presented. We also address the problem of designing a system capable of tolerating interaction faults generated by the other system. The scenario and other concepts defined in this paper were discussed with more detail in [3]. The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. In section 2, the system and fault models are defined. In section 3, we describe the general schemes for error detection and correction. Section 4 concludes the paper.
Analysis of DNA-Dimer Frequency in Retroviral Genomes with a Fuzzy Itemsets Pattern Induction Strategy
Authors: R. Garza-Dominguez, E. Bautista-Thompson, A. Quiroz-Gutierrez
Venue: Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Computing (2006)

Since DNA dimer analysis has demonstrated to provide a very conserved pattern that has been suggested as a genome signature, we apply a strategy based on fuzzy sets theory and frequent itemsets pattern induction, for searching hidden structural relations in the DNA-dimer frequency patterns of a collection of Retrovirus genomes. We found an interesting differentiation between subsets of retroviruses, as well as some unexpected similarities in the context of the DNA-dimer frequency patterns. We believe that identifying basic genomic patterns and connecting this information with other sources of information can give us new and important knowledge about how these patterns are related with the viral structure and its dynamics. The computational methodology presented in this paper has demonstrated to be a robust tool for the study and the analysis of genomic sequences.
Comprehensive Computational Analysis on TCP in Satellite Links
Authors: Zhenyong Wang, Qing Guo, Xuemai Gu
Venue: Proceedings of the First International Conference on Innovative Computing, Information and Control - Volume 1 (2006)

With explosive developments of Satellite Internet, more researches focus on satellite TCP protocols. In this paper, effects of satellite links on TCP protocols are analyze and technologies to improve TCP performances are introduced. A new comprehensive computational methods to analyze performances of TCP protocols in satellite networks are given, with considering the entire procedure of TCP protocols including behaviors of Initial States and Steady States. By theoretical analysis, performance of throughput is achieved. Compared with results in simulations, accuracy of the computaional method is verified. Based on the method, throughputs of TCP Reno and TCP NewReno in long propagation delay satellite links are achieved, which shows adaptability of different TCP protocols in satellite networks.
Tree Trunks as Landmarks for Outdoor Vision SLAM
Authors: Daniel C. Asmar, John S. Zelek, Samer M. Abdallah
Venue: Proceedings of the 2006 Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Workshop (2006)

Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) of robots is the process of building a map of the robot milieu, while simultaneously localizing the robot inside that map. Cameras have been recently proposed, as a replacement for laser range finders, for the purpose of detecting and localizing landmarks around the navigating robot. Vision SLAM is either Interest Point (IP) based, where landmarks are images saliencies, or object-based where real objects are used as landmarks. The contribution of this paper is two prong: first, it details an approach based on Perceptual Organization (PO) to detect and track trees in a sequence of images, thereby promoting the use of a camera as a viable exteroceptive sensor for object-based SLAM; second,it demonstrates the superiority of the suggested PO system over two appearance-based algorithms in segmenting trees from difficult settings. Experiments conducted on a database of 873 images containing approximately 2008 tree trunks, show that the proposed system correctly classifies trees at 81 % with a false positive rate of 30%.
Real-time spatial socializing through mobile device
Authors: Kiran Pal Sagoo, Youngho Rhee
Venue: Proceedings of the 8th conference on Human-computer interaction with mobile devices and services (2006)

There has been an unprecedented increase in availability of real-time streaming services on today's mobile devices, for example: Satellite/GPRS radio, Digital media broadcast (DMB TV). Yet the majority of the services available today fail to provide dynamic social experience as compared to the PC/real-world environment, especially socializing in terms of common interests such as real-time music/video/news etc. Such real-time common interest acts like a fuel for dialogue exchange & social interaction. The presence & availability of real-time mobile services gives us opportunity to realize above concept while the user is on the move. Geographica is a combination of application software & services for mobile device that stimulate users to locate other potential users who share same interests (ex: radio, DMB etc) in real-time & locate, socialize through map interface either locally or globally. We have attempted to create a new user interface & experience focusing on user's unmet need of socializing through real-time content while on the move.
A framework for specification and analysis of software architectures
Authors: Xudong He
Venue:  (2006)

Software architecture is the abstract design of a software system. It plays a key role as a bridge between requirements and implementation, and is a blueprint for development. The architecture represents a set of early design decisions that are crucial to a system. Mistakes in those decisions are very costly if they remain undetected until the system is implemented and deployed. This is where formal specification and analysis fits in. Formal specification makes sure that an architecture design is represented in a rigorous and unambiguous way. Furthermore, a formally specified model allows the use of different analysis techniques for verifying the correctness of those crucial design decisions. This dissertation presented a framework, called SAM, for formal specification and analysis of software architectures. In terms of specification, formalisms and mechanisms were identified and chosen to specify software architecture based on different analysis needs. Formalisms for specifying properties were also explored, especially in the case of non-functional properties. In terms of analysis, the dissertation explored both the verification of functional properties and the evaluation of non-functional properties of software architecture. For the verification of functional property, methodologies were presented on how to apply existing model checking techniques on a SAM model. For the evaluation of non-functional properties, the dissertation first showed how to incorporate stochastic information into a SAM model, and then explained how to translate the model to existing tools and conducts the analysis using those tools. To alleviate the analysis work, we also provided a tool to automatically translate a SAM model for model checking. All the techniques and methods described in the dissertation were illustrated by examples or case studies, which also served a purpose of advocating the use of formal methods in practice.
The accuracy of a new confidence interval method
Authors: Johann Christoph Strelen
Venue: Proceedings of the 36th conference on Winter simulation (2004)

Confidence intervals for the median of estimators or other quantiles were proposed as a substitute for usual confidence intervals in terminating and steady-state simulation. This is adequate since for many estimators the median and the expectation are close together or coincide, particularly if the sample size is large. Grouping data into batches is useful for median confidence intervals. The novel confidence intervals are easy to obtain, the variance of the estimator is not used. They are well suited for correlated simulation output data, apply to functions of estimators, and in simulation they seem to be particularly accurate, namely they follow the confidence level better than other confidence intervals. This paper states their accuracy which is the difference between the nominal confidence level and the actual coverage. The accuracy is evaluated with analytical models and simulation. For the estimation of quantiles by order statistics, the new confidence intervals are exact.
Learning state and action space hierarchies for reinforcement learning using action-dependent partitioning
Authors: Manfred Huber
Venue:  (2006)

Autonomous systems are often difficult to program. Reinforcement learning (RL) is an attractive alternative, as it allows the agent to learn behavior on the basis of sparse, delayed reward signals provided only when the agent reaches desired goals. Recent attempts to address the dimensionality of RL have turned to principled ways of exploiting temporal abstraction where decisions are not required at each step but rather invoke the execution of temporally-extended activities which follow their own policies until termination. This leads naturally to hierarchical control architectures and associated learning algorithms. This dissertation reviews several approaches to temporal abstraction and hierarchical organization that machine learning researchers have recently developed and presents a new method for the autonomous construction of hierarchical action and state representations in reinforcement learning, aimed at accelerating learning and extending the scope of such systems. In this approach, the agent uses information acquired while learning one task to discover iv subgoals for similar tasks. The agent is able to transfer knowledge to subsequent tasks and to accelerate learning by creating useful new subgoals and by off-line learning of corresponding subtask policies as abstract actions (options). At the same time, the subgoal actions are used to construct a more abstract state representation using action-dependent state space partitioning. This representation forms a new level in the state space hierarchy and serves as the initial representation for new learning tasks (the decision layer). In order to ensure that tasks are learnable, value functions are built simultaneously at different levels of the hierarchy and inconsistencies are used to identify actions to be used to refine relevant portions of the abstract state space. This representation serves as a first layer of the hierarchy. In order to estimate the structure of the state space for learning future tasks, the decision layer is constructed based on an estimate of the expected time to learn a new task and the system's experience with previously learned tasks. Together, these techniques permit the agent to form more abstract action and state representations over time. Experiments in deterministic and stochastic domains show that the presented method can significantly outperform learning on a flat state space representation.
The SIMSCRIPT III programming language for modular object-oriented simulation
Authors: Stephen V. Rice, Harry M. Markowitz, Ana Marjanski, Stephen M. Bailey
Venue: Proceedings of the 37th conference on Winter simulation (2005)

SIMSCRIPT III is a programming language for discrete-event simulation. It is a major extension of its predecessor, SIMSCRIPT II.5, providing full support for object-oriented programming and modular software development.
Mental models: knowledge in the head and knowledge in the world
Authors: David H. Jonassen, Philip Henning
Venue: Proceedings of the 1996 international conference on Learning sciences (1996)

Better understanding learners' mental models will help us to assess advanced knowledge and problem solving skills acquired while interacting with constructivist learning environments. Mental models are the internal, conceptual and operational representations that humans develop while interacting with complex systems. In this paper, we argue that they are also embedded in the activities engaged in by a community of practice, the social relations among members of that community, the discourse used by that community to negotiate meaning, and in the artifacts that are used and produced by the community during their activity. This paper describes two studies: one aimed at eliciting mental models in the heads of novice refrigeration technicians and the other an ethnographic study eliciting knowledge and models in the community of experienced refrigeration technicians.
Conversations with an intelligent agent: modeling and integrating patterns in communication among humans and agents
Authors: Andrew Williams
Venue:  (2006)

There is an overwhelming variation in the ways an intelligent agent can rationalize communication with a conversational partner. This variation presents many incompatibilities that lead to the specialization of conversational capabilities. This has produced a plethora of models and ideas on how an intelligent agent should understand, interact with, and incorporate communication from a human conversational participant. This dissertation approaches this problem with the thesis that there exists a language between that of human natural language and the behavioral reasoning of an intelligent agent, and that this language is capable of not only unifying the various models used in literature, but also provides the foundation for a theoretical framework for an engineering methodology for building such models. A theory of practical communication language is developed, including the introduction of the meaning-action concept, an expressive and powerful representation based on speech-act and dialogue-act theories, but extended with notions of behavioral operators as well as signatures that allow the operators to incorporate structured and well-defined concepts. An engineering methodology is presented for the construction of concepts, operators and rules that create the language and model of a specific domain, including methodology for the verification and validation of that language and model. The resultant practical communication language methodology, based on the combination of rational communication and meaning-action concepts, will introduce several major enhancements to dialogue management. These enhancements include the use of meaning-action concepts as a shared medium and the introduction of a shared concept graph. This methodology will be used along with various dialogue models from human-human, human-agent and agent-agent communication to construct a task-oriented language and model called the task communication language framework. This framework is then implemented within an intelligent agent in a real-time resource management simulation. A sample output listing from actual human interaction with that implementation is used to demonstrate that the resulting framework does indeed incorporate many of the disparate models of communication and their corresponding capabilities including command and control, information seeking, notification and bother, clarification, explanation, discussion, negotiation, mutual planning, interruption, feedback, adjustable autonomy and corrective dialogues.
Listen to Your Tools and Materials
Authors: Carlo Pescio
Venue: IEEE Software (2006)

Donald Schön introduced the concepts of reflection in action and reflection on action in hisstudies of performing professionals. When we design software, we're engaged in what he calls areflective conversation with our material; as in any conversation, it's important to listencarefully. Applying Schön's ideas to our conversation with software design materials can make themmore pleasant and effective.
Robust game play against unknown opponents
Authors: Nathan Sturtevant, Michael Bowling
Venue: Proceedings of the fifth international joint conference on Autonomous agents and multiagent systems (2006)

A standard assumption of search in two-player games is that the opponent has the same evaluation function or utility for possible game outcomes. While some work has been done to try to better exploit weak opponents, it has only been a minor component of high-performance game playing programs such as Chinook or Deep Blue. However, we demonstrate that in games with more than two players, opponent modeling is a necessary component for ensuring high-quality play against unknown opponents. Thus, we propose a new algorithm, soft-maxn, which can help accommodate differences in opponent styles. Finally, we show an inference mechanism that can be used with soft-maxn to infer the playing style of our opponents.
A measure of near-orthogonality of PR biorthogonal filter banks
Authors: F. Moreau de Saint-Martin, A. Cohen, P. Siohan
Venue: Proceedings of the Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing, 1995. on International Conference - Volume 02 (1995)

We study the non-orthogonality of perfect-reconstruction (PR) biorthogonal filter banks by measuring the energy preservation between the spatial and transform domains. The mathematical formulation of that issue leads to the computation of the Riesz constants, and a more relevant modelization leads to a measure of near-orthogonality which is well suited for image compression systems based on filter banks. This provides a criterion for the validity of the energy preservation approximation: we can compare the latter approximation with the one that is made when estimating the perceptual quality of an image by the mean square error.
Approximating clique-width and branch-width
Authors: Sang-il Oum, Paul Seymour
Venue: Journal of Combinatorial Theory Series B (2006)

We construct a polynomial-time algorithm to approximate the branch-width of certain symmetric sub-modular functions, and give two applications.The first is to graph "clique-width." Clique-width is a measure of the difficulty of decomposing a graph in a kind of tree-structure, and if a graph has clique-width at most k then the corresponding decomposition of the graph is called a "k-expression." We find (for fixed k) an O(n9 log n)-time algorithm that, with input an n-vertex graph, outputs either a (23k+2 - 1)-expression for the graph, or a witness that the graph has clique-width at least k + 1. (The best earlier algorithm, by Johansson [Ö. Johansson, log n-approximative NLCk-decomposition in O(n2k+1) time (extended abstract), in: Graph-Theoretic Concepts in Computer Science, Boltenhagen, 2001, in: Lecture Notes in Comput. Sci., vol. 2204, Springer, Berlin, 2001, pp. 229-240, constructs a 2k log n-expression for graphs of clique-width at most k.) It was already known that several graph problems, NP-hard on general graphs, are solvable in polynomial time if the input graph comes equipped with a k-expression (for fixed k). As a consequence of our algorithm, the same conclusion follows under the weaker hypothesis that the input graph has clique-width at most k (thus, we no longer need to be provided with an explicit k-expression).Another application is to the area of matroid branch-width. For fixed k, we find an O(n3.5)-time algorithm that, with input an n-element matroid in terms of its rank oracle, either outputs a branch-decomposition of width at most 3k - 1 or a witness that the matroid has branch-width at least k + 1. The previous algorithm by Hliněný [P. Hliněný, A parametrized algorithm for matroid branch-width, SIAM J. Comput. 35 (2) (2005) 259-277] works only for matroids represented over a finite field.
Web Services Composition and Delivery Using a Mobile Agents Based Infrastructure
Authors: Rocco Aversa, Beniamino Di Martino, Nicola Mazzocca, Salvatore Venticinque
Venue: Proceedings of the Proceedings of The Fifth International Symposium on Parallel and Distributed Computing (2006)

The integration of Web Services and Software Agents brings new opportunities and helps in defining new kinds of services too. A very interesting approach comes from the adoption of "Mobile Agents" to design and develop a Service Oriented Architecture that supports the access to distributed services by heterogeneous handheld devices. This paper describes the functional model and the architecture design of a platform for services composition and delivery. Mobile agents are able to access and compose services accessing them by standard interfaces. User authentication, service discovery and publication, personalization are other provided facilities. Technological interoperability is provided by Web Services technology. Code mobility is exploited to reconfigure the server platform moving agents to the available nodes, or to reconfigure the user devices providing it with the needed client software.
Automatic Evolutionary Design of Control Systems for Underwater Vehicles
Authors: A. Lamas, F. Lopez Pena, R. J. Duro
Venue: Proceedings of the International Conference on Computational Inteligence for Modelling Control and Automation and International Conference on Intelligent Agents Web Technologies and International Commerce (2006)

The development of an automatic evolutionary design environment based on genetic algorithms for obtaining artificial neural network based control system structures for underwater vehicles is presented. The design procedure is carried out by means of evolutionary techniques from a set of specifications using as a fitness evaluator an ad-hoc hydrodynamic simulator which includes the estimation of added mass and added inertia coefficients. The model's equations of motion employed were obtained by theoretical formulation combined with some empirical correlations. The resulting design environment was used to obtain the neural network based controllers for submarine vehicles. Results of the simulations obtained using this technique, of the application of the automatic design procedure and of the operation of the controllers thus obtained are presented.