ppxscal/embedding_network huggingface dataset:
The impact of help center workforce competency on service effectiveness: the national systems for geospatial-intelligence (nsg) case study
Authors: Marlyn Littman
Venue:  (2008)

The National Systems for Geospatial-Intelligence (NSG) is a large, complex, information technology (IT) enterprise offering 300 geospatial information services supported by approximately 650 servers and 10 petabytes of storage of critical geospatial information. The NSG supplies geospatial information to 25 military commands and intelligence community agencies. The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) established an enterprise service center (ESC) in May 2006 to centrally manage and provide NGA stakeholders with a single access point to NSG IT services. Recent investments to improve NGA ESC effectiveness include outsourcing IT service with defined service-level agreements, developing and implementing IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL)-based processes with process-driven metrics, and integrating process-enhancing technology tools. NGA's intent in making these investments was to improve service quality, reduce costs, and improve response time. The problem investigated was that the NSG ESC workforce was not achieving its overall performance and effectiveness goals in terms of incident resolution rate. Based on findings from this investigation, the author determined how workforce competency affects service effectiveness. In this investigation, competency includes an individual's skills; experiences; and knowledge of processes, procedures, and tools. Tools include software that enables an individual to assign, monitor, and close an incident and, in turn, facilitates system administration actions, enterprise performance monitoring, and incident resolution trend analysis. The author conducted a case study of the NGA ESC to obtain a holistic understanding of ESC workforce competencies as applied to the incident management process. The understanding of workforce competency was accomplished through interviews, archival data review, and observations. The results of this study indicate that an individual's competence can directly affect the individual's service support effectiveness. The author concluded that in a structured, closely monitored, and well-managed ESC, increasing IT service management (ITSM) worker competence increased incident management service effectiveness. The results of this research also supported the position of the Office of Government Commerce, an international standards organization, that day-to-day operational performance of information management processes must be monitored, controlled, and managed. The research also showed that regardless of ESC worker competence in ITSM, a poorly managed ESC limits service effectiveness.
A Singular Introduction to Commutative Algebra, 2nd edition
Authors: Gert-Martin Greuel, Gerhard Pfister
Venue:  (2007)

From the reviews of the first edition: "It is certainly no exaggeration to say that A Singular Introduction to Commutative Algebra aims to lead a further stage in the computational revolution in commutative algebra . Among the great strengths and most distinctive features is a new, completely unified treatment of the global and local theories. making it one of the most flexible and most efficient systems of its type....another strength of Greuel and Pfister's book is its breadth of coverage of theoretical topics in the portions of commutative algebra closest to algebraic geometry, with algorithmic treatments of almost every topic....Greuel and Pfister have written a distinctive and highly useful book that should be in the library of every commutative algebraist and algebraic geometer, expert and novice alike." J.B. Little, MAA, March 2004 The second edition is substantially enlarged by a chapter on Groebner bases in non-commtative rings, a chapter on characteristic and triangular sets with applications to primary decomposition and polynomial solving and an appendix on polynomial factorization including factorization over algebraic field extensions and absolute factorization, in the uni- and multivariate case.
Decomposition of two-dimensional shapes for efficient retrieval
Authors: Cecilia Di Ruberto, Luigi Cinque
Venue: Image and Vision Computing (2009)

This paper presents a novel approach to address the problem of generic 2D shape recognition. We propose a morphological method to decompose a binary shape into entities in correspondence with their protrusions. Each entity is associated with a set of perceptual features that can be used in indexing into image databases. The matching process, based on the softassign algorithm, has produced encouraging results, showing the potential of the developed method in a variety of computer vision and pattern recognition domains. The results demonstrate its robustness in the presence of scale, reflection and rotation transformations and prove the ability to handle noise and articulated structures. In order to increase efficiency, the retrieval process is applied after a coarse scale grouping of objects, without sacrificing effectiveness and allowing indexing into large shape databases.
Fast scalable optimization to configure service systems having cost and quality of service constraints
Authors: Jim (Zhanwen) Li, John Chinneck, Murray Woodside, Marin Litoiu
Venue: Proceedings of the 6th international conference on Autonomic computing (2009)

Large complex service centers must provide many services to many users with separate service contracts, while managing their overall costs. A scalable hybrid optimization procedure is described for a minimum-cost deployment of services on nodes, taking into account processing requirements and resource contention. This is a heuristic for a problem which is in general NP-hard. It iterates between a fast linear programming (LP) sub-problem, and a nonlinear performance model, both of which scale easily to thousands of services. The approach can be adapted to minimize cost subject to performance constraints, or to optimize a combined quality of service measure subject to cost constraints. It can be combined with tracked performance models to periodically re-optimize deployment for autonomic QOS management.
Teachers' EB and its Influences on their Online Interaction Patterns
Authors: Ching Sing Chai, Seng Chee Tan
Venue: Proceeding of the 2007 conference on Supporting Learning Flow through Integrative Technologies (2007)

In this paper, we investigate the epistemological beliefs (EB) of four teachers who have participated in a series of in-service courses organized based on the pedagogical model of the Knowledge Building Community complemented with Knowledge Forum, a computer-supported collaborative learning tool. Their self-reported EB were compared with the patterns of online participation and knowledge building discourse as captured in the Knowledge Forum. The findings suggest that EB of the teachers seem to be related to their participation behaviors and depth of discussion in a knowledge building environment. EB could be a variable among the many other variables such as interest and prior knowledge that could influence teachers' online knowledge building.
Algorithms and tools for cross-species cdna-to-genome sequence alignment
Authors: Liliana D. Florea
Venue:  (2008)

As the demand for accurately aligning gene sequences to the genome of a related species grows with the sequencing of new genomes, spaced seeds emerge as a promising vehicle for increasing alignment sensitivity. We develop methods to design accurate (sensitive and specific) spaced seeds for cross-species cDNA-to-genome alignment, and to find a small set of seeds for a wide range of comparisons, and implement them into a sequence alignment program. First, we extend the existing match-mismatch framework for spaced seed sensitivity evaluation by incorporating transitions and by taking into account the compositional structure of coding sequences, using a Markov model of alignment, to produce more sensitive seeds for cross-species cDNA-to-genome alignment. Designing spaced seeds for alignment programs, however, needs to balance sensitivity and specificity. We propose a theoretical formulation for rigorously assessing seed specificity, using Bernoulli and Markov models of the mRNA and genomic sequences. Within this framework, we perform the first comprehensive analysis of seeds for a variety of weights to serve as a blueprint for selecting accurate seeds for practical applications, and give a strategy for designing good seeds. Second, as the number and variety of genomes increases, we investigate seeds that perform optimally or near-optimally on a large range of comparisons, which we call universal seeds. Using statistical regression methods to compare the seed sensitivities among four cDNA-to-genome comparisons at different evolutionary distances, we find that with high confidence good seeds for more distant comparisons perform well on closer comparisons, within 98-99% of the optimal seeds, and thus represent universal good seeds. Third, we implement our spaced seeds into a practical and user-friendly cross-species cDNA-to-genome alignment program, sim4cc. When tested on large scale real data sets, sim4cc outperforms other cDNA-to-genome alignment programs and can be reliably used in the annotation of new organisms. The collection of these methods and findings will contribute to the gene annotation of the newly sequenced genomes, to identifying genes from multiple sequence alignment, and to producing better genome assembly.
Computing skills for science foundation candidates: connecting students to the future
Authors: Colin Chibaya
Venue: Proceedings of the 2009 Annual Conference of the Southern African Computer Lecturers' Association (2009)

Foundation programmes at Rhodes University are designed for candidates who matriculate from under-resourced rural and township schools in South Africa. Most of these students have not used computers before. Unfortunately universities in South Africa often take it for granted that all students who enroll into tertiary education have covered the basic introductory skills in computing during their primary, secondary or high school education. Computer illiterate candidates are therefore left to self-develop, resulting in poorly prepared students who would not attempt any computer related studies in future. There is often a danger that students who enroll into foundation programmes are not motivated because of the discriminatory nature in which the programmes are designed (for black South African candidates from under-resourced rural and township schools). This paper presents a novel approach to improving computer literacy courses at universities, and demonstrates its success using data from the past four years of implementation. The aim of the study has been primarily to improve student attitude towards foundation programmes, particularly, student motivation towards computing skills when there is a stigma attached to enrolment. A secondary aim of the study is to investigate the most appropriate curriculum between the adopted and the proposed needs-driven approach, where students and the lecturer negotiate the relevancy of each skill offered. This paper presents both aims simultaneously by regularly involving students in curriculum development during the course of the year. Six computing skills were commonly identified as relevant to first year students over the years of our study. We however do not conclusively prescribe these at this stage but rather present them as a baseline upon which shared agreements may arise towards connecting students to the future. We describe the relevant content for each skill, the amount of time required to master each skill, the contributions of each skill towards the final course credit and the time of the year when each skill is relevant to students. Generally, the needs-driven approach calibrates a culture of success and deep learning in students, which in turn yields direct benefits, not only in terms of marks, but also in terms of students' lifelong computing skills.
Named entities for hot topics ranking and ontology navigation aid
Authors: Mírian Bruckschen, Renata Vieira, Sandro Rigo
Venue: Proceedings of the 20th ACM conference on Hypertext and hypermedia (2009)

This paper presents an application which relies on Natural Language Processing techniques to identify hot topics in a news portal. Named Entity Recognition, semantic tagging and identity identification are used to acquire knowledge of the domain, generate ontologies automatically and rank hot topics for the news in the portal.
SRM: a tool for supplier performance
Authors: Angela Fabregues, Jordi Madrenas-Ciurana
Venue: Proceedings of The 8th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems - Volume 2 (2009)

Supplier Relationship Management (SRM) is an application that gives support to a company in the task of deciding which supplier to choose when a new supply has to be ordered. It is based on a measure of trust and provides several tools that visualize that measure and support its use on decision making.
Determinants of the Choice of Open Source Software License
Authors: Ravi Sen, Chandrasekar Subramaniam, Matthew Nelson
Venue: Journal of Management Information Systems (2008)

In this paper, we examine how the motivations and attitudes of open source software (OSS) developers affect their preference among the three common OSS license types-Strong-Copyleft, Weak-Copyleft, and Non-Copyleft. Despite the importance of the license type and developers to OSS projects, there is little understanding in open source literature of the license choice from a developer's perspective. The results from our empirical study of OSS developers reveal that the intrinsic motivation of challenge (problem solving) is associated with the developers' preference for licenses with moderate restrictions, while the extrinsic motivation of status (through peer recognition) is associated with developers' preference for licenses with least restrictions. We also find that when choosing an OSS license, a developer's attitude toward the software redistribution rights conflicts with his or her attitude toward preserving the social benefits of open source. A major implication of our findings is that OSS managers who want to attract a limited number of highly skilled programmers to their open source project should choose a restrictive OSS license. Similarly, managers of software projects for social programs could attract more developers by choosing a restrictive OSS license.
Roles in building web applications using Java
Authors: Guido Boella, Roberto Grenna, Andrea Cerisara
Venue: Proceedings of the Workshop on Relationships and Associations in Object-Oriented Languages (2009)

In this paper we apply the powerJava model of roles and relationships to a web application programming environment. First we show how the notion of role, as defined in powerJava, combines and automates several aspects which are important in web application programming, and which are now unrelated and dealt with separately and mostly by hand, and thus prone to errors. Second we show how from the powerJava code a web application can be automatically constructed using Struts and Spring.
3D object retrieval using the 3D shape impact descriptor
Authors: Athanasios Mademlis, Petros Daras, Dimitrios Tzovaras, Michael G. Strintzis
Venue: Pattern Recognition (2009)

In this paper, the novel 3D shape impact descriptor is introduced, which is based on the resulting gravitational phenomena in the surrounding area of every 3D object. The 3D object is considered as a distributed 3D mass and the descriptor of the 3D object is indirectly computed from the resulting fields. The field is described using both Newton's and general relativity's laws. In the Newtonian approach, histograms of the field values in the surrounding area of the 3D object are computed, while in the relativistic approach the descriptors are histograms of the time-space curvature in the surrounding area of the 3D object. The basic motivation behind the proposed approach is the robustness with respect to object's degeneracies and the native invariance of the resulting descriptors under rotation and translation. Experiments which were performed in various 3D object databases proved that the proposed method can be efficiently used for 3D object retrieval applications.
Design and modeling of a novel 6 degree of freedom haptic device
Authors: Zhouming Tang, Shahram Payandeh
Venue: Proceedings of the World Haptics 2009 - Third Joint EuroHaptics conference and Symposium on Haptic Interfaces for Virtual Environment and Teleoperator Systems (2009)

This paper presents a new design of haptic device which combines the spherical parallel structure with the serial link configuration. The spherical configuration offers 3DOF for the positioning its platform where a 3DOF serial link is connected. The moving platform is connected to the ground through a passive and active spherical joint configuration. As such, the passive joint can contribute in supporting the static weight and the user interaction forces. Comparisons with the existing designs of the haptic device are made in order to highlight the novelties of the design. Kinematic models of the proposed design are presented. The formulation resulted in novel extensions of the forward kinematics solutions and the novel inverse kinematic modeling and solution of the proposed class of parallel/serial robot configuration is addressed.
Generic and reflective graph transformations for the checking and enforcement of modeling guidelines
Authors: Carsten Amelunxen, Elodie Legros, Andy Schurr
Venue: Proceedings of the 2008 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (2008)

In the automotive industry, the model driven development of software, today considered as the standard paradigm, is generally based on the use of the tool MATLAB Simulink/Stateflow. To increase the quality, the reliability, and the efficiency of the models and the generated code, checking and elimination of detected guideline violations defined in huge catalogues has become an essential task in the development process. It represents such a tremendous amount of boring work that it must necessarily be automated. In the past we have shown that graph transformation tools like Fujaba/MOFLON allow for the specification of single modeling guidelines on a very high level of abstraction and that guideline checking tools can be generated from these specifications easily. Unfortunately, graph transformation languages do not offer appropriate concepts for reuse of specification fragments - a MUST, when we deal with hundreds of guidelines. As a consequence we present an extension of MOFLON that supports the definition of generic rewrite rules and combines them with the reflective programming mechanisms of Java and the model repository interface standard JMI.
Proceedings of the second international workshop on Data-aware distributed computing
Venue: High Performance Distributed Computing (2009)

I am pleased to welcome everybody to the Second International Workshop on Data-Aware Distributed Computing (DADC 2009), which is held in conjunction with the ACM/IEEE International Conference on High Performance Distributed Computing (HPDC 2009). The data needs of scientific as well as commercial applications from a diverse range of fields have been increasing exponentially over the recent years. This increase in the demand for large-scale data processing has necessitated collaboration and sharing of data collections among the world's leading education, research, and industrial institutions and use of distributed resources owned by collaborating parties. In a widely distributed environment, data is often not locally accessible and has thus to be remotely retrieved and stored. While traditional distributed systems work well for computation that requires limited data handling, they may fail in unexpected ways when the computation accesses, creates, and moves large amounts of data especially over wide-area networks. Further, data accessed and created is often poorly described, lacking both metadata and provenance. Scientists, researchers, and application developers are often forced to solve basic data-handling issues, such as physically locating data, how to access it, and/or how to move it to visualization and/or compute resources for further analysis. DADC focuses on the challenges imposed by data-intensive applications on distributed systems, and on the different state-of-the-art solutions proposed to overcome these challenges. Characterized by a new paradigm called "data-aware distributed computing", DADC explores problems in data aware scheduling, resource allocation, metadata collection, workflow management, and visualization. Armed with tools and theory of suitable data management techniques, DADC will enable domain scientists to focus on their primary goal. DADC will bring together the collaborative and distributed computing community and the data management community in an effort to generate productive conversations on the planning, management, and scheduling of data handling tasks and data storage resources.
Global Exponential Stability of Reaction-Diffusion Delayed BAM Neural Networks with Dirichlet Boundary Conditions
Authors: Chaojin Fu, Ailong Wu
Venue: Proceedings of the 6th International Symposium on Neural Networks on Advances in Neural Networks (2009)

In this paper, the global exponential stability for a class of reaction-diffusion delayed bidirectional associate memory (BAM) neural networks with Dirichlet boundary conditions is addressed by using the method of variation parameter and inequality technique, the delay-independent sufficient conditions to guarantee the uniqueness and global exponential stability of the equilibrium point of such networks are established. Finally, an example is given to show the effectiveness of the obtained result.
Time series prediction of respiratory motion for lung tumor tracking radiation therapy
Authors: Noriyasu Homma, Masao Sakai, Yoshihiro Takai
Venue: Proceedings of the 10th WSEAS international conference on Neural networks (2009)

A time series prediction problem is considered in this paper. In radiotherapy, the target motion often affects the conformability of the therapeutic dose distribution delivered to thoracic and abdominal tumors, and thus tumor motion monitoring systems have been developed. Even we can observe tumor motion accurately, however, radiotherapy systems may inherently have mechanical and computational delays to be compensated for synchronizing dose delivery with the motion. For solving the delay problem, we develop a novel system to predict complex time series of the lung tumor motion. An essential core of the system is an adaptive prediction modeling by which time-varying cyclic dynamics is transferred into time invariant one by a phase locking technique. After the transformation, some linear and nonlinear models including neural networks can be used for accurate time series prediction. Simulation studies demonstrate that the proposed system can achieve a clinically useful high accuracy and long-term prediction of the average error 1.59 ± 1.61 [mm] at 1 [sec] ahead prediction.
SUMMaR: Combining Linguistics and Statistics for Text Summarization
Authors: Manfred Stede, Heike Bieler, Stefanie Dipper, Arthit Suriyawongkul
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)

We describe a text summarization system that moves beyond standard approaches by using a hybrid approach of linguistic and statistical analysis and by employing text-sort-specific knowledge of document structure and phrases indicating importance. The system is highly modular and entirely XML-based so that different components can be combined easily.