ppxscal/embedding_network huggingface dataset:
Language learning via e-mail: autonomy through collaboration
Authors: Kirsten Söntgens
Venue: Proceedings of the 1999 conference on Computer support for collaborative learning (1999)

This paper will describe the development of different forms of language learning via e-mail with students on the BA German course at Bolton Institute of H.E, U.K. It will show how three different projects using the medium of e-mail have facilitated autonomous language learning, inter-cultural learning in a European context and ultimately if and how technology has brought students from Germany and the UK closer together in a shrinking world. It will outline the principle features of language learning autonomy, which is understood not to be a matter-of-fact state that learners reach once and for all, but one they have to keep working towards. It is thus the aim of instruction to provide learning scenarios that will foster language learning autonomy. I will put forward the view that collaborative group work via e-mail can provide such a language learning context. The paper will be presented with a view to outlining problems, pitfalls and success stories and to giving advise to other individuals and institutions who are wishing to implement similar projects and also to generate discussion about using the medium of E-mail to facilitate learner autonomy through collaboration.
SimuContext: Simply Simulate Context
Authors: Tom Broens, Aart van Halteren
Venue: Proceedings of the International Conference on Autonomic and Autonomous Systems (2006)

Testing and demonstrating context-aware applications is challenging. Gathering and using 'life' contextual information for these purposes, often requires significant extra development effort. Furthermore, repeating tests and demonstrations of context-aware applications that use 'life' context information, in a controlled way, is difficult or often impossible to achieve. This paper presents a context simulation framework, called SimuContext, which abstracts from the complexity of interfacing with physical context sources and facilitates testing and demonstrating context-aware applications in a controlled way.
Incorporating Generic Learning to Design Discriminative Classifier Adaptable for Unknown Subject in Face Verification
Authors: Qiong Yang, Xiaoqing Ding, Xiaoou Tang
Venue: Proceedings of the 2006 Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Workshop (2006)

In recent years, there has been a growing interest on the verification of unspecific person, which requires the system adaptable for unknown new subject. Most of previous works used generative methods. In this paper, we propose a discriminative method, Bayesian Competitive Model, to explicitly handle the person-unspecific problem. The key idea originates from the observation that it is possible to design a discriminative classifier adaptable for unknown new subject when generic learning is applied. The generic learning functions in two aspects: First, it learns the generic distribution of faces, and thus provides a MAP framework for verification. Second, it learns the intra-personal variations of numerous known persons to infer the distribution of the unknown new subject. Both distributions are formulated in GMM model, respectively. To further improve the performance, we integrate Bayesian Competitive Model with a generative classifier based on confidence. A number of experiments on the BANCA dataset demonstrate the effectiveness of the new algorithm in handling the personunspecific problem, and its advantage over existing algorithms.
Traveling from B2B to B2C: Piloting a Moblog Service for Tourists
Authors: Petteri Repo, Kaarina Hyvonen, Mika Saastamoinen
Venue: Proceedings of the International Conference on Mobile Business (2006)

Developing new types of popular mobile services has turned out to be a challenging exercise. Our study examines the development of a business-to-business (B2B) mobile service into a business-to-consumer (B2C) service, in this case a moblog service for tourists. We focus on how the product development process can be enhanced and redirected through active user involvement. We came across a number of commercially important issues in this pilot study. Our experiences indicate that user involvement can be a fruitful albeit demanding operation for product developers. Interaction between product developers and users prompted changes in product development.
MPEG-21 concepts for personalized consumption of heterogeneous multimedia
Authors: G. Andreou, K. Karpouzis, I. Maglogiannis, S. Kollias
Venue: Proceedings of the First International Workshop on Semantic Media Adaptation and Personalization (2006)

In the framework of digital TV, viewers are currently being presented with technological developments and a plethora of content sources that create diverse possibilities for both entertainment and profit. Dynamic domains such as sports broadcasting create even higher expectations, forcing broadcasting corporations and content providers to seek new ways of integrating and presenting enhanced content to their customers, while modifying their production cycle as less as possible. In this paper, we present an outline of a system that integrates heterogeneous multimedia content and performs adaptive packaging operations, while preserving the intellectual property rights (IPR) of the respective contributors and taking into account the cumulative profiles of the viewers. To cater for this, the MELISA system makes extensive use of concepts included in the MPEG-21 'Multimedia Framework' standard, such as Digital Item Adaptation (DIA).
MAD: a movie authoring and design system making classroom process visible
Authors: Andrew Cohen, Naomi Friedlander, Ronald Baecker, Alan Rosenthal
Venue: Proceedings of the 1996 international conference on Learning sciences (1996)

MAD (Movie Authoring and Design) is a novel multimedia design and authoring system that facilitates the process of creating dynamic visual presentations. One application of MAD is to objectively reflect upon presentations of classroom practices in an effort to improve instruction. MAD aids this endeavor through the following principles: (1) simultaneous creation and modification of structured videos, (2) hierarchical multimedia document representation, (3) the flexible inclusion and combination of words, images, sounds, and video sequences, including real time voice annotation of video segments and (4) real-time playback of the video.MAD presentations are unlike traditional materials used in the professional development process, such as videotape of classroom practices. Its multimedia authoring tools allow the process of classroom activities to be (a) captured by students and teachers, and (b) easily reflected upon and voice annotated by the viewer. Annotated videos become the object of inquiry by teachers. This demonstration will present the key concepts underlying MAD and review how we have worked with teachers and students in the design process.
Agent-Based Delegation Model for the Secure Web Service in Ubiquitous Computing Environments
Authors: Hyun Sik Hwang, Hyuk Jin Ko, Kyu Il Kim, Ung Mo Kim, Dong Soon Park
Venue: Proceedings of the 2006 International Conference on Hybrid Information Technology - Volume 01 (2006)

Web services are the new building block of today's Internet, and provides interoperability among heterogeneous distributed systems. Recently in web services environment, security has become one of the most critical issues. An attacker may expose user privacy and service information without authentication. Furthermore, in the ubiquitous computing environment, the users of web services must temporarily delegate some or all of their rights to agents in order to perform actions on their behalf. This results in the exposure of user privacy information by agents. We propose a delegation model for providing safety of web service and user privacy in ubiquitous computing environments. In order to provide safety of web service and user privacy, XML-based encryption and a digital signature mechanism needs to be efficiently integrated. In this paper, we propose web service management server based on XACML, in order to manage services and policies of web service providers. For this purpose, we extend SAML, in order to declare delegation assertions transferred to web service providers by delegation among agents.
Analysis of a borderless fab scenario in a distributed simulation testbed
Authors: Peter Lendermann, Boon Ping Gan, Yoon Loong Loh, Hiap Keong Tan, Sip Khean Lieu, Leon F. McGinnis, John W. Fowler
Venue: Proceedings of the 36th conference on Winter simulation (2004)

Distributed simulation based on the High Level Architecture standard is adopted to realize the simulation of a borderless fab that involves two wafer fabs located in close proximity. The two fabs pool together their resources for capacity sharing. To demonstrate the benefits of this concept, experiments were conducted to measure the cycle time changes resulting from introduction of an additional product into either one of the fabs. In the case without cross fab material flow, the capacity of each fab alone is not sufficient to handle the increasing release rate of the new product as bottleneck machines surface. However, for the cross fab case where the front-end of the new product's process is done in the first fab, while the back-end in the second, it is possible to avoid the bottleneck situation. As a result, the two fabs are able to increase their aggregated capacity without investing in new equipment.
Minimum constrast estimation with applications to array processing
Authors: J.-F. Cardoso, E. Moulines
Venue: Proceedings of the Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing, 1993. ICASSP-93 Vol 4., 1993 IEEE International Conference on - Volume 04 (1993)

Numerous studies have been devoted to performance analysis of direction of arrival (DOA) estimators in the context of narrow-band array processing. This contribution shows that the versatile concept of minimum contrast estimation provides a common unifying framework (i) to derive general conditions guaranteeing consistency and asymptotic normality of the estimators, (ii) to obtain closed form expressions for the asymptotic covariance of these estimators, and (iii) to develop practical numerical implementation of the estimators. The basic principles of minimum contrast estimation are reviewed. For brevity, the relevant results are stated without proof. These concepts are applied in the narrow-band array context. An application of this methodology is provided.
Integration of simulation and geographic information systems: modeling traffic flow in inland waterways
Authors: William E. Biles, Daniel Sasso, Jerry K. Bilbrey
Venue: Proceedings of the 36th conference on Winter simulation (2004)

This paper describes the integration of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) with simulation modeling of traffic flow on inland waterways. Two separate modeling efforts are described: (a) GIS/AutoMod modeling of barge traffic on the Ohio River, and (b) GIS/Arena modeling of the transit of ocean-going vessels through the Panama Canal. These modeling efforts demonstrate the benefits that accrue both to modeling realism and to the initialization process with discrete-event models of traffic flow on these waterways.
Dynamic storage load balancing with analogy to thermal diffusion for P2P file sharing
Authors: Masato Uchida, Kei Ohnishi, Kento Ichikawa
Venue: Proceedings from the 2006 workshop on Interdisciplinary systems approach in performance evaluation and design of computer & communications sytems (2006)

This paper presents a file replication scheme with analogy to thermal diffusion for storage load balancing in unstructured peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing networks. The proposed scheme is intended to balance storage load among peers in a dynamic, distributed, and autonomous manner, as in thermal diffusion. Theoretical analysis results show that the presented scheme actually has a statistical analogy with a thermal diffusion equation. In addition, the proposed scheme includes parameters to widely explore the trade-off between storage load balancing and search performance existing in unstructured P2P file sharing networks. Simulation results show that compared to other replication schemes, the proposed scheme has better ability not only in balancing storage load among peers, which is the primary objective of the proposal, but also in widely exploring the performance trade-off.
Approaches for resolving the dilemma between model structure refinement and parameter calibration in agent-based simulations
Authors: Manuel Fehler, Franziska Klügl, Frank Puppe
Venue: Proceedings of the fifth international joint conference on Autonomous agents and multiagent systems (2006)

Agent-based simulations form a valuable tool for learning about real world societies and global behaviors of systems emerging from microscopic relationships. Calibration of model parameters for detailed agent-based models is a big problem for standard calibration techniques, due to the large parameter search spaces, long simulation run times, uncertainties in the structural model design and different observation levels upon which the model needs to be calibrated. In this paper we propose several methods to improve the calibration process of agent-based simulations.
A model of emotions for situated agents
Authors: H. Van Dyke Parunak, Robert Bisson, Sven Brueckner, Robert Matthews, John Sauter
Venue: Proceedings of the fifth international joint conference on Autonomous agents and multiagent systems (2006)

In stressful situations such as combat, emotion is at least as important as rational analysis in determining behavior. DETT (Disposition, Emotion, Trigger, Tendency) is a model of emotion for situated agents that captures the essential features of the OCC (Ortony, Clore, Collins) model in a computationally efficient framework. We motivate and describe this architecture, and report preliminary experiments in simulating combat scenarios.
An Approach Based on Modeling Dynamic Behavior of the System to Assess the Impact of COTS Upgrades
Authors: Anjaneyulu Pasala, Srinivasa Rao, Srinivas Gunturu, Purnendu Sinha
Venue: Proceedings of the XIII Asia Pacific Software Engineering Conference (2006)

Traditional approaches of executing complete system test suite to validate software systems on deploying the upgrades of Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) software components is typically costly and time-consuming, resulting in delay in deploying the upgrades. In this paper, we present a process that examines the test case dependencies at finer granularity level of alteredfunctions in the upgrades of COTS software and recommends a smaller regression test suite. The process captures and analyzes the functional-level runtime interactions among the applications and COTS components to find the impact of the upgrades on the system. The process includes a procedure to identify the altered-functions in a component. We have developed a prototype based on the concepts proposed in the paper and performed a case study on a web-based application to illustrate efficacy of the prototype. The results of the case study show that up to 80% reduction in regression test efforts could be achieved.
Mitigating the Impact of Process Variations on Processor Register Files and Execution Units
Authors: Xiaoyao Liang, David Brooks
Venue: Proceedings of the 39th Annual IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Microarchitecture (2006)

Design variability due to die-to-die and within-die process variations has the potential to significantly reduce the maximum operating frequency and the effective yield of high-performance microprocessors in future process technology generations. One serious manifestation of this increased variability is a reduction in the mean frequency of fabricated chips due to fluctuations in device characteristics causing reduced circuit performance. In this paper, we propose to mitigate the impact of variations through variablelatency register files and execution units which are key architectural components that may encounter variability problems. We also illustrate the importance of closing the gap in expected delay of these distinct structures. A post fabrication test and configuration strategy is proposed. We find that 23% mean frequency improvement with an average IPC loss of 3% (and never exceeding 5% for worst case chips) is possible for the 65nm technology node by properly adopting the proposed schemes.
Multi-Agents Systems for Intelligent Control of Traffic Signals
Authors: Masoud Mohammadian
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)

In this paper the application of a multiagent system for controlling a set of traffic signals is considered. A fuzzy logic control scheme to regulate the flow of traffic approaching a set of three intersections is presented. The signal timing parameters, green phase splits and offset, are adjusted on-line based on the actual traffic approaching each intersection. An adaptive Fuzzy Logic Traffic Controller (FLTC) is used to adjust the green phase splits of the north-south and east-west approaches of each traffic signal. Each intersection is coordinated with its adjacent intersections by a multiagent system. The multiagent system uses a fuzzy rule based system for its decision making to coordinate all three intersections simulatneously. The effectiveness of the proposed control strategy is established through simulations.
Moving Object Segmentation using Scene Understanding
Authors: A. G. Amitha Perera, Glen Brooksby, Anthony Hoogs, Gianfranco Doretto
Venue: Proceedings of the 2006 Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Workshop (2006)

We present a novel approach to moving object detection in video taken from a translating, rotating and zooming sensor, with a focus on detecting very small objects in as few frames as possible. The primary innovation is to incorporate automatically computed scene understanding of the video directly into the motion segmentation process. Scene understanding provides spatial and semantic context that is used to improve frame-to-frame homography computation, as well as direct reduction of false alarms. The method can be applied to virtually any motion segmentation algorithm, and we explore its utility for three: frame differencing, tensor voting, and generalized PCA. The approach is especially effective on sequences with large scene depth and much parallax, as often occurs when the sensor is close to the scene. In one difficult sequence, our results show an 8-fold reduction of false positives on average, with essentially no impact on the true positive rate. We also show how scene understanding can be used to increase the accuracy of frame-to-frame homography estimates.
Separate Influences of Acoustic AM and FM Sensitivity on the Phonological Decoding Skills of Impaired and Normal Readers
Authors: Caroline Witton, John F. Stein, Catherine J. Stoodley, Burton S. Rosner, Joel B. Talcott
Venue: Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (2002)

Developmental dyslexia is associated with deficits in the processing of basic auditory stimuli. Yet it is unclear how these sensory impairments might contribute to poor reading skills. This study better characterizes the relationship between phonological decoding skills, the lack of which is generally accepted to comprise the core deficit in reading disabilities, and auditory sensitivity to amplitude modulation (AM) and frequency modulation (FM). Thirty-eight adult subjects, 17 of whom had a history of developmental dyslexia, completed a battery of psychophysical measures of sensitivity to FM and AM at different modulation rates, along with a measure of pseudoword reading accuracy and standardized assessments of literacy and cognitive skills. The subjects with a history of dyslexia were significantly less sensitive than controls to 2-Hz FM and 20-Hz AM only. The absence of a significant group difference for 2-Hz AM shows that the dyslexics do not have a general deficit in detecting all slow modulations. Thresholds for detecting 2-Hz and 240-Hz FM and 20-Hz AM correlated significantly with pseudoword reading accuracy. After accounting for various cognitive skills, however, multiple regression analyses showed that detection thresholds for both 2-Hz FM and 20-Hz AM were significant and independent predictors of pseudoword reading ability in the entire sample. Thresholds for 2-Hz AM and 240-Hz FM did not explain significant additional variance in pseudoword reading skill. It is therefore possible that certain components of auditory processing of modulations are related to phonological decoding skills, whereas others are not.
A Framework for Composition and Inter-operation of Rules in the Semantic Web
Authors: Enrico Pontelli, Tran Cao Son, Chitta Baral
Venue: Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Rules and Rule Markup Languages for the Semantic Web (2006)

Recent developments in the RuleML initiative have led to the design of several languages for representing rules. In this paper we describe a framework, based on the integration of different flavors of logic programming, aimed at facilitate reasoning with multiple sources of knowledge expressed in an heterogeneity of RuleML languages. The framework allows the derivation of logic programming modules from each rule base, and their interoperation through a well-defined module interface. In this paper we describe the basic syntax and semantics of the framework, and its preliminary implementation.
Hardness and Approximation of the Selected-Leaf-Terminal Steiner Tree Problem
Authors: Sun-Yuan Hsieh, Huang-Ming Gao
Venue: Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Computing, Applications and Technologies (2006)

For a complete graph G = (V,E) with length function l : E \toR^+ and two vertex subsets R \subset V and R' \subseteqR, a selected-leaf-terminal Steiner tree is a Steiner tree which contains all vertices in R such that all vertices in R \ R' belong to the leaves of this Steiner tree. The selected-leaf-terminal Steiner tree problem is to find a selected-leaf-terminal Steiner tree T whose total lengths \Sigma _{(uu,v) \in T} l(u,v)is minimum. In this paper, we show that the problem is both NP-complete and MAX SNP-hard when the lengths of edges are restricted to either 1 or 2. We also provide an approximation algorithm for the problem.
Threshold Signature Scheme Resistible for Conspiracy Attack
Authors: Yu Fang Chung, Chia-Hui Liu, Feipei Lai, Tzer-Shyong Chen
Venue: Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Computing, Applications and Technologies (2006)

Threshold signature is an important aspect of threshold cryptography, and represents almost the core of threshold cryptography research. Based on the threshold signature method, this work was made for resisting conspiracy attack by controlling the group signature issuance rights. The proposed method suffers a flaw for it requires establishing a secretary for signature issuance. By the way, the proposed strategy can be widely applied to various group signature cryptosystems, in which the participant conspirators disable to forge the group signature.