ppxscal/embedding_network huggingface dataset:
Protecting business intelligence and customer privacy while outsourcing data mining tasks
Authors: Ling Qiu, Yingjiu Li, Xintao Wu
Venue: Knowledge and Information Systems (2008)

Nowadays data mining plays an important role in decision making. Since many organizations do not possess the in-house expertise of data mining, it is beneficial to outsource data mining tasks to external service providers. However, most organizations hesitate to do so due to the concern of loss of business intelligence and customer privacy. In this paper, we present a Bloom filter based solution to enable organizations to outsource their tasks of mining association rules, at the same time, protect their business intelligence and customer privacy. Our approach can achieve high precision in data mining by trading-off the storage requirement.
Recommending topics for self-descriptions in online user profiles
Authors: Werner Geyer, Casey Dugan, David R. Millen, Michael Muller, Jill Freyne
Venue: Proceedings of the 2008 ACM conference on Recommender systems (2008)

Traditional social networking sites allow users to enter responses to a set of predefined fields when populating their personal profiles. In the system discussed in this work, freeform 'About You' entries allow users to craft their own questions / topics. We found that this kind of flexibility often leads to low content contributions and infrequent updates. The 'About You' recommender system described in this paper differs from many recommender systems in that it recommends content for users to create, rather than consume. We present empirical data from an experiment with 2,000 users of a social networking site during a one month period. Our findings suggest that users who receive recommendations create more entries and update them more over time. Further, using articulated social network information for recommendations performed better than content-based matching.
Secure Mobile Content Delivery Architecture in Hybrid Network Environment
Authors: Chih-Lin Hu, Chien-An Cho, Po-Jung Wang
Venue: Proceedings of the 2008 International Symposium on Ubiquitous Multimedia Computing (2008)

This paper proposes a secure mobile content delivery architecture in an integrated, hybrid network environment. Its design comprises device discovery, asynchronous content delivery, secure access control and virtual file system with dynamic reference mapping mechanisms, which are able to alleviate several inherent limitations in wireless and mobile networks. It thus enables mobile handheld devices to escape from mobility confinement and to transfer media contents in an efficient, energy-saving and secure manner. Our prototype implementation shows that the developed mechanism is feasible and ease of use: it effects the secure ubiquitous content delivery services in hybrid network environments.
Issues in cognitive and social ergonomics: from our house to bauhaus
Authors: John Seely Brown, Susan E. Newman
Venue: Human-computer interaction (1985)

Intelligibility is one of the key factors affecting the acceptance and effective use of information systems. In this article, we discuss the ways in which recognition of this factor challenges current system design strategies, as well as current theoretical perspectives and research methodologies. In particular, we claim that in order to understand the problem of system intelligibility, we must focus not only on the cognitive, but also on the social aspects of system use. After considering some of the sources of users' difficulty in understanding information systems, we propose a new global philosophy for interface design: design for the management of trouble. We discuss the design implications of four mechanisms for improving system intelligibility: (1) useful mental models of the system and its associated subsystems, (2) communicative repair in user-system interaction, (3) new training strategies, and (4) use of the larger social environment as an aid to understanding information systems. We then discuss the possibility of developing intelligent systems capable of providing assistance and feedback related specifically to users' actions. We claim that development of such systems requires understanding the mechanisms for achieving mutual intelligibility in interaction and propose new research approaches for investigating these mechanisms. In the final section, we elaborate on the relationship between information systems and the larger social environment, suggesting that the functionality and design of information systems can deeply influence the surrounding culture. We propose adopting a goal of socially proactive design and discuss the possibilities for embedding new paradigms for communication and problem solving in specialized information systems.
Rate control algorithm based on quality factor optimization for Dirac video codec
Authors: M. Tun, K. K. Loo, J. Cosmas
Venue: Image Communication (2008)

Rate control plays an essential role in video coding and transmission to provide the best video quality at the receiver end given the constraint of certain network conditions. This paper proposes a rate control algorithm for the wavelet-based open-source Dirac video codec. The existing Dirac architecture has a constant-quality control mechanism based on rate-distortion optimization (RDO), giving variable bitrate. The proposed algorithm exploits the existing constant-quality control, which is governed by a parameter called quality factor (QF) to give a constant bitrate. A mathematical model called the rate-quality factor (R-QF) is derived to generate optimum QF for the current coding frame using the bitrate resulting from the encoding of the previous frame in order to meet the target bitrate. The proposed algorithm is a complete one-pass process and does not require complex mathematical computation. The process of calculating the QF is simple and, further, calculation is not required for each coded frame. It also provides the rate control solution for both intra-frame-only and inter-frame coding modes. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm can control the bitrate precisely (i.e. within 1% of target bitrate in average for inter-frame coding mode and near-perfect flat response in generated bits vs. frame number curve in intra-frame-only coding mode). Moreover, the variation of bitrate over each group of pictures (GOP) in inter-frame coding mode is lower than that of H.264 using JM11. This is an advantage in preventing the buffer overflow and underflow for real-time multimedia data streaming. More importantly, there is no PSNR performance loss because of application of the proposed rate control algorithm. It gives superior quality over relatively static motion sequences and fast motion sequences with average quality as shown in the analysis and evaluations presented in this paper.
An implicit finite volume scheme for a scalar hyperbolic problem with measure data related to piecewise deterministic Markov processes
Authors: Robert Eymard, Sophie Mercier, Alain Prignet
Venue: Journal of Computational and Applied Mathematics (2008)

We are interested here in the numerical approximation of a family of probability measures, solution of the Chapman-Kolmogorov equation associated to some non-diffusion Markov process with uncountable state space. Such an equation contains a transport term and another term, which implies redistribution of the probability mass on the whole space. An implicit finite volume scheme is proposed, which is intermediate between an upstream weighting scheme and a modified Lax-Friedrichs one. Due to the seemingly unusual probability framework, a new weak bounded variation inequality had to be developed, in order to prove the convergence of the discretised transport term. Such an inequality may be used in other contexts, such as for the study of finite volume approximations of scalar linear or nonlinear hyperbolic equations with initial data in L^1. Also, due to the redistribution term, the tightness of the family of approximate probability measures had to be proven. Numerical examples are provided, showing the efficiency of the implicit finite volume scheme and its potentiality to be helpful in an industrial reliability context.
CoopIS 2008 PC Co-chairs' Message
Authors: Johann Eder, Masaru Kitsuregawa, Ling Liu
Venue: Proceedings of the OTM 2008 Confederated International Conferences, CoopIS, DOA, GADA, IS, and ODBASE 2008. Part I on On the Move to Meaningful Internet Systems: (2008)

Welcome to the 16th International Conference on Cooperative Information Systems (CoopIS 2008). This year's CoopIS is being held in Monterrey, Mexico, November 9-14, 2008.Cooperative Information Systems (CISs) are the cornerstone for moving the technical network infrastructure to a meaningful integrated information infrastructure. The CIS paradigm encompasses distributed systems technologies, middleware, business process management (BPM), and Web and service computing technologies.
Assessing the SMEs' competitive strategies on the impact of environmental factors: a quantitative SWOT analysis application
Authors: Hui-Lin Hai
Venue: WSEAS Transactions on Information Science and Applications (2008)

Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threat (SWOT) analysis is an established methodology for assisting the formulation of strategy. This paper proposes a new quantified SWOT analytic method incorporated with the vote-ranking method. The indices of SWOT are voted, weighted and quantified to assess the competitive strategy, from top to the bottom, meanwhile the total weighted scores method will be used to get the best strategy alternatives. The competitive strategies of the Taiwanese Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the Environmental Management Systems (EMS) are taken as a case study, where eighteen certificated ISO9000 or ISO14000 auditors (or lead auditors) are invited to establish a decision group. Under the impact of environmental factors, the results show that company's image and profitability is the most important strategy for SMEs within the global markets. Lastly, Taiwanese SMEs apperceive the significance of EMS and also recognize the importance to survive within the diversified competing market environment, whereas they need to build up its environmental management that has to suit the EMS specification and attention. The findings are also applicable for other developing countries within the global markets or barriers.
Agrarian landscapes linear features detection from LiDAR: application to artificial drainage networks
Authors: J. S. Bailly, P. Lagacherie, C. Millier, C. Puech, P. Kosuth
Venue: International Journal of Remote Sensing (2008)

Linear features of agrarian landscapes are the anthropogenic elements such as hedgerows, ditches, and bench terraces that strongly impact agrarian areas' environmental behaviour, especially the ecological and hydrological areas. The need to map these linear elements for environmental impact assessments of agrarian areas is thus increasing since these maps limit the developments of spatial indicators and spatially distributed modelling. Until now, no generic remote sensing methodology has been proposed for such mapping purposes. This research was designed to assess the use of airborne LiDAR data for agrarian landscape linear features mapping. We proposed a methodology that uses LiDAR data in three steps. We first estimated elevation profiles from LiDAR points on a set of pre-located sites. We secondly performed profile shape description with wavelet transform or a watershed algorithm. Finally, we classified the profiles using classification trees with predictors coming from shape analysis. Methodology accuracies were calculated for a ditch network detection problem in a Mediterranean vineyard landscape. LiDAR Toposys data and field survey data for ditch location were collected in June 2002. As ditches are always located on field boundary lattices, elevation profiles were only computed on field boundary sites. Methodologies, using wavelets or the watershed algorithm, gave similar accuracies. Overall accuracy is about 70% with a high ditch omission rate (50%) but low commission rate (15%). The omissions conform to those obtained when performing visual classification of profiles. This high omission rate in ditch detection is therefore due to LiDAR data, not methods. Dense vegetation over ditches during the summertime and the specific LiDAR points spatial sampling design explain these omissions. However, the proposed methodology, especially using wavelets transform, looks transposable for the automatic detection or characterization of other agrarian linear features.
Opacity generalised to transition systems
Authors: Jeremy W. Bryans, Maciej Koutny, Laurent Mazar&#x00e9;, Peter Y. A. Ryan
Venue: International Journal of Information Security (2008)

Recently, opacity has proved a promising technique for describing security properties. Much of the work has been couched in terms of Petri nets. Here, we extend the notion of opacity to the model of labelled transition systems and generalise opacity in order to better represent concepts from the literature on information flow. In particular, we establish links between opacity and the information flow concepts of anonymity and non-inference. We also investigate ways of verifying opacity when working with Petri nets. Our work is illustrated by two examples, one describing anonymity in a commercial context, and the other modelling requirements upon a simple voting system.
PASS It ON (PASSION): An Adaptive Online Load-Balancing Algorithm for Distributed Range-Query Specialized Systems
Authors: Ioannis Konstantinou, Dimitrios Tsoumakos, Nectarios Koziris
Venue: Proceedings of the OTM Confederated International Workshops and Posters on On the Move to Meaningful Internet Systems: 2008 Workshops: ADI, AWeSoMe, COMBEK, EI2N, IWSSA, MONET, OnToContent + QSI, ORM, PerSys, RDDS, SEMELS, and SWWS (2008)

A basic requirement for every P2P system is fault-tolerance. Since the primary objective is resource location and sharing, we require that this basic operation takes place in a reliable manner. In a variety of situations with skewed data accesses (e.g., [1], etc) the demand for content can become overwhelming for certain serving peers, forcing them to reject connections. In many cases, these skewed distributions take extreme forms: Flash crowds, regularly documented surges in the popularity of certain content, are also known to cause severe congestion and degradation of service [2]. Data replication techniques is one commonly utilized solution to remedy these situations. Nevertheless, there are cases in which the requested resources cannot be arbitrarily replicated. Distributed data-structures that support range-queries is such an example: The keys are stored in the network nodes so that a natural order is preserved. These structures can be very useful in a variety of situations: On-line games, web servers, data-warehousing, etc. In such cases, adaptive and on-line load-balancing schemes must be employed in order to avoid resource unavailability and performance in a variety of workloads[3,4].
Integrating test generation functionality into the Teaching Machine environment
Authors: Michael Bruce-Lockhart, Pilu Crescenzi, Theodore Norvell
Venue: Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science (ENTCS) (2009)

We propose an extension of the Teaching Machine project, called Quiz Generator, that allows instructors to produce assessment quizzes in the field of algorithm and data structures quite easily. This extension makes use of visualization techniques and is based on new features of the Teaching Machine that allow third-party visualizers to be added as plugins and for new scripting capabilities. Using these new capabilities, several quiz types have already been produced, which can be applied to any algorithm and/or data structure for which the necessary visualizer plugins exist.
A search mechanism based on ontology technology for students in elementary school
Authors: Dowming Yeh, Su-Ling Hsiang
Venue: WSEAS Transactions on Information Science and Applications (2008)

Searching information on the Web has become part of everyone's daily activity in the modern society. The Web brings much convenience into our lives; however, with the amount of information growing in a staggering speed, how to sieve out useful information and knowledge effectively has become an important skill. In order to obtain a better search result, one needs to know how to form appropriate key words and phrases for search engines. However, elementary school students don't have sufficient abilities of sub-cognition, and they often form a search string in a natural language which contains few keywords in a long sentence; therefore, the search results do not often satisfy their need. This study addresses this problem by introducing an agent to parse the search string, align synonyms, sift out keywords, and include hyponyms in the intended field. Knowledge in a specific learning unit is represented with Ontology technology and transformed into keywords and associated structure. This study also integrates Google API and establishes specific function characteristics to eliminate unrelated files to conduct the search. The result shows that the prototype system can provide pupils with more accurate results.
MODIS-based remote sensing monitoring of grass production in China
Authors: B. Xu, X. C. Yang, W. G. Tao, Z. H. Qin, H. Q. Liu, J. M. Miao, Y. Y. Bi
Venue: International Journal of Remote Sensing (2008)

Monitoring grassland production is of great importance for utilizing and administering grassland, developing pasturage and improving the ecological environment. Using Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data and ground truth data for the six grassland regions of China, regional models were established to estimate the grassland production in 2005. The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) was first computed from the MODIS data. Ground truth data were obtained from a large-scale field investigation in 2005. The following results were obtained: (1) total hay output from the grassland in China was 294 214 thousand tons in 2005, with an average yield of 830 kg/ha. (2) There were three regions with high grass productivity in 2005: the grassland covering Hulunbuir, Xilinhaote and the western Daxing'anling; the region including eastern Qinghai, northwestern Sichuan and mid-southern Gansu; and the northwestern Xinjiang region. (3) Grassland production for the whole of China in August 2005 remained at the same level as that in August 2004. However, the situation in the major grassland provinces was different: grass production in 2005 in both Qinghai and Gansu increased by 9% and 4%, respectively, when compared with that in 2004. Grass production in Inner Mongolia decreased by 3%, while the production in Liaoning, Xinjiang and Sichuan remained unchanged in comparison to that in 2004. (4) The models based on the six regions are the most suitable for monitoring grass production in China and can meet the need of estimating of grass productivity. The results are very important for grassland administration, pasture grazing and grassland ecosystem studies in China.
Reduced complexity algorithms for cognitive packet network routers
Authors: Laurence A. Hey
Venue: Computer Communications (2008)

The cognitive packet network (CPN) routing protocol provides a framework for real-time quality of service decision making within packet networks. This allows the paths taken by packets to autonomously adapt to changing conditions in order to maintain and improve on the quality of service provided by current routing algorithms. Software implementations of the protocol use the random neural network with reinforcement learning. This algorithm is unsuitable for implementation in dedicated hardware or devices with low computational abilities due to its complexity. We present a series of alternative algorithms for use in CPN, and compare their complexity and performance with respect to software and hardware implementation. Through experimentation we demonstrate that it is possible to match the performance of the random neural network with the simpler alternative algorithms. We also propose an architecture for an FPGA based hardware CPN router, and describe our implementation.
Hyperspectral indices for detecting changes in canopy reflectance as a result of underground natural gas leakage
Authors: M. F. Noomen, K. L. Smith, J. J. Colls, M. D. Steven, A. K. Skidmore, F. D. Van Der Meer
Venue: International Journal of Remote Sensing (2008)

Natural gas leakage from underground pipelines is known to affect vegetation adversely, probably by displacement of the soil oxygen needed for respiration. This causes changes in plant and canopy reflectance, which may serve as indicators of gas leakage. In this study, a covariance analysis was performed between reflectance indices of maize (Zea mays) and wheat (Triticum aestivum) canopies and oxygen concentrations in a simulated natural gas leak. Twenty-nine days after oxygen shortage occurred, the reflectance indices had the highest correlation with oxygen concentrations in the soil, for both species. The effect was consistent within species but the absolute values varied between the species. Normalization by adding a constant value to the control index of one species resulted in significant linear regression models for several indices. The indices with the highest regression coefficients were used to predict the oxygen concentration in the soil. This showed that the gas leakage caused reflectance changes up to 0.5 m from the source. As it could not be proven that oxygen shortage was the cause of the reflectance changes, further work is needed to study the side-effects of gas leakage, such as bacterial oxygen depletion, on plant growth and reflectance.
Object-oriented change detection for the city of Harare, Zimbabwe
Authors: Ruvimbo Gamanya, Philippe De Maeyer, Morgan De Dapper
Venue: Expert Systems with Applications: An International Journal (2009)

Object building and the extraction of homogeneous landscape units on which spatial statistics can be applied is useful in assessing land use and land cover change. Object-oriented processing techniques are becoming more popular compared to traditional pixel-based image analysis. A hierarchical image segmentation approach was adopted to extract the objects from multi-temporal Landsat images over Zimbabwe. The spatial arrangement of t"0 and t"1 objects was independent as the segmentation process was independently applied, although object change of t"1 was based on t"0 boundaries. We applied a Standardized, Object Oriented, Automatic Classification (SOOAC) method based on fuzzy logic. The error matrix for the TM image had an overall accuracy of 95.6% and a KIA value of 94.7%, the ETM showed slightly lower overall accuracy. Various LULC changes were identified over the 13year period per object and also per class, mainly vegetation decrease. Object-oriented change information is necessary in decision support systems and uncertainty management strategies. This approach addresses some of the major issues in object-based GIS change analysis as it is based on stable object geometry.