ppxscal/embedding_network huggingface dataset:
Computer aided design of cranial implants using deformable templates
Authors: David Dean
Venue:  (2003)

The design of patient-specific implants is a difficult task with traditional computer aided design (CAD) tools. I present a CAD approach that utilizes three dimensional (3D) computerized tomographic (CT) images for the design of cranial implants that are manufactured via a rapid prototyping (RP) device. The design process employing dedicated algorithms starts with a verbose patient's 3D cranial polygonal mesh image derived from 3D CT data followed by four design stages: First, the cranial defect margin is identified as a crestline on the patient's polygonal mesh image. Detection is assisted by a minimum-cost path searching-algorithm adapted from graph theory. The path traversal cost is primarily based on a principal curvature analysis. Second, either a left-right mirrored or an average skull template is interpolated into the defect site. The skull template deformation is driven by a two-pass thin plate spline (TPS) warp, first globally, then locally. Third, the skull template surface is regularly re-sampled and then smoothed using ray-surface collision detection and 2D low-pass image mask filtering. In addition, the portion of the skull template inside the cranial defect margin is partitioned from the rest of the skull template. Fourth, this prototype implant surface is validated by a check for non-intersection with adjacent patient skull and soft-tissue structures. The prototype implant surface is modified if necessary. An internal implant surface and a taper surface connecting the internal and external implant surfaces are interactively designed so as to insure appropriate implant-patient contact. This step results in a closed polygonal mesh surface that can be produced as a solid implant via an RP device. I tested this CAD approach with five patient cranial data sets with defects that had been previously repaired. The defects vary in size and location. The design environment was found to be reasonably interactive, requiring less than three hours following preparation of the patient's polygonal mesh skull image. These results suggest that the design procedure and cranial prosthetic implants resulting from my CAD approach would be clinically acceptable.
Internet-Based Amateur Video Delivery: The Users and Their Requirements
Authors: Pekka Isomursu, Mikko Perälä, Lassi Tasajärvi, Minna Isomursu
Venue: Proceedings of the Proceedings of the 37th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS'04) - Track 4 - Volume 4 (2004)

New technologies and inexpensive gear are about to create an explosion in the number of amateurs creating digital video content. In this paper we identify and discuss factors that affect the perceived goodness of video delivery platforms for amateur video distribution. Thework is based on an analysis of amateur video producer categories and the types of videos that are created.We first discuss people's skills and motives to shoot and consume videos and categorize the amateur video producers accordingly. Once their work is done, people wish to present their video to some audience, either small or big. We discuss what characteristics are needed from a good Internet-based delivery platform in order to satisfy different categories of amateur video producers. The characteristics include technological, sociological, and marketing aspects. We stress the importance of creating a sense of community in a delivery platform. This would compensate for the loss of a physical meeting and learning space that has happened due to the proliferation of inexpensive video creation tools that enable people towork on their own at their homes. Finally, we discuss the mobile future of the delivery platforms.
XCube: XML for data warehouses
Authors: Wolfgang Hümmer, Andreas Bauer, Gunnar Harde
Venue: Proceedings of the 6th ACM international workshop on Data warehousing and OLAP (2003)

Data warehouse systems are nowadays a well known and widely spread approach for supporting management decisions. In several companies or even across companies the idea of integrating several data warehouses into a virtual or federated data warehouse is of growing interest. But the technical and semantic problems are very demanding. An essential part for solving this problem is a standardized, vendor independent format for describing multidimensional data. This paper introduces XCube, a family of XML based document templates to exchange data warehouse data, i. e. data cubes, over any kind of network. XCube is organized in a modular fashion, so the multidimensional schema, the descriptions of the single dimensions and the fact data itself can be transmitted in separate steps. In addition to the describing formats XCube also offers two kinds of dynamic document types that can be used to explore the (multidimensional) content of another warehouse in a vendor independent way. They are primarily meant to reduce the amount of data transferred over the network.
Group Consensus: Do We Know It When We See It?
Authors: Morgan M. Shepherd, Wm. Benjamin Martz,  Jr.
Venue: Proceedings of the Proceedings of the 37th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS'04) - Track 1 - Volume 1 (2004)

The issue of consensus is unclear in technology-supported meetings. Research indicates thattechnology supported groups have less consensus than face-to-face groups, and that it is the technology that is at least partly to blame for the non-consensus process loss. This paper reports on an experiment that addresses the issue of how well individuals understand consensus. The results show overwhelmingly that individuals neither agree on what consensus looks like nor do they apply a consistent interpretation of consensus. In addition, the lack of consensus in technology-supported groups may not be due to the technology at all, but rather to the incorrect assumption that individuals know consensus when they see it.
Modeling multimodal integration patterns and performance in seniors: toward adaptive processing of individual differences
Authors: Benfang Xiao, Rebecca Lunsford, Rachel Coulston, Matt Wesson, Sharon Oviatt
Venue: Proceedings of the 5th international conference on Multimodal interfaces (2003)

Multimodal interfaces are designed with a focus on flexibility, although very few currently are capable of adapting to major sources of user, task, or environmental variation. The development of adaptive multimodal processing techniques will require empirical guidance from quantitative modeling on key aspects of individual differences, especially as users engage in different types of tasks in different usage contexts. In the present study, data were collected from fifteen 66- to 86-year-old healthy seniors as they interacted with a map-based flood management system using multimodal speech and pen input. A comprehensive analysis of multimodal integration patterns revealed that seniors were classifiable as either simultaneous or sequential integrators, like children and adults. Seniors also demonstrated early predictability and a high degree of consistency in their dominant integration pattern. However, greater individual differences in multimodal integration generally were evident in this population. Perhaps surprisingly, during sequential constructions seniors' intermodal lags were no longer in average and maximum duration than those of younger adults, although both of these groups had longer maximum lags than children. However, an analysis of seniors' performance did reveal lengthy latencies before initiating a task, and high rates of self talk and task-critical errors while completing spatial tasks. All of these behaviors were magnified as the task difficulty level increased. Results of this research have implications for the design of adaptive processing strategies appropriate for seniors' applications, especially for the development of temporal thresholds used during multimodal fusion. The long-term goal of this research is the design of high-performance multimodal systems that adapt to a full spectrum of diverse users, supporting tailored and robust future systems.
Polishing mechanism of tantalum films by SiO2 particles
Authors: A. Vijayakumar, T. Du, K. B. Sundaram, V. Desai
Venue: Microelectronic Engineering (2003)

Dishing and erosion are major problems in conventional chemical mechanical planarization of copper/barrier layers. Understanding the polishing mechanism of the different materials involved can assist in providing a solution to these issues. Chemical mechanical polishing of tantalum was performed using alumina and silica particles dispersed in deionized water at pH 6. Tantalum shows a higher removal rate in silica slurry compared to alumina slurry. To examine the polishing mechanism of tantalum in silica slurry, the surface structure of the film was investigated by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Various electrochemical techniques were used to characterize the surface film formation, dissolution and the interaction between silica particles and tantalum film. XPS and electrochemical results indicate that tantalum film may react with silica particles to form Ta-O-Si bonds on the surface. The mechanical tearing of Ta-O-Si bonds leads to the removal of Ta2O5 as a lump, resulting in higher removal rates of tantalum in silica slurry.
A Note on Rough Isometry Invariance of Resistance
Authors: András Telcs
Venue: Combinatorics, Probability and Computing (2002)

In this note it is shown that resistance and resistance dimension are rough isometry invariant.
An Event-Synchronization Protocol for Parallel Simulation of Large-Scale Wireless Networks
Authors: Clinton Kelly,  IV, Rajit Manohar
Venue: Proceedings of the Seventh IEEE International Symposium on Distributed Simulation and Real-Time Applications (2003)

We present a new conservative event-synchronization protocol, time-based synchronization, for parallel discret-eevent simulation of mobile ad hoc wireless networks. Simulators that use our protocol proceed at a scaled version of real time and send messages that correspond only to transmissions in the simulated network. We show that such simulators can maintain a constant execution time even as the sizes of the networks that they simulate grow. Moreover, we show that these simulators, when executed on a custom parallel architecture, are capable of simulating many networks faster than real time.
A robust dissolve detector by support vector machine
Authors: Chong-Wah Ngo
Venue: Proceedings of the eleventh ACM international conference on Multimedia (2003)

In this paper, we propose a novel approach for the robust detection and classification of dissolve sequences in videos. Our approach is based on the multi-resolution representation of temporal slices extracted from 3D image volume. At the low-resolution (LR) scale, the problem of dissolve detection is reduced as cut transition detection. At the high-resolution (HR) space, Gabor wavelet features are computed for regions that surround the cuts located at LR scale. The computed features are then input to support vector machines for pattern classification. Encouraging results have been obtained through experiments.
Graph-based technologies for intelligence analysis
Authors: Thayne Coffman, Seth Greenblatt, Sherry Marcus
Venue: Communications of the ACM (2004)

Enhancing traditional algorithmic techniques for improved pattern analysis.
On the Computational Power of Max-Min Propagation Neural Networks
Authors: Pablo A. Estévez, Yoichi Okabe
Venue: Neural Processing Letters (2004)

We investigate the computational power of max-min propagation (MMP) neural networks, composed of neurons with maximum (Max) or minimum (Min) activation functions, applied over the weighted sums of inputs. The main results presented are that a single-layer MMP network can represent exactly any pseudo-Boolean function F:{0,1}n &rarr; [0,1], and that two-layer MMP neural networks are universal approximators. In addition, it is shown that several well-known fuzzy min-max (FMM) neural networks, such as Simpson's FMM, are representable by MMP neural networks.
Robust region extraction: extracting model and domain parameters in the presence of noise and multiple populations
Authors: Charles V. Stewart
Venue:  (2003)

A fundamental component of many computer vision problems is extracting a region of interest from a data set and estimating the parameters of a model describing the data in the region. It occurs in diverse situations such as 3-D reconstruction from range data; computer-aided cartography; tracking; object recognition; and feature-based registration. In an important class of problems, there is some data model and region shape information available for the region of interest, but none is available for the rest of the data. We present an approach for solving this class of problems. Dubbed the DBM-Estimator, it is a framework that combines all available model and shape constraints to jointly estimate the parameters of a data model and region boundary that describes the region of interest. Our formulation combines M-estimation and region growing, and poses the region extraction problem as the joint minimization of two inter-dependent cost functions. Starting from a small initial region, the DBM-Estimator evolves the region to the final estimate, while simultaneously estimating the data model parameters during the region evolution. The distinguishing feature of the DBM-Estimator is that it only requires a data model for the region of interest, and is thus &ldquo;non-competitive&rdquo;. The DBM-Estimator is controlled primarily by only two parameters, which simplifies the application to various problems. The data model and region parameter estimation is robust, and thus the DBM-Estimator can cope with outliers and modeling errors. Theoretical analysis shows that the DBM-Estimator is relatively insensitive to the parameter settings, which allows the DBM-Estimator to be applied to a variety of data sets without hand-tuning. Experimental comparisons with mixture models and the mean shift on synthetic data shows that the DBM-Estimator is able to detect extremely subtle discontinuities that the other approaches cannot. We demonstrate the DBM-Estimator on three diverse problems: surface extraction from range data, forest boundary detection from satellite images; and vasculature extraction from 3-D CTA data.
Struction revisited
Authors: Gabriela Alexe, Peter L. Hammer, Vadim V. Lozin, Dominique de Werra
Venue: Discrete Applied Mathematics (2003)

The struction method is a general approach to compute the stability number of a graph based on step-by-step transformations each of which reduces the stability number by exactly one. This approach has been originally derived from Boolean arguments and has been applied by different authors to compute in polynomial time the stability number in special classes of graphs. In the present paper we review basic results on this topic and propose a generalization of the struction. We also discuss its relationship with some other graph transformations, such as the cycle shrinking of Edmonds or the clique reduction of Lovász-Plummer, and the possibility to use stability preserving transformations to increase the efficiency of this approach.
Statistical estimation of access frequencies: problems, solutions and consistencies
Authors: Toshio Sakata, Jeffrey Xu Yu
Venue: Wireless Networks (2003)

In a wireless environment, a server periodically broadcasts data to users under an assumption that accurate access frequencies are known. The server broadcasts frequently accessed data more often in a broadcast cycle. The difficulty of obtaining such access frequencies is that, in a wireless environment, mobile users are only listening to the channel they are interested in and do not request the data items from the server. An approach in the literature is to make use of broadcast misses to understand the access patterns. In brief, mobile users may decide whether to wait for the required item to arrive (with uncertainty whether it will arrive soon or not) or to make an explicit request for it even though it will be broadcasted soon. In this paper, we extend our early work on access frequency estimations. First, we consider two cases: (a) a mobile user will make an explicit request when he/she cannot access the information immediately, and (b) a mobile user will make an explicit request with an arbitrary probability if he/she cannot access the information immediately. We assume that the probability is unknown. Second, we provide solutions using maximum likelihood estimation. Third, we prove λ-consistencies and m-consistencies of our solutions. We report our simulation study that demonstrates the effectiveness of our approach.
Soundscape composition: the convergence of ethnography and acousmatic music
Authors: John Levack Drever
Venue: Organised Sound (2002)

Despite roots in acoustic ecology and soundscape studies, the practice and study of soundscape composition is often grouped with, or has grown out of the acousmatic music tradition. This can be observed in the positioning of soundscape compositions juxtaposed with acousmatic music compositions in concert programmes, CD compilations and university syllabuses. Not only does this positioning inform how soundscape composition is listened to, but also how it is produced, sonically and philosophically. If the making and presenting of representations of environmental sound is of fundamental concern to the soundscape artist, then it must be addressed. As this methodological issue is outside of previous musical concerns, to this degree, we must look to other disciplines that are primarily engaged with the making of representation, and that have thoroughly questioned what it is to make and present representations in the world today. One such discipline is ethnography. After briefly charting the genesis of soundscape composition and its underlying principles and motivations, the rest of the paper will present and develop one perspective, that of considering soundscape composition as ethnography.
Incremental execution of transformation specifications
Authors: Ganesh Sittampalam, Oege de Moor, Ken Friis Larsen
Venue: ACM SIGPLAN Notices (2004)

We aim to specify program transformations in a declarative style, and then to generate executable program transformers from such specifications. Many transformations require non-trivial program analysis to check their applicability, and it is prohibitively expensive to re-run such analyses after each transformation. It is desirable, therefore, that the analysis information is incrementally updated.We achieve this by drawing on two pieces of previous work: first, Bernhard Steffen's proposal to use model checking for certain analysis problems, and second, John Conway's theory of language factors. The first allows the neat specification of transformations, while the second opens the way for an incremental implementation. The two ideas are linked by using regular patterns instead of Steffen's modal logic: these patterns can be viewed as queries on the set of program paths.
Multiple Correspondences and Log-linear Adjustment to Test Single Correspondence Relationships and Categorization of Qualitative Data in E-Commerce
Authors: M. Beatriz Bernábe Loranca, Luis Antonio Olsina Santos
Venue: Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Electronics, Communications and Computers (2004)

When an exploratory data analysis is performedwhere there are more than two qualitative variables,the application of univariate, bivariate andmultivariate statistical techniques allows tosuccessfully describe the data table. Particularly, thesingle correspondence technique gives importantcorrelation and dimensionality reduction results,which help to give an objective interpretation of thedata. In this paper we use the technique known asfactor analysis of multiple correspondences which is ageneralization of the single correspondence techniqueused to corroborate results.We also use log-linear adjustment, with thepurpose of continuing with the Principal Componentsand Cluster Analyses [Análisis Factorial de Correspondencias Simples en el procesamiento de datos cualitativos sobre funcionalidad en comercio electrónico]. The binary variables understudy are the result of the e-commerce sites' evaluationprocess for the quality attributes of the"Functionality" feature [Requerimientos de Calidad en Sitios de E-commerce, Técnicas Estadísticas para el Análisis de la Calidad de Sitios Web]. This data isconcentrated in a binary table of 49 sites and 17attributes [Análisis Factorial de Correspondencias Simples en el procesamiento de datos cualitativos sobre funcionalidad en comercio electrónico, Requerimientos de Calidad en Sitios de E-commerce].
Decentralized Trust Management and Accountability in Federated Systems
Authors: Brent N. Chun, Andy Bavier
Venue: Proceedings of the Proceedings of the 37th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS'04) - Track 9 - Volume 9 (2004)

In this paper, we describe three key problems for trust management in federated systems and present a layered architecture for addressing them. The three problems we address include how to express and verify trust in a flexible and scalable manner, how to monitor the use of trust relationships over time, and how to manage and reevaluate trust relationships based on historical traces of past behavior. While previous work provides the basis for expressing and verifying trust, it does not address the concurrent problems of how to continuously monitor and manage trust relationships over time. These problems close the loop on trust management and are especially relevant in the context of federated systems where remote resources can beacquired across multiple administrative domains and used in potentially undesirable ways (e.g., to launch denial-of-service attacks).
SAT-Solving the Coverability Problem for Petri Nets
Authors: Parosh Aziz Abdulla, S. Purushothaman Iyer, Aletta Nylén
Venue: Formal Methods in System Design (2004)

Net unfoldings have attracted great attention as a powerful technique for combating state space explosion in model checking, and have been applied to verification of finite state systems including 1-safe (finite) Petri nets and synchronous products of finite transition systems. Given that net unfoldings represent the state space in a distributed, implicit manner the verification algorithm is necessarily a two step process: generation of the unfolding and reasoning about it. In his seminal work McMillan (K.L. McMillan, Symbolic Model Checking. Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1993) showed that deadlock detection on unfoldings of 1-safe Petri nets is NP-complete. Since the deadlock problem on Petri nets is PSPACE-hard it is generally accepted that the two step process will yield savings (in time and space) provided the unfoldings are small.In this paper we show how unfoldings can be extended to the context of infinite-state systems. More precisely, we show how unfoldings can be constructed to represent sets of backward reachable states of unbounded Petri nets in a symbolic fashion. Furthermore, based on unfoldings, we show how to solve the coverability problem for unbounded Petri nets using a SAT-solver. Our experiments show that the use of unfoldings, in spite of the two-step process for solving coverability, has better time and space characteristics compared to a traditional reachability based implementation that considers all interleavings for solving the coverability problem.
A Bayesian statistical modeling for the distribution of insurance claim counts
Authors: Ioannis Ntzoufras, Athanassios Katsis, Dimitris Karlis
Venue: Proceedings of the international conference on Computational methods in sciences and engineering (2003)

The aim of this article is to develop model comparison techniques among three widely used discrete statistical distributions employed for estimating the outstanding claim counts in actuarial and practice. The statistical treatment is from the Bayesian point of view. We utilize the advanced computational technique of Reversible Jump Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm to estimate the posterior odds among the different distributions for claim counts. The results are compared for various data sets.