ppxscal/embedding_network huggingface dataset:
Concern solving for IS development
Authors: Mike Metcalfe
Venue: Socio-technical and human cognition elements of information systems (2003)

Mitroff and Linstone's (1993) summit work, "The Unbounded Mind," reiterates the multiple perspectives epistemology that was introduced to IS by Churchman (1971). They explain the advantages of dealing with IS development problems as involving three domains of knowledge-technical, meaning objective; personal, meaning lifestyle and ethics; and organisational, meaning social constructions and politics. They argue these align with Freud's professional, personal and political layers of anxiety. This chapter focuses on the 'organisational' or 'political' domain, where the key is being able to deal with conflicting demands from stakeholders. The author recently returned from two years as adviser to the Deputy Premier of South Australia. This epitomises the typical working life of senior executives, who operate almost exclusively at this 'organisational' or political domain of analysis. His conclusion from that experience was that 'problem solving' in this domain should be relabelled 'concern solving,' as it was so much about dealing with stakeholders' concerns rather than objective problems.
Cryptographic techniques for privacy-preserving data mining
Authors: Benny Pinkas
Venue: ACM SIGKDD Explorations Newsletter (2002)

Research in secure distributed computation, which was done as part of a larger body of research in the theory of cryptography, has achieved remarkable results. It was shown that non-trusting parties can jointly compute functions of their different inputs while ensuring that no party learns anything but the defined output of the function. These results were shown using generic constructions that can be applied to any function that has an efficient representation as a circuit. We describe these results, discuss their efficiency, and demonstrate their relevance to privacy preserving computation of data mining algorithms. We also show examples of secure computation of data mining algorithms that use these generic constructions.
Stochastic Scheduling on Parallel Machines Subject to Random Breakdowns to Minimize Expected Costs for Earliness and Tardy Jobs
Authors: Xiaoqiang Cai, Sean Zhou
Venue: Operations Research (1999)

This paper addresses a stochastic scheduling problem in which a set of independent jobs are to be processed by a number of identical parallel machines under a common deadline. Each job has a processing time, which is a random variable with an arbitrary distribution. Each machine is subject to stochastic breakdowns, which are characterized by a Poisson process. The deadline is an exponentially distributed random variable. The objective is to minimize the expected costs for earliness and tardiness, where the cost for an early job is a general function of its earliness while the cost for a tardy job is a fixed charge. Optimal policies are derived for cases where there is only a single machine or are multiple machines, the decision-maker can take a static policy or a dynamic policy, and job preemptions are allowed or forbidden. In contrast to their deterministic counterparts, which have been known to be NP-hard and are thus intractable from a computational point of view, we find that optimal solutions for many cases of the stochastic problem can be constructed analytically.
Positioning of Store Brands
Authors: Serdar Sayman, Stephen J. Hoch, Jagmohan S. Raju
Venue: Marketing Science (2002)

We examine the retailer's store brand positioning problem. Our game-theoretic model helps us identify a set of conditions under which the optimal strategy for the retailer is to position the store brand as close as possible to the stronger national brand. In three empirical studies, we examined whether market data are consistent with some of the implications of our model. In the first study, using observational data from two US supermarket chains, we found that store brands are more likely to target stronger national brands. Our second study estimated cross-price effects in 19 product categories, and found that only in categories with high-quality store brands, store brand and the leading national brand compete more intensely with each other than with the secondary national brand. In a third product perception study, we found that although explicit targeting by store brands influenced consumer perceptions of physical similarity, it had no influence on consumers' perceptions of overall or product quality similarity. While it appears that retailers do follow a positioning strategy consistent with our model, it changes buying behavior in the intended fashion only if the store brand offers quality comparable to the leading national brands.
A new class of QoS routing strategies based on network graph reduction
Authors: C. Casetti, R. Lo Cigno, M. Mellia, M. Munafò, Z. Zsóka
Venue: Computer Networks: The International Journal of Computer and Telecommunications Networking (2003)

This paper discusses a new approach to QoS routing, introducing the notion of algorithm resilience (i.e., its capability to adapt to network and load modifications) as performance index of the algorithm itself.The new approach can be summarized as Network Graph Reduction, i.e., a modification of the graph describing the network before the routing path is computed, in order to exclude from the path selection over-congested portions of the network. This solution leads to a class of two-step routing algorithms, where both steps are simple, hence allowing efficient implementation.Simulation experiments, run on randomly-generated topologies and traffic patterns, show that these routing algorithms perform consistently better than both the standard Minimum Hop algorithm and those QoS-based algorithms based on the same metrics but not using the notion of Network Graph Reduction.
Unified descriptive language for association rules in data mining
Authors: Zahid Hossain, Sk Ahad Ali
Venue: Computational intelligence and applications (2002)

Association rule mining in large databases is one of the most interesting data mining techniques in database communities. In a very large database, the number of discovered rules rise dramatically depending on the selection of support and confidence, and the presentation of the rules in a nice and noticeable way becomes highly challenging. Researchers have developed several tools to visualize association rules in years. However, a large number of tools cannot handle more than dozens of association rules. Furthermore, none of them can effectively manage association rules with multiple antecedents. Till now a uniform descriptive presentation technique has not been set up. We studied different descriptive techniques in the context of visualization and introduced a graph-based technique as Unified Descriptive Language for Association Rules (UDLAR). This unified descriptive language for association rule mining can be used to extract the discovered rules very efficiently.
Fine tuning interface relaxation methods for elliptic differential equations
Authors: J. R. Rice, P. Tsompanopoulou, E. Vavalis
Venue: Applied Numerical Mathematics (2002)

Two simple interface relaxation techniques for solving elliptic differential equations are considered. A theoretical analysis is carried out at the differential level and "optimal" relaxation parameters are obtained for model problems. A comprehensive experimental numerical study for 1- and 2-dimensional problems is also presented. We present a complete analysis of convergence and optimum parameters for two 1-dimensional methods applied to Helmholtz equations: the averaging method AVE and the Robin-type method ROB. We then present experimental studies for 1- and 2-dimensional methods and more general equations. These studies confirm the theoretical results and suggest they are valid in these more general cases.
On the Morse index of Lagrangian systems
Authors: Alberto Abbondandolo
Venue: Nonlinear Analysis: Theory, Methods Applications (2003)

We give a new proof of the identity between the Morse index of a periodic solution of a Lagrangian system, positive definite in the velocities, and its Maslov index. Furthermore, we give an interpretation of the Maslov index when the Lagrangian system is not positive definite in the velocities. Our approach consists in relating the Morse index of the solution to a relative Morse index obtained passing to the Hamiltonian formulation. The main concepts used are the notion of commensurable subspaces, relative dimension, Fredholm pairs and relative index of strongly indefinite bilinear forms.
Synchronized Development of Production, Inventory, and Distribution Schedules
Authors: F. Fumero, C. Vercellis
Venue: Transportation Science (1999)

An integrated optimization model for production and distribution planning is proposed, with the aim of optimally coordinating important and interrelated logistic decisions such as capacity management, inventory allocation, and vehicle routing. The integrated model is solved via Lagrangean relaxation and both lower bounds and heuristic feasible solutions are obtained. Computational results on test problems of various sizes are provided to show the effectiveness of the proposed solution scheme. Moreover, the feasible solution obtained is compared to that generated by an alternative decoupled approach in which a production plan is first developed and a distribution schedule is consequently derived. Computational results seem to indicate a substantial advantage of the synchronized approach over the decoupled decision process.
Hardware/software partitioning of software binaries
Authors: Greg Stitt, Frank Vahid
Venue: Proceedings of the 2002 IEEE/ACM international conference on Computer-aided design (2002)

Partitioning an embedded system application among a microprocessor and custom hardware has been shown to improve the performance, power or energy of numerous examples. The advent of single-chip microprocessor/FPGA platforms makes such partitioning even more attractive. Previous partitioning approaches have partitioned sequential program source code, such as C or C++. We introduce a new approach that partitions at the software binary level. Although source code partitioning is preferable from a purely technical viewpoint, binary-level partitioning provides several very practical benefits for commercial acceptance. We demonstrate that binary-level partitioning yields competitive speedup results compared to source-level partitioning, achieving an average speedup of 1.4 compared to 1.5 for eight benchmarks partitioned on a single-chip microprocessor/FPGA device.
The PERMIS X.509 role based privilege management infrastructure
Authors: David W. Chadwick, Alexander Otenko
Venue: Future Generation Computer Systems (2003)

This paper describes the ECPERMIS project, which has developed a role based access control infrastructure that uses X.509 attribute certificates (ACs) to store the users' roles. All access control decisions are driven by an authorisation policy, which is itself stored in an X.509 AC, thus guaranteeing its integrity. All the ACs can be stored in one or more LDAP directories, thus making them widely available. Authorisation policies are written in XML according to a DTD that has been published at XML.org. The Access Control Decision Function (ADF) is written in Java and the Java API is simple to use, comprising of just three methods and a constructor. There is also a Privilege Allocator, which is a tool that constructs and signs ACs and stores them in an LDAP directory for subsequent use by the ADF.
Evolution of an introductory computer science course: the long haul
Authors: A. T. Chamillard, Laurence D. Merkle
Venue: Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges (2002)

University requirements for the material covered in introductory computer science courses have evolved over the years, and those courses must therefore evolve as well. In this paper, we discuss the 7-year evolution of such a course at the U.S. Air Force Academy. In 1995, the main thrust of the course was to develop students' programming skills to support later programming activities, even for those students not majoring in computer science. Although some general survey topics were covered, programming skill development was the main goal of the course. Since that time, the course has evolved significantly into a course that covers general computer science and Information Technology (IT) topics in greater depth and breadth, with a continuing but greatly reduced programming component. During that 7-year period, we changed programming languages for the course, significantly changed the way in which we evaluated programming ability, incorporated graphics into the course, conducted an extensive rework of the course content, and made numerous smaller changes as well. In this paper, we discuss the technical and political issues associated with the evolution of the course. Although this work is presented in the context of our course, such evolution is clearly applicable to other introductory courses as well.
Information management for the construction industry: a review
Authors: A. P. Chassiakos
Venue: Civil and structural engineering computing: 2001 (2001)

The aim of this paper is to present the key elements of the information management process in the construction industry. Construction projects typically require substantial effort, time, and capital outlay. Information management provides the means for improved project management, coordination of individual efforts, time and cost reduction. The paper describes the development stages and the organisational structure of a construction project, the information needs at each stage and the ways in which information is collected, recorded, reported, and used for project control purposes. In addition, the use of computers for information management and communication is discussed.
Applying Experimental Design and Regression Splines to High-Dimensional Continuous-State Stochastic Dynamic Programming
Authors: Victoria C. P. Chen, David Ruppert, Christine A. Shoemaker
Venue: Operations Research (1999)

In stochastic dynamic programming (SDP) with continuous state and decision variables, the future value function is computed at discrete points in the state spac e. Interpolation can be used to approximate the values of the future value function between these discrete points. However, for large dimensional problems the number of discrete points required to obtain a good approximation of the future value function can be prohibitively large. Statistical methods of experimental design and function estimation may be employed to overcome this "curse of dimensionality." In this paper, we describe a method for estimating the future value function by multivariate adaptive regression splines (MARS) fit over a discretization scheme based on orthogonal array (OA) experimental designs. Because orthogonal arrays only grow polynomially in the state-space dimension, our OA/MARS method is accurately able to solve higher dimensional SDP problems than previously possible. To our knowledge, the most efficient method published prior to this work employs tensor-product cubic splines to approximate the future value function (Johnson et al. 1993). The computational advantages of OA/MA RS are demonstrated in comparisons with the method using tensor-product cubic splines for applications of an inventory forecasting SDP with up to nine state variables computed on a small workstation. In particular, the storage of an adequate tensor-product cubic spline for six dimensions exceeds the memory of our workstation, and the run time for an accurate OA/MARS SDP solution would be at least an order of magnitude faster than using tensor-product cubic splines for higher than six dimensions.
Serial Production/Distribution Systems Under Service Constraints
Authors: Tamer Boyaci, Guillermo Gallego
Venue: Manufacturing Service Operations Management (2000)

We analyze the problem of minimizing average inventory costs subject to fill-rate type of service-level constraints in serial and assembly production/distribution systems. We propose optimal and heuristic procedures to solve this problem. Our model and solution procedures can be used to manage the fill rate or fill rate within a "time window" service measures. We also relate our service-constrained model to the traditional model with back-order costs and show that it is possible to prespecify backorder cost rates to achieve desired service levels. We explore the inventory cost impact of such a practice, and we find that the cost penalty can be very high.
An Efficient Algorithm for a Class of Two-Resource Allocation Problems
Authors: R. Armstrong, S. Gu, L. Lei
Venue: INFORMS Journal on Computing (1998)

We propose an efficient algorithm for the two resource allocation problem defined on a series-parallel graph, where nodes represent tasks, and arcs represent precedence relationships. The completion time of each task is inversely proportional to the amount of resource allocated, and the objective is to minimize the length of the longest path on the graph. Our algorithm is derived based on a formal analysis of the primal and Lagrangian dual optimal solutions. The resulting search process always ends up with one of three exclusive cases. For the first two cases, a closed form solution exists. For the third case, a bisectional search is used. The computational complexity of the algorithm is thus bounded fromabove by O(N log(1/&#949;)), where N is the total number of tasks, and &#949; is any given accuracy.
An Efficient Airline Re-Fleeting Model for the Incremental Modification of Planned Fleet Assignments
Authors: Ahmad I. Jarrah, Jon Goodstein, Ram Narasimhan
Venue: Transportation Science (2000)

Airlines typically manage their annual business cycle by subdividing the year into a sequence of scheduling periods that span about a month each. Fleet assignment represents an important step in the planning process for each new scheduling period and is usually undertaken using computer-based optimization models. Once an initial fleet assignment solution is achieved and before "freezing" the assignments, planners spend significant effort in analyzing, modifying, and committing the individual components of the solution throughout the flight network. This manual step results in local modifications to the initial solution, and is necessary to reflect business judgment calls that cannot be captured by the optimization model. In addition, planners find it imperative to modify the initial fleet assignment solution to react to inevitable changes to the planning environment related to the planned schedule, demand forecast, number of available aircraft, crew staffing levels, and a host of other scheduling constraints. The above-described process of incrementally fine-tuning and modifying the initial fleet assignment solution is referred to as re-fleeting. It is characterized by (1) the requirement of quick solution time to allow frequent re-fleeting exercises, (2) the need for multiple alternative high-quality solutions to choose from, and (3) the constraint that the new solution differs from the prior one in a controlled and limited fashion. We demonstrate in this paper that global fleet assignment model formulations can be used to address the re-fleeting problem in an effective fashion.
The Realities of Becoming a Long-Term Supplier to a Large Tqm Customer
Authors: Christopher J. Roethlein, Paul M. Mangiameli
Venue: Interfaces (1999)

In late 1993, the range appliance division of Whirlpool Corporation adopted total-quality-management principles. It announced that companies would have to meet specific objectives and support quality if they wanted to be considered as future suppliers of Whirlpool's components. Many of Whirlpool's established suppliers were suddenly forced to realize that long standing relationships were no longer important. One of Whirlpool's long-time suppliers, Stanley Engineered Components (SEC), a small supplier of oven-door latches, spent three and one-half years attempting to accommodate and keep its largest customer. How did SEC accommodate andsatisfy Whirlpool? Top management committed itself to a complete change in corporate philosophy, strategy, and practice. To bring about the change, top management hired talent from outside and developed in-house talent. Top management used TQM-style principles as a method of competitive advantage to obtain new business contracts. SEC understood and complied with the needs of its customers.
A taxonomy and design considerations for Internet accounting
Authors: Michel Kouadio, Udo Pooch
Venue: ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review (2002)

Economic principles are increasingly being suggested for addressing some complex issues related to distributed resource allocation for QoS (Quality of Service) enhancement. Many proposals have been put forth, including various strategies from Pricing Theory and market-based insights for security in the Internet. A central need of these endeavors lies in the design of efficient accounting architecture for collecting, storing, processing and communicating relevant technical information to parties involved in transactions. This paper proceeds to a systematic classification of the major characteristics of accounting models with the aim of highlighting important features to optimize for building effective architectures.
Iteration number for the conjugate gradient method
Authors: Owe Axelsson
Venue: Mathematics and Computers in Simulation (2003)

When solving linear systems and, in particular when solving large scale ill-conditioned problems it is important to understand the behaviour of the conjugate gradient method. The conjugate gradient method converges typically in three phases, an initial phase of rapid convergence but short duration, which depends essentially only on the initial error, a fairly linearly convergent phase, which depends on the spectral condition number and finally a superlinearly convergent phase, which depends on how the smallest eigenvalues are distributed. In the paper, this is explained by proper estimates of the rate of convergence.
Every strong digraph has a spanning strong subgraph with at most n+2&#x03B1;-2 arcs
Authors: Stéphane Bessy, Stéphan Thomassé
Venue: Journal of Combinatorial Theory Series B (2003)

Answering a question of Adrian Bondy (Per. Comm.), we prove that every strong digraph has a spanning strong subgraph with at most n + 2α - 2 arcs, where α is the size of a maximum stable set of D. Such a spanning subgraph can be found in polynomial time. An infinite family of oriented graphs for which this bound is sharp was given by Odile Favaron (Discrete Math. 146 (1995) 289). A direct corollary of our result is that there exists 2α - 1 directed cycles which span D. Tibor Gallai (Theory of Graphs and its Applications, Czech. Acad. Sci. Prague, 1964, p. 161) conjectured that α directed cycles would be enough.
A linear output structure for fuzzy logic controllers
Authors: Hailong Sun, Lixiang Liu
Venue: Fuzzy Sets and Systems (2002)

In this paper, the output structure of multiple-input-single-output fuzzy logic controller (FLCr) is studied. The input and output variables of the FLCr are all characterized by normal triangular-shaped membership functions and fuzzy partitions are considered for corresponding universes of discourse. A special mapping, linear rule mapping [(Fuzzy Sets and Systems 57 (1993) 149)], which describes the relationship between the input variables and the output variables of one rule is used. The conclusion proposed is that the output of multiple-input-single-output FLCr can be represented by the convex linear combination of its crisp input variables. A precise mathematical model of FLCr, which is helpful to analyze fuzzy control and tune the fuzzy logic controller, is given.