Query: FaCT++ Description Logic Reasoner: System Description

Relevant passages:
The Description Logic Handbook: Theory, Implementation, and Applications <=SEP=> Like modal logic, temporal logic, or description logic, separation logic has become a Description Logic Handbook: Theory, Implementation and Applications,”. The Description Logic Handbook: Theory, Implementation and Applications (Franz Baader, Diego Calvanese, Deborah. McGuinness, Daniele Nardi, Peter. To formalize knowledge, we employ various logic-based formalisms, such as The Description Logic Handbook: Theory, Implementation and Applications.

Attributive Concept Descriptions with Complements <=SEP=> Schmidt-SchaulL M. and G. Smolka, Attributive concept descriptions with complements, Artificial Intelligence 48 (1991) 1-26. We investigate the consequences of adding unions and complements to attributive concept descriptions employed in terminological knowledge representation languages. It is shown that deciding coherence and subsumption of such descriptions are PSPACE-complete problems that can be decided with linear space.

Racer: A Core Inference Engine for the Semantic Web <=SEP=> In this paper we describe Racer, which can be considered as a core inference engine for the semantic web. The Racer inference server offers two APIs that are already used by at least three different network clients, i.e., the ontology editor OilEd, the visualization tool RICE, and the ontology development environment Protege 2. The Racer server supports the standard DIG protocol via HTTP and a TCP based protocol with extensive query facilities. Racer currently supports the web ontology languages DAML+OIL, RDF, and OWL.

Ontology Development 101 : A Guide to Creating Your First Ontology <=SEP=> 1 Why develop an ontology? In recent years the development of ontologies—explicit formal specifications of the terms in the domain and relations among them (Gruber 1993)—has been moving from the realm of ArtificialIntelligence laboratories to the desktops of domain experts. Ontologies have become common on the World-Wide Web. The ontologies on the Web range from large taxonomies categorizing Web sites (such as on Yahoo!) to categorizations of products for sale and their features (such as on Amazon.com). The WWW Consortium (W3C) is developing the Resource Description Framework (Brickley and Guha 1999), a language for encoding knowledge on Web pages to make it understandable to electronic agents searching for information. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), in conjunction with the W3C, is developing DARPA Agent Markup Language (DAML) by extending RDF with more expressive constructs aimed at facilitating agent interaction on the Web (Hendler and McGuinness 2000). Many disciplines now develop standardized ontologies that domain experts can use to share and annotate information in their fields. Medicine, for example, has produced large, standardized, structured vocabularies such as SNOMED (Price and Spackman 2000) and the semantic network of the Unified Medical Language System (Humphreys and Lindberg 1993). Broad general-purpose ontologies are emerging as well. For example, the United Nations Development Program and Dun & Bradstreet combined their efforts to develop the UNSPSC ontology which provides terminology for products and services (www.unspsc.org). An ontology defines a common vocabulary for researchers who need to share information in a domain. It includes machine-interpretable definitions of basic concepts in the domain and relations among them. Why would someone want to develop an ontology? Some of the reasons are:

The Semantic Web" in Scientific American <=SEP=> 

Hand Gesture Recognition System <=SEP=> The task of gesture recognition is highly challenging due to complex background, presence of nongesture hand motions, and different illumination environments. In this paper, a new technique is proposed which begins by detecting the hand and determining its canter, tracking the hands trajectory and analyzing the variations in the hand locations, and finally recognizing the gesture. The proposed technique overcomes background complexity and distance from camera which is up to 2.5 meters. Experimental results show that the proposed technique can recognize 12 gestures with rate above 94%. Keywords— Hand gesture recognition, skin detection, Hand tracking.

A review of split-bolus single-pass CT in the assessment of trauma patients <=SEP=> The purpose of this study was to review and compare the image quality and radiation dose of split-bolus single-pass computed tomography(CT) in the assessment of trauma patients in comparison to standard multi-phase CT techniques. An online electronic database was searched using the MESH terms “split-bolus,” “dual phase,” and “single pass.” Inclusion criteria required the research article to compare a split contrast bolus protocol in a single-pass scan in the assessment of trauma patients. Studies using split-bolus CT technique in non-traumatic injury assessment were excluded. Six articles met the inclusion criteria. Parenchymal and vascular image qualities, as well as subjective image quality assessments, were equal or superior in comparison to non-split-bolus multi-phase trauma CT protocols. Split-bolus single-pass CT decreased radiation exposure in all studies. Further research is required to determine the superior split-bolus protocol and the specificity and sensitivity of detecting blunt cerebrovascular injury screening, splenic parenchymal vascular lesions, and characterization of pelvic vascular extravasation.

Dual-Band Microstrip Bandpass Filter Using Stepped-Impedance Resonators With New Coupling Schemes <=SEP=> A microstrip bandpass filter using stepped-impedance resonators is designed in low-temperature co-fired ceramic technology for dual-band applications at 2.4 and 5.2 GHz. New coupling schemes are proposed to replace the normal counterparts. It is found that the new coupling scheme for the interstages can enhance the layout compactness of the bandpass filter; while the new coupling scheme at the input and output can improve the performance of the bandpass filter. To validate the design and analysis, a prototype of the bandpass filter was fabricated and measured. It is shown that the measured and simulated performances are in good agreement. The prototype of the bandpass filter achieved insertion loss of 1.25 and 1.87 dB, S11 of -29 and -40 dB, and bandwidth of 21% and 12.7% at 2.4 and 5.2 GHz, respectively. The bandpass filter is further studied for a single-package solution of dual-band radio transceivers. The bandpass filter is, therefore, integrated into a ceramic ball grid array package. The integration is analyzed with an emphasis on the connection of the bandpass filter to the antenna and to the transceiver die

A Survey on the Security of Stateful SDN Data Planes <=SEP=> Software-defined networking (SDN) emerged as an attempt to introduce network innovations faster, and to radically simplify and automate the management of large networks. SDN traditionally leverages OpenFlow as device-level abstraction. Since OpenFlow permits the programmer to “just” abstract a static flow-table, any stateful control and processing intelligence is necessarily delegated to the network controller. Motivated by the latency and signaling overhead that comes along with such a two-tiered SDN programming model, in the last couple of years several works have proposed innovative switch-level (data plane) programming abstractions capable to deploy some smartness directly inside the network switches, e.g., in the form of localized stateful flow processing. Furthermore, the possible inclusion of states and state maintenance primitives inside the switches is currently being debated in the OpenFlow standardization community itself. In this paper, after having provided the reader with a background on such emerging stateful SDN data plane proposals, we focus our attention on the security implications that data plane programmability brings about. Also via the identification of potential attack scenarios, we specifically highlight possible vulnerabilities specific to stateful in-switch processing (including denial of service and saturation attacks), which we believe should be carefully taken into consideration in the ongoing design of current and future proposals for stateful SDN data planes.

Prosthetic gingival reconstruction in a fixed partial restoration. Part 1: introduction to artificial gingiva as an alternative therapy. <=SEP=> The Class III defect environment entails a vertical and horizontal deficiency in the edentulous ridge. Often, bone and soft tissue surgical procedures fall short of achieving a natural esthetic result. Alternative surgical and restorative protocols for these types of prosthetic gingival restorations are presented in this three-part series, which highlights the diagnostic and treatment aspects as well as the lab and maintenance challenges. A complete philosophical approach involves both a biologic understanding of the limitations of the hard and soft tissue healing process as well as that of multiple adjacent implants in the esthetic zone. These limitations may often necessitate the use of gingiva-colored "pink" restorative materials and essential preemptive planning via three-dimensional computer-aided design/computer-assisted manufacture to achieve the desired esthetic outcome. The present report outlines a rationale for consideration of artificial gingiva when planning dental prostheses. Prosthetic gingiva can overcome the limitations of grafting and should be a consideration in the initial treatment plan. (Int J Periodontics Restorative Dent 2009;29:471-477.).

Car monitoring, alerting and tracking model: Enhancement with mobility and database facilities <=SEP=> Statistics show that the number of cars is increasing rapidly and so is the number of car theft attempts, locally and internationally. Although there are a lot of car security systems that had been produced lately, but the result is still disappointing as the number of car theft cases still increases. The thieves are inventing cleverer and stronger stealing techniques that need more powerful security systems. This project “Car Monitoring and Tracking System” is being proposed to solve the issue. It introduces the integration between monitoring and tracking system. Both elements are very crucial in order to have a powerful security system. The system can send SMS and MMS to the owner to have fast response especially if the car is nearby. This paper focuses on using MMS and database technology, the picture of the intruder will be sent via local GSM/GPRS service provider to user (and/or) police. The Database offers the required information about car and owner, which will help the police or security authorities in their job. Moreover, in the event of theft local police and user can easily track the car using GPS system that can be link to Google Earth and other mapping software. The implementation and testing results show the success of prototype in sending MMS to owner within 40 seconds and receiving acknowledgment to the database (police or security unit) within 4 minutes. The timing and results are suitable to owner and police to take suitable action against intruder.

Data Governance Framework for Big Data Implementation with a Case of Korea <=SEP=> Big Data governance requires a data governance that can satisfy the needs for corporate governance, IT governance, and ITA/EA. While the existing data governance focuses on the processing of structured data, Big Data governance needs to be established in consideration of a broad sense of Big Data services including unstructured data. To achieve the goals of Big Data, strategies need to be established together with goals that are aligned with the vision and objective of an organization. In addition to the preparation of the IT infrastructure, a proper preparation of the components is required to effectively implement the strategy for Big Data services. We propose the Big Data Governance Framework in this paper. The Big Data governance framework presents criteria different from existing criteria at the data quality level. It focuses on timely, reliable, meaningful, and sufficient data services, focusing on what data attributes should be achieved based on the data attributes of Big Data services. In addition to the quality level of Big Data, the personal information protection strategy and the data disclosure/accountability strategy are also needed to achieve goals and to prevent problems. This paper performed case analysis based on the Big Data Governance Framework with the National Pension Service of South Korea. Big Data services in the public sector are an inevitable choice to improve the quality of people's life. Big Data governance and its framework are the essential components for the realization of Big Data service.

Numeric data frames and probabilistic judgments in complex real-world environments <=SEP=> This thesis investigates human probabilistic judgment in complex real-world settings to identify processes underpinning biases across groups which relate to numerical frames and formats. Experiments are conducted replicating real-world environments and data to test judgment performance based on framing and format. Regardless of background skills and experience, people in professional and consumer contexts show a strong tendency to perceive the world from a linear perspective, interpreting information in concrete, absolute terms and making judgments based on seeking and applying linear functions. Whether predicting sales, selecting between financial products, or forecasting refugee camp data, people use minimal cues and systematically apply additive methods amidst non-linear trends and percentage points to yield linear estimates in both rich and sparse informational contexts. Depending on data variability and temporality, human rationality and choice may be significantly helped or hindered by informational framing and format. The findings deliver both theoretical and practical contributions. Across groups and individual differences, the effects of informational format and the tendency to linearly extrapolate are connected by the bias to perceive values in concrete terms and make sense of data by seeking simple referent points. People compare and combine referents using additive methods when inappropriate and adhere strongly to defaults when applied in complex numeric environments. The practical contribution involves a framing manipulation which shows that format biases (i.e., additive processing) and optimism (i.e., associated with intertemporal effects) can be counteracted in judgments involving percentages and exponential growth rates by using absolute formats and positioning defaults in future event context information. This framing manipulation was highly effective in improving loan choice and repayment judgments compared to information in standard finance industry formats. There is a strong potential to increase rationality using this data format manipulation in other financial settings and domains such as health behaviour change in which peoples’ erroneous interpretation of percentages and non-linear relations negatively impact choice and behaviours in both the short and long-term.

A reconfigurable three- and single-phase AC/DC non-isolated bi-directional converter for multiple worldwide voltages <=SEP=> AC/DC converters for worldwide deployment or multiple applications are often required to operate with single-or three-phase AC connections at a variety of voltages. Electric vehicle charging is an excellent example: a typical AC/DC converter optimized for a 400 V three-phase European connection will only produce about 35% of rated power when operating on a 240 V single-phase connection in North America. This paper proposes a reconfigurable AC-DC converter with integral DC-DC stage that allows the single-phase AC power to roughly double compared to a standard configuration, up to 2/3 of the DC/DC stage rating. The system is constructed with two conventional back-to-back three-phase two-level bridges. When operating in single-phase mode, rather than leaving the DC side under-utilized, our proposed design repurposes one of the DC phase legs and the unused AC phase to create two parallel single-phase connections. This roughly doubles the AC output current and hence doubles the single phase AC power.

Instructional video in e-learning: Assessing the impact of interactive video on learning effectiveness <=SEP=> Interactive video in an e-learning system allows proactive and random access to video content. Our empirical study examined the influence of interactive video on learning outcome and learner satisfaction in e-learning environments. Four different settings were studied: three were e-learning environments—with interactive video, with non-interactive video, and without video. The fourth was the traditional classroom environment. Results of the experiment showed that the value of video for learning effectiveness was contingent upon the provision of interactivity. Students in the e-learning environment that provided interactive video achieved significantly better learning performance and a higher level of learner satisfaction than those in other settings. However, students who used the e-learning environment that provided non-interactive video did not improve either. The findings suggest that it may be important to integrate interactive instructional video into e-learning systems. # 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

IoT based monitoring and control of appliances for smart home <=SEP=> The recent technology in home automation provides security, safety and comfortable life at home. That is why in the competitive environment and fast world, home automation technology is required for every person. This purposed home automation technology provides smart monitoring and control of the home appliances as well as door permission system for interaction between the visitor and home/office owner. The control and monitoring the status (ON/OFF of the appliances) have been implemented using multiple ways such as The Internet, electrical switch, and Graphical User Interface (GUI) interface. The system has low-cost design, user-friendly interface, and easy installation in home or multi-purpose building. Using this technology, the consumer can reduce the wastage of electrical power by regular monitoring of home appliances or the proper ON/OFF scheduling of the devices.

2.1 28Gb/s 560mW multi-standard SerDes with single-stage analog front-end and 14-tap decision-feedback equalizer in 28nm CMOS <=SEP=> A high-speed SerDes must meet multiple challenges including high-speed operation, intensive equalization technique, low power consumption, small area and robustness. In order to meet new standards, such a OIF CEI-25G-LR, CEI-28G-MR/SR/VSR, IEEE802.3bj and 32G-FC, data-rates are increased to 25 to 28Gb/s, which is more than 75% higher than the previous generation of SerDes. For SerDes applications with several hundreds of lanes integrated in single chip, power consumption is very important factor while maintaining high performance. There are several previous works at 28Gb/s or higher data-rate [1-2]. They use an unrolled DFE to meet the critical timing margin, but the unrolled DFE structure increases the number of DFE slicers, increasing the overall power and die area. In order to tackle these challenges, we introduce several circuits and architectural techniques. The analog front-end (AFE) uses a single-stage architecture and a compact on-chip passive inductor in the transimpedance amplifier (TIA), providing 15dB boost. The boost is adaptive and its adaptation loop is decoupled from the decision-feedback equalizer (DFE) adaptation loop by the use of a group-delay adaptation (GDA) algorithm. DFE has a half-rate 1-tap unrolled structure with 2 total error latches for power and area reduction. A two-stage sense-amplifier-based slicer achieves a sensitivity of 15mV and DFE timing closure. We also develop a high-speed clock buffer that uses a new active-inductor circuit. This active-inductor circuit has the capability to control output-common-mode voltage to optimize circuit operating points.

Understanding Human Motion and Gestures for Underwater Human-Robot Collaboration <=SEP=> In this paper, we present a number of robust methodologies for an underwater robot to visually detect, follow, and interact with a diver for collaborative task execution. We design and develop two autonomous diver-following algorithms, the first of which utilizes both spatialand frequency-domain features pertaining to human swimming patterns in order to visually track a diver. The second algorithm uses a convolutional neural network-based model for robust tracking-by-detection. In addition, we propose a hand gesture-based human-robot communication framework that is syntactically simpler and computationally more efficient than the existing grammar-based frameworks. In the proposed interaction framework, deep visual detectors are used to provide accurate hand gesture recognition; subsequently, a finite-state machine performs robust and efficient gesture-to-instruction mapping. The distinguishing feature of this framework is that it can be easily adopted by divers for communicating with underwater robots without using artificial markers or requiring memorization of complex language rules. Furthermore, we validate the performance and effectiveness of the proposed methodologies through extensive field experiments in closedand open-water environments. Finally, we perform a user interaction study to demonstrate the usability benefits of our proposed interaction framework compared to existing methods.

mTOR regulation of autophagy. <=SEP=> Nutrient starvation induces autophagy in eukaryotic cells through inhibition of TOR (target of rapamycin), an evolutionarily-conserved protein kinase. TOR, as a central regulator of cell growth, plays a key role at the interface of the pathways that coordinately regulate the balance between cell growth and autophagy in response to nutritional status, growth factor and stress signals. Although TOR has been known as a key regulator of autophagy for more than a decade, the underlying regulatory mechanisms have not been clearly understood. This review discusses the recent advances in understanding of the mechanism by which TOR regulates autophagy with focus on mammalian TOR (mTOR) and its regulation of the autophagy machinery.

EyeTell: Video-Assisted Touchscreen Keystroke Inference from Eye Movements <=SEP=> Keystroke inference attacks pose an increasing threat to ubiquitous mobile devices. This paper presents EyeTell, a novel video-assisted attack that can infer a victim's keystrokes on his touchscreen device from a video capturing his eye movements. EyeTell explores the observation that human eyes naturally focus on and follow the keys they type, so a typing sequence on a soft keyboard results in a unique gaze trace of continuous eye movements. In contrast to prior work, EyeTell requires neither the attacker to visually observe the victim's inputting process nor the victim device to be placed on a static holder. Comprehensive experiments on iOS and Android devices confirm the high efficacy of EyeTell for inferring PINs, lock patterns, and English words under various environmental conditions.

Rigid-Foldable Thick Origami <=SEP=> In this paper, a method is proposed for geometrically constructing thick panel structures that follow the kinetic behavior of rigid origami by using tapered or two-ply panels and hinges located at their edges. The proposed method can convert generalized pattern of rigid-foldable origami into thick panels structure with kinetic motion, which leads to novel designs of origami for various engineering purposes including architecture.

Moving ERP Systems to the Cloud-Data Security Issues <=SEP=> This paper brings to light data security issues and concerns for organizations by moving their Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems to the cloud. Cloud computing has become the new trend of how organizations conduct business and has enabled them to innovate and compete in a dynamic environment through new and innovative business models. The growing popularity and success of the cloud has led to the emergence of cloud-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) ERP systems, a new alternative approach to traditional on-premise ERP systems. Cloud-based ERP has a myriad of benefits for organizations. However, infrastructure engineers need to address data security issues before moving their enterprise applications to the cloud. Cloud-based ERP raises specific concerns about the confidentiality and integrity of the data stored in the cloud. Such concerns that affect the adoption of cloud-based ERP are based on the size of the organization. Small to medium enterprises (SMEs) gain the maximum benefits from cloud-based ERP as many of the concerns around data security are not relevant to them. On the contrary, larger organizations are more cautious in moving their mission critical enterprise applications to the cloud. A hybrid solution where organizations can choose to keep their sensitive applications on-premise while leveraging the benefits of the cloud is proposed in this paper as an effective solution that is gaining momentum and popularity for large organizations.

Implementation of RSA 2048-bit and AES 256-bit with digital signature for secure electronic health record application <=SEP=> This research addresses the implementation of encryption and digital signature technique for electronic health record to prevent cybercrime problem such as robbery, modification and unauthorized access. In this research, RSA 2048-bit algorithm, AES 256-bit and SHA 256 will be implemented in Java programming. Secure Electronic Health Record Information (SEHR) application design is intended to combine given services, such as confidentiality, integrity, authentication, and non-repudiation. Cryptography is used to ensure the file records and electronic documents for detailed information on the medical past, present and future forecasts that have been given only for the patients. The document will be encrypted using an encryption algorithm based on NIST Standard. In the application, there are two schemes, namely the protection and verification scheme. This research uses black-box testing and white-box testing to test the software input, output, and code without testing the process and design that occurs in the system. We demonstrated the implementation of cryptography in Secure Electronic Health Record Information (SEHR). The implementation of encryption and digital signature in this research can prevent archive thievery which is shown on implementation and is proven on the test.

An automotive radar network based on 77 GHz FMCW sensors <=SEP=> Automotive radar sensors will be used in many future applications to increase comfort and safety. Adaptive cruise control (ACC), parking aid, collision warning or avoidance and pre crash are some automotive applications, which are based on high performance radar sensors. This paper describes results gained by an European Commission funded research project and a new radar network based on four individual monostatic 77 GHz FMCW radar sensors. Each sensor measures target range and velocity simultaneously and extremely accurate even in multiple target situations with a maximum range of 40 m. The azimuth angle is estimated by multilateration techniques in a radar network architecture. The system design and the signal processing of this network are described in detail in this paper. Due to the high range resolution performance of each radar sensor ordinary targets cannot be considered any longer as point but as extended targets. System capability, performance and reliability can be improved essentially if the single sensor FMCW signal processing, the target position processing in the radar network and the tracking scheme are jointly optimized.

Sex differences in intrinsic aptitude for mathematics and science?: a critical review. <=SEP=> This article considers 3 claims that cognitive sex differences account for the differential representation of men and women in high-level careers in mathematics and science: (a) males are more focused on objects from the beginning of life and therefore are predisposed to better learning about mechanical systems; (b) males have a profile of spatial and numerical abilities producing greater aptitude for mathematics; and (c) males are more variable in their cognitive abilities and therefore predominate at the upper reaches of mathematical talent. Research on cognitive development in human infants, preschool children, and students at all levels fails to support these claims. Instead, it provides evidence that mathematical and scientific reasoning develop from a set of biologically based cognitive capacities that males and females share. These capacities lead men and women to develop equal talent for mathematics and science.

Reality mining based on Social Network Analysis <=SEP=> Data Mining is the extraction of hidden predictive information from large databases. The process of discovering interesting, useful, nontrivial patterns from large spatial datasets is called spatial data mining. When time gets associated it becomes spatio temporal data mining. The study of spatio temporal data mining is of great concern for the study of mobile phone sensed data. Reality Mining is defined as the study of human social behavior based on mobile phone sensed data. It is based on the data collected by sensors in mobile phones, security cameras, RFID readers, etc. All allow for the measurement of human physical and social activity. In this paper Netviz, Gephi and Weka tools have been used to convert and analyze the Facebook. Further, analysis of a reality mining dataset is also presented.

Improving Restaurants by Extracting Subtopics from Yelp Reviews <=SEP=> In this paper, we describe latent subtopics discovered from Yelp restaurant reviews by running an online Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) algorithm. The goal is to point out demand of customers from a large amount of reviews, with high dimensionality. These topics can provide meaningful insights to restaurants about what customers care about in order to increase their Yelp ratings, which directly affects their revenue. We used the open dataset from the Yelp Dataset Challenge with over 158,000 restaurant reviews. To find latent subtopics from reviews, we adopted Online LDA, a generative probabilistic model for collections of discrete data such as text corpora. We present the breakdown of hidden topics over all reviews, predict stars per hidden topics discovered, and extend our findings to that of temporal information regarding restaurants peak hours. Overall, we have found several interesting insights and a method which could definitely prove useful to restaurant owners.

Ontology Based SMS Controller for Smart Phones <=SEP=> Text analysis includes lexical analysis of the text and has been widely studied and used in diverse applications. In the last decade, researchers have proposed many efficient solutions to analyze / classify large text dataset, however, analysis / classification of short text is still a challenge because 1) the data is very sparse 2) It contains noise words and 3) It is difficult to understand the syntactical structure of the text. Short Messaging Service (SMS) is a text messaging service for mobile/smart phone and this service is frequently used by all mobile users. Because of the popularity of SMS service, marketing companies nowadays are also using this service for direct marketing also known as SMS marketing.In this paper, we have proposed Ontology based SMS Controller which analyze the text message and classify it using ontology aslegitimate or spam. The proposed system has been tested on different scenarios and experimental results shows that the proposed solution is effective both in terms of efficiency and time. Keywords—Short Text Classification; SMS Spam; Text Analysis; Ontology based SMS Spam; Text Analysis and Ontology

BP-STDP: Approximating backpropagation using spike timing dependent plasticity <=SEP=> The problem of training spiking neural networks (SNNs) is a necessary precondition to understanding computations within the brain, a field still in its infancy. Previous work has shown that supervised learning in multi-layer SNNs enables bio-inspired networks to recognize patterns of stimuli through hierarchical feature acquisition. Although gradient descent has shown impressive performance in multi-layer (and deep) SNNs, it is generally not considered biologically plausible and is also computationally expensive. This paper proposes a novel supervised learning approach based on an event-based spike-timing-dependent plasticity (STDP) rule embedded in a network of integrate-and-fire (IF) neurons. The proposed temporally local learning rule follows the backpropagation weight change updates applied at each time step. This approach enjoys benefits of both accurate gradient descent and temporally local, efficient STDP. Thus, this method is able to address some open questions regarding accurate and efficient computations that occur in the brain. The experimental results on the XOR problem, the Iris data, and the MNIST dataset demonstrate that the proposed SNN performs as successfully as the traditional NNs. Our approach also compares favorably with the state-of-the-art multi-layer SNNs.

A Requirements-to-Implementation Mapping Tool for Requirements Traceability <=SEP=> Software quality is a major concern in software engineering, particularly when we are dealing with software services that must be available 24 hours a day, please the customer and be kept permanently. In software engineering, requirements management is one of the most important tasks that can influence the success of a software project. Maintain traceability information is a fundamental aspect in software engineering and can facilitate the process of software development and maintenance. This information can be used to support various activities such as analyzing the impact of changes and software verification and validation. However, traceability techniques are mainly used between requirements and software test cases. This paper presents a prototype of a tool that supports the mapping of functional requirements with the pages and HTML elements of a web site. This tool helps maintaining requirements traceability information updated and, ultimately, increasing the efficiency of requirements change management, which may contribute to the overall quality of the software service.