waashk/dblp huggingface dataset:
combining queueing networks and web usage mining techniques for web performance analysis. the growing interest in web applications that satisfy end-to-end quality of service (qos) requirements is leading many organizations to build and analyze performance behavior models. in this direction, web usage mining techniques may help in the automatic construction of user profiles from web access logs. however, their use has been mainly limited to customer relationship management (crm) issues and to market analyses. the aim of this paper is to explain how web usage mining can be combined with queueing networks for effective web capacity planning. after introducing a new general relative cosine similarity measure, we define a performance-oriented similarity for web usage data. a methodology to devise the input parameters of a queueing network from the resulting clusters is also presented. finally, the proposed approach is illustrated on a simple case study.
xeai-rules: executable models to simulate enterprise application cooperation. we propose an approach to create application-cooperation executable uml models by performing transformations on high-level business rule models. business rules are defined, using activity diagrams, then, they are transformed to an annotated pim to, finally, be transformed into an executable uml (xuml) model. the xuml model along side with a set of test cases enables us to validate that applications, whose cooperation is described in the rules, maintain consistency and integrity. because this validation is based on a non-distributed, platform-independent simulation the cost and effort of its development and testing is reduced; early detection of flaws can help avoid expensive modifications on a concrete platform specific implementation.
design time support for adaptive behavior in web sites. adaptive web sites are sites that automatically improve their internal organization and/or presentation by observing user-browsing behavior. in this paper we argue that adaptive behavior of websites should be controlled in order to keep the website manageable. we believe that adaptive behavior may be a useful complement to a good website design method on the condition that the adaptations are limited and according to the modeling approach followed during design. therefore, we allow a website designer to specify at design time the adaptive behavior that will be allowed at runtime. to accomplish this goal, an adaptation specification language is defined that allows designers to specify at the level of the navigational model, which adaptations could be performed at runtime. the language is event based, i.e. a collection of rules is used to specify the adaptation operations to be carried out if certain conditions are satisfied. the approach proposed is elaborated in the context of wsdm, an audience driven website design method, but is generally applicable to other design methodologies.
a component-based implementation of multiple sequence alignment. this paper addresses the efficient execution of a multiple sequence alignment (msa) method, in particular the progressive alignment-based clustal w algorithm, on a cluster of workstations. we describe a scalable component-based implementation of clustal w program targeting distributed memory machines and multiple query workloads. we look at the effect of data caching on the performance of the data server. we present a distributed, persistent cache approach for caching intermediate results for reuse in subsequent or concurrent queries. our initial results show that the cache-enabled clustal w program scales well on a cluster of workstations.
sharing scientific models in environmental applications. environmental applications have been stimulating the cooperation among scientists from different disciplines. there are many examples where this cooperation takes place through exchanging scientific resources, such as data, programs and mathematical models. finding the right model to apply in an environmental problem is a difficult task. usually, this decision is based on previous experience. to facilitate the exchange and dissemination of information we propose a scientific resources architecture, where scientists may share their data, programs and models. we also present a scientific publishing metamodel for scientific resources description. the main goal of the proposed architecture is to provide scientific metadata support to effective model sharing, representing an innovative contribution to environmental applications. scientific experiments and workflows are also considered as scientific resources that need to be shared. we believe that the proposed scientific publishing metamodel could be naturally extended to include these other scientific resources.
an implicit segmentation-based method for recognition of handwritten strings of characters. this paper describes an implicit segmentation-based method for recognition of strings of characters (words or numerals). in a two-stage hmm-based method, an implicit segmentation is applied to segment either words or numeral strings, and in the verification stage, foreground and background features are combined to compensate the loss in terms of recognition rate when segmentation and recognition are performed in the same process. a rigorous experimental protocol shows the performance of the proposed method for isolated characters, numeral strings, and words.
automated test scenarios generation for an e-barter system. this paper presents a formal specification of an e-barter system and a set of scenarios to test the conformance of a given implementation to some targeted system functionalities. the functionalities of the e-barter system are inspired from those presented in [7] that are based on intelligent agents using utility functions to represent customer preferences but also integrating transaction and shipping costs. the system specification is performed using the sdl language. it includes two markets representing two cities, both cities containing several agents representing the customers preferences. agents are different instances of the same process, allowing the dynamic inclusion of new agents and of new resources. the scenarios are generated from the specification and from some test purposes using a tool developed at int [1]. the test purposes express specific system properties and are used to guide the test generation procedure that is completely automated. in this paper, we also present the experimentation results of the application of our tool to the e-barter system.
a framework to simulate uml models: moving from a semi-formal to a formal environment. this paper presents a simulation framework for uml models based upon a mapping schema of uml metamodel elements into abstract state machines (asms). structural model elements are translated into an asm vocabulary as collections of domains and functions, whereas the dynamic view is captured by multi-agent asms reflecting the behavior modeled by uml state machines.in the toolkit presented, input uml models can be drawn using any uml case tool able to produce the xmi format for diagrams. this textual representation is exploited to initialize the asm model for uml state machines which can be symbolically executed by asmgofer, an advanced abstract state machine programming system.tool features are described through the simulation of a simple stack-printer uml model showing the interactions among state machines by signals exchange and operation calls.
emergent situations in interactive storytelling. interactive storytelling can either be based on explicit plot representations or on the autonomous behaviour of artificial characters. in such a character-based approach, the dynamic interaction between characters generates the actual plot from a generic storyline. characters' behaviours are implemented through real-time search-based planning techniques. however, the top-down planning systems that control artificial actors need to be complemented with appropriate mechanisms dealing with emerging ("bottom-up") situations of narrative relevance. after discussing the determinants of plot variability and the mechanisms that account for the emergence of narrative situations, we introduce additional mechanisms for coping with these situations. these comprise situated reasoning and action repair: we most specifically illustrate the latter through a detailed example.
addressing e-business privacy concerns: the roles of trust and value compatibility. collecting information is an important part of knowing the customer and growing a business. understanding the factors that affect a person's willingness to disclose personal information is crucial for learning how to collect and utilize that information. in this paper, a privacy model is proposed in which trust and the compatibility of the values of an individual and an organization are expected to enhance a person's willingness to disclose personal information. a survey is conducted to examine the impact of value compatibility on trust, the impact of trust on information disclosure, and the impact of value compatibility on information disclosure. strong empirical support is found for the effect of value compatibility on trust and for the effect of trust on information disclosure. conditional support is found for the effect of value compatibility on information disclosure, dependent on the sensitivity levels of the information items.
smartmethod: an efficient replacement for method. in the last few years the interest in reflection has grown and many modern programming languages/architectures have provided the programmer with reflective mechanisms. as well as any other novelty also reflection has detractors. they rightly or wrongly accuse reflection to be too inefficient to be used with real profit. in this work, we have investigated about the performance of java reflection library (especially of the class method and of its method invoke) and realized a mechanism which improves its performances. our mechanism consists of a class, named smartmethod and of a parser contributing to transform reflective invocations into direct call carried out by the standard invocation mechanism of java. the smartmethod class is compliant --- that is, it provides exactly the same services ---, with the class method of the standard java core reflection library but it provides a more efficient reflective method invocation.
[a]c#: c# with a customizable code annotation mechanism. reflective programming is becoming popular due to the increasing set of dynamic services provided by execution environments like jvm and clr. with custom attributes microsoft introduced an extensible model of reflection for clr: they can be used as additional decorations on element declarations. the same notion has been introduced in java 1.5. the extensible model proposed in both platforms limits annotations to class members. in this paper we describe [a]c#,1 an extension of the c# programming language, that allows programmers to annotate statements or code blocks and retrieve these annotations at run-time. we show how this extension can be reduced to the existing model. a set of operations on annotated code blocks to retrieve annotations and manipulate bytecode is introduced. finally, we discuss how to use [a]c# to annotate programs giving hints on how to parallel a sequential method and how it can be implemented by means of the abstractions provided by the run-time of the language.
towards a model-driven join point model. aspect-oriented programming (aop) is increasingly being adopted by developers to better modularize object-oriented design by introducing crosscutting concerns. however, due to tight coupling of existing approaches with the implementing code and to the poor expressiveness of the pointcut languages a number of problems became evident. we believe that such problems could be solved shifting the focus of software development from a programming language specific implementation to application design. this work presents a possible solution based on modeling aspects at a higher level of abstraction which are, in turn, transformed to specific targets.
aop for software evolution: a design oriented approach. in this paper, we have briefly explored the aspect-oriented approach as a tool for supporting the software evolution. the aim of this analysis is to highlight the potentiality and the limits of the aspect-oriented development for software evolution. from our analysis follows that in general (and in particular for aspectj) the approach to join points, pointcuts and advices definition are not enough intuitive, abstract and expressive to support all the requirements for carrying out the software evolution. we have also examined how a mechanism for specifying pointcuts and advices based on design information, in particular on the use of uml diagrams, can better support the software evolution through aspect oriented programming. our analysis and proposal are presented through an example.
editorial: track reliable computations and their applications. many numerical computations, be they solutions to systems of differential equations or optimization problems coming from applied areas like protein folding, do not provide us with guaranteed computation results. in many situations, we have numerical solutions, we may even have a theorem guaranteeing that, eventually, this numerical solution tends to the actual precise one, but the algorithm itself does not provide us with guaranteed bounds on the difference between the numerical approximate solution and the desired actual one. therefore, in some practical situations, numerical solutions are much farther from the actual (unknown) precise solutions than the users assume.
modeling sociotechnical specifics using architectural concepts. in this paper we focus on architectural concepts for complex sociotechnical systems. first we claim that there is a great need for model-based reasoning about systemic properties concerning questions of system design and the definition of long-term management policies. after this we take our starting point from formal methods, requirements engineering, and software architecture. we provide special extensions for these methods which are well-suited for the description of the behavioral relevance of cognitive parameters in sociotechnical systems. we maintain the visual style of modeling concepts as known from software architecture and provide an easy to use notation for reasoning about the features of specific decision situations. finally we provide concepts to deal with uncertain system behavior and human error.
data visualization using kernel density estimation to examine patterns of physician practice. studies have shown that examinations of physician practices and variation can improve patient care while reducing costs. however, most of the studies rely more on physician consensus than on data analysis. the existence of large hospital databases allows for the examination of the relationship between practice and outcome. because it is generally not known beforehand which practice optimizes outcome, particularly given the variability in patient risk, data mining techniques are ideal to examine the relationship. in particular, this paper uses the data visualization technique of kernel density estimation to explore and define physician practices. three physician practices were examined at a hospital during 2001--2002. the first physician practice identified was the administering of heparin to 100 patients as an anti-coagulant during angioplasty to open blocked coronary arteries. the second practice examined was two different open-heart procedures: one done on a cardiopulmonary bypass pump, the other done off bypass pump. the third physician practice examined the prescribing of antibiotics for patients undergoing open-heart surgery.
carrying on the e-learning process with a workflow management engine. in recent years e-learning systems have promised to change the way people learn. however open issues still remain, in particular actual e-learning environments do not consider learning activities as part of the process of learning. thus, it is not possible to define structured courses and specify precise learning paths apt to guide learners through learning materials. in our approach, we define courses as workflows. by so doing we can exploit powerful procedural rules in order to define precise while flexible learning paths. in this paper we present virtual campus, a research project sponsored by microsoft research (uk) and developed at politecnico di milano, that exploits a workflow engine to enacts the fruition of structured courses. our platform provides both an authoring and a fruition environment. the former allows teachers to define and customize learning paths, publishing them as workflows. the fruition environment enacts the workflows and guides learners through the related learning paths. we also describe an experience in using the platform during a software engineering course composed by heterogeneous activities (lectures, studying activities, cooperative sessions of work, and exams).
box-set consistency for interval-based constraint problems. as opposed to finite domain csps, arc consistency cannot be enforced, in general, on csps over the reals, including very simple instances. in contrast, a stronger property, the so-called box-set consistency, that requires a no-split condition in addition to arc consistency, can be obtained on a much larger number of problems.to obtain this property, we devise a lazy algorithm that combines hull consistency filtering, interval union projection, and intelligent domain splitting. it can be applied to any numerical csp, and achieves box-set consistency if constraints are redundancy-free in terms of variables. this holds even if the problem is not intervalconvex. the main contribution of our approach lies in the way we bypass the non-convexity issue, which so far was a synonym for either a loss of accuracy or an unbounded growth of label size.we prove the correctness of our algorithm and through experimental results, we show that, as compared to a strategy based on a standard bisection, it may lead to gains while never producing an overhead.
a heuristic approach for solving decentralized-pomdp: assessment on the pursuit problem. defining the behaviour of a set of situated agents, such that a collaborative problem can be solved is a key issue in multi-agent systems. in this paper, we formulate this problem from the decision theoretic perspective using the framework of decentralized partially observable markov decision processes (dec-pomdp). formulating the coordination problem in this way provides a formal foundation for study of cooperation activities. but, as it has been recently shown solving dec-pomdp is nexp-complete and thus it is not a realistic approach for the design of agent cooperation policies. however, we demonstrate in this paper that it is not completely desperate. indeed, we propose an heuristic approach for solving dec-pomdp when agents are memory-less and when the global reward function can be broken up into a sum of local reward functions. we demonstrate experimentally on an example (the so-called pursuit problem) that this heuristic is efficient within a few iteration steps.
a learning-based approach for fetching pages in webvigil. the world wide web is an omni-present and an ever-expanding source of data. data on the web is constantly increasing and changing. many a times, users are interested in specific changes to the data on the web. currently, in order to detect changes of interest, users have to poll the pages periodically and check for the changes of interest. webvigil is a general-purpose information monitoring and notification system. it handles the specification, intelligent fetch, detection, and propagation of changes as requested by a user while meeting the quality of service requirements. we use the active capability in the form of event-condition-action (eca) rules, and a combination of push/pull paradigm for change monitoring. in this paper, we present an overview of the specification language and the run time management of sentinels. we discuss in detail the use of eca rules for fetching and the adaptive learning algorithm used for fetching pages. we conclude with the implementation status of webvigil.
visualization of association rules over relational dbmss. the focus of this paper is the association rule visualization system that we have designed and developed. the rules produced by the mining algorithm are assumed to be stored in tables. the alternatives for visualization include tabular form, interactive two-dimensional, and three-dimensional graphics. by providing sorting and filtering abilities, the rule visualization system proposed in this paper provides a flexible, efficient, and easier way to manage and understand large number of association rules. as a result, this visualization system becomes an essential part of our association rule mining subsystem. we compare our association rule software with intelligent miner from ibm in various aspects, such as data accessibility, user interface, input/output, and rule visualization.
integrating smart card access to web-based medical information system. this paper examines the application of smart cards in the development of distributed medical information systems. the pocket mobility and security features of smart cards make them an ideal medium for storing the critical medical records of individual. however, the lack of interoperability and support for distributed operation has limited the development and usage of smart cards in a networked environment. this paper highlights the benefits of combining the world wide web and smart card technologies to support the development of highly robust health information system, while leveraging on the rich benefits of the web technology. in particular, we describe an approach of using the webcard service model as a common interface to communicate and access the medical records residing in a smart card that seamlessly integrates to existing web infrastructure. importantly, by employing http as the baseline protocol to access information on the smart card, webcard promotes the use of de facto standard web browsers as the common client user interface. the initial implementation of the framework and development of a case example of a web-based medical information site have demonstrated the feasibility of the concept of webcard.
cookies on-the-move: managing cookies on a smart card. despite the widespread use and adoption of cookies as the basis for web applications to keep state information, cookies present some design issues that are yet to be fully addressed. the fact that cookies are stored on client-side's memory means that they are tightly coupled to the machine that is interacting with the web server. yet often, these cookies are initiated by web applications to identify user's preferences and identifications. as the user moves across different machines to access the same site, the information previously recorded is lost and the web application has no way of restoring the state, unless the user revisits the same client machine, where the original cookies were set. this paper presents a novel solution to address the need for cookies to be "mobile" by leveraging on smart card to manage cookies, with the benefit of mobility in a pocket. we describe the design and implementation of the cookiescard framework that uses smart card as a secure and mobile storage media to manage personalized cookies. the article presents the development of the cookiescard proxy that directly interacts with the smart card to provide cookies management, while acting as an intermediatary between the client browser and a web server.