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Issue 1, Volume 5,
January 2008
Title
of the Paper: Application of Image Processing to Measure Road
Distresses
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Authors:
Maher I. Rajab, Mohammad H. Alawi, Mohammed A. Saif
Abstract: Pavements usually experience different types of distresses due to
repeated traffic loads, aggressive environmental conditions, construction
materials, soil condition of the underline subgrade, and the method of
construction. Longitudinal and transverse cracking, potholes, rutting, and
bleeding are common examples of such distresses associated with flexible
pavements. As time progresses, the severity of these distresses increases and
consequently, ride quality is adversely affected. Early detection and
measurement of the extent of distresses coupled with prompt reactive measures
are necessary to keep the pavement function at an acceptable level. Traditional
methods for distress detection and measurement are laborious, time consuming,
and subject the involved personnel to accidents. In contrast, image
measurement methods are effortless, safe, and can be performed in a short
time. This research paper performs image processing measurements to estimate
areas of a pothole and alligator cracking, and sets a program for plane
measurements of an area that experience rutting. The image measurements are
compared with the traditional measurements. The results show that image
measurements are close to those obtained by using the traditional methods.
Keywords: Pavement surface cracking, road distresses, alligator
cracking, rutting, image measurements.
Title
of the Paper: A Design and Implementation of a Web Server Log File
Analyzer
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Authors:
Yu-Hsin Cheng, Chien-Hung Huang
Abstract: More and more enterprises use network to communicate with the
suppliers or the customers, and also in receiving order forms, data
transmission, produces goods, stock warehousing in all enterprise management
procedure, carry on to the e-movement and enterprise competitive ability,
this act not only may save the production cost, moreover may fast reflect the
correlation information. But the enterprise owners or the website
administrators often cannot judge precisely whether their commercial websites
play the leading role in marketing function. In the settlement of this
problem, an intelligent website analysis software can often provide good and
effective assistance to business owners or website administrators, and then
improve the marketing results of the websites. The website analysis software
usually uses the log files in the system to produce statistical-related data,
and then obtains the useful information through the analysis. In this paper,
we discuss the implementation of an enterprise website analysis software we
have developed, and by the modification and the expansion the Analog from
free software to analyze the log files in the Apache web server, provides
more important information about visitors. We provide a user friendly
interface in the system for the enterprise administrators to accumulate the
important information of log files, in establishing the system, we add on
functions which detect illegal information, make the protective action, and
provide the dynamic E-Mail report function to the user.
Keywords:
log file, web server, website analysis, Configuration Interface Subsystem,
Illegal Information Detection Subsystem, Report Delivery Subsystem
Title
of the Paper: Batu Aceh Typology Identification Using Back Propagation
Algorithm
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Authors:
Azlinah Mohamed, Faizatul Huda Bt Mat, Sofianita Mutalib,
Shuzlina Abdul
Rahman, Noor Habibah Arshad
Abstract: Historical and cultural artifacts have defined the existence of
humankind all over the world. It is therefore important to preserve this
heritage for future endeavors. In the Malay-Indonesia Archipelago, the
forgotten and extinct artifact is the Islamic gravestone that originated in
Aceh known as Batu Aceh. This research is an attempt to preserve our heritage
by developing a prototype to guide the future generation to appreciate these
precious cultural heritage artifacts. Back propagation algorithm is applied
on a supervised classification of Batu Aceh object images. Several images of
each type of Batu Aceh are used as training samples. Data samples were
converted into binary forms and used to train the network. To ensure the
performance of the system, network parameters such as momentum value,
learning rate and number of hidden neuron would be adjusted to get the
appropriate setting. It is found that the prototype devised can identify the
type of Batu Aceh presented and its century. This research would provide
experts in this field an alternative to identify damaged or unclear images of
Batu Aceh.
Keywords: Artificial Neural Network, Back Propagation, Batu Aceh,
Image Processing, Image Classification and Pattern Recognition.
Title
of the Paper: A Neuro-Fuzzy Model for Function Point Calibration
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Authors:
Wei Xia, Luiz Fernando Capretz, Danny Ho
Abstract: The need to update the calibration of Function Point (FP)
complexity weights is discussed, whose aims are to fit specific software
application, to reflect software industry trend, and to improve cost
estimation. Neuro-Fuzzy is a technique that incorporates the learning ability
from neural network and the ability to capture human knowledge from fuzzy
logic. The empirical validation using ISBSG data repository Release 8 shows a
22% improvement in software effort estimation after calibration using
Neuro-Fuzzy technique.
Keywords: neuro-fuzzy, neural networks, fuzzy logic, software cost
estimation.
Title
of the Paper: Applications of Fuzzy Theory on Health Care: An Example of
Depression Disorder Classification Based on FCM
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Authors:
Sen-Chi Yu, Yuan-Horng Lin
Abstract: The purpose of this study is to apply fuzzy theory on health care. To
achieve this goal, Beck Depression Inventory (BDI)-II was adopted as the
instrument and outpatients of a psychiatric clinic were recruited as samples
and undergraduates as non-clinical sample as well. To elicit the membership
degree, we asked the subjects are free to choose more than one alternative
for each item listed in BDI and, in turn, assign percentages on the chosen
alternatives. Moreover, the sum of percentages of the chosen categories is
restricted to 100%.We performed the possibility- based (fuzzy c-means, FCM)
and probability-based classification (Wald’s method and k-means) to
classification of severity of depression. The scoring of BDI of subjects were
analyzed by clustering analysis while the diagnose of depression-severity by
a psychiatrist was used as the criterion to evaluate classification accuracy.
The percentage of correct classification among FCM, Wald’s method and k-means
were compared. The analytical results show the Kendall's τ
coefficient of FCM, Wald’s method and k-means were .549, .316, and .395,
respectively. That is, FCM exhibited a higher association between the
original and classified membership than did Wald’s and k-means methods. We concluded
that FCM identified the data structure more accurately than the two crisp
clustering methods. It is also suggested that considerable cost concerning
prevention and cure of depression might be reduced via FCM.
Keywords:
fuzzy c-means, depression, fuzzy logic, psychological assessment.
Issue 2, Volume 5,
February 2008
Title
of the Paper: A Detecting Peak’s Number Technique for Multimodal
Function Optimization
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Authors:
Qiang Hua, Bin Wu, Hao Tian
Abstract: A Detecting Peak's Number (DPN) technique is proposed for
multimodal optimization. In DPN technique, we want to know the peak’s number
of locally multimodal domain of every individual, firstly we use the idea of
orthogonal intersection for getting the exploration direction in every
locally multimodal domain, and then we attempt to detect peak’s number in
every one-dimension direction as the result of detecting of locally
multimodal domain. At last we design an evolution algorithm (DPNA) based on
the characters of DNP technique, which contain four characters: niching,
variable population, variable radius and life time, and then give a series of
experiment results which show the effectiveness of algorithm, as the DPNA is
not only adapting to obtaining multiple optima or suboptima, but also
effective for problem of ill-scaled and locally multimodal domain described
in [11].
Keywords: Evolution Algorithm; Multimodal Function Optimization;
Niching; Detecting Peak's Number
Title
of the Paper: Context-Dependent Extensible Syntax-Oriented Verifier
with Recursive Verification
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Authors:
Nhor Sok Lang, Takao Shimomura, Quan Liang Chen, Kenji Ikeda
Abstract: In order to develop Web applications of high quality, it is
important to apply efficient frameworks to standardize the process of
development in projects, or apply useful design patterns to produce the
program code that can easily be enhanced. However, it is not enough. In
addition to these efforts, we have to check the programs to see whether they
keep various kinds of rules such as verification items for security which are
common for all kinds of Web applications, and verification items for coding
styles or code conventions which are pertain to each project. This paper
proposes a verification method for the syntax-oriented verifier, and
describes the implementation of its prototype system, SyntaxVerifier. SyntaxVerifier
makes it possible to detect syntactical objects based on their syntactic
contexts. It realizes a recursive verification which makes it easy to
dynamically trace a syntax tree in a verification process itself.
Keywords: Customaizable, Extensible, Recursive, Syntax analysis,
Verification
Title
of the Paper: Context-Dependent Extensible Syntax-Oriented Verifier
with Recursive Verification
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Authors:
Nhor Sok Lang, Takao Shimomura, Quan Liang Chen, Kenji Ikeda
Abstract: In order to develop Web applications of high quality, it is
important to apply efficient frameworks to standardize the process of
development in projects, or apply useful design patterns to produce the
program code that can easily be enhanced. However, it is not enough. In
addition to these efforts, we have to check the programs to see whether they
keep various kinds of rules such as verification items for security which are
common for all kinds of Web applications, and verification items for coding
styles or code conventions which are pertain to each project. This paper
proposes a verification method for the syntax-oriented verifier, and
describes the implementation of its prototype system, SyntaxVerifier. SyntaxVerifier
makes it possible to detect syntactical objects based on their syntactic
contexts. It realizes a recursive verification which makes it easy to
dynamically trace a syntax tree in a verification process itself.
Keywords: Customaizable, Extensible, Recursive, Syntax analysis,
Verification
Title
of the Paper: Stroke Order Computer-based Assessment with Fuzzy Measure
Scoring
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Authors:
Guey-Shya Chen, Yu-Du Jheng, Hsu-Chan Yao, Hsiang-Chuan Liu
Abstract: The purpose of this research is to develop a computer-based
assessment for stroke order and a novel algorithm based on Choquet integral
with fuzzy measure for scoring stroke order of Chinese Character writing. The
learning of stroke order is very important for a fixed stroke writing
character system therefore this research based on the theory of “five
indexing system of Chinese characters” and combine the features of strokes
develops a stroke order assessment system to real-time evaluate learners’
stroke order and score their character writings. Except using traditional
additive scoring method, a non-additive scoring algorithm based on Choquet
integral with λ-measure
and L-measure was proposed. A real data set with 121 samples was examined and
experiment results show that the performances of this novel scoring model
based on Choquet integral with both λL-measure and -measure outperform
the performance of traditional scoring approach.
Keywords: stroke order, computer-based assessment, five indexing
systems of Chinese characters, λL-measure, -measure, Choquet
integral
Title
of the Paper: Analysis of Neural Network Edge Pattern Detectors in Terms
of Domain Functions
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Authors:
Maher I. Rajab,
Khalid A. Al-Hindi
Abstract: This paper investigates the analysis of feed-forward BP neural
network that has been trained to detect noisy edge patterns, so as to achieve
close insight into their internal functionality. The analysis of neural
network edge detector’s hidden units, as templates, were analysed into three
gradient components: low pass or averaging, gradient, and second-order
gradients. The weights between NNets hidden units and their output units
represent the importance of the hidden unit’s edge detection outcome. To this
purpose, the elements of the NNets, that have been trained to detect
prototype noisy edge patterns with various angle of operation, were analysed
in terms of domain functions. The results show that the NNets analysis using
the domain functions method could confirms the results of NNets recognition
accuracies. Although the work presented only gives some analysis results for
the units in the NNets hidden units, it should be clear that a
characterization of the neural network as a whole could also be derived from
these results.
Keywords: Neural networks analysis, domain functions, BP, recognition
accuracy, domain-specific base functions, Taylor series coefficients.
Title
of the Paper: Using System Dynamics for Managing Risks in Information
Systems
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Authors:
Denis Trcek
Abstract: Each and every security oriented activity in information systems
has to start with the basics, which is risk management. Although risk
management is a well established and known discipline in many other areas,
its direct translation to information systems is not an easy and
straightforward because of specifics of contemporary information systems. Among
these specifics there are the global connectivity of information systems, the
large number of elements (e.g. thousands of software components), strong
involvement of human factor, almost endless possible ways of interactions,
etc. Thus a new methodological approach is presented in this paper that is
based on business dynamics. It enables effective addressing of the above-mentioned
elements, and through this it supports and improves decision making in
information systems security.
Keywords: information systems, security, risk management
methodologies, system dynamics, simulations, reference models.
Title
of the Paper: Contrast Enhancement and Clustering Segmentation of Gray
Level Images with Quantitative Information Evaluation
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Authors:
Zhengmao Ye, Habib Mohamadian, Su-Seng Pang, Sitharama Iyengar
Abstract: Improper illumination and medium dispersing could occur in quite
some gray level image collecting processes. Contrast enhancement and
clustering segmentation are two effective approaches for the related pattern
recognition problems. Image enhancement and image segmentation can be applied
to different areas of science and engineering, such as biometric
identification, national defense and resource exploration. Thus, adaptive
image enhancement can be implemented to improve the image quality and to
reduce random noise simultaneously, which is used to adapt to the intensity
distribution within an image. Nonlinear K-means clustering can be applied for
image segmentation, which is to classify an image into parts which have
strong correlations with objects in order to reflect the actual information
being collected. For example, it can be used against the effects from
unevenly distributed pressure or temperature condition under atmosphere
medium and water medium. To evaluate the actual roles of image enhancement
and image segmentation, some quantity measures should be taken into account. In
this study, a set of quantitative measures is proposed to evaluate the
information flow of gray level image processing. Concepts of the gray level
energy, discrete entropy, relative entropy and mutual information are
proposed to measure outcomes of the adaptive image enhancement and K-means
image clustering.
Keywords: Contrast Enhancement, K-Means Segmentation, Gray Level
Image, Energy, Entropy, Relative Entropy, Mutual Information
Title
of the Paper: A Case Study of Usability Testing –
The SUMI Evaluation
Approach of the EducaNext Portal
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Authors:
Tanja Arh, Borka Jerman Blazic
Abstract: The new challenge for designers and Human–computer interaction
(HCI) researchers is to develop software tools and applications for effective
e-learning. Software usability is one aspect of Human–computer interaction
that can benefit from knowledge of the user and their tasks. However, in
practice not much attention is given to this issue during testing. Evaluators
often do not have the knowledge, instruments and/or time available to handle
usability. One set of methods for determining whether an application enables
users to achieve their predetermined goals effectively and efficiently is
usability evaluation with end users. The paper presents the results of
empirical study of usability evaluation which was based on SUMI (Software
Usability Measurement Inventory) questionnaires. The software application
tested was a multilingual educational portal EducaNext.
Keywords: human computer interaction (HCI), EducaNext educational
portal, distance learning, software usability measurement inventory (SUMI),
usability, end users
Title
of the Paper: Dynamic Backward Scheduling Method for Max-Plus Linear
Systems with a Repetitive, MIMO, FIFO Structure
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Authors:
Hiroyuki Goto, Shiro Masuda
Abstract: This paper proposes a dynamic scheduling method that considers
no-concurrency of resource with a subsequent event. We focus on repetitive
discrete event systems with a MIMO (Multiple Inputs and Multiple
Outputs)-FIFO structure. The behavior of this kind of system can be described
with linear equations in the max-plus algebra, also referred to as MPL
(Max-Plus Linear). Conventional MPL representation formulates no-concurrency
of resource with a previous event and can provide the earliest starting times
in internal facilities. We recently proposed a calculation method for a
single job; however, resource no-concurrency with a subsequent job is not
considered. Thus, it may not give an optimal solution if a large number of
jobs have to be considered simultaneously. Therefore, we derive a general
form of the MPL representation that provides the latest start times considering
no-concurrency with a subsequent event. We also consider an effective
rescheduling method that is applicable in cases in which the system
parameters are changed after the job has commenced.
Keywords: Repetitive system, state-space representation, max-plus
linear system, earliest/latest time, forward/backward type, rescheduling
Title
of the Paper: Intelligent Support to Specific Design Aspects
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Authors:
Urska Sancin, Jasmin Kaljun, Bojan Dolsak
Abstract: Due to increased rivalry on the market, some specific design
aspects like the use of modern plastics materials, ergonomics and aesthetics
are becoming more important and are not kept in the background any more in
correlation with functionality and economic aspect of the product. Design
engineer faces many dilemmas while designing new products as a single person
is not able to possess a wide spectrum of knowledge needed for optimal design
solutions. At this point designer have to rely on his or her experience and
on the knowledge of the expert team involved in the project. The fundamental
purpose of the research presented in this paper is to make the product
development process less experience dependent. The main goal of thematically
oriented research is to develop intelligent advisory system with integrated
modules for some specific design aspects.
Keywords: product development, ergonomics, aesthetics, plastics,
knowledge based engineering, intelligent systems
Title
of the Paper: Mining Long High Utility Itemsets in Transaction Databases
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Authors:
Guangzhu Yu, Shihuang Shao, Xianhui Zeng
Abstract: Existing algorithms for utility mining are column enumeration
based, adopt an Apriori-like candidate set generation-and-test approach, and
thus are inadequate on datasets with high dimensions or long patterns. To
solve the problem, this paper proposes a hybrid model and a row enumeration
based algorithm, i.e., inter-transaction, to discover high utility itemsets
from two directions: existing algorithms such as UMining [1] can be used to
seek short high utility itemsets from the bottom, while inter-transaction
seeks long high utility itemsets from the top. By intersecting relevant
transactions, the new algorithm can identify long high utility itemsets
directly, without extending short itemsets step by step. In addition, new
pruning strategies are used to cut down search space; optimization technique
is adopted to improve the performance of the intersection of transactions. Experiments
on synthetic data show that our method achieves high performance, especially
in large high dimensional datasets.
Keywords: long high utility itemset; hybrid mode; utility;
intersection transaction; row enumeration
Issue 3, Volume 5, March 2008
Title
of the Paper: An Interactive Web-Based Wedding Planner with Comparative
Analysis Decision Support System
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Authors:
L. Y. Por, R. F. Boey, T. F. Ang, C. S. Liew
Abstract: Preparing for weddings is always tedious, especially when it does
not involve hired help. Long checklists await soon-to-be brides and grooms
before their auspicious wedding ceremony. Without experienced assistance,
these brides and grooms face frustrating situations in hunting for suitable
bridal products and services. This work presents an ideal one stop solution,
called the Wedding Arch, for the brides and grooms to retrieve information on
available bridal products and services in the shortest possible time. This
web based wedding planner provides a platform for brides and grooms to
acquire information on bridal products and services, as well as information
of vendors registered with Wedding Arch and make wedding planning
reservations online with the simple click of a mouse. Thus, the long and
tedious task of information gathering has been shortened and made more
convenient. Most importantly, Wedding Arch also functions as a web based
comparative analysis decision support system that allows the brides and
grooms to subscribe to a service that will assist them in the process of
wedding planning and preparations. The system assists brides and grooms in
making decisions based on their preferences and budget while taking in
updated and current market pricings for their desired bridal products and
services.
Keywords: Wedding Arch, Wedding planner, Decision support system
(DSS), Budget planning and Web-based.
Title
of the Paper: FAQ-master: An Ontological Multi-Agent System for Web FAQ
Services
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Authors:
Sheng-Yuan Yang, Chun-Liang Hsu, Dong-Liang Lee, Lawrence Y. Deng
Abstract: This paper expresses the results of our research in developing a
multi-agent system: FAQ-master as an intelligent Web information integration
system based upon intelligent retrieval, filtering, integration, and ranking
capabilities in order to provide highquality FAQ answers from the Web to meet
the user information request. We are describing FAQ-master, discussing how it
improves FAQ query quality from the following three aspects of Web search
activities at the same time: user intention, document content processing, and
website search. The system is implemented as four agents working together
through an ontology-supported content base. Techniques involved in the design
include domain ontology, ontology-supported user query processing,
ontology-supported solution caching, ontology-directed FAQ wrapping, storage,
retrieval and ranking, and ontology-supported website classification and
expansion.
Keywords: Ontology, User Modeling, Proxy Mechanism, Website Modeling,
Multi-Agent Systems.
Title
of the Paper: Online and Post-processing of AVL Data in Public Bus
Transportation System
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Authors:
Dejan Rancic, Bratislav Predic, Vladan Mihajlovic
Abstract: For a number of years vehicle fleet tracking systems are in use in
companies operating large number of vehicles in the field. Proliferation of
cheap and compact GPS receivers had the effect that Automatic Vehicle
Location (AVL) systems today almost exclusively use satellite based locating
systems. This paper presents characteristics of realized system tracking and
analyzing city bus transit traffic in the city of Niš. Since the described
system also uses GPS for vehicle location, initially, data about vehicles’
locations acquired from AVL subsystem need to be transformed into form that
is adequate for further usage in the system, analysis and prediction. Also,
city bus transit tracking systems are specific concerning functionalities
differing them from other vehicle fleet tracking systems. These specifics
include cyclic vehicle routes, the need for specific performance reports etc.
This paper specifically deals with vehicle motion prediction with on station
arrival time estimation coupled with automatic report generation.
Keywords: Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL), Prediction of arrival
times, Continuous query processing, Information services, Intelligent
transportation systems (ITS), line matching
Title
of the Paper: Questionnaire-based Evaluation of Characteristics of a
Community in SNS
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Authors:
Susumu Takeuchi, Masanori Akiyoshi, Norihisa Komoda
Abstract: Currently, SNSes (Social Networking Services) are widely available
on the Internet. In a SNS, users can communicate with the users who have a
similar interest in a community. To activate communications drastically in
SNS, users are encouraged to join other dissimilar communities. In this
paper, utilizing activities of communities and relationships with communities
is proposed to realize a dissimilar community recommendation. However, such
communities tend to be useless for the users, so that investigating
characteristics of communities that are selected by the methods is necessary
to recommend. By utilizing real data in the largest SNS in Japan, the
correlations between the users’ subjective judgments and the characteristics
of communities are evaluated. As a result, it is clarified that effective
recommendation of dissimilar communities will be possible by integrating
activities of communities and relationships with communities.
Keywords: SNS, Social network, Interpersonal communication,
Activation, Community, Recommendation
Title
of the Paper: An Extraction of Emotion in Human Speech Using Speech
Synthesize and Classifiers for Each Emotion
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Authors:
Masaki Kurematsu, Jun Hakura, Hamido Fujita
Abstract: The typical method of estimation of emotion in speech has the 3
steps. First, researchers collect a lot of human speech. Next, researchers
get speech features from human speech using frequency analysis and calculate
the statistical value of them. Finally they make a classifier from the
statistical value using a learning algorithm. Most researchers consider the
collection of human speech, feature selection and learning algorithm to
increase the validity of estimation. But the validity of estimation is not
high. In this paper, we propose the 3 new methods to enhance the typical
method of estimation of emotion in speech. First method is that we use
synthetic speech to make a classifier. Second method is that we use not only
mean and maximum but also Standard Deviation (SD), skewness and kurtosis to
make a classifier. Third method is that we use the classifier for each
emotion. In order to evaluate our approach, we did experiments. Experimental
results show the possibility in which our approach is effective for improving
the former method.
Keywords: Emotion, Speech Synthesize, Regression Tree, Linear
Discriminant Analysis, Extraction of Emotion in Speech
Title
of the Paper: Prototype of Knowledge Management System in Chinese Offshore
Software Development Company
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Authors:
Li Cai, Zuoqi Wang, Yufeng Jiao, Masanori Akiyoshi, Norihisa Komoda
Abstract: This paper illustrates preliminary design and evaluation of a
knowledge managing system in Chinese offshore software development company. The
major features of the knowledge management system are a BBS style Q&A function,
a management of Q&A results based on domain knowledge, an association
retrieval function for coping with grammatical ambiguity including in the
queries, and a display of Q&A texts on the plain for grasping the general
distribution of knowledge and problems. The prototype system has developed
using JAVA and .Net Frameworks, and has used in-house. Through the trial use
in-house, not only the advantage but also several improvement problems are
clarified.
Keywords: knowledge management, question and answer system,
association retrieval
Title
of the Paper: Decision Making With Textual and Spatial Information
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Authors:
Hana Kopackova, Jitka Komarkova, Pavel Sedlak
Abstract: The aim of the paper is to show the way how textual and spatial
information can be used in decision making process. Structured information
represents only 10 % of available information. Despite of this fact managers
mostly rely on this type of information. Due to their marginalization in
decision making practice, we focused on textual and spatial information in
this article. Four case studies clearly illustrate usage of these types of
information on practical examples.
Keywords: Decision Making, Information, Text Categorization,
Clustering, GIS.
Title
of the Paper: Application of Social Relation Graphs for Early Detection of
Transient Spammers
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Authors:
Radoslaw Brendel, Henryk Krawczyk
Abstract: Early detection of social threats and anomalies is a real challenge
in today’s dynamic societies. The people form many complex social relations
that can be shown by various types of graphs in which the nodes would
represent the subjects (individuals or groups of people) and the links would
indicate specific relations between them. The analysis of these constantly
changing relations can point out specific social threats that are imminent. Observing
the tendency of changes in the social relation graphs, such threats can be
early detected and adequate preventative steps can be taken. In the paper we
present how this approach can be efficiently used to early detect imminent
threats of spam to a local e-mail society and isolate groups of spammers
before their messages reach the users inboxes.
Keywords: social graphs, imminent threats, graph patterns, spam
detection, security
Title
of the Paper: A New Method for Enhanced Information Content in Product
Model
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Authors:
Laszlo Horvath
Abstract: This paper introduces a new method in order to establish a better communication
between engineers and modeling procedures during lifecycle management of
product information in computer based engineering systems. The proposed
method is intended as one of the initial attempts for resolution of an
inherent conflict in product modeling. This conflict is between information
content based thinking of engineer and data based processing in classical
product modeling systems. The author applies a new sector of product model
that describes information content for engineering activities. This sector
controls engineering object data in the second sector for classical product
model entities. In this manner, the new modeling can be interconnected with
existing modeling in industrially applied engineering systems. Information
content is stored in interconnected levels of the product model for human
intent, meaning of concepts, engineering objectives, contexts, and decisions.
This paper explains basic concepts, refers to research in the related topics,
introduces role of humans and human-computer interactions in the proposed
modeling, and details information content based product modeling. Following
this, it emphasizes difficulties of decisions in case of high number of
dependencies amongst engineering objects in large product models and proposes
a new method for change management in those models. Implementation of the
proposed product modeling methods can be realized in industrial professional
modeling systems by using of their functionality for open architecture.
Keywords: Product modeling, Lifecycle management of product
information, Information content based product model, Design intent, Product
changes, Affect zone of modified engineering object
Title
of the Paper: Warehouse Redesign to Satisfy Tight Supply Chain Management
Constraints
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Authors:
Roman Buil, Miquel Angel Piera
Abstract: The picking process is a critical supply chain component for many
companies. A proper warehouse configuration, storage policy, trays
replenishment policy, and other factors are also important to reduce not only
the delivery time, but also increase productivity while maintaining quality
factors at competitive costs. This paper presents an integrated approach to
tackle the complexity of warehouse redesign under several space and quality
factor constraints. The proposed design methodology integrates warehouse
layout configuration, storage policy, replenishment policy, picking policy,
routing policy and also trays and shelves sizes design. As a result of the
proposed strategy, considerable savings on resource costs (equipment and
workers) can be achieved.
Keywords: Picking, warehouse, simulation, colored petri nets,
logistics, supply chain.
Title
of the Paper: Outcome Based Education Performance Measurement: A
Rasch-based Longitudinal Assessment Model to measure Information Management
Courses LO’s
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Authors:
Azlinah Mohamed, Azrilah Abd.
Aziz, Abd.
Rahman Ahlan Sohaimi Zakaria, Mohdsaidfudin Masodi
Abstract: Malaysia Qualification Framework, 2005 (MQF) promotes outcome based
education (OBE) learning process. OBE calls for the evaluation of the
course’s Learning Outcomes (CLO) as specified in the Program Specification. This
good practice is implemented in the Faculty of Information Technology and
Quantitative Science, Universiti Teknologi MARA (FTMSK) teaching and learning
processes which was duly certified to ISO 9001:2000. Assessment methods
include giving students’ tasks such as tests, quizzes or assignments at
intervals during the 14 weeks study period per semester. CLO’s were evaluated
based on the students’ performance which gives an indication of their learning
achievements. Despite the marks obtained is orderly in manner, it is on a
continuum scale. Hence, further evaluation using the raw score is rather
complex to be carried out. This paper describes a Rasch-based measurement
model as performance assessment tool to measure the CLO. Rasch Model uses
‘logit’ as the measurement unit thus transforms the assessment results into a
linear correlation. An overview of the measurement model and its key concepts
were presented and illustrated. An assessment form using Bloom’s Taxonomy as
parameter was designed showing each dimension of the ability to be measured. The
results there from were evaluated on how well it relates to the attributes
being assessed and scrutinized. It is further checked against the CLO Maps for
consistency and used as a guide for future improvement of the teaching method
and style. This provides the lecturers a more accurate insight of the student
level of competency achieved. The study shows that this model of measurement
can classify students’ grades into linear competency scale accurately using
only very few primary data sets to enable corrective action to be taken
effectively at the early stage of learning.
Keywords: Learning Outcomes, performance assessment, evaluation,
competency, Bloom’s Taxonomy, quality.
Title
of the Paper: Testing Cognitive Characteristics of Users in Interaction
with Computer
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Authors:
Nebojsa Dordevic, Dejan Rancic
Abstract: This paper presents some new research results on Human Computer
Interaction (HCI) methodologies. We present an extension of cognitive model
for HCI - (XUAN/t), based on decomposition of user dialogue into elementary
actions (GOMS). Using this model, descriptions of elementary (sensor,
cognitive and motor) actions performed by user and system are introduced
sequentially, as they will happen. Based on the described model and
psychometric concepts, we developed software CASE tool for testing cognitive
as well as psychomotor abilities of a user in HCI. Software tool arranges
tests into test groups for psychosensomotor and memory capabilities. User
test results are persistently stored in a database and available for further
statistical analysis. The main research goal was suitability verification of
different HCI techniques for special user groups. Case study was performed
and numerical results verifying the proposed model are presented in the
paper.
Keywords: HCI, User interface, Cognitive models, HCI testing tool,
User profile.
Title
of the Paper: PIRR:
A Methodology for Distributed Network Management in
Mobile Networks
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Authors:
Filippo Neri
Abstract: The current centralized Network Management approach in mobile
networks may lead to problems with being able to scale up when new customer
services and network nodes will be deployed in the network. The next
generation mobile networks proposed by 3rd Generation Partnership Project
(3GPP) envision a flat network architecture comprising some thousands of
network nodes, each of which will need to be managed, in a timely and
efficient fashion. This consideration has prompted a research activity to
find alternative application architectures that could overcome the limits of
the current centralized approaches. section approach to deal with the
increasing network size and complexity is to move from a centralized Network
Management system to a more distributed or decentralized approach where each
Network Management application consists of a controller part and a set of
distributed parts running on the individual network elements. This approach
however raises questions of how to measure and estimate the resource
requirements when planning to distribute the Network Management applications
in the mobile networks before starting to produce commercial systems. In this
paper, we describe the PIRR methodology we have developed to measure resource
requirements for distributed applications in mobile networks and the
experimental findings of its application to new Network Management
applications.
Keywords: Software Agents, JADE, Telecom network management system,
distributed simulation systems, 3G cellular system.
Title
of the Paper: A Hierarchical Relevance Feedback Algorithm for Improving
the Precision of Virtual Tutoring Assistant Systems
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Authors:
Ji-Wei Wu, Judy C.R. Tseng
Abstract: In recent years, several virtual tutoring assistant systems had
been proposed based on question-answering systems. These virtual tutoring
assistant systems are very helpful for the students to get instant helps when
the teachers are not available. Pedagogic scholars think that when a student
is stuck on a certain problem while learning, an instant tutoring assistant
is very helpful to promote his/her study. Therefore, the qualities
(precision) of the answers of virtual tutoring assistant systems are very
important. It determines the effectiveness of these systems. In practices,
some students are suffered from not being able to properly express their
need; some may not even know exactly what information they need. As a result,
some problems do not match any existing solutions, even if they do contain
some clues for finding solutions. That makes the effectiveness of the virtual
tutoring assistant systems not being acceptable. In the literatures,
researchers found that relevance feedback information are quite useful for
information retrieval systems to improve their effectiveness. Among them, the
Rocchio’s Relevance Feedback (RRF) algorithm is the most well-known and have
been employed in several information retrieval systems. In this paper, we
proposed a novel pseudo relevance feedback algorithm, called Hierarchical
Relevance Feedback (HRF) algorithm. The HRF algorithm is used for improving
the precision of virtual tutoring assistant systems. After a query is
submitted by some student, the new virtual tutoring assistant system will
automatically modify the student’s query according to the HRF algorithm and
re-submit it to the system. Experimental results showed that the
effectiveness of the system is improved by automatically modifying user’s
query using the HRF algorithm. Moreover, the HRF algorithm is also
outperformed the famous RRF algorithm.
Keywords: E-learning, Tutoring assistant, Information Retrieval,
Question-answering, Relevance feedback
Issue 4, Volume 5, April 2008
Title
of the Paper: Analysis of the Potential for Nearly Circular Slope Failure
Using On-site Survey Information with Adverse Calculation
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Authors:
Tienfuan Kerh, Y.
M. Wang, H.
C. Tsai
Abstract: Slope stability analysis is crucial for decreasing unwanted
economical loss at mountain highways which are prone to damage from heavy
rains. The objective of this study is to perform on-site investigation and
adverse calculation of slope damage at a specified road section along Tai-27
highway in Taiwan. By analysing a total of 38 on-site survey results, it is
found that the types of slope damage may include debris flow (26%), shallow
soil layer sliding (26%), nearly circular sliding (8%), slope oriented
sliding (3%), falling rock (11%), river erosion (13%), and others (13%). Based
on available geological information at three locations with nearly circular
slope failure, the adverse calculations using computer software show that
these slopes all failed at a shallow soil layer. Some of the important soil
strength parameters such as cohesion force and friction angle are estimated,
and a critical sliding surface is predicted for a minimum safety factor. The
results provide useful information for choosing a suitable engineering
protection work at these hazardous locations by the relevant agency.
Keywords: mountain highway, circular slope failure, adverse
calculation, on-site survey, factor of safety, cohesion force, friction
angle, critical sliding surface
Title
of the Paper: Analysis on the Adaptive Scaffolding Learning Path and the
Learning Performance of e-Learning
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Authors:
Chun-Hsiung Lee, Gwo-Guang Lee,
Yungho Leu
Abstract: Existing instruction websites record learners’ portfolios, they
only collect the browsing time and homepage information, without directly
provide teachers with more data for further analyzing learner behaviors. Consequently,
this investigation uses the learners’ portfolio left in the e-learning
environment, and adopts “data mining” techniques to establish for each
cluster of learners the most adaptive learning path pattern, which can provide
a “scaffolding” to guide each cluster of learners. Using statistical methods,
this investigation analyzes whether the navigational learning map of
“scaffolding learning path (SLP)” can improve learning performance. This
investigation discovers that among the three clusters of learners, the
learners in the experimental group under the two clusters other than
high-score cluster, after taking the “scaffolding learning path” as their
navigational learning map, achieve more significant progress than the learners
of comparative group. This implies that through the “scaffolding learning
path,” the learning performance of most learners can be improved.
Keywords: E-learning, Learning path, Scaffolding theory, Learning
portfolio, Data mining
Title
of the Paper: Using Integer Programming to Solve the Crew Scheduling
Problem in the Taipei Rapid Transit Corporation
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Authors:
Chui-Yen Chen
Abstract: The transport operation volume has reached millions of people since
the Taipei Rapid Transit Corporation (TRTC) started operating 28 March 1996. TRTC
has become the key public transportation in Taipei city. Crew scheduling of
station employees has become one of the basic costs of operating the Public
Rapid Transit System. During the planning stage of the project, a
mathematical model of planning phases was established and used to find
answers to crew scheduling and reduce costs. In general, the crew scheduling
problems relate to the “set covering” problem or “set partitioning” problem;
therefore, it is often described by the methods of 0-1 Integer Programming. Hence,
this study will adopt the methods of integer programming for mathematical
programming to establish a crew scheduling program. The Target-based formula
of using integer programming to solve the crew shift scheduling problem is
meant to meet the interests of station employees. Furthermore, this study
will use comparison analysis to research (1) common shift scheduling; (2)
employee’s preferred working hours; and (3) specified work day for employees
to help solve day off or other problems. We hope to provide this method to
the TRTC in a rapid and convenient timetable to improve the efficiency of
operations and business competition.
Keywords: Crew scheduling problem (CSP), 0-1 Integer programming,
Taipei Rapid Transit Corporation (TRTC)
Title
of the Paper: Malaysian Smart School Courseware Usability study: The
Effectiveness of Analytical Evaluation Technique Compared to Empirical Study
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Authors:
Azizah Jaafar
Abstract: Usability evaluation methods are used to evaluate the interaction
of the human with the computer for the purpose of identifying aspects of
interaction that could be improved t increase usability. This research was
carried out to determine the effectiveness of analytical evaluation technique
that was designed, developed and named as Jalan Rentasan Kognitif (JRK)
evaluation technique. This evaluation technique was conducted on thirty-seven
surrogate users that consist of courseware developers, teachers and
university students using the Malaysian Smart School Mathematics courseware. The
usability result was then compared statistically with the empirical usability
evaluation called Task Analysis Exploratory through Observation using video
camera (TAEO). The respondents of the empirical method were secondary school
students who used the same courseware as one of the learning aids in school. Usability
indicators used in the study were usability problems and users’ satisfaction.
The study showed that the effectiveness of the two techniques was quite
similar if they were used independently during the evaluation process. The
usability indicators obtained in the study could be used as references in the
usability comparisons of other educational courseware.
Keywords: Usability Evaluation Technique, Task Analysis, Surrogate
user, Usability problems.
Title
of the Paper: Analysis on Types of Mobile Games Played among the IHL
Students in Malaysia
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Authors:
Hafizullah Amin Hashim, Siti Hafizah Ab Hamid, Mas Idayu Md Sabri
Abstract: Mobile phones are no longer a luxury but are now considered a
necessity by its users. Many applications are developed to replace electronic
devices and extra ‘baggage’ that people used to carry around with them. A
mobile phone now also serves as a planner, camera, music player, video
player, gaming console, calculator and other useful gadgets. Mobile gaming is
getting more attention from gamers as one of the most preferable type of
digital games. One good reason that contributes to the success of mobile game
is because of its mobility, which means gamers can play games anytime and
anywhere. In this paper, we examine the usage of mobile games as compared to
other types of digital games such as console or arcade games in Malaysia. We
also perform a series of analysis regarding to students preferences in every
gaming phase from console or arcade games to mobile games. A survey on user
preferences among students of Institute of Higher Learning (IHL) has been
done to gather useful information and relevant data to support this paper. The
survey showed that an overwhelming majority (60%) of the respondents prefer
to play games on mobile phone. The data that have been gathered from the
survey were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS),
Release 13.0.0, to investigate the number and percentage of students that use
mobile games. The future direction of this study is discussed at the end of
the paper.
Keywords: Mobile game, mobile learning, mobile phone, programming.
Title
of the Paper: Automated Decision Support System Based on Ordered Sources
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Authors:
Sylvia Encheva, Sharil Tumin
Abstract: Making a decision based on comparing responses coming from
different sources has allways been difficult. In this paper we propose
application of a decision support system for selecting a shipyard based on
the quality of services provided by a number of shipyards.
Keywords: Quality of services, selection, Web-based systems.
Title
of the Paper: The Introduction of Supply Chain Management Concepts to
e-Government Research and Practice
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Authors:
Ales Groznik, Peter Trkman
Abstract: The paper deals with various aspects of e-government and highlights
the importance of the holistic treatment of business process renovation in
order to facilitate the transition towards e-government. It analyses both
upstream and downstream supply chain renovation and describes a four-step
procedure for downstream renovation. A new definition of e-government that
includes the whole supply chain of the public administration is proposed. The
chief problems of the proposed approach are analysed, along with some
interesting topics for further research. The findings are partly illustrated
with a case study of the development of the Slovenian eprocurement portal.
Keywords: e-government, e-procurement, supply chain management,
business renovation, case study.
Title
of the Paper: E-logistics: Slovenian Transport Logistics Cluster creation
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Authors:
Ales Groznik
Abstract: In the pursuit of enhanced competitiveness organisations are today
searching for innovative business models in order to foster economic
benefits. In Slovenia, several clusters are being formed, including the
Slovenian Transport Logistics Cluster (STLC) as one of the most important. The
STLC is currently in the stage of dynamic growth, demanding business model
formation and adequate informatisation. The main goal of the paper is to
present the informatisation of the STLC, bridging the gap between Supply
Chain Management (SCM) and e-Logistics. The STLC’s informatisation of is
presented in several phases. The first phase involves business modelling of
the existing business processes of organisations (AS-IS model). The results
of the first phase allow an in-depth view of the STLC that is used in the
future in the business model setup. Next, TO-BE processes are created which
are to be implemented and supported via informatisation. The result of the
informatisation project is revealed to be homogenous and transparent business
activity between cluster members. The purposes of the STLC’s informatisation
are to create a business model, standardise business processes, allow cost
cutting and improved business performance, reduce operating times, support
asset management, and trace shipments which are the basics of economic
competitiveness.
Keywords: SCM, e-logistics, cluster, informatisation, business
renovation.
Title
of the Paper: Experiences of Implementing a Value-Based Approach
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Authors:
Pasi Ojala
Abstract: This study tries to advance and define the concepts, principles and
practical methods of a value-based approach, involving definition of the
essential concepts of value, cost and worth in software development. These
definitions originate from the Value Engineering (VE) method, originally
applied and developed for the needs of the production industry. Therefore,
for the purposes of this study these concepts are firstly justified and
secondly defined. In order to study and evaluate the value-based approach, a
method called value assessment is developed and used when assessing processes
and products. The results of industrial case show that even though there is
still much to do in making the economic-driven view complete in software
engineering, the value-based approach outlines a way towards a more
comprehensive understanding of it. For industrial users value assessment seems
to give a practical help for handling cost and profitability related
challenges.
Keywords: Software process and product improvement, assessment, value,
worth, cost and Value Engineering.
Title
of the Paper: A New Version of Flusser Moment Set for Pattern Feature
Extraction
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Authors:
Constantin-Iulian Vizitiu, Doru Munteanu, Cristian Molder
Abstract: The choice of a suitable feature extraction method is essential for
the success of the classification or recognition process. This paper proposes
a design method for a new pattern descriptor set based on the Flusser moment
class, which is invariant to elementary geometric transforms and has an
increased robustness to the action of some perturbations. Experimental
results based on the use of a real video image database confirm the basic
properties of this new descriptor set.
Keywords: Pattern feature extraction, Flusser moment class, pattern
recognition, neural network.
Title
of the Paper: The Characteristics of Learning in Limited Data and the
Comparative Assessment of Learning Methods
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Authors:
Fengming M. Chang
Abstract: Many studies about learning in limited data were made in recent
years. Without double, small data set learning is a challenging problem. Information
in data of small size is scarce and has some learning limit. While discussing
the learning accuracy in limited data, different classification method causes
different results for different data because each classification method has
its property. A method is the best solution for one data but is not the best
for another. Therefore, this study analyzes the characteristics of small data
set learning by the comparison of classification methods. The
Mega-fuzzification method for small data set learning is applied mainly. The
comparison of different classification methods for small data set learning
with several kinds of data is also presented.
Keywords: Small data set, Mega-fuzzification, Machine learning,
Classification method, Paucity of data.
Title
of the Paper: The Effects of DTAI on Nursing Skills and Self-Efficacy
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Authors:
Mei-Huang Huang , Aih-Fung Chiu, Ju-Ling Liu
Abstract: This research is to evaluate the effects of Digital Technology
Assisted Instruction (DTAI) applied in the Physical-Examining (PE) skill
courses for nursing students. Both a "Learning Satisfaction with
DTAI" survey and a "Self-efficacy" survey for these courses
had been designed as tools in this study. Students of the third grade (five
years program) in the nursing department of a technological college in Taiwan
were recruited. One hundred and twenty-seven subjects who took the DTAI
program on internet were assigned to be the experimental group, while the other
77 subjects with the traditional program to be the control one. All data were
analyzed by SPSS 13.0 for Windows. The results were: (1) The practice time
after classes, scores of the skill test, and scores of the
"Self-efficacy" survey of the experimental group were significantly
higher than those of the control group. (2) The average time of
online-browsing through DTAI in the experimental group was 122.22 minutes. (3)
The average score (5-points scale) of the "Learning Satisfaction with
DTAI" survey was 4.37. (4). There were significantly positive
correlations between the practice time after classes, scores of the skill
test and scores of "Self-efficacy" (p < .001). (5) DTAI for the
PE skill courses made a good impression for nursing students. DTAI was indeed
a convenient and efficient tool without limitations to time or places, and
still made a great improvement in learning effects. Moreover, the students
get more confidence in problem-solving and nursing skill learning. Such
intervention can be incorporated into the teaching instruction to improve the
nursing skills and self-efficacy for the novices. Finally the destinations of
teaching and learning can be achieved.
Keywords: Digital Technology Assisted Instruction (DTAI), Learning
effects, Nursing students, Physical-Examining Course (PE), Self-efficacy.
Title
of the Paper: A New Approach for the Creation of a Non-Profit Website with
the Example of a Regional Museum
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Authors:
Pavel Makagonov, Celia B. Reyes Espinosa
Abstract: In the engineering of Internet applications the main demand is to
concentrate on interests of the user. That means that the user is
predetermined. In this paper, a new approach is proposed for the case when
the stakeholder is not a user and the final user is not sharply defined. This
situation is typical for design of a website for a non-profit rural regional
museum. The first stages in this case consist of; the creation the user’s
model for the regional museum’s website; the study of characteristics of
existing successful regional museum sites, the creation of a quick prototype
of the site taking into account characteristic features of successful sites;
the use of the prototype for monitoring the users’ behavior and organizing
direct feedback with them. In this article basic elements of these new first
stages are considered and shown by example in the creation of a prototype
website for future sites for regional museums in the southeast region of
Mexico.
Keywords: regional museum websites, user profiles, access monitoring,
sample of successful websites.
Title
of the Paper: Wavelets Families and Similarity Metrics Analysis in VIR
System Design
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Authors: L. Flores-Pulido, O.
Starostenko, R. Contreras-Gomez, L. Alvarez-Ochoa
Abstract: This paper presents an analysis of some novel approaches for visual
information retrieval (VIR) system design which are based on extraction of
wavelet coefficients and applying specific similarity metrics. Four families
of wavelets and three techniques for computing similarity between queried and
retrieved images have been tested using designed Image Retrieval by Neural
Network and Wavelet Coefficients (RetNew) system. The best Symlet transform
and similarity metrics based on Euclidian distance have been adopted in a
proposed VIR system called Image Retrieval by Wavelet Coefficients (IRWC).
Additionally, in order to evaluate a proposed approach and a novel designed
system the recall and precision metrics used for analysis of the performance
of VIR facilities have been applied on base of the standard COIL-100 image
collection. The obtained results show the increment of retrieval efficiency
up to 93% without additional increasing a processing time. Therefore a
proposed approach may be considered as a good alternative for designing new
VIR systems. The obtained results allow facilitating the development of new
methods for solving this still open problem of efficient image retrieval.
Keywords: Image
Processing, Visual Information Retrieval, Similarity Metrics, Wavelets
Title of the Paper: Fuzzy Model for
Estimation of Passenger Car Unit
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Authors: Praveen Aggarwal
Abstract: In most of the developing countries including India mixed traffic
condition prevail on roads and highways. There is a wide variation in the
static and the dynamic characteristics of different types of traffic. The
only way of accounting for this non-uniformity for any traffic analysis in
traffic stream is to convert all vehicles into a common unit and the most
accepted unit for this purpose is passenger car unit (PCU). PCU value for a
vehicle is not constant but varies with traffic and roadway condition around.
A number of factors have been identifies affecting PCU values. The current
study aims at developing a fuzzy based model for the estimation of PCU values
for bus. Fuzzy based model is of importance because of a number of
independent affecting factors. Results of developed fuzzy MATLAB based model
are compared with the quoted results and are found with high degree of
correlation.
Keywords: Passenger Car
Unit, fuzzy model.
Title of the Paper: Using Data Mining
to Provide Recommendation Service
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Authors: Ruey-Shun Chen, Yung-Shun
Tsai, K.C. Yeh, D.H. Yu, Yip Bak-Sau
Abstract: This research introduces personalized recommendation service into
library services. Using the borrowing record of the library as basis, the
association rules of data mining technique are used to look for book
association by focusing on reader’s borrowing mode, personal interest and
trait in order to simplify the complexity of recommendation structure. The
Bayesian network concept is used to build up a personalized book recommender
system in order to generate different book recommendations, ranking from high
to low, to help reader to locate book information most suitable to his
requirement. Meanwhile we use user satisfaction questionnaire to understand
the accuracy of recommended books and further to feedback information in
order to help the post learning of Bayesian network parameter. This is for
the perfection of the overall structure of recommender system so that readers
could make use of the resource of the library more effectively and the value of
the library system could be further improved.
Keywords: Recommendation
System, Bayesian Network, Data Mining.
Title of the Paper: Optimal Run Time
for EMQ Model with Backordering, Failure-In- Rework and Breakdown Happening
in Stock-Piling Time
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Authors: Yuan-Shyi Peter Chiu,
Shun-Sheng Wang, Chia-Kuan Ting, Hsien-Ju Chuang, Yu-Lung Lien
Abstract: This study examines the optimal run time for the economic
manufacturing quantity (EMQ) model with failure-in-work, backlogging, and
random breakdown happening in stock-piling time. A recent article by Chiu and
Chiu [Mathematical modeling for production system with backlogging and
failure in repair, Journal of Scientific & Industrial Research, 65 (2006)
499-506] investigated optimal lot-size for EMQ model with backordering and
failure-in-rework. By incorporating random machine breakdown-another
inevitable reliability factor into their model, this research examines its
effects on the optimal run time and on the long-run average costs.
Mathematical modeling and cost analysis are employed and the renewal reward
theorem is used to cope with variable cycle length. Convexity of the expected
production- inventory cost function is proved. An optimal replenishment
policy that minimizes overall costs is derived for such an unreliable system.
Numerical example is provided to show its practical usage. Managers in the
field can adopt this run time decision to establish their own robust
production plan accordingly.
Keywords: Manufacturing,
Run time, Breakdown, Failure-in-rework, Backorder.
Title of the Paper: An Optimized
Pseudorandom Generator using Packed Matrices
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Authors: Jose-Vicente Aguirre, Rafael
Alvarez, Leandro Tortosa, Antonio Zamora
Abstract: Most cryptographic services and information security protocols
require a dependable source of random data; pseudorandom generators are
convenient and efficient for this application working as one of the basic
foundation blocks on which to build the required security infrastructure. We
propose a modification of a previously published matricial pseudorandom
generator that significantly improves performance and security by using word
packed matrices and modifying key scheduling and bit extraction schemes. The
resulting generator is then successfully compared to world class standards.
Keywords: Pseudorandom
Generator, Stream Ciphers, Binary Matrices, Cryptography, Security.
Title of the Paper: Understanding
Participant Loyalty Intentions in Virtual Communities
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Authors: Echo Huang, Meng-Hsiang Hsu,
Yu-Ren Yen
Abstract: This study proposes a conceptual model based on expectation
confirmation theory with extended antecedent variables (human assets,
technical assets, and complementary assets) to examine the impact of virtual
communities’ assets on member satisfaction and perception of usefulness. The
members of JavaWorld@TW, a representative professional community in Taiwan,
were chosen to participate in the survey, and 235 usable responses were
collected in three months. Partial Least Square(PLS) regression were used to
test the model, the findings show that satisfaction is the strongest
predictor of revisiting, following perceived usefulness. Furthermore, higher
confirmation of human assets, technical assets, and complementary assets are
accompanied with higher positive satisfaction and perceived usefulness which
influence the intention to revisit. We also advanced to explore the
difference within groups, weak-tie members and strong-tie members were
separated for further examination. The difference in the behavioral models of
weak-tie and strong-tie, particularly in the revisit context, shed light on
the importance of development related theories that can be applied to shape
the post-use behavior of specific groups. Implications are proposed in the
final section.
Keywords: Resource-Based
Theory, Expectation Confirmation Theory, Revisit, Virtual Communities, human
assets, technical assets, complementary assets.
Title of the Paper: Characterization of
Imaging Phone Cameras Using Minimum Description Length Principle
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Authors: Adrian Burian, Aki Happonen,
Mihaela Cirlugea
Abstract: In this paper, a new Minimum Description Length (MDL) approach for
the characterization of a mobile phone’s color camera is presented. The use
of high-order polynomials, Fourier sine series, and artificial neural
networks (ANN) for solving this problem are compared and contrasted. The MDL
formalism is used for determining the stochastic complexity of polynomial and
Fourier sine models for the characterization of a Nokia N93 mobile phone
camera. A quantitative evaluation of their performances, as well as for using
an ANN, is provided.
Keywords: Minimum Description
Length, High-Order Polynomial, Artificial Neural Network, Imaging Mobile
Phone.
Title of the Paper: The Internet Visit
Rate, its Monitoring and Analysis
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Authors: Jiri Kohout, Antonin
Slaby
Abstract: Currently the Internet visit rate is a topic of increasing
importance. It is a tool for monitoring marketing campaigns’ success and comparing
the popularity rate to other competitors. This article aims at analyzing the
process of measuring the frequency distribution of online customer’s
behaviour, highlighting the risks in interpretation of the results and
presenting methods used in the data analysis process. Part one outlines a way
of collecting data for the analysis by recording them to the web log. Then
another method working on the active content principle is presented. The
comparison of both methods follows, supported by an overview of advantages
and disadvantages. Consequently, the gained findings are summarized and
result in the list of essential preconditions necessary for objective and
complex analysis of visit rate data.
Keywords: Internet visit
rate, Monitoring, Web Server Logs.
Title of the Paper: Real Time
Trajectory Based Hand Gesture Recognition
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Authors: Daniel Popa, Georgiana Simion,
Vasile Gui, Marius Otesteanu
Abstract: The recognition of hand gestures from image sequences is an
important and challenging problem. This paper presents a robust solution to
track and recognize a list of hand gestures from their trajectory. The main
tools of the proposed solution are robust kernel density estimation and the
related mean shift algorithm, used in both video tracking and trajectory
segmentation. The gesture definition is based on strokes in order to allow
the use of a low complexity gesture recognition method. The gesture recognition
process is trivial, being reduced to a syntactic analysis of the feature
vector avoiding the necessity of complex classification methods based on
curve matching. Despite the restrictions derived from the stroke based
definition of gestures, the low computational complexity of the algorithm
allows its implementation on low-cost processing systems.
Keywords: gesture
recognition, mean shift, robust methods, video tracking, human machine
interface.
Title of the Paper: MeDiMed
- Regional Center for Medicine Multimedia Data Exchange
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Authors: Karel Slavicek, Michal
Javornik, Otto Dostal
Abstract: Institute of Computer Science of Masaryk University is working on
the field of supporting medicine multimedia data transport archiving and
processing more than ten years. Since first steps like transport of
ultrasound and CT images across private fiber optics network these activities
have grown up to regional PACS archive. This paper describes the technology
background of the MeDiMed project.
Keywords: PACS, DICOM,
medicine multimedia data.
Title of the Paper: Analysis of
Retailer Web Sites with Microeconomic Interpretation
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Authors: Tomislav Herceg, Bozidar
Jakovic, Milivoj Markovic
Abstract: The competition in the Croatian retailing business is on its peak,
but is vague when it is going to settle. This situation is a great field for
new market opportunities and finding new niches might be of a crucial
importance. Leaders and followers switched their places, as well as the CEOs
and marketing policies. Although the fight with the prices is still very important,
its detrimental effect on the profits attracts retailers to differentiate
their products by several means, one of which may be the e-retailing. Even
though it accounts for a certain share of the sales in the World, it is yet
to be set in Croatia. The speed of the implementation of broadband
connections and new companies on the communications market decreased the
price and increased the accessibility of the Internet. It is now on the
retailing companies to recognize this opportunity and occupy this newly
created area of business. The comparison between 18 greatest retailers in
Croatia and in the World, using the previously devised Web-metric and
methods, brought the following conclusions: Only one company offers a
possibility of e-purchase, and many have only the basic information on their
web site. However there is some connection between the size of a company and
its web site development level. Companies should invest their web sites and
develop an e-sales point, including online shops, Web site maintenance, Web
design, and user-friendliness, as well as in the measurement of the
e-activities. Multimedia content should not be forgotten since it is what
makes a site recognizable.
Keywords: Web sites,
Retailers, Web metrics, Croatian retail market, Market congestion,
Competitive market, Retailing market analysis, E-purchase, Web shop.
Title of the Paper: E-learning and its
Application to Microeconomics
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Authors: Bozidar Jakovic, Tomislav
Herceg, Fran Galetic
Abstract: Distance learning is a growingly important component of education.
Its low cost and easily accessible education materials are to play an
important role in raising overall education level in the world, since
Internet access is growing exponentially. At the same time, it allows better
flow of labour because it lets students live much further from the University
they attend. It also decreases living costs, as well as the costs of the
education institution itself. Microeconomics is a discipline easily adaptable
to the e-learning process because its graphical representations and
complicated deductions can be easily taught using interactive presentations
and simple software. Several authors offer a multiple possibilities for
implementation of the eLearning systems. We analyzed some cases in which
distance learning offers even greater possibilities than the traditional
teaching techniques, using illustrative graphs, thorough analytic
step-by-step deductions of main microeconomics connecting the theory and
practice through the use of statistic and econometric programmes and methods.
The final aim of this paper is to introduce more efficient, more
comprehensive and cheaper teaching method.
Keywords: Microeconomics,
3d graphs, e-learning, education, distant learning, multimedia materials,
interactive presentation, teaching techniques, Web 2.0
Issue 5, Volume 5, May 2008
Title of the Paper: Error
Measurements and Parameters Choice in the GNG3D Model for Mesh Simplification
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Authors: Rafael Alvarez, Leandro
Tortosa, Jose F. Vicent, Antonio Zamora
Abstract: In this paper we present different error measurements with the aim
to evaluate the quality of the approximations generated by the GNG3D model
for mesh simplification. The first phase of this method consists on the
execution of the GNG3D algorithm, described in the paper. The primary goal of
this phase is to obtain a simplified set of vertices representing the best
approximation of the original 3D object. In the reconstruction phase we use
the information provided by the optimization algorithm to reconstruct the
faces thus obtaining the optimized mesh. The implementation of three error
functions, named Eavg,Emax,Esur, allows us to control the error of the
simplified model, as it is shown in the examples studied. Besides, from the
error measurements implemented in the GNG3D model, it is established a
procedure to determine the best values for the different parameters involved
in the optimization algorithm. Some examples are shown in the experimental results.
Keywords: Surface
simplification, mesh reconstruction, error approximations, neural networks,
growing neural gas, growing cell structures.
Title of the Paper: Enhancing Software
Projects Course Work by Advanced Management
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Authors: Jyhjong Lin
Abstract: Software projects are an important course in software engineering
curricula. They provide students with an opportunity to gain valuable
experiences in applying the theoretical materials learned at software
engineering courses. However, many drawbacks in current projects course work
make these benefits difficult to realize. In this paper, we discuss these
drawbacks and how they affect the effectiveness of this course. To address
these difficulties, we advocate a model of enhancing the management approach
to provide an effective administration for each project. Our experiments from
the model have shown significant improvements in the quality of projects and
the experiencing effects of students.
Keywords: software
engineering education, software project, management, model.
Title of the Paper: Algorithm
MONSA for All Closed Sets Finding: Basic Concepts and New Pruning Techniques
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Authors: Rein Kuusik, Grete Lind
Abstract: In this paper an algorithm named MONSA for closed sets mining is
presented. It does not use such kind of techniques as in ChARM by Zaki and
Hsiao. MONSA is an exact depth-first search algorithm extracting only
frequent closed sets using several new very effective pruning techniques to
be free from repetitive and empty patterns. MONSA does not depend on the
initial order of objects. In MONSA there is active only one branch which is
under construction. The purpose of this paper is to describe the approach
used in MONSA and the correspondence of its basics and concepts to the
approach by Zaki and Hsiao. A full example of the algorithm’s work is
presented. By the algorithm the intersections (closed sets) and IF…THEN rules
on the subsets of source data set simultaneously are found. MONSA treats not
only binary data, but a larger set of discrete values.
Keywords: Data mining,
Frequent closed sets, Pruning techniques, Depth-first search, Monotone
systems.
Title of the Paper: Business
Intelligence Systems: A Comparative Analysis
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Authors: Carlo Dell’aquila, Francesco
Di Tria, Ezio Lefons, Filippo Tangorra
Abstract: A set of evaluation criteria is described and considered for
comparing some popular OLAP systems that support Business Intelligence. These
criteria involve critical aspects such as: information delivery, system and
user administration, and OLAP queries. The measurement method is based on the
functional complexity analysis. Experimental results have been carried out
using a data warehouse in academic environment and they allow to evidence the
weaknesses and the points of force of each compared system.
Keywords: Data warehouse,
Data mart, OLAP system, Functional size measurement, Business Intelligence.
platform.
Title of the Paper: Feasibility
of Implementing B2B e-Commerce in Small and Medium Enterprises
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Authors: Tien-Chin Wang, Ying-Ling Lin
Abstract: E-commerce has substantially affected the business world in the
recent, and its importance is expected to continue increasing in future.
Since implementing B2B e-commerce in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) is a
long-term commitment and such enterprises are more limited in terms of
resources than large enterprises, the predicted value of successful
implementation is extremely useful in deciding whether to initiate B2B
e-commerce. This investigation establishes an analytical hierarchy framework
to help SMEs predicting implementation success as well as identifying the
actions necessary before implementing B2B ecommerce to increase e-commerce
initiative feasibility. The consistent fuzzy preference relation is used to
improve decision making consistency and effectiveness. A case study involving
six influences solicited from a Taiwanese steel company is used to illustrate
the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed approach.
Keywords: B2B e-commerce;
small and medium enterprises; multi-criteria decision making; consistent
fuzzy preference relation.
Title of the Paper: Improving Query
Performance in Virtual Data Warehouses
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Authors: Adela Bâra, Ion Lungu, Manole
Velicanu, Vlad Diaconiţa, Iuliana Botha
Abstract: In order to improve the quality of Business Intelligence Systems in
an organization we can choose to build the system using BI techniques such as
OLAP and data warehousing or by using traditional reports based on SQL
queries. The cost and developing time for BI tools is greater than those for
SQL Reports and these factors are important in taking decisions on what type
of techniques we used for BIS, also the problem of low performance in data
extraction from data warehouse can be critical because of the major impact in
the using the data from data warehouse: if a BI report is taking a lot of
time to run or the data displayed are no longer available for taking critical
decisions, the project can be compromised. In this case there are several
techniques that can be applied to reduce queries’ execution time and to
improve the performance of the BI analyses and reports. In this paper we
present an overview of an implementation of a Business Intelligence project
in a national company, the problems we confronted with and the techniques
that we applied to reduce the cost of execution for improving query
performance in this decisional support system.
Keywords: Tuning and
optimization, SQL query plans, Business Intelligence projects, Virtual data
warehouse, Data extraction, Query optimization and performance, Partitioning
techniques, Indexes, Analytical functions.
Title of the Paper: Automatically
Extracting Important Sentences from Story based on Connection Patterns of
Propositions in Propositional Network
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Authors: Hideji Enokizu, Satoshi
Murakami, Moriaki Kumasaka, Kazuhiro Uenosono, Seiichi Komiya
Abstract: In recent years, the world is filled with a large amount of
information through the internet and so on. Such a situation increasingly
enhances the worth of the automatic text summarization which can support a
quick grasp of the text content. The automatic text summarization has so far
been accomplished by extracting some important sentences from a text based on
various surface cues. To be compared, we tried to devise a new method to
extract the important sentences from the story according to the way in which
the people comprehend it. In designing this new method, we took account of
the text comprehension model, that is, how people comprehend the story text.
Then we devised the procedure for transforming from a set of the propositions
to the propositional network. In Experiment 1, the participants were asked to
select the sentences regarded as important from five stories. Then we
examined how the propositions drawn from each important sentence were
connected in the propositional network of each story. As a result, we
identified three distinctive connection patterns. In Experiment 2, it was
examined whether those connection patterns are valid as the rules to extract
the important sentences from five new stories. From the sentences extracted
our system and the important sentences selected by the participants, we
calculated the aggregation accuracy measures. As a result, it was found that
they were clearly higher than the baselines. Moreover they were equal to or
higher than ones obtained in the previous researches. This finding was
replicated to the stories used in Experiment 1.
Keywords: Automatic Text
Summarization, Extracting Important Sentences, Extended Rules of Connecting
Propositions, Propositional list, Propositional network, Connection Patterns.
Title of the Paper: Performance
Evaluation of the Software Visualization tools and A New Framework to Manage
Cognitive Load in Computer Program Learning
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Authors: Muhammed Yousoof, Mohd
Sapiyan, K. Ramasamy
Abstract: Cognitive load experienced while learning programming is very high
due to the high element of interactivity and poor instructional design. Prior
researchers [2][5][6][10] have focused to minimize the load such as program
visualization, pair programming etc. There are many computer based tools
available in the market which are aimed to reduce the cognitive load
experienced by the learners and to facilitate faster learning. In this paper,
two such tools such as JELIOT, BlueJ are taken into consideration. We
evaluate the effectiveness of each of the above mentioned tools in their
ability of easing the learning process. An experiment was conducted among the
students of Computer Science at Dhofar University to evaluate the
effectiveness of each tool to reduce the load experienced by the learner. The
impact of these measures is not determinable since there is no mechanism to
monitor the load and thus the results of the previous studies are very
subjective. We also propose a framework which consists of 3 layers, to help
in managing the load by monitoring .When the load exceeds the capacity, the
instructional design could be altered or customized to enable the learning.
The proposed framework is a novel way to ease the learning process of
computer programming.
Keywords: Cognitive Load,
Jeliot, BlueJ, Physiological Measures, Galvanic Skin Response.
Title of the Paper: Use of
Wavelet-based Basis Functions to Extract Rotation Invariant Features for
Automatic Image Recognition
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Authors: Santiago Akle, Maria-Elena
Algorri, Ante Salcedo
Abstract: In this paper we explore the use of orthogonal functions as
generators of representative, compact descriptors of image content. In Image
Analysis and Pattern Recognition such descriptors are referred to as image
features, and there are some useful properties they should possess such as
rotation invariance and the capacity to identify different instances of one
class of images. We exemplify our algorithmic methodology using the family of
Daubechies wavelets, since they form an orthogonal function set. We benchmark
the quality of the image features generated by doing a comparative OCR
experiment with three different sets of image features. Our algorithm can use
a wide variety of orthogonal functions to generate rotation invariant
features, thus providing the flexibility to identify sets of image features
that are best suited for the recognition of different classes of images.
Keywords: Rotation
Invariant Features, Zernike Moments, Haar Wavelets, Daubechies Wavelets,
Orthogonal Functions, OCR.
Title of the Paper: A Protocol For
Self-Organizing Peer-to-Peer Network Supporting Content-Based Search
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Authors: Igor Mekterovic,
Mirta Baranovic, Kresimir Krizanovic
Abstract: For a peer-to-peer(P2P) content sharing network holding large
amount of data, an efficient semantic based search mechanism is a key
requisite. Semantic based search should generate as little traffic (messages)
possible while achieving precision and recall rates comparable to those of
correspondent centralized system. In this paper protocols for self-organizing
P2P networks that arranges links between peers according to peer's content
are developed and tested. Peers organize themselves into "semantic
communities" without losing links to other semantic communities.
Proposed network requires no prior knowledge of the semantics of documents
that are to be shared in the system. Through simulations, it is shown that
proposed network is resilient to membership changes and achieves high recall
rates.
Keywords: Peer-to-peer,
Content-based search, Information retrieval, Algorithm, Semantic.
Title of the Paper: Visual
Reinforcement Learning Algorithm using Self Organizing Maps and Its
Simulation in OpenGL Environment
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Authors: Hiroshi Dozono Ryouhei
Fujiwara, Takeshi Takahashi
Abstract: Recently, the camera systems becomes more available for mobile
robots . But scene analysis for generating control signals is still difficult
and consumes large computational power. For this problem, the control method
which generates the control signals directly from the raw camera images will
be effective. In this paper, we use the reinforcement learning using the
camera image as input data. For the division of the states represented with
camera images, self organizing map is introduced. The division of the states
and learning of the control signal using reinforcement learning are executed
simultaneously on the map. For examining the performance of this algorithm,
we made the simulation system with Graphical User Interface using OpenGL.
Keywords: Reinforcement
Learning, Self Organizing Map, Learning algorithm, Mobile robot, OpenGL.
Title of the Paper: Numerical
Experiments on Pareto-optimal Task Assignment Representations by Tabu-based
Evolutionary Algorithm
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Authors: Jerzy Balicki
Abstract: Meta-heuristics like evolutionary algorithms require extensive numerical
experiments to adjust their capabilities of solving decision making problems.
Evolutionary algorithm can be applied for finding solution in distributed
computer systems. Reliability and the load balancing are crucial factors for
a quality evaluation of distributed systems. Load balancing of the Web
servers can be implemented by reduction of the workload of the bottleneck
computer what improves both a performance of the system and the safety of the
bottleneck computers. An evolutionary algorithm based on a tabu search
procedure is discussed for multi-criteria optimization of distributed systems
A tabu mutation is applied for minimization the workload of the bottleneck
computer. It can be obtained by task assignment as well as selection of
suitable computer sorts. Moreover, a negative selection procedure is
developed for improving non-admissible solutions. Extended numerical results
are submitted.
Keywords: Evolutionary
algorithm, Multi-criterion optimization, Distributed systems, Artificial
intelligence, Pareto solutions.
Title of the Paper: Nodal Analysis-
based Design for Improving Gas Lift Wells Production
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Authors: Edgar Camargo,
Jose Aguilar, Addison
Ríos, Francklin Rivas, Joseph Aguilar-Martin
Abstract: In this work, a gas lift-based oil production wells improvement
technique is presented. This technique is based on Nodal Analysis, which is
applied to well head level, where the production data are available. Thus, a
production model is obtained, representing the production curve. This model
allows calculating the production flow and pressure drop relationship that
can be found in all the components of the completion system. So, it will be
possible to determine the oil or gas flow that can be produced by the well,
considering the perforation and completion geometry. With this information,
we can build a production optimization system in order to increase the
production flow rate.
Keywords: Nodal Analysis,
Production Systems, Artificial Gas Lift Well, Production Control.
Title of the Paper: Hand-Written Digits
Recognition by Graph matching and Annealing Neural Networks
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Authors: Kyunghee Lee
Abstract: Mean field annealing(MFA) is a promising tool in optimization and a
neural network model based on the graph matching have attracted attention due
to a number of benefits over conventional recognition models. We present a
neural network model for hand-written digits recognition using graph matching
and two annealing techniques, MFA and one-variable stochastic simulated
annealing(OSSA). OSSA makes it possible to evaluate the equilibrium spin
average value effectively by Monte Carlo technique. In this paper
hand-written digits recognition can be formulated as elastic graph matching,
which is performed here by annealing techniques of matching cost function.
Our model provides not only the function of recognition but also the
segmentation ability such that input characters are correctly recognized and
segmented simultaneously even if they are touching, connected, and defected
by noise. Some simulation results show the capability of our model and the
characteristics of MFA and OSSA.
Keywords: Pattern
recognition, Segmentation, Optimization, Mean field annealing, Annealing
neural networks.
Title of the Paper: Platform
Support for an Intelligent Enterprise Business Management
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Authors: Gabriela Rodica Hrin, Lucian
Emanuel Anghel, Adrian David
Abstract: The platform IDEA assists all the specific processes of an
enterprise, from the meat processing industry, to help decision makers to
manage performances by implementing the concepts Business Performance
Management (BPM) and Business Intelligence (BI). The platform transforms data
into information and then into knowledge being focused on business, technological
and economical aspects specific to the meat processing enterprises helping
them to realise an efficient use of their business policies, financial, human
and material resources. The platform integrates the software developed
components dedicated to decision processes management, customer relation
management and enterprise resources planning components. The platform offers
support for an intelligent management of the business processes, of the
manufacture flows, and of the enterprise resources. Some tools considered in
the development of the platform are business management systems, business
workflow analysis, business performance management, OLAP (Online Analytical
Processing), data modeling, data visualisation, report servers, AJAX
(Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) technology.
Keywords: Business
Performance Management, dynamic interfaces, process modeling, data mining.
Title of the Paper: Fuzzy with LabVIEW
Software for Reliability Prediction at Nuclear Complex System (NCS)
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Authors: Vasile Anghel
Abstract: The reliability level for a nuclear installation is given in
generally by the technological process quality of operation and maintenance
and in particular by a lot of technical, technological, economic and human
factors. The maintenance role is fundamental for a nuclear installation. In
the maintenance activity as in any dynamic area, appear continuously new
elements which, sometimes, require new methods of approach, thus for
considered installation that is a Nuclear Detritiation Plant (NDP) existent
as part of National Research and Development Institute for Cryogenics and
Isotopic Technologies – ICSI, Rm.Valcea, for assurance the reliability level
in operation is proposed for predictive maintenance the theory fuzzy, entropy
theory and software LabVIEW. The final aim is to achieve the best practices
for maintenance of Plant that process tritium.
Keywords: simulation,
nuclear, reliability, maintenance, LabVIEW.
Title of the Paper: Continuous Auditing
System Based on Registration Center
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Authors: Huanzhuo Ye, Yuning He, Zhuoyuan
Xiang
Abstract: With the acceleration of information technologies and the
availability of online real-time information systems, a rapidly growing
number of organizations are conducing business and publishing business and
financial reports online and in real time. Real-time financial reports
provided by continuous auditing technologies are likely to necessitate
continuous auditing, so what continuous auditing technologies can be utilized
to facilitate continuous auditing for the next generation of accounting
systems has become very important. As one of emerging information
technologies, Web services technology could be seen as a good way to
facilitate continuous auditing. Relying on a number of components of Web
services technology, we propose a Web-service-based model using a
registration center for continuous auditing called the Web-service-based
continuous auditing model (WSCAM). This continuous auditing mechanism would
run in the auditee’s system and could be applied to provide assurance about
specific business processes. In such a model, auditor could confirm specific
information with the supplier of accounting materials for validation purpose,
and auditee could provide specific financial information to the third party
for their transaction. The frameworks and technologies which can support such
a Web-service-based continuous auditing mechanism are described. The features
are also presented to illustrate WSCAM.
Keywords: Continuous
auditing; Web services; XML; XBRL GL, Registration center.
Title of the Paper: Implementation of a
Network Sport Training Platform in E-Learning Information System
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Authors: Huay Chang
Abstract: In the earlier study paper, the author uses the corresponding
information system technologies to present a newly teaching training method.
Based on the E-Learning web-site and the network teaching, we use skilled
system to establish the interactive Sport Teaching E-Learning structure. The
proposed method provides a newly teaching model and an innovative learning
point. In this paper, we implement the E-Learning Information System in the
Network Sport Teaching E-Learning Platform and obtain some special features.
The positive features of the Network Sport Teaching E-Learning Platform
includes ‘The convenience of Learning Guide’, ‘The Characteristics of
Individual Course Programs’, ‘The Multiple-types of Learning Contents’, ‘The
Creation of Sport Groupware’ and ‘The Instant Interactive Phase’.
Keywords: E-Learning,
information system, network, skilled system, web-site.
Title of the Paper: Intelligent
Monitoring Of Containers - IMC
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Authors: Gabriela Rodica Hrin
Abstract: Intelligent monitoring of containers is an innovative and modern
system dedicated to container management in multimodal transport being
developed in Romania into an national research project. The system offers
services for planning and real time survey of the container transport and
transported freight. The system is an information system that support
activities regarding freight mobility being dedicated to goods providers,
goods buyers, brokers, road transport operators, railway transport operators,
naval transport operators, air transport operators, assurance agencies,
container owners, The technologies that have been used and integrated during
system development are .Net, GPS (Global Positioning System), GIS
(Geographical Information System), GSM (Global System for Mobile
Communications).
Keywords: Goods
multimodal transport, container monitoring, transport planning and surveying,
Net, GPS, GIS, GSM.
Title of the Paper: Project Management
Stage Mutations within Agile Methodological Framework Process Transformations
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Authors: Evangelos Markopoulos, Javier
Bilbao, Eugenio Bravo, Todor Stoilov, Tanjia E. J. Vos, Carlo Figa Talamanca,
Katrin Reschwamm
Abstract: Projects are living entities. They are born with the project idea
and end with the project termination. The time in between can last for many
years, in most of the cases, requiring continuous implementation and
management effort. Over the time project changes on requirements change the
implementation process and in turn the management process, the maintenance
process and so on. In order to maintain qualitative and quantitative project
results both the project implementation and management processes need to be
adjusted in the overall project changes and environment. This adjustment can
be made by using agile project management methodologies, defining processes
based on the identification of the project goals, constraints and
expatiations. Unfortunately that is not enough, and projects, especially
software projects are still in implementation and management crisis. This
paper presents the concept of process mutation on project management
methodological frameworks as a supplementary method to the agile models and
agility the concept.
Keywords: Project
Management, Process Mutation, Agility, Process Framework.
Title of the Paper: Integrating
Computer Aided Design and Computer Aided Process Planning: A Computational
Techniques Model Approach
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Authors: Ionel Botef
Abstract: One of the most daunting challenges in Computer Integrated Manufacturing
(CIM) is bridging the gap between Computer Aided Design (CAD) and Computer
Aided Process Planning (CAPP). Past research into CAPP, considered one of the
most important and most complicated computer aided systems, resulted in a
wealth of knowledge but unresolved problems still exist. The actual CAPP
systems are considered large, complex, and monolithic, with limited
extensibility, low-level of integration with other applications, and high
development and maintenance costs. Consequently, this paper focuses on a
computational technique model for CAD/CAPP integration. Supported by
authorities, evidence or logic, it is demonstrated that a limited number of
important design and manufacturing features can be used to achieve an
integrated product model that provides not only a direct interpretation of
CAD data to the CAPP system, but supplies sufficient information for the
generation of the correct process plan’s operations sequence. The approach
simplifies engineering drawing’s information complexity, and offers better
computability, reusability and improved communication between CAD and CAPP.
As a result, the approach is used to develop software applications that apply
object-oriented programming as a new way of thinking about solving CAD/CAPP
problems and as a promising alternative to other techniques.
Keywords: CAD, CAPP,
Computational Technique
Title of the Paper: UML Data Models
From An ORM (Object-Role Modeling) Perspective. Data Modeling at Conceptual
Level
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Authors: Daniel Ioan Hunyadi, Mircea
Adrian Musan
Abstract: This paper provides an overview of Object-Role Modeling (ORM), a
fact-oriented method for performing information analysis at the conceptual
level. It provides both a graphical and textual languages and a procedure
which guides the use of the languages. The article is structured in two main
parts. The first part presents an overview of ORM along a real example, while
the second part of the article makes a comparison between ORM and UML from
the conceptual data modeling perspective. This paper examining data modeling
in the Unified Modeling Language (UML) from the perspective of Object Role
Modeling (ORM). It provided some historical background on both approaches,
identified design criteria for modeling languages, and discussed how object
reference and single-valued attributes are modeled in both. It compared UML
multi-valued attributes with ORM relationship types, and discussed basic
constraints on both, as well as instantiation using UML object diagrams or
ORM fact tables. This third issue compares UML associations and related
multiplicity constraints with ORM relationship types and related uniqueness,
mandatory role and frequency constraints. It also contrasts instantiation of
associations using UML object diagrams and ORM fact tables.
Keywords: Object-Role
Modeling (ORM), FORML (Formal Object-Role Modeling Language), ER diagrams,
CSDP, abstraction mechanism, semantic stability, semantic relevance, formal
foundation.
Title of the Paper: Two Integration
Flavors in Public Institutions
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Authors: Vlad Diaconita, Iuliana Botha,
Adela Bara, Ion Lungu, Manole Velicanu
Abstract: Integration within public institutions is useful in better aligning
the IT with the core processes, but also helps the various parts of the
business work with each other better, enabling important business strategies
like straight-through processing, improved public service through
singe-view-of-customer portals, business activity monitoring and higher data
quality. Portals and SOA can help this integration occur. In time, portals
have evolved to meet the integration needs of companies. Even though not
taken very seriously, they have slowly become leaders in turning new
principles into practical experiences. In the beginning, portals focused on
aggregating, organizing, and indexing unstructured data, but modern portals
now do much more. A portal is a point of integration, useful to the
organization by integrating internal business processes and by offering
information to the outside world. The increased adoption of business process
management (BPM) and Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) initiatives are both
driving portal usage.
Keywords: Portals, SOA,
Web services, public institutions, dynamic reports.
Title of the Paper: Conceptual
Framework on Risk Management in IT Outsourcing Projects
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Authors: Syaripah Ruzaini Hj Syed Aris,
Noor Habibah Arshad, Azlinah Mohamed
Abstract: Outsourcing is becoming a trend nowadays. Malaysia also takes this
opportunity and embraces in IT outsourcing. As a result, Malaysia has been
ranked as the third most attractive destination for outsourcing after India
and China. Despite increasing number of organizations that involve in IT
outsourcing, it should be noted that IT outsourcing is not a panacea. It
comes together with risks. The risks, if not managed, will lead to
outsourcing failure. Even though other areas have adopted risk management as
their patching material, the application of risk management in IT outsourcing
was not quite accomplished. Risk management should be conducted in IT
outsourcing as it will foresee risks that might disturb the smooth flowing of
IT outsourcing and prevent or reduce the impact of risks if they occur. It
should be conducted at early stage and should be continuously performed until
the end of outsourcing life cycle. This paper presents a conceptual framework
to manage risk in IT outsourcing. The framework will cover the process in
risk management in IT outsourcing as well as the risk management principle
that should be conducted at each and every phases of IT Outsourcing life
cycle. A set of questionnaire was distributed to organizations to validate
the conceptual framework. The findings showed that the consequences of not
practicing risk management would result in poor controlling and managing of
IT outsourcing projects. Based on the findings, future empirical and
exploratory survey will be conducted and risk management in IT outsourcing
framework will be developed.
Keywords: Risk Management,
Malaysia, Analysis of Decision to outsource, Selection of Service Provider,
Contract Management, On-Going Monitoring.
Title of the Paper: Computing and
Modeling for Crop Yields in Burkina Faso Based on Climatic Data Information
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Authors: Yu-Min Wang, Seydou Traore, Tienfuan Kerh
Abstract: The crop yields deficit under rainfed condition is attributed to
cumulative effects of low precipitation and inappropriate cropping calendar
in Burkina Faso which is located in a dry tropical climate. An efficient use
of agricultural water for gaining better productivity in African semi-arid
region has been widely suggested based on a cropping calendar approach.
Therefore, a suitable cropping calendar could be determined by using the
relationship between water and yields in order to have better water
management and crop output. This paper aims to model the crop water balance
analysis by applying the climatic data information collected from 1995 to
2006 to a reference model and rainfall contribution index recently developed
for Ouagadougou and Banfora of Burkina Faso. Also, after the analysis, the
crop water yield function concept is used for establishing climatic data
information model to examine the final output under different planting dates.
From the results, it was found that the difference between potential and
expected yields was causally affected by the planting dates applied. In
addition, by comparing the maximum expected yields to the average values, the
yields were reduced between 5 to 18% and 4 to 23% in Ouagadougou and Banfora,
respectively. The difference is small when the planting dates are closer to
the established suitable dates. The suitable cropping calendar determined
using the model in this study should therefore be used to alleviate water
shortage and yield deficit under rainfed condition. Finally, a low water
consuming crop species coupled with suitable planting dates could be
recommended for agriculture water management in African semi-arid region.
Keywords: Reference
model, rainfall contribution index, climatic data information, modeling,
yields, planting dates, water management
Title of the Paper: The Users
Perceptions and Opportunities in Malaysia in Introducing RFID System for
Halal Food Tracking
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Authors: Norman Azah Anir, Nasir
Mohd Hairul Nizam, Azmi Masliyana
Abstract: The lack of information presented on the food packaging of specific
food product usually lead to confusion, thus redundant unsold goods are
stacked-up in the shopping market. Barcode, labels and ingredients
information by far is not adequate to authenticate the validity of the food
information claimed by the manufacturer or food producer. This
long-established approach fails to inform the users and no longer fitting in
this cyber world. Much work has been carried out to find the best solution to
ensure information presented on the food packaging is true yet legitimate. In
similar cases by big food store, shows the agility of RFID has assist them to
better track their food status. By taking this example, we have carried out
some studies to better understand the capability of RFID in tracking Halal
status in Malaysia food market. This study is aimed to understand the
Malaysian users’ perception on implementing a real-time tool in order to feed
users with genuine and validated information in the user-buying process.
Furthermore, by conducting this study, researcher can better understand and
identify the market opportunities to deploy such technology to the Malaysia
users. A quantitative approach was chosen to gather data from the users
around Klang Valley and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. A survey form consisting of
32 questions were distributed to 50 to 60 identified users, where respondents
were selected varies from Halal and non-Halal users. Graphs and tables are
presented to depict the findings of users’ perception on the RFID tag for
Halal Tracking in Malaysia. The results show 48% of the users agreed that a
real-time system is required for the information dissemination. However,
sadly only 34% knows what RFID is and what RFID can do in developing a
real-time system for Halal tracking. Approximately 98% of the respondent
agrees that a new tracking system is required for information traceability.
This result shows clear opportunity to introduce new tools, nevertheless
solid awareness activities are required to ensure the success of the new
system.
Keywords: Halal
information, Halal tracking, RFID, User tracking system.
Title of the Paper: Structured Data
Representation Using Ruby Syntax
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Authors: Kazuaki Maeda
Abstract: This paper describes Ribbon (Ruby Instructions Becoming Basic
Object Notation), a new representation written in a text-based data format
using Ruby syntax. The design principle of Ribbon is good readability and
simplicity of structured data representation. An important feature of Ribbon
is an executable representation. Once Ribbon-related definitions are loaded
into a Ruby interpreter, the representation can be executed corresponding to
the definitions. Java programs are expected to read/write Java objects to
persistent storage-media, or to traverse the structured data. A program
generator was developed to create Ruby and Java programs from Ribbon
definitions. In the author’s experience, productivity was improved in the
design and implementation of programs that manipulate structured data.
Keywords: Data
Representation, Structured Data, Domain Specific Languages, Ruby, Java.
Issue 6, Volume 5, June 2008
Title of the Paper: An analysis of the
Research on Adaptive Learning: The Next Generation of e-Learning
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Authors: Elena Verdu,
Luisa M. Regueras, Maria Lesus Verdu, Juan Pablo De Castro, Maria Angeles
Perez
Abstract: This study examines the evidence for the effectiveness of adaptive
learning and the satisfaction level of students when using this type of
learning. It first analyses the different classifications of adaptive
learning systems existing in the literature, to focus later on describing
some adaptive and intelligent e-learning systems, mainly those included in
the groups of Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS), Adaptive Hypermedia Systems
(AHS) and Intelligent Collaborative Learning systems. Next, the Effect Size
(ES) tool is adopted as a standard way to compare the results of one
pedagogical experiment to another. ES is used to analyse the effectiveness of
some of the systems previously described, in order to demonstrate that
adaptive learning can provide significant improvements in the learning
process of students. Secondly, the learners’ opinion is analysed in order to
estimate their satisfaction and to know their preferred mode of studying.
Finally, a number of conclusions and future trends are discussed.
Keywords: Adaptive
learning, E-Learning, Intelligent Tutoring Systems, Intelligent Collaborative
Learning, Intelligent Educational Systems, Adaptive Hypermedia Systems,
Learning effectiveness.
Title of the Paper: Multimedia
Applications and their Benefit for Teaching and Learning at Universities
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Authors: Eva Milkova
Abstract: Multimedia applications together with individual approaches within
the didactic process substantially influence education. They give us an
excellent chance how to support not only demonstrating and visualizing the
explained subject matter to be much clearer and comprehensible, but also
enable us to prepare such study material for students that optimizes their
study habits. The top applications of multimedia are represented by virtual
reality. Well organized and fulfilled virtual learning environment has been
becoming important part of teaching and learning. On a few examples of
multimedia products created by our students on a script given by the author
of this paper we discus their benefit when explaining and visualizing the
subject matter and testing knowledge of students through several kinds of
self-tests and we also mention advantages of the professional virtual
learning environment containing such study material.
Keywords: Multimedia
study material, virtual learning environment, self-preparation of students,
on-line testing
Title of the Paper: Using Formal
Concept Analysis to Design and Improve Multidisciplinary Clinical Processes
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Authors: Telung Pan, Yunchun Tsai,
Kwoting Fang
Abstract: Recent changes in health care have focused attention on new tools
for planning and managing clinical processes. Clinical process employ a
concept long used in other industries: the explicit design and documentation
of a process. However, the knowledge driven perspective is seldom used when
modeling or redesigning a process. Using formal concept analysis, we propose
a knowledge management perspective to provide a method for modeling and
designing a new multidisciplinary clinical process, in which different
medical specialist coordinate the treatment of specific groups of patients
and improve the medical quality.
Keywords:
Multidisciplinary clinical process, Formal concept analysis, Process modeling
Title of the Paper: Analytical Study of
Object Components for Distributed and Ubiquitous Computing Environment
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Authors: Usha Batra, Deepak Dahiya,
Sachin Bhardwaj
Abstract: The Distributed object computing is a paradigm that allows objects
to be distributed across a heterogeneous network, and allows each of the
components to interoperate as a unified whole. A new generation of
distributed applications, such as telemedicine and e-commerce applications,
are being deployed in heterogeneous and ubiquitous computing environments.
The objective of this paper is to explore an applicability of a component
based services in ubiquitous computational environment. While the fundamental
structure of various distributed object components is similar, there are
differences that can profoundly impact an application developer or the
administrator of a distributed simulation exercise and to implement in
Ubiquitous Computing Environment.
Keywords: Ubiquitous
Computing, one.world, COM, DCOM, RMI, CORBA, SOAP
Title of the Paper: The Design of
Interactive Conversation Agents
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Authors: Ong Sing Goh, Chung Che Fung
Abstract: Interactive conversation agents or CAs are computer programs or
application software designed to simulate conversation with one or more human
users in natural language. Providing CAs with knowledge, intelligence and humanoid
interface has allowed them to be used in several practical applications. This
paper presented the development and its performance of the interactive CAs
called Artificial Intelligent Naturallanguage Identity or AINI.
Keywords: Conversation
Agents (CAs), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Artificial Intelligent
Natural-Language Identity (AINI), Natural Language Processing (NLP)
Title of the Paper: Semantic Approach
to Knowledge Processing
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Authors: Mladen Stanojevic, Sanja
Vranes
Abstract: The processing of semantic information requires the adequate
knowledge representation and ability to interpret semantically related
knowledge. The majority of present day approaches to knowledge representation
and processing are based on symbolic approach, i.e. on describing the meaning
of represented domain knowledge and procedural knowledge used to process this
domain knowledge. Hierarchical Semantic Form (HSF) implements the semantic
approach to semantic knowledge representation and processing, which is not
based on naming as a means to describe the meaning of the knowledge, but on
semantic contexts that enable an implicit way to define the meaning of
represented knowledge, and on simple and complex semantic categories used to
interpret the semantics of represented knowledge. HSF facilitates the
automatic translation of knowledge expressed in natural language into
structured form and vice versa with no loss of information and its processing
including natural language understanding, semantic search and question
answering.
Keywords: Semantic
Knowledge Processing, Knowledge Representation, Connectionist Model, Question
Answering
Title of the Paper: Conducting Fuzzy
Division by using Linear Programming
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Authors: Murat Alper Basaran, Cagdas
Hakan Aladag, Cem Kadilar
Abstract: Some approximation methods have been proposed for fuzzy
multiplication and division in the literature. Instead of doing arithmetic
operations using fuzzy membership functions for fuzzy numbers, parameterized
representation of fuzzy numbers have been used in arithmetic operations. The
most applied parameterized fuzzy numbers used in many of the research papers
are symmetric and asymmetric triangular and trapezoidal fuzzy numbers. In
this study, we propose a new approximation method based on linear programming
for fuzzy division. In order to show the applicability of the proposed
method, some examples are solved using the proposed method and the results
are compared with those generated by other methods in the literature. The
proposed method has produced better results than those generated by the
others.
Keywords: Approximation
method; Fuzzy arithmetic; Fuzzy division; Linear programming; Triangular
fuzzy number
Title of the Paper: A
Graph-Segment-Based Unsupervised Classification for Multispectral Remote
Sensing Images
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Authors: Nana Liu, Jingwen Li, Ning Li
Abstract: With more applications of multispectral remote sensing images, how
to effectively and correctly make automated classification of multispectral
images is still a great challenge. Utilizing both spatial contextual
information and spectral information can achieve better classification
performance. In order to make better utilization of the spatial contextual
information, we apply graph model to the multispectral image, and use
graph-based segmentation to produce units of pixels for further
classification. In this paper, we present an unsupervised approach for
multispectral remote sensing image classification with graph-based segment
and fuzzy c-means clustering. Our method mainly involves following steps:
First, represent image as graph H = (V,E) based on the feature vector of per
pixel and the relationships among neighboring pixels, and segment the graph
into groups of sub-regions as basic object units using the effective graph
segmentation algorithm. Then according to those global feature vectors of
sub-regions, the fuzzy c-means clustering is used to obtain the
classification map based on these sub-regions. Experiments shows the results
by different segmentation scales, and then turn out that the approach
proposed in this paper can achieve better accuracy and efficiency.
Keywords: Multispectral
image; Segment-based classification; Graph-based segmentation; Fuzzy c-means;
Unsupervised classification; Remote sensing images classification
Title of the Paper: Organizational
Aspect of Trusted Legally Valid Long-Term Electronic Archive Solution
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Authors: Helena Halas,
Jan Porekar, Tomaz Klobucar, Aleksej Jerman Blazic
Abstract: Due to increase of electronic business and business process
dematerialization organizations are facing today a problem of preserving vast
amounts of electronic documents in coherent and trustworthy manner. A large
amount of digital documents are produced every day even in small and
medium-sized companies. The documents range from simple receipts to complex
legal contracts and service level agreements. Many such documents need to be
stored and preserved for longer period of time. Some services and technical
solutions providing long term proofs of authenticity, integrity and
non-repudiation of electronic documents are available on the market today. In
order for these technical electronic archiving solutions and services to be
successfully adopted by organizations they need to be deployed in a proper
operational and organizational manner. Beside this organization needs to establish
required operational procedures and to operate in accordance with them to
assure that trusted electronic archive is legally valid. In this paper we
present the first set of organizational approaches that organizations need to
utilize in order to successfully integrate the operational and legal aspects
of electronic archiving and to change the business processes accordingly.
Following the approach of pattern oriented organizational design we capture
the organizational trusted archiving solutions and best practices in the form
of patterns, providing the context of the problem, the generic solution
captured in the form of organizational diagrams, and preconditions that need
to be met by the organization, and dependencies on other patterns are
described. Finally the paper presents implementation of the generic solution
to different organizations’ contexts and indicates influence of different
applications of the pattern to further solution development.
Keywords: electronic
archive, long-term preservation, security, legal compliance, durable
integrity, durable authenticity, organizational patterns
Title of the Paper: Reinforcing the
Concept of Calculating Isotope Pattern Using Theoretical Isotope Generator
(TIG)
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Authors: Massila Kamalrudin, Soong
Hoong Cheng, Azlianor Abdul Aziz, Muhammad Suhaizan Sulong
Abstract: This paper describes how the isotope patterns are calculated for
chemists, students, lecturers and researchers using Theoretical Isotope
Generator (TIG) integrated from the .NET framework (specifically VB.NET) with
the data from the dual databases (Microsoft Access and Microsoft SQL 2000).
Accordingly, TIG in terms of its functionality and features is an application
developed to gain related information on molecules and their relative
intensity for educational purposes (chemists, students, lecturers and
researchers). Although various mass spectrometer applications are available
as web-based and windows-based systems, the projected software is indeed
practical, beneficial and constructive for the academic learners as well for
the intellectual researchers for rapidly defining the numbers of the
possibility isotope patterns obtainable from a substance(chemical compound)
for example methane (CH2). Therefore, TIG with the mathematical application
called Cartesian Products is used to obtain the isotope patterns of any atom
or molecules. TIG provides extra features than others that are proficient to
retrieve the information of the mass (atomic/molecular weight) from the
substance specified based from the isotope patterns available. Additionally,
TIG is completely with several functionalities such as drawing, normalizing
and zooming the generated graph that convey with the molecular information in
a number of formats by providing the details of the calculation and
molecules.
Keywords: Isotope
pattern, Cartesian Products, Calculation, Engine, Isotopic Distribution and
Theoretical Isotope Generator (TIG)
Title of the Paper: The Design and
Implementation of Background Pass-Go Scheme Towards Security Threats
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Authors: L. Y. Por, X. T. Lim, M. T. Su,
F. Kianoush
Abstract: Currently, access to computer systems is often based on the use of
alpha-numeric. The textual passwords or alpha-numeric passwords have been the
basis of authentication systems for centuries. Similarly, it had also been
the major attraction for crackers and attackers. However, users tend to face
difficulty in remembering a password that is considered as secured password
because this type of secured password usually has long string of characters
and they appear randomly [14]. Hence, most users tend to create simple, short
and insecure passwords. As a consequence, most of the time, the usability
level of passwords has not achieved an optimum for a secured password [14].
In order to solve this problem, a new password scheme had been invented,
known as Graphical Password System (GPS). Graphical password is an
alternative mean of authentication for login intended to be used in place of
conventional password; it utilizes images instead of text. In this paper, we
discuss the design and intention of our proposed scheme, called Background
Pass-Go (BPG). BPG is an improved version of Pass-Go, as it keeps most of the
advantages of Pass-Go and achieves better usability. We had analyzed the BPG
scheme in terms of 1) how BPG is able to improve other schemes of GPS
especially in Pass-Go, 2) how BPG acts as a solution to different types of
threats to networked computer systems. We had verified that BPG manages to
overcome the shortage of other GPS schemes. Moreover, the BPG also manages to
address most of the security threats for the network security system.
Keywords: BPG, Background
Pass-Go, Pass-Go, GPS, Graphical Passwords System, Security.
Title of the Paper: Ontology based
Framework for Data Integration
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Authors: Alberto Salguero, Francisco
Araque, Cecilia Delgado
Abstract: One of the most complex issues of the data integration is the case
where there are multiple sources for the same data element. It is not easy to
generate and maintain the integrated scheme. In this paper we describe a
framework which encompasses the entire data integration process. The data
source schemas as well as the integrated schema are expressed using an
extension of an ontology definition language which allows the incorporation
of metadata to support the integration process. The proposed model allows the
user to concentrate in modeling the problem itself and not in the issues of
dealing with the temporal and the spatial aspects concerning to many of the
data sources usually used in the enterprises information systems.
Keywords: temporal model,
data integration, ontology, OWL, metadata, enterprise information system.
Title of the Paper: Multiple Linear
Regression in Forecast the Number of Asthmatics
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Authors: Darmesah Gabda, Zainodin Hj
Jubok, Kamsia Budin, Suriani Hassan
Abstract: The objective of this study was to determine the association
between the number of asthmatic patients in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah with the air
quality and meteorological factors using multiple linear regression. The main
eight independent variables with the fourth order interactions were included
in the model. There were 80 possible models considered and the best model was
obtained using the eight selection criteria (8SC). The result showed that the
best model would represent the cause of the rise in the number of asthmatics
modeled by M80.23.
Keywords: multiple
regression, eight selection criteria, fourth-order interaction, best model,
asthma.
Title of the Paper: Comparitive
Analysis of Fuzzy Decision Tree and Logistic Regression Methods for Pavement
Treatmenr Prediction
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Authors: Devinder Kaur, Haricharan
Pulugurta
Abstract: Data mining is the process of extraction of hidden predictive
information from large databases and expressing them in a simple and
meaningful manner. This paper explains the use of Fuzzy logic as a data
mining process to generate decision trees from a pavement (road) database
obtained from Ohio Department of Transportation containing historical
pavement information from 1985 to 2006. Generally there are many attributes
in the pavement database and often it is a complicated process to develop a
mathematical model to classify the data. This study demonstrates the use of
fuzzy logic to generate decision tree to classify the pavement data. Further,
the fuzzy decision tree is then converted to fuzzy rules. These fuzzy rules
will assist decision-making process for selecting a particular type of repair
on a pavement based on its current condition. The fuzzy decision tree
induction method used is based on minimizing the measure of classification
ambiguity for different attributes. These models overcome the sharp boundary
problems, providing soft controller surface and good accuracy dealing with
continuous attributes and prediction problems. This method was compared with
common logistic regression model for predicting the pavement treatment. The
results show that the fuzzy decision method outperforms the logistic
regression model by 10%. The fuzzy decision tree method generates the rules,
which gives the better understanding of the relationship between the
parameters and the pavement treatment prediction.
Keywords: Pavement
Management, Classification Ambiguity, fuzzy ID3, Logistic Regression
Title of the Paper: Modeling Reference
Evapotranspiration by Generalized Regression Neural Network in Semiarid Zone
of Africa
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Authors: Seydou Traore, Yu-Min Wang, Tienfuan Kerh
Abstract: This paper investigates for the first time in Burkina Faso, the
potential of using an artificial neural network (ANN) for reference
evapotranspiration (ETo) estimation. The ANN algorithm generalized regression
neural network (GRNN) was selected for its ability to model the ETo from
minimum climatic data. The irrigation management in Burkina Faso still faced
to climatic data unavailability for estimating the ETo with the recommended
Penman-Monteith (PM) equation. Recently, to overcome the climatic data
unavailability difficulty, a reference model for Burkina Faso (RMBF) using
only temperature as input has been developed for irrigation management
purpose in two production sites, Banfora and Ouagadougou. In this study, four
alternative methods to PM, including GRNN, RMBF, Hargreaves (HRG) and
Blaney-Criddle (BCR) were employed to study their performances in three
production sites, Dori, Bogande and Fada N’gourma. The minimum climatic data
were set to the maximum and minimum air temperature as input variables
collected from 1996 to 2006. The results revealed that, RMBF, HRG and BCR
overestimated the ETo and showed poor performance. In addition, GRNN
performance was higher than RMBF, HRG and BCR. Finally, wind has been determined
as a sensitive parameter in the ETo estimation for the areas studied.
Obviously, using GRNN with minimum climatic variables for ETo estimation is
more reliable than the other alternative methods. It is possible to estimate
ETo by using ANN in semiarid zone of Africa.
Keywords:
Evapotranspiration, estimating, GRNN, minimum climatic data, semiarid zone,
irrigation management.
Title of the Paper: Development of a
Learning Content Management System
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Authors: Lejla Abazi-Bexheti
Abstract: Change appears to be the only constant in the field of ICT and what
was treated as advanced feature few years ago is today old-fashioned. If
dealing with such rapid change in the field is increasingly difficult and
complex, it is even more complicated when one tries to simplify the concepts
and processes and define the learning system’s model and the features that
would contribute to a more effective teaching and learning. As part of the
research project team, which aims to develop software for Learning Content
Management System at SEE University, we primarily had to select the features
that would cover our needs and also comply with the actual trends in this
area of software development, and then design and develop the system. In this
paper we present the in house development of an LCMS for South East European
University, its architecture, conception and strengths.
Keywords: e-learning,
LCMS, e-learning systems, conceptual design, architecture, system modules
Title of the Paper: Network Structure
Mining: Locating and isolating core members in covert terrorist networks
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Authors: Muhammad Akram Shaikh, Wang Jiaxin
Abstract: Knowing patterns of relationship in covert (illegal) networks is
very useful for law enforcement agencies and intelligence analysts to
investigate collaborations among criminals. Previous studies in network
analysis have mostly dealt with overt (legal) networks with transparent
structures. Unlike conventional data mining that extracts patterns based on
individual data objects, network structure mining is especially suitable for
mining a large volume of association data to discover hidden structural
patterns in criminal networks. Covert networks share some features with
conventional (real world) networks, but they are harder to identify because
they mostly hide their illicit activities. After the September 11, 2001
attacks, social network analysis (SNA) has increasingly been used to study
criminal networks. However, Finding out who is related to whom on a large
scale in a covert network is a complex problem. In this paper we will discuss
how network structure mining is applied in the domain of terrorist networks
using structural (indices) measures or properties from social network
analysis (SNA) and web structural mining research and proposed an algorithm
for network disruption. Structural properties are determined by the graph
structure of the network. These structural properties are used for locating
and isolating core members by using importance ranking score and thereby
analyzing the effect to remove these members in terrorist networks. The
discussion is supported with a case study of Jemma Islamiah (JI) terrorist
network.
Keywords: Networks,
Centrality, Dependency, Rank, Influence, and Destabilization.
Title of the Paper: Classification of
Personal Arabic Handwritten Documents
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Authors: Salama Brook, Zaher Al
Aghbari
Abstract: This paper presents a novel holistic technique for classifying Arabic
handwritten text documents. The classification of Arabic handwritten
documents is performed in several steps. First, the Arabic handwritten
document images are segmented into words, and then each word is segmented
into its connected parts. Second, several structural and statistical features
are extracted from these connected parts and then combined to represent a
word with one consolidated feature vector. Finally, a generalized feedforward
neural network is used to learn and classify the different styles/fonts into
word classes, which are used to retrieve Arabic handwritten text documents.
The extraction of structural and statistical features from the individual
connected parts as compared to the extraction of these features from the
whole word improved the performance of the system.
Keywords: Data mining of
Arabic text, Word recognition, Arabic handwriting, Segmentation of Arabic
handwritten documents, Feature extraction, Classification, and Retrieval of
Arabic handwritten documents
Title of the Paper: Localization of
Distributed Data in a CORBA-based environment
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Authors: Milko Marinov, Svetlana
Stefanova
Abstract: Query processing over distributed and fragmented databases is more
challenging than doing so in a centralized environment. In a distributed
environment, the DBMS needs to know where each node is located. The main role
of data localization layer is to localize the query’s data using data
distribution information. We propose an approach to incorporate the
artificial intelligence techniques into a distributed database management
system (DBMS), namely to extend the core of a distributed CORBA-based
environment with deductive functionalities of the query and view services
during the process of data localization. The basic principles and the
architecture of the software tool are considered. The implementation and
class hierarchy of the objectoriented theorem prover which is built in the
core of distributed CORBA-based system are also discussed.
Keywords: Distributed
systems, Data localization, CORBA-based architecture, Theorem prover.
Title of the Paper: Issues in the
Implementation of Software Process Improvement Project in Malaysia
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Authors: Mohd Hairul Nizam Md. Nasir,
Rodina Ahmad, Noor Hafizah Hassan
Abstract: Software Process Improvement (SPI) became known in the last twenty years.
SPI is crucial to augment software process capabilities in software companies
to face present demanding and global market. There were numerous published
studies in United States, Europe, Australia and North America. Yet, there was
still being short of research and published studies on SPI in Malaysia. This
research attempts to fill this gap by focusing to analyze the resistance
factors that de-motivate the implementation of SPI project specifically
software companies operated in Malaysia. This research has been conducted
during March 2008 until August 2008 and it used a survey instrument to gather
data from 39 companies operated across Malaysia with the total of 251
professionals responded. The findings showed that organizational factors
specifically human factors are playing an important role in determining the
success of the SPI project. Participation and commitments from all
individuals across the organization are also vital and imperative to ensure
success for SPI initiative.
Keywords: Software Process
Improvement, Resistance Factors, SPI Implementation, SPI in Malaysia
Title of the Paper: A Fuzzy AHP
Application on Evaluation of High-Yield Bond Investment
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Authors: Chen-Yu Lee, Jao-Hong Cheng
Abstract: The returns and risks of high-yield bond (HYB) lie between the
stocks and Treasury bonds. In view of investment opportunities and the rate
of return, the advantages of HYB are both lower risks and higher shares.
Therefore, HYB has become one of important components in the portfolios. The
purpose of this study is to identify critical factors related to the
selection of HYB. Primary criteria to evaluate HYB selection are obtained by
the literatures survey and applying fuzzy Delphi method (FDM), and then fuzzy
analytic hierarchy process (FAHP) is employed to calculate the weights of
these criteria, so as to build the fuzzy multi-criteria model of HYB
investment. The results indicate a greatest weight on the dimension of
economic environment, and three critical evaluation criteria related to HYB
selection are: (1) spread versus Treasury, (2) bond callability, and (3)
default rate indicator.
Keywords: High-Yield
Bond, Portfolio Management, Credit Rating, Financial Failure, Analytic
Hierarchy Process (AHP), Fuzzy Delphi Method (FDM), Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy
Process (FAHP).
Title of the Paper: Adapting Software
Engineering Design Patterns for Ontology Construction
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Authors: Stanislav Ustymenko, Daniel
Schwartz
Abstract: In this paper, we present an argument for designing metadata
schemata with design patterns. Design patterns are structured descriptions of
solutions to some class of problems, and are used extensively in various
stages of object-oriented software engineering. We present a use case of
collaborative construction of metadata for a digital library. We explore
design challenges this scenario presents and then adapt a pattern called
Composite from a standard software engineering design patterns reference to
address parts of these challenges. Additionally, we propose a new design
pattern called History suggested by a collaborative metadata construction
scenario and applicable to a wider class of problems in metadata design.
Keywords: Design
Patterns, Knowledge Engineering, Object-Oriented Design, Semantic Metadata,
Web Ontology
Title of the Paper: Towards a Flexible
Tool for Supporting Data Collection & Analysis in Personal Software
Process (PSP)
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Authors: Mohd Hairul Nizam Md Nasir,
Azah Anir Norman, Noor Hafizah Hassan
Abstract: Personal Software Process (PSP) ultimately provides software
engineers an excellent framework and practice that can help them to improve
the quality of their work, by analyzing their performance statistically and
helping them to achieve realistic goals set by them. Besides, PSP offers many
benefits to software engineers. However, through findings and studies, it is
found that the Personal Software Process adoption problem may be caused by
the overhead in data collection, manual execution in data analysis, and
inflexibility of process definition. This paper presents in details the
factors that influence the PSP adoption problem and explains the need for
automated tool to support the adoption of PSP. It is believed that with the
highly flexible automated tool support, it can give the flexibility to the
software engineers to manage their process definition rather than staying
freeze. Other than that, it can minimize the overhead during the data
collection and data analysis phases. Software engineers should be easily monitors,
measure and improve their software development process by using other
additional features provided by this tool.
Keywords: Personal
Software Process, PSP, Automated Tool, Software Process, Flexible Tool.
Issue 7, Volume 5, July 2008
Title of the Paper: Modeling and
Development of the Real-time Control Strategy For Parallel Hybrid Electric
Urban Buses
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Authors: Yuanjun Huang, Chengliang Yin,
Jianwu Zhang
Abstract: This paper proposes a feed-forward control model for SWB6105
parallel hybrid electric urban bus (PHEUB) by using Matlab/Simulink. In order
to optimize the fuel economy, balance the battery state of charge (SOC), and
satisfy the requirements of the vehicle performance and drivability as well,
a logic threshold torque distribution control strategy (LTTDCS) incorporating
with an instantaneous optimization algorithm was developed for the PHEUB.
Bench tests results for the key components of the hybrid powertrain are
selected as reliable references in the modeling. The control strategy is
validated by the simulation results of the engine, the motor and the battery
in terms of fuel economy and deviations of battery SOC.
Keywords: Parallel hybrid
electric urban bus (PHEUB), Hybrid powertrain, Hybrid system modeling, Logic
threshold torque distribution control strategy (LTTDCS), Instantaneous
optimization algorithm, Real-time control
Title of the Paper: Combinatorial
Effect of Various Features Extraction on Computer Aided Detection of
Pulmonary Nodules in X-ray CT Images
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Authors: Noriyasu Homma, Kazunori
Takei, Tadashi Ishibashi
Abstract: In this paper, we propose a new method for computer aided detection
of pulmonary nodules in X-ray CT images to reduce false positive rate under
high true positive rate conditions. An essential part of the method is to
extract and combine two novel and effective features from the original CT
images: One is orientation features of nodules in a region of interest (ROI)
extracted by a Gabor filter, while the other is variation of CT values of the
ROI in the direction along body axis. By using the extracted features,
pattern recognition techniques can then be used to discriminate between
nodule and non-nodule images. Simulation results show that discrimination
performance using the proposed features is extremely improved compared to
that of the conventional method.
Keywords: Computer aided
diagnosis, Lung cancer, Pulmonary nodules, Feature extraction, Image
recognition, X-ray CT images
Title of the Paper: Multi-Grid
Background Pass-Go
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Authors: L. Y. Por, X. T. Lim
Abstract: Computer security depends largely on passwords to authenticate the
human user for access to secure systems. Remembering the password they have
chosen is a frequent problem for all users. As a result, they tend to choose
short and insecure passwords as compared to secure passwords which usually
consist of a long mixture of random alphanumeric and non-alphanumeric
characters. Thus, the tendency of choosing insecure passwords has brought up
many security problems. Graphical password is an alternative to replace alphanumeric
password in which users only have to click on the images in order to
authenticate themselves rather than typing alphanumeric strings. The main
objectives of this paper are to present a classification of graphical
passwords system (GPS) and identify its future research area. In this paper,
we attempt to identify a number of threats to the networked computer systems,
focus on the research of graphical password system (GPS) and analysis on some
aspects of GPS; 1) how each GPS algorithm works, 2) the advantages and
disadvantages of each GPS algorithm, 3) how each GPS algorithm is able to
address solutions to the threats. Besides, the paper also concentrates on the
design and the implication of a proposed prototype, namely Multi-Grid
Background Pass-Go (MGBPG) which is targeted to be its strength and the
winning edge over other graphical password systems. The preliminary result
and analysis of the proposed prototype is then presented by comparing it on
its role in addressing the drawbacks of current existing GPS and several
security attacks. Finally, we highlight a few aspects, which need to be
improved in the future to overcome the deficiencies of previous GPS methods
that have been invented.
Keywords: GPS, Graphical
Password System, Background Pass-Go, BPG, Multi-Grid Background Pass-Go,
MGBPG, Password, Authentication, Threat.
Title of the Paper: Learning Schemes in
Using PCA Neural Networks for Image Restoration Purposes
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Authors: Ion Rosca, Luminita State,
Catalina Lucia Cocianu
Abstract: Image restoration methods are used to improve the appearance of an
image by application of a restoration process that uses a mathematical model
for image degradation. The restoration can be viewed as a process that
attempts to reconstruct or recover an image that has been degraded by using
some a priori knowledge about the degradation phenomenon. Principal component
analysis allows the identification of a linear transformation such that the
axes of the resulted coordinate system correspond to the largest variability
of the investigated signal. The advantages of using principal components
reside from the fact that bands are uncorrelated and no information contained
in one band can be predicted by the knowledge of the other bands, therefore
the information contained by each band is maximum for the whole set of bits.
The multiresolution support set is a data structure suitable for developing
noise removal algorithms. The multiresolution algorithms perform the
restoration tasks by combining, at each resolution level, according to a
certain rule, the pixels of a binary support image. The multiresolution
support can be computed using the statistically significant wavelet
coefficients. We investigate the comparative performance of different PCA
algorithms derived from Hebbian learning, lateral interaction algorithms and
gradient–based learning for digital signal compression and image processing
purposes. The final sections of the paper focus on PCA based approaches for
image restoration tasks based on the multirezolution support set as well as
on PCA based shrinkage technique for noise removal. The proposed algorithms
were tested and some of the results are presented and commented in the final
part of each section.
Keywords: dimensionality
reduction, image restoration, shrinkage functions, neural networks
Title of the Paper: Knowledge
Management in the HR Sector of RD Organizations
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Authors: Valentina Janev,
Ana Dokic, Marija Minic, Sanja Vranes
Abstract: This paper presents a solution for managing the specific HR assets
in research organizations, i.e. the scientific track record of scientists and
researchers. The solution has already been installed at the Mihajlo Pupin
Institute (MPI) in Belgrade as a part of the knowledge management initiative
started a few years ago. It is based on SAP Human Capital Management (HCM)
solution that ensures standardized integration and automation of HR
activities and provides a wide range of reporting options. However, as
standard SAP HCM solution does not cover the specific aspects of the R&D
business process, the additional functionalities were built upon the standard
SAP system in order to keep an extensive record of the employee professional
and scientific life including scientific and professional skills and
expertise, degrees and certificates obtained, information about engagements
in concrete projects with details about their roles and competences,
scientific achievements (patents, technical solutions, scientific papers /
books), other achievements / awards, etc. The new functionalities were build
taking into consideration the recommendations of Serbian Ministry of Science
for compilation of the Researchers file. The new HCM solution is used for
analysis and reporting indoors, as well as towards Serbian Ministry of
Science and Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia. Moreover, CVs of
researchers are also kept in several standard forms (European Commission,
World Bank, Microsoft, etc), facilitating preparation of international
project proposals and bidding material. In this paper we discuss the
implementation aspects of the solution, as well as the lessons learned and
the benefits gained.
Keywords: knowledge
management, scientific track record, R&D organization, SAP HCM, ontology,
integrated KM platform
Title of the Paper: A Lightweight Buyer’s
Trust Model for Micropayment Systems
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Authors: Samad Kardan, Mehdi Shajari
Abstract: In this paper we present a trust model for an enhanced version of
MR2 micropayment scheme. We named this scheme TMR2. TMR2’s light-weight trust
model is based on user polling, sales volume and vendor’s reputation. We
claim that TMR2 can solve the mind barrier problem, which will result in the
expansion of micropayment usage. The new token proposed to handle trust is a
certificate called Rating certificate. We propose a new Rating certificate
for merchants to support users’ trust. Our proposed purchase process needs
validation of this certificate, therefore, compared to MR2, the proposed
scheme needs only one extra on-line digital signature validation. This
validation adds less than 4 percent computational overhead in the purchase
process, which is acceptable, considering the benefits that users will gain.
Keywords: User Trust
Model, MR2 Micropayment Scheme, Micropayment Schemes, Computational Trust.
Title of the Paper: Correlational
Analysis of Layered Superconducting Cuprates
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Authors: Vlad Grigore
Lascu, Lidia Petrova, Cristina Zarioiu, Anca Novac
Abstract: The paper is a review based on a three level correlational analysis
of the behaviour of one compound, of a homologous series and a third
interseries multiparametrical analysis, revealing multiple correlation
between the critical temperature value and different bond lengths versus the
oxygen content. It is described an experimental setup for Tc measurements. A
unifying structural scheme of all layered superconducting cuprates is
proposed.
Keywords:
Superconductivity, Layered cuprates, Homologous series, Correlational
analysis, Mercury compound.
Title of the Paper: Analytical and
Numerical Results for Detecting Attractors
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Authors: Mirela-Catrinel Voicu
Abstract: In this paper we present some qualitative and quantitative results
for a particular type of k-order exchange rate models. These results concern
the existence of attractors: the fixed point, its stability and its
attraction domain, period-p cycles, limit cycles and chaotic attractors.
Given the nonlinear nature, the dynamics of these systems cannot be detected
using only analytical tools. For this reason, in the last section, we make
numerical simulations and we present some examples. The algorithms
implementation is made using VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) program in
Excel, and the images of the figures in this paper are made using
Mathematica.
Keywords: Nonlinear
system, Attractors, Numerical Simulations, Programming, VBA & Excel.
Title of the Paper: Line Detection
Techniques for Automatic Content Conversion Systems
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Authors: Costin-Anton Boiangiu, Bogdan
Raducanu
Abstract: In an image processing application there is often need to identify
and extract different morphological elements such as characters or lines.
This paper studies one general method of identifying vertical or horizontal
lines. However, the techniques described here can be used to detect other
analytical objects like circles, or even ellipses. Line Detection is an
important add-on to an automatic content conversion system which builds
digital documents from scanned papers. After identifying lines, other layout
elements can be extracted: columns, paragraphs, tables, headers. The present
paper is a study of the Hough Transform for which several new enhancements
are introduced.
Keywords: Automatic
content conversion, Line detection, Edge detection, Hough transform, Feature
extraction
Title of the Paper: 3D Mesh
Simplification Techniques for Image-Page Clusters Detection
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Authors: Costin-Anton Boiangiu, Bogdan
Raducanu
Abstract: Entity clustering is a vital feature of any automatic content
conversion system. Such systems generate digital documents from hard copies
of newspapers, books, etc. At application level, the system processes an
image (usually in black and white color mode) and identifies the various
content layout elements, such as paragraphs, tables, images, columns, etc.
Here is where the entity clustering mechanism comes into play. Its role is to
group atomic entities (characters, points, lines) into layout elements. To
achieve this, the system takes on different approaches which rely on the
geometrical properties of the enclosed items: their relative position, size,
boundaries and alignment. This paper describes such an approach based on 3D
mesh reduction.
Keywords: automatic
content conversion, document digitization, layout identification, entity
clustering, mesh reduction, heightmaps, terrain, level of detail
Title of the Paper: Internet Congestion
Control Model
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Authors: Gabriela Mircea
Abstract: In this paper, we consider an Internet model with n access links,
which respond to congestion signals from the network, and study the
bifurcation of such a system. By choosing the gain parameter as a bifurcation
parameter, we prove that a Hopf bifurcation occurs. The stability of
bifurcating periodic solutions and the direction of the Hopf bifurcation are
determined by applying the normal form theory and the center manifold
theorem. Finally a numerical example is given to verify the theoretical
analysis.
Keywords: Internet model,
Hopf bifurcation, feedback delay, numerical simulation
Title of the Paper: Blending Implicit
Shapes Using Fuzzy Set Operations
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Authors: Qingde Li, Jie Tian
Abstract: Implicit modelling is a powerful technique to design geometric
shapes, where a geometric object is described by a real function. In general,
the real functions used in implicit modelling are unbounded and can take any
values in space R. In general, the shapes described by different level sets
of an unbounded implicit function can be varied significantly and are very
unpredictable. In addition, allowing the underlying implicit function to take
negative values also makes the construction of shape blending operations a
difficult task. In this paper, we propose an implicit shape modelling
technique, where each implicit shape is represented as the membership
function of a fuzzy set which is bounded and nonnegative with value taken in
[0, 1]. The most obvious benefit of representing an implicit shape as fuzzy
set is that the blending of a set of implicit shapes is simply a problem of
aggregating a set of fuzzy sets, which can be done in various ways by
choosing a proper fuzzy set aggregation operator from a wide variety of fuzzy
set operations.
Keywords: Implicit curves
and surfaces, isosurfaces, blending operations, Generalized algebraic
operations, Piecewise algebraic operations, Fuzzy sets, Soft computing
Title of the Paper: Identifying Web
Strategies for Large-Scale Firms
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Authors: Tuncay Bayrak
Abstract: The World Wide Web has become increasingly important in helping
businesses stay competitive. Hence, in the current business environment, it
is essential for large firms in established industries to take advantage of
the Web and all it has to offer in order to stay competitive. Integrating the
Web into business processes may enable companies to operate more effectively
and efficiently while doing the same things that they have always done
before. While the Web has transformed many industries, organizations need to
make conscious and informed decisions on what aspects of the Web they believe
will positively impact their organizations. Our goal is to provide a
framework in addressing issues of how to use the Web as a platform to develop
various strategies. This research will address various web strategies that
can be used by large organizations to support various business functions.
Keywords: Internet,
Strategy, Web, Organizational Goals, Integration.
Title of the Paper: A Method for
Modeling Service Management of e-Learning
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Authors: Jyhjong Lin
Abstract: For the rapid advances of Internet technologies and Web
applications in recent years, providing opportunities to learn outside of the
traditional classroom-based education has gained many attentions as a new
theme for prospect learners to acquire knowledge in a more convenient way. In
this new paradigm of the so called electronic learning (e-Learning), many
efforts have been made to build Web based learning systems that manage desired
e-Learning processes. From the managerial perspective on education, this
means that each desired e-Learning process is monitored and controlled for
fulfilling an expected learning objective. In this paper, we propose an
object-oriented modeling method that addresses this issue by dividing
required mechanisms into three layers: learning objective, learning service
agent, and learning service composition ones. With this architecture,
e-Learning processes are managed via the recognition of a learning objective,
the employment of a learning service agent that arranges a process of
demanded learning services for achieving the objective, and the confirmation
of interactions/coordination among these services in achieving the objective.
For specification, an object-oriented model is presented for each layer that
describes the working detail of that layer. To illustrate, these models are
applied in the fulfillment of an e-Learning plan for learning about Software
Engineering that involves a set of learning objectives to be achieved by
various processes of learning services.
Keywords: e-Learning,
service management, object-orientation, modeling method
Title of the Paper: A Study for
Comparative Evaluation of the Methods for Image Processing Using Texture
Characteristics
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Authors: Mariana Jurian, Ioan Lita,
Florentina Enescu, Daniel Alexandru Visan
Abstract: In this paper a comparative study has been made regarding certain
methods of image processing by the texture characteristic, to find the
optimum method for detecting color texture. The study is based on the
experiments. There are two main points: the quality of the detection and the
response time. For the experiments have been used the co-occurrence matrix
and the iso-segments matrix of the gray or color levels. These methods are
based on processing the image at a pixel level and the making of matrix that
contain certain spatial positions of pixels. The resulting matrix was
analyzed and, based on the existing information, the characteristics vectors
associated to the matrix was determined. Each method was studied by analyzing
the pixels of the image files in certain situations and directions and at
certain distances. The co-occurrence methods had better results for the
queries based on water, wood and grass textures and on the ones based on
sand, ruble and clouds, better results were obtained using the iso-segment
matrix.
Keywords: texture,
co-occurrence, iso-segments, pixel, propinquity, grain, contrast,
directionality, regularity, roughness, line-likeness.
Title of the Paper: An Efficient Stream
Mining Technique
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Authors: Hatim A. Aboalsamh, Alaaeldin
M. Hafez, Ghazy M. R. Assassa
Abstract: Stream analysis is considered as a crucial component of strategic
control over a broad variety of disciplines in business, science and
engineering. Stream data is a sequence of observations collected over
intervals of time. Each data stream describes a phenomenon. Analysis on
Stream data includes discovering trends (or patterns) in a Stream sequence.
In the last few years, data mining has emerged and been recognized as a new
technology for data analysis. Data Mining is the process of discovering
potentially valuable patterns, associations, trends, sequences and
dependencies in data. Data mining techniques can discover information that
many traditional business analysis and statistical techniques fail to
deliver. In our study, we emphasis on the use of data mining techniques on
data streams, where mining techniques and tools are used in an attempt to
recognize, anticipate and learn the stream behavior with different directly
related or looked unrelated factors. Targeted data are sequences of
observations collected over intervals of time. Each sequence describes a
phenomenon or a factor. Such factors could have either a direct or indirect
impact on the stream data under study. Examples of factors with direct impact
include the yearly budgets and expenditures, taxations, local stocks prices,
unemployment rates, inflation rates, fallen angels, and rising odds for upgrades.
Indirect factors could include any phenomena in the local or global
environments, such as, global stocks prices, education expenditures, weather
conditions, employment strategies, and medical services. Analysis on data
includes discovering trends (or patterns) and association between sequences
in order to generate non-trivial knowledge. In this paper, we propose a data
mining technique to predict the dependency between factors that affect
performance. The proposed technique consists of three phases: (a) for each
data sequence that represents a chosen phenomenon, generate its trend
sequences, (b) discover maximal frequent trend patterns, generate pattern
vectors (to keep information of frequent trend patterns), use trend pattern
vectors to predict future factor sequences.
Keywords: Data Mining,
Stream Mining, Time Series Mining, Mining Trends, Data Sequences, Association
Mining, Maximal Trend Patterns, Global Trends, Local Trends.
Title of the Paper: Study on Pseudo
Update of Building Shape in Road Ledger Digital Map
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Authors: Tsuyoshi Takayama, Akitsugu
Oki, Hidemi Fukada, Yoshitoshi Murata, Nobuyoshi Sato, Tetsuo Ikeda
Abstract: Recently, in the area of GIS(Geographic Information System), lots
of researchers are attracted to efficient update of a digital map data.
However, its update cost in the conventional methods is not low. On the other
hand, in the case of carrying out some works in a municipal government by
employing GIS, the following problem occurs. That is, it is not easy to carry
out them because the shape or ‘existence or not’ of a building on a base map
of road ledger generated from GIS is not always relevant to its truth. In our
discussion, we limit the scope to building shape. The purpose of our research
is to develop an efficient and available update method of building shape with
satisfying the following two conditions: (i) it does not contain a data
structuring phase from raster images and the update cost in it is not too
high, and (ii) it use a map updated more frequently than the basic map which
should be updated, and is practically available. Authors investigate
semi-automatic and pseudo update of a building by employing an urban design
map which has higher update frequency but less precision than the base map of
road ledger. In here, ‘pseudo’ means that we put the major interest to carry
out the municipal government works and provide the first priority with the
relevance to the truth on the shape or ‘existence or not’ of a building, even
if we sacrifice its precision of the map. In the present paper, we propose
its concrete algorithm and evaluate it. According to the evaluation, our
proposition has achieved 85.0 % recall and 91.9 % precision. Our proposition
has also obtained good result in qualitative evaluation.
Keywords: GIS(Geographic
Information System), update, frequency, recall, precision, evaluation, and
municipal government work.
Title of the Paper: Constructing a Data
Schema from an Information Flow Model
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Authors: Junkang Feng, Sufen Wang
Abstract: The ‘information content’ of a data schema is concerned with the
capacity of a database in representing the information that the database is
designed to provide. It is recognized to be ‘difficult to define and
measure’. Our literature survey seems to show that this is an unsolved
problem and the difficulties seem to lie with the lack of separation of
information and data, and particularly with intuitive treatment of
information. We examine what is required for solving this problem. We propose
an approach to information and information flow for conceptual data modeling
by drawing on a set of contemporary theories concerning the semantic aspect
of information. With this approach, we formulate an information flow model
from human purposeful activities from which to construct a data schema. This
way it can be sure that the data schema represents required information, and
therefore the latter is definitely in the ‘information content’ of the
former. We observe that this constitutes a possible solution to this problem,
and it also represents a ‘semantic information theoretic’ approach to
conceptual data modeling. This work is a result of a substantial study of
this problem including several real world case studies.
Keywords: Information
content, Conceptual modeling, Database design, Requirements engineering,
Human purposeful activity
Issue 8, Volume 5, August 2008
Title of the Paper: Ontology
used in a E-Learning Multiagent Architecture
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Authors:Daniel Hunyadi, Iulian Pah
Abstract: The main
goal of this article is to develop a virtual educational environment model
which makes learning easier by using collaboration (and extension,
team-research model) as a form of social interplay. The model represents a
universe where human agents interact with artificial agents (software
agents). Considering the vision of the system, it can be classified among
advanced systems for it is client-oriented (student) and provides value added
educational services, due to the collaborative learning attribute. The model
proposes an original architecture where elements of the socio-cultural theory
of collaborative learning are assigned to the artificial intelligence
components (the multi-agent system). The expected results are: conceptual
models (agents, learning and teaching strategies, student profiles and group
profiles, communication between agents, negotiation strategies and coalition
formation), software entities, and a methodology to evaluate the performance
of eLearning systems.
Keywords: human-computer
interaction (HCI), multi-agent system, multi-agent architectures,
collaborative
learning, artificial agents.
Title of the Paper: Web Image Retrieval
Systems with Automatic Web Image Annotating
Techniques
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Authors: Hsien-Tsung Chang
Abstract: Due to the
popularity of digital cameras and web authors’ enriching the visual
aesthetics, the number of web images is growing in an uncontrolled speed. The
images in the World Wide Web are becoming a large image library for browsing.
It is an important issue that how to retrieve the images accurately on the
World Wide Web. In this paper we describe the architecture of the web image
retrieval systems with automatic image annotation techniques. And we propose
four methods to generate the annotation automatically for every image from
its hosted web page, by analyzing the structural blocks, collecting anchor
text of link structures, and gathering shared annotation with other images
with the same visual signature.
Keywords: Image
Annotation, Image Retrieval
Title of the Paper: Accident States
Simulation. Process Fluids Release
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Authors: Cornelia Croitoru, Mihai
Anghel, Floarea Pop, Ioan Stefanescu, Gheorghe Titescu, Mihai Patrascu, Ervin
Watzlawek, Dorin Cheresdi
Abstract: Seveso II
Directive imposes for high hazardous plants quantitative risk evaluation of
the major accident. In a general context the risk is defined as product
between frequency and consequences of accident state. There are five steps in
quantitative risk assessment: identification of significant accident
initiating events,
development of accident sequences, frequency estimation for accident
sequences, computation of post accident events parameters and consequences
estimation. In the case of hazardous emissions, post accident events
characterization means calculus of flow rates, quantities and duration. The
paper presents mathematical models used to describe the process fluids
release in emergency states, locally
and by safety systems, as well as the results obtained with simulation
programs, elaborated for the heavy water concentrations plants based on
chemical exchange between water and hydrogen sulphide.
Keywords: Hazard, Risk,
Release, Safety system, Simulation, Hydrogen sulphide, Mathematical model
Issue 9, Volume 5, September 2008
Title of the Paper: An Analysis on
Taiwan Broiler Farm Prices under Different Chicken Import Deregulation
Policies
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Authors: Meng-Long Shih, Shouhua Lin, Biing-Wen Huang, Wei-Yu
Hu, Chi-I Hsu
Abstract: - According
to the changes of chicken import policy, it could be divided into three
periods: control import, quota import and free import. This study adopts
GARCH models and weekly data to analyze the broiler farm prices during these
different periods. Based on the empirical test results, it indicates that
there is larger long-run persistence effect of shocks in the free import
period. The reactions of broiler farm prices to the lag broiler farm prices,
survey number of chick after six weeks, pig prices, colorful broiler farm
prices, chick prices and feedstuff prices are different during these three
periods.
Keywords:
- Import regulation periods, Volatility, Price response, GARCH model.
Title of the Paper: Matlab-like Scripting for the Java Platform
with the jLab environment
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Authors: Stergios
Papadimitriou, Konstantinos Terzidis
Abstract: - The jLab
environment extends the potential of Java for scientific computing. It
provides a Matlab/Scilab like scripting language that is executed by an
interpreter implemented in the Java language. The jLab environment combines
effectively Groovy like compiled scripting with the interpreted jScript one.
A special purpose modification of the Groovy language, called GroovySci is
developed for effective compiled scripting. The paper concentrates on the
topic of using the jLab scripting engine from within a pure Java application,
in order to allow the application to utilize the scientific scripting
potential of jLab and its large scientific libraries. The implementation is
inspired by the JSR 223 standard but it is much simpler. The same methodology
for script invocation can also be used within the Groovy effective compiled
scripting framework. We describe the basics of the Groovy scripting
environment. To our knowledge, this is the first full Matlab like scientific
scripting for Java. The jLab environment is open source and can be downloaded
from https://jlab.dev.java.net
Key-Words:
- Java, Scripting, Interpreters, Matlab, Scientific Programming, Groovy
Scripting.
Title of the Paper: Environment-Independent Methodology for
Accessing External Data Sources
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Authors:
Laura M. Castro, Victor M. Gulias, Carlos
Abalde, Javier Paris
Abstract: - Software
engineering is not a static field. Hardware is evolving, and so needs to do
software development. Someone walking into a computer store today and buying
a personal computer, will most likely end up owning a machine with more than
one CPU. And that machine will most likely end up on a network, connected to
a lot of other machines and devices. We are talking about paralelism and
distribution, two features that threaten to make the software development
process harder. To cope with these new parameters, new tools are claiming a
place in the vangard of software creation. At the same time, there are also
well-known established components, such as our traditional databases, that we
still use (and need to use) the same way they have been used for many years.
In this article, an environment-independent methodology to combine these two
different worlds is be presented, showing that past and future can work
together if we properly use abstraction and high-level software engineering
tools.
Key-Words:
- Software engineering, database access, design patterns, functional
programming.
Title of the Paper: Assessing Value of Software Architecture: A
Case Study
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Authors:
Pasi Ojala
Abstract: - During
the last decades software architecture has become increasingly important for
companies creating competitive product structures. Recently more and more
attention has also been focused on the costs, cost-effectiveness,
productivity and value of software development and products. This study
outlines concepts, principles and process of implementing a value assessment
for SW architecture. It outlines also existing possibilities for implementing
value assessments. The main purpose of this study is to collect experiences
whether the value assessment for product architecture is useful for
companies, works in practice, and what are the strengths and weaknesses of
using it. This is done by implementing value assessment in a case company
step by step to see which phases possibly work and which phases possibly do
not work. The practical industrial case shows that proposed value assessment
for product architecture is useful and supports companies trying to find
value in product architecture.
Key-Words:
- Software process and product improvement, Architecture, Assessment, Value,
Worth, Cost and Value engineering.
Title of the Paper: A Distributed
Virtual M&S Framework for Military Tactical Training
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Authors: SeongKee Lee, ChanGon Yoo, JungChan Park,
JaeHyun Park
Abstract: This paper
shows a distributed simulation framework for tactical training in Networked
Virtual Environment (NVE). These days the NVE technology for an operational
tactical training system plays a significant role in military training
courses. The existing military training simulation systems are mostly full
simulated systems operating on single platform. They are to train
individual’s operation skill, but don’t support team level tactical training.
In order to train team level combat and command skill in dynamic battlefield,
the interaction among distributed combat objects and diverse battlefield
composition are required. This paper designs a distributed simulation
framework to satisfy these requirements. The framework produces the networked
virtual environment using virtual reality, event based simulation and HLA/RTI
based interoperation techniques. This paper implements a small scale tactical
training system based on the framework.
Key-Words: Modeling and
simulation, Simulation Framework, Networked virtual environment, Tactical
training.
Title of the Paper: Efficient and Secure
Protocol in Fair Certified E-Mail Delivery
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Authors: Ren-Junn Hwang, Chih-Hua Lai
Abstract: - An
efficient and secure protocol in certified e-mail delivery is proposed in this
paper. With the widespread use of public Internet, communication via
electronic mail (e-mail) becomes a convenience application instead of
traditional manuscript letter. People can easily append his/her digital
signature to the email in order to achieve the goal of non-repudiation of
origin. However, the evidence of receipt still relies on the willingness of
the recipient in the standard e-mail service. Hence, the recipient has no
responsible for the received e-mail. In this paper, we present an efficient
and secure protocol in fair certified e-mail delivery (CEMD). Our protocol
efficiently provides non-repudiation of origin and receipt in the fair
manner. In other words, the sender can obtain the irrefutable receipt if and
only if the recipient gets the certified e-mail from the sender, otherwise,
neither of them. Moreover, the proposed CEMD is efficiently in sending the
other mails to the same recipient by using the pre-computation function. As
the evaluations of computational cost and communication overhead, our
protocol is cost-effective and efficient than other relevant protocols.
Key-Words:
- Certified e-mail, Digital signature, Fair exchange, RSA signature,
Security.
Title of the Paper: A Simulation Study
to Increase The Capacity of a Rusk Production Line
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Authors: Seraj Yousef Abed
Abstract: - This
study was conducted in a food processing company on its Rusk production line.
The goal of the study was to increase the production rate of the line to meet
the continuously increasing demand on its product within the existing limited
space in the plant. The production line was thoroughly studied and analyzed.
Several bottlenecks that were causing sever congestions in different areas on
the production line were found. An Arena Simulation model was developed and
used to resolve all bottlenecks found on the line and a simulation experiment
consisting of seven different scenarios was conducted to search for a good
feasible solution to increase the production rate.The changes made in the
production line resolved all bottlenecks, improved utilization of all
production equipment, eliminated all congestions and most of the queues at
all production stations. An increase of about 50% in production and a
decrease of 11.4% in average total production time for a box of Rusk in the
system were achieved. The capital investment required to implement the new
improvements can be paid back in a period of 35 days from the expected profit
that would be realized from the additional increased quantity produced. The
changes that were made on the production line to achieve the above
improvements were adding two new machines, replacing three other old
machines, modifying two other machines and decreasing the time of one of the
processes, without affecting the quality of the product.
Key-Words:
- Production planning, Food processing, Productivity, Simulation models,
Business Process Reengineering.
Title of the Paper: Principles for
Support of the Business Processes
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Authors: Dzenana Donko, Ismet Traljic
Abstract: - This
paper describes basic components and principles for support of the
normatively regulated organizational activities. These activities are
characterized by precise objective or purpose, participation of actors as
role-holders, and norms and rules that govern the performance of these
activities. In order to perform normatively regulated activities efficiently
and effectively, actors need proper information and documents, but also have
to act in accordance to relevant norms and rules. This paper focuses on a
particular aspect and modeling of the normatively regulated activities.
Particular example of processing claim is described as the formal model. Some
aspects of applicability of object view on normatively regulated activities
are described as the improvement on the more complex case of procurement
activity.
Key-Words:
- Normatively regulated organizational activities, object oriented modeling,
business processes.
Issue 10, Volume 5, October 2008
Title of the Paper: Determination of
Insurance Policy Using Neural Networks and Simplified Models with Factor
Analysis Technique
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Authors:
Yu-Ju
Lin, Chin-Sheng Huang, Che-Chern Lin
Abstract: In this
paper, we use feed forward neural networks with the back-propagation
algorithm to build decision models for five insurances including life,
annuity, health, accident, and investment-oriented insurances. Six features
(variables) were selected for the inputs of the neural networks including
age, sex, annual income, educational level, occupation, and risk preference.
Three hundred insurants from an insurance company in Taiwan were used as
examples for establishing the decision models. Six experiments were conducted
in this study. These experiments were mainly categorized into two phases:
Phase 1 (Experiments 1 to 3) and Phase 2 (Experiments 4 to 6). In Phase 1, we
used the six features as the inputs of the neural networks. In Phase 2, we
employed the factor analysis method to select three more important features
from the six features. In Phase 1, Experiment 1 used a single neural network
to classify the five insurances simultaneously while Experimental 2 utilized
five neural networks to classify them independently. Experiments 1 and 2
adopted the purchase records of primary and additional insurances as
experimental data. Experiment 3, however, utilized the primary insurance
purchase dada only. In Phase 2, we repeated the similar experimental
procedure as Phase 1. We also applied statistical methods to test the
differences of the classification results between Phases 1 and 2. Discussion
and concluding remarks are finally provided at the end of this paper.
Key-words:
- Insurance policy, Neural networks, Back-propagation algorithm,
Classification, Factor analysis, Feature extraction.
Title of the Paper: A Case Study on the
SCORM-Based E-learning in Computer-Aided Drafting Course with Users’
Satisfaction Survey
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Authors: Che-Chern
Lin, Jia-Hseng Pan
Abstract: -. In this
paper, we propose a case study to compare the learning difference on a
Computer added Drafting (CAD) course between traditional learning and
e-learning. The learning materials for the e-learning were designed in
Shareable Contents Object Reference Model (SCORM) standard. Seventy-four
students from a vocational high school in Taiwan attended the experiment.
These students were divided into two groups: the control group and the
treatment group. The control group was provided with traditional learning in
a regular classroom. The treatment group utilized an e-learning platform to
conduct learning activities. The experimental results show that the learning
performance between the traditional learning and the e-learning on CAD course
is not different. Finally, a survey was also conducted to realize the users’
satisfaction of using thee-learning course.
Key-words:
- CAD, e-learning, SCORM, Engineering Education, Moodle, User satisfaction.
Title of the Paper: A Study on Internet
Usages, Academic Achievements, and the Exploring Capability of Regional
Culture Knowledge Using Internet – A Case of Primary School Students in Taiwan
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Authors:
Che-Chern
Lin, Wen-Shun Chen
Abstract: - In this
paper, we present a case study to discuss the internet usages of primary
school students and the exploring capabilities of using internet on regional
culture course. 226 students of grade five from a primary school in Taiwan
were selected as samples. We designed a questionnaire to analyze the internet
usages and behaviors of these sampled students including time spending in
internet, frequency, location, and reason of using internet, internet
activity, and recognition of internet functionality. We designed questions
for the regional culture test and conducted experiments to analyze the
relationships between the internet usages and the scores of the regional
culture test. Furthermore, we analyzed the relationships among students’
backgrounds, academic achievements, internet usages, and the scores of the
regional test. Concluding remarks and the suggestions for future studies are
also provided at the end of this paper.
Key-words
:- Regional culture, Exploring capability, Internet usages, Academic
achievement.
Title of the Paper: Systems Modeling on the Basis of Rough and
Rough-Fuzzy Approach
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Authors:
Jirava Pavel, Krupka Jiri, Kasparova
Miroslava
Abstract: In this
paper the modeling of the information, economic and social systems is
presented. The models are based on the rough sets theory, and the fuzzy and
rough sets theory. These models have represented two real information
systems, and a system of an internal human population migration. The
information systems are represented as a table where every column represents
an attribute (a variable, a property). This attribute can be measured or may
also be supplied by a human expert. To obtain the necessary data
questionnaires were use. To the migration model selected socioeconomic data,
indicators, are applied. Economic and demographic indicators that affect size
of migration for districts in the Czech Republic are defined. In data pre-processing we focused on different processing of data inputs. It means
for all indicators we used selected data discrimination techniques. In the
migration models creation phase we deal with a new design of membership
function shapes and rule base definition. The classifier models were carried
out in MATLAB. Performed experiments have proven the accuracy of the proposed
approach.
Key-words:
Modeling, rough sets theory, fuzzy sets, information system, internal human
migration, evaluation, classification.
Title of the Paper: New Developments for Determinacy Analysis: Diclique-based
Approach
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Authors:
Grete
Lind, Rein Kuusik
Abstract: -
Determinacy Analysis (DA) is a method that solves tasks of data mining (it
enables to describe by the rules the subset of objects determined by the
user). There are different treatments in DA: step by step and DAS-like in
algorithmic view, one solution and multiple solutions as a result, additive
and non-additive sets of rules in systematic view. Thereat the essence of the
method itself does not change, only the rules change. There is a number of
lacks in DA base algorithms: they are too labour-intensive (step by step
approach) or they find only a limited set of rules (i.e. only one system of
rules of many possible systems, in case of DAS). In this paper we show that
DA can be reduced to the dialogue finding task that is well-known from the
graph theory, we present the prerequisites to take into account and explain
how it influences the rules. The dialogue-based DA enables to set up the DA
tasks of new type: to find a system with minimal number of rules, to find a
system with minimal number of shortest rules (for example). Reducing DA to a
dialogue finding task, the basis for the new generation of DA algorithms is
founded.
Key-Words:
- Determinacy Analysis, Data mining, Rules, Dialogue, Dialogue extracting
task.
Title of the Paper: Web Services Research Challenges, Limitations and
Opportunities
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Authors: Florije
Ismaili, Bogdan Sisediev
Abstract – Service
Oriented Architecture (SOA) is an architecture style where software
components that provide a piece of functionality communicate with each other
via message they exchange. Within SOA these pieces are called services.
Nowadays, the technology platform most associated with the realization of SOA
is Web Services. Web Services have received much interest due to their
ability to transcend programming language, operating system, network
communication protocol, and data representation dependencies and issues. In
this paper we suggest a new XML & Web Services Framework which relies on
the Service Oriented Architecture and is a way of reorganizing applications
into a set of services.
Key-Words:
- SOA, Web Services, Web Services Framework, Research Challenges .
Title of the Paper: iCamp Space - An Environment for Self-Directed
Learning, Collaboration and Social Networking
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Authors:
Tomaz
Klobucar
Abstract: - In the
paper a learning environment for self–directed learning, collaboration and
social networking composed of loosely coupled web 2.0-based educational tools
is described. The set of building blocks includes blogs, wikis, social book
marking tools, tools for synchronous and asynchronous communication, tools
for federated search, tools for management of learning contracts and personal
communication, feed aggregators, tools for scheduling appointments, etc.
Contrary to monolithic learning environments, such as learning management
systems, learners can choose the tools from the set by themselves and compose
a personal learning environment according to their preferences. The
environment has been validated in teaching process in the context of higher
education. Five facilitators and 27 students from 4 countries participated in
the trial that was conducted from April 2007 till June 2008. The presented
work has been performed within the iCamp project (www.icamp.eu) from the 6th
Framework Programme of EU.
Key-Words:
- self-directed learning, iCamp, learning environment, social networking,
collaboration, trial.
Title of the Paper:
Design of a Real Time Transaction
Processing Monitor (TPM) Benchmark
Testbed
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Authors: Maria Luisa Catalan, Dennis A. Ludena R., Hidenori
Umeno, Masayoshi
Aritsugi
Abstract: - The
Transaction Processing Monitor (TPM) is the most-used middleware in different
e-commerce systems from large enterprises to medium and small businesses
available in the internet. Due to its growing popularity, the necessity for a
more efficient TPM performance is now the major concern between the
developers and researchers. The need for a high-end benchmark platform for a
TPM is at present very vital to meet the high performance needs of online
transactions. In addition to the performance characteristics of the TPM, we
also have to ensure the security of the transactions. In this paper, we
perform a detailed analysis of the current software packages available for
this application. And therefore, we propose a secure, isolated, and highly
configurable environment using the real-time emulation capabilities of NS2
and the virtualization capabilities of Xen, in order to provide a testbed
with the characteristics and behavior of a real network.
Key-Words:
- Virtualization, Emulation, Networking, Transaction Processing, Benchmark,
Modelling
Title
of the Paper: Design and
Development of a Secure Military Communication based on AES Prototype Crypto
Algorithm and Advanced Key Management
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Authors:
Nikolaos
G. Bardis, Nikolaos Doukas, Konstantinos Ntaikos
Abstract: - In this article, a study is presented that aims at the
development of a prototype system for the secure real-time exchange of messages
between users of workstations connected to the same TCP/IP network. The
security is provided based on the AES prototype cryptographic algorithm. An
advanced key management scheme is used within this system that enhances the
security of the system, reduced the effects of possible security breaches and
simultaneously hides from users the unnecessary complexity related to
handling multiple encryption keys. The scope of application is military units
and is intended to become the basis for the design and development of an
integrated framework for the exchange of secure messages between different
sites of military or other organizations that are concerned about information
security. The present design is limited in its application to local area
networks only. There are however no fundamental restrictions and an expansion
to wide area networks and the internet is also possible. The design of the
application is firstly presented. Problems of security and ease of use that
are related to the management of the secret encryption keys are explained. A
solution is hence presented for these problems, that is based on an
innovative scheme for key storage and management. The design and
implementation of the application is presented in detail along with
description of its basic functionality. The plans for application and further
development of the application are described and conclusions are finally
drawn.
Key-Words: - Secure messaging, AES, encryption, key
management
Issue 11, Volume 5, November 2008
Title
of the Paper: Scientific Programming
with an Environment that Combines Effectively Compiled and Interpreted
Scripting at the Java Platform
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Authors:
Stergios Papadimitriou, Konstantinos Terzidis
Abstract: The jLab environment extends the potential of Java for
scientific computing. It provides a Matlab/Scilab like scripting language that
is executed by an interpreter implemented in the Java language. The scripting
language supports the basic programming constructs with Matlab like matrix
manipulation operators. The jLab "core" provides the general purpose
functionality with an extensive set of built in mathematical routines that
cover all the basic numerical analysis tasks. The important advantage of jLab
compared to other similar environments is the potentiality to dynamically and
automatically integrate Java code to the system in order to obtain both
execution speed and to reduce the programming effort. This task is supported
both by an easy to use extension Java class wizard and by application specific
class wizards that automate the utilization of jLab's scientific libraries.
However, the incorporation of external Java general purpose code is not as
convenient as the scripting code development is. Also, j-scripting is
relatively slow compared to Groovy scripting that operates by compiling the
scripts to Java classes. This was the motivation for the adaptation of the
general purpose Groovy “scripting SuperJava” language as a parallel and
cooperative scripting option in the jLab environment. The paper concentrates
on the issues involved in the implementation of the multiscripting environment
and on the benefits that can be obtained by the combination of these two very
different scripting frameworks. The Groovy agile scripting language for the
Java platform is both very flexible and powerful. We describe the
modifications to the Groovy language and some of the most basic extensions
that we have implemented in order to build the GroovySci language, the
compiled scripting language of the jLab platform.
Keywords: Java, Scripting, Interpreters, Matlab,
Scientific Programming, Class Loaders, Groovy, Binding
Title
of the Paper: Traversal Patterns for
Content Designed Web Environment
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Authors:
Perwaiz B. Ismaili, Richard M. Golden
Abstract: This paper describe new ways of observing effects of content
presentation and domain knowledge upon navigation behaviors by designing web
(hypertext) presentation format that adheres to content design inspired by
discourse and text comprehension literature. More specifically logical
connections between web pages at macro level for all web sites were
constructed meticulously and kept consistent across all three knowledge
domains. Twenty undergraduate Psychology students participated in this
preliminary study in investigating domain knowledge and content presentation
influence on Hypertext (web) site traversal behavior. Classical data analysis
(ANOVA) were used to explore these qualitative phenomena. Contrary to our
belief expertise difference were not significant for total number of web pages
(nodes) visited or overall time spent on each knowledge domain web sites.
However, these differences were significantly strong for super-ordinate nodes,
nodes with more semantic (logical) connections and irrelevant nodes.
Keywords: Hypertext, Navigation, User Behavior, Content
Design, Expertise, Scientific Text, Web Design
Title
of the Paper: Real-Time Face
Detection using Dynamic Background Subtraction
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Authors:
K. Sundaraj
Abstract: Face biometrics is an automated method of recognizing a
person’s face based on a physiological or behavioral characteristic. Face
recognition works by first obtaining an image of a person. This process is
usually known as face detection. In this paper, we describe an approach for
face detection that is able to locate a human face embedded in an outdoor or
indoor background. Segmentation of novel or dynamic objects in a scene, often
referred to as background subtraction or foreground segmentation, is a
critical early step in most computer vision applications in domains such as
surveillance and human-computer interaction. All previous implementations aim
to handle properly one or more problematic phenomena, such as global
illumination changes, shadows, highlights, foreground-background similarity,
occlusion and background clutter. Satisfactory results have been obtained but
very often at the expense of real-time performance. We propose a method for
modeling the background that uses per-pixel time-adaptive Gaussian mixtures in
the combined input space of pixel color and pixel neighborhood. We add a
safety net to this approach by splitting the luminance and chromaticity
components in the background and use their density functions to detect shadows
and highlights. Several criteria are then combined to discriminate foreground
and background pixels. Our experiments show that the proposed method possesses
robustness to problematic phenomena such as global illumination changes,
shadows and highlights, without sacrificing real-time performance, making it
well-suited for a live video event like face biometric that requires face
detection and recognition.
Keywords: Face Detection, Background Subtraction
Title
of the Paper: Non-linear Estimation
Methods for Hematocrit Density based on Changing Pattern of Transduced Anodic
Current Curve
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Authors:
Hieu Trung Huynh, Jung-Ja Kim, Yonggwan Won
Abstract: Many studies reported that the hematocrit (HCT) is the most
highly influencing factor affecting the accuracy of the glucose measurements
by portable/handheld devices. It is also known as an important factor for
clinical decision-making situations. Therefore, estimation of HCT plays a
crucial role for enhancing accuracy of glucose measurements and performance of
therapy. In this paper, we present novel methods for hematocrit estimation
from the transduced current curve which is produced by glucose-oxidase
reaction in strip-type electrochemical biosensors. The proposed methods are
nonlinear, including neural networks and support vector machine. Input
features are composed of two parts: the sampled points of the time-varying
current curve and extended extra features computed from those sampled points.
Keywords: Hematocrit, hematocrit estimation, nonlinear
methods, biosensors, transduced current curve
Title
of the Paper: Using RFID Technology
in Food Produce Traceability
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Authors:
Ruey-Shun Chen, C.-C. Chen, K. C. Yeh, Y.-C. Chen, C.-W. Kuo
Abstract: Food safety events occur frequently because of epizooty. Many
countries build food traceability systems to solve these problems. However,
the current food traceability system must be executed by paper work and need a
lot of manpowers. It also cannot trace and tracking back the origin and
destination of food. The fact that RFID technology can trace object,
therefore, it can solve these problems. The method of this research integrates
RFID technology on the food produce traceability system. Using RFID technology
will be easy to trace each object, not only for the goods lots. RFID
technology can also record all events automatically and acquire the
information about the food production by handhold devices. The result of this
paper is providing an integrated tactility system for the entire food supply
chain by RFID technology. The benefit of this research can trace the food
production, and let consumers get the complete food production information to
choose and buy the safety food.
Keywords: RFID, Produce traceability, Food supply chain,
Food safety
Title
of the Paper: Application of
Multifractal Analysis on Medical Images
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Authors:
Jelena Andjelkovic, Natasa Zivic, Branimir Reljin, Vladimir
Celebic, Iva Salom
Abstract: This paper shows results of computer analysis of images in
the purpose of finding differences between medical images in order of their
classifications in terms of separation malign tissue from normal and benign
tissue. The diagnostics of malign tissue is of the crucial importance in
medicine. Therefore, ascertainment of the correlation between multifractals
parameters and “chaotic” cells could be of the great appliance. This paper
shows the application of multifractal analysis for additional help in cancer
diagnosis, as well as diminishing. of the subjective factor and error
probability.
Keywords: Fractals, Multifractals, Holder exponent,
Medical images, Carcinomas, FracLac, FracLab
Title
of the Paper: Methodology of Fuzzy
Usability Evaluation of Information Systems in Public Administration
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Authors:
Miloslav Hub, Michal Zatloukal
Abstract: This paper suggests methodology of usability evaluation of
information systems in public administration based on fuzzy logic theory. The
first part of this paper is devoted to the problem formulation. The following
parts of this paper formulate the methodology of usability evaluation aimed to
public administration information systems. The authors introduce new ways how
to evaluate the user interface with help of vague terms. Fuzzy Usability
Evaluator – an application that is able to operate with the vague nature of
evaluating is also introduced.
Keywords: Usability, information systems, public
administration, fuzzy logic, methodology, software quality, software
engineering
Title
of the Paper: Optimizing the Minimum
Vertex Guard Set on Simple Polygons via a Genetic Algorithm
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Authors:
Antonio L. Bajuelos, Santiago Canales, Gregorio Hernandez, Ana
Mafalda Martins
Abstract: Abstract: - The problem of minimizing the number of
vertex-guards necessary to cover a given simple polygon (MINIMUM VERTEX GUARD
(MVG) problem) is NP-hard. This computational complexity opens two lines of
investigation: the development of algorithms that establish approximate
solutions and the determination of optimal solutions for special classes of
simple polygons. In this paper we follow the first line of investigation and
propose an approximation algorithm based on general metaheuristic genetic
algorithms to solve the MVG problem. Based on our algorithm, we conclude that
on average the minimum number of vertex-guards needed to cover an arbitrary
and an orthogonal polygon with n vertices is n / 6.38 and n / 6.40 ,
respectively. We also conclude that this result is very satisfactory in the
sense that it is always close to optimal (with an approximation ratio of 2,
for arbitrary polygons; and with an approximation ratio of 1.9, for orthogonal
polygons).
Keywords: Computational Geometry, Art Gallery Problems,
Visibility, Approximation Algorithms, Metaheuristics, Genetic Algorithms
Title
of the Paper: Fast Algorithm for
Detecting the Most Unusual Part of 2d and 3d Digital Images. Application to
Large Medical Databases
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Authors:
Kostadin Koroutchev, Elka Korutcheva
Abstract: In this paper we introduce a fast algorithm that can detect
the most unusual part of a digital image. The most unusual part of a given
shape is de ned as a part of the image that has the maximal distance to all
non intersecting shapes with the same form. The method is tested on two and
three-dimensional images and have shown very good results without any prede
ned model. The results can be used to scan large image databases, as for
example medical databases.
Keywords: Image processing, image statistics, image
recognition
Title
of the Paper: B-Spline Curve
Generation and Modification based on Specified Radius of Curvature
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Authors:
Tetsuzo Kuragano, Kazuhiro Kasono
Abstract: A method to generate a quintic B-spline curve which passes
through given points is described. In this case, there are four more equations
than there are control point positions. Two methods have been developed to
compensate for the difference between the number of unknowns and that of the
equations. These are assuming that the curvatures at both ends of the curve
are zero, and assigning four gradients to the given points. In addition to
this method, another method to generate a quintic B-spline curve which passes
close to given points, and which has the first derivative at these given
points is described. In this case, a linear system will be underdetermined,
determined or overdetermined depending on the number of given points with
gradients. A method to modify a quintic B-spline curve shape according to the
specified radius of curvature distribution to realize an aesthetically
pleasing freeform curve is described. The difference between the B-spline
curve radius of curvature and the specified radius of curvature is minimized
by introducing the least-squares method. Examples of curve generation are
given.
Keywords: B-spline curve generation, curvature vector,
curve shape modification, given points, given points with gradients,
underdetermined system, overdetermined system
Title
of the Paper: An Analysis of
Patterns for Automating Information System Operations
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Authors:
Matsuki Yoshino, Norihisa Komoda, Michiko Oba
Abstract: Automation of operations is essential for effective and
efficient information system operation. For the very first step towards
establishing a design methodology for system management operations, operation
patterns based upon analysis of existing operations conducted in data centers
have been proposed. For each pattern, feasibility of automation and
recommendation for improvement is analyzed. The correlation between operation
patterns and the objectives of operations has been also analyzed.
Keywords: System management, workflow, patterns,
automation, autonomous computing
Title
of the Paper: Study about the
Process Control of an Electric Arc Furnace using Simulations based on an
Adaptive Algorithm
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Authors:
Manuela Panoiu, Caius Panoiu, Ioan Sora, Anca Iordan
Abstract: The electric arc furnaces are a very large power load,
determining the negative effects on the power quality (harmonics currents,
unbalanced load, and reactive power). For a maximum efficiency of the power
consumption it is necessary to use an automat system for control the harmonics
filters, the reactive power compensation installation and the electrodes
position, in order to obtain a high value of power factor and a maximum
efficiency. In this paper is used an adaptive algorithm for process control
for an Electric Arc Furnace. The method is validating using simulation in
PSCAD EMTDC software dedicated to Power Systems.
Keywords: Adaptive control, LMS algorithm, active power
control
Issue 12, Volume 5, December 2008
Title
of the Paper: Interorganizational
Partnership, Switching Cost, and Strategic Flexibility in Supply Chain
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Authors:
Jao-Hong Cheng, Chih-Huei Tang, Huei-Ping Chen
Abstract: Many studies work focusing on the interaction between the
various dimensions of supply chain (SC) relationships (such as trust,
commitment, satisfaction, investment, communication and collaboration) but far
less on the impact of SC relationships on switching cost and strategic
flexibility. The partnership interaction between the SC and the strategic
flexibility is the most important factor when the manufacturer and
subcontractors linked together. However, there has also been a few empirical
researches that have examined the impact of switching cost and strategic
flexibility. The effect of SC relationships on strategic flexibility has
received less attention. As a result, it becomes the key issue in this study.
To address these situations, we developed a conceptual framework incorporating
dimensions of SC relationships, switching cost, and strategic flexibility.
Data is drawn from the survey responses of 202 in Taiwan enterprises. Our
findings provide considerable support for our conceptual model.
Keywords: Trust of partnerships, Strategic flexibility,
Switching cost, Supply chain
Title
of the Paper: A Modified Hopfield
Neural Network for Perfect Calculation of Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy
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Authors:
Hazem M. El-Bakry, Nikos Mastorakis
Abstract: In this paper, an automatic determination algorithm for
nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectra of the metabolites in the living body
by magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) without human intervention or
complicated calculations is presented. In such method, the problem of NMR
spectrum determination is transformed into the determination of the parameters
of a mathematical model of the NMR signal. To calculate these parameters
efficiently, a new model called modified Hopfield neural network is designed.
The main achievement of this paper over the work in literature [30] is that
the speed of the modified Hopfield neural network is accelerated. This is done
by applying cross correlation in the frequency domain between the input values
and the input weights. The modified Hopfield neural network can accomplish
complex dignals perfectly with out any additinal computation steps. This is a
valuable advantage as NMR signals are complex-valued. In addition, a technique
called “modified sequential extension of section (MSES)” that takes into
account the damping rate of the NMR signal is developed to be faster than that
presented in [30]. Simulation results show that the calculation precision of
the spectrum improves when MSES is used along with the neural network.
Furthermore, MSES is found to reduce the local minimum problem in Hopfield
neural networks. Moreover, the performance of the proposed method is evaluated
and there is no effect on the performance of calculations when using the
modified Hopfield neural networks.
Keywords: Hopfield Neural Networks, Cross Correlation,
Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy, Fast Fourier
Transform
Title
of the Paper: Prediction of the
Impact Point for Spin and Fin Stabilized Projectiles
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Authors:
Dimitrios N. Gkritzapis, Dionissios P. Margaris, Elias E.
Panagiotopoulos, George Kaimakamis, Konstantinos Siassiakos
Abstract: A method for real time in flight prediction of the ground
impact point of indirect fire projectiles is investigated. The projectiles is
assumed to be both rigid (non-flexible), and rotationally symmetric about its
spin axis launched at low and high pitch angles. A six degree of freedom
projectile model solution is used to propagate the projectile state from an
arbitrary point along the trajectory to the ground impact point. The
projectiles manoeuvring motion depends on the most significant force and
moment variations, in addition to gravity. The developed computational method
gives satisfactory agreement with published data of verified experiments and
computational codes on atmospheric projectile trajectory analysis for various
initial firing flight conditions.
Keywords: Aerodynamic forces and moments, low and high
pitch angles
Title
of the Paper: New Correlation
Analysis Method for Nonstationary Signal
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Authors:
Zuojin Li, Weiren Shi, Kai Wang, Xiaowei Sun, Zhi Zhong
Abstract: This paper proposes a new correlation analysis method for
nonstationary and energy-limited continual signals, which works out a formula
similar to time correlation theory; that is to say when the operator, , meets
a certain condition, its auto-correlation property of Fourier transform can be
presented by Fourier transform of its energy function, f2)(tf, revealing its
correlation of the Fourier transform coefficients of frequency interval, ω. It
proves that the Parseval identical equation is the special case happening
when0=ω. The above conclusion explains the theory of image compressing and
noise removing through wavelet transform.
Keywords: Operator, energy function, wavelet transform,
correlation function, image process
Title
of the Paper: A Sensorless Closing
Control for an AC Contactor Based on a New Armature Displacement Estimator
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Authors:
Chieh-Tsung Chi
Abstract: This paper presents a new approach to solve the contact
bounce after contacts closing problem for prolonging the lifespan and
improving operation reliability. Based on combining a armature displacement
estimator (ADE) with a simple hysteresis controller, such that the
coil-current difference between the ac electromagnetic contactor (abbreviated
ac contactor) body and the estimator is minimized, the proposed method
overcomes the installation of an armature displacement measuring mechanism is
indispensable restrictions imposed by previously described closing control
methodologies. By using the proposed algorithm, an efficient control
configuration can be obtained to reduce bounce duration. Computer simulations,
of the proposed method, illustrate lots of benefits that are provided by
proposed sensorless closing control configuration.
Keywords: Contact bounce, Estimator, Hysteresis
controller, Armature displacement, Sensorless, AC electromagnetic contactor
Title
of the Paper: Assessing the SMEs'
Competitive Strategies on the Impact of Environmental Factors: A Quantitative
SWOT Analysis Application
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Authors:
Hui-Lin Hai
Abstract: Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threat (SWOT) analysis is
an established methodology for assisting the formulation of strategy. This
paper proposes a new quantified SWOT analytic method incorporated with the
vote-ranking method. The indices of SWOT are voted, weighted and quantified to
assess the competitive strategy, from top to the bottom, meanwhile the total
weighted scores method will be used to get the best strategy alternatives. The
competitive strategies of the Taiwanese Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in
the Environmental Management Systems (EMS) are taken as a case study, where
eighteen certificated ISO9000 or ISO14000 auditors (or lead auditors) are
invited to establish a decision group. Under the impact of environmental
factors, the results show that company’s image and profitability is the most
important strategy for SMEs within the global markets. Lastly, Taiwanese SMEs
apperceive the significance of EMS and also recognize the importance to
survive within the diversified competing market environment, whereas they need
to build up its environmental management that has to suit the EMS
specification and attention. The findings are also applicable for other
developing countries within the global markets or barriers.
Keywords: Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threat
(SWOT), Small and Medium Enterprises (SME), Environmental Management System
(EMS)
Title
of the Paper: Enhancement of
Lifespan and Operating Reliability using a New Intelligent Control Method
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Authors:
Chieh-Tsung Chi
Abstract: This paper presents a bounce-duration reduction method for
electromagnetic contactor systems. It combines the experience-based fuzzy
algorithm and the hysteresis comparator with simple structure to form a newly
fuzzy-hysteresis methodology, which is a valuable for minimizing the bounce
duration after contacts closing. The proposed method is implemented in a
microcontroller program with a specially designed data structure for obtaining
the dynamic spring anti-force and the upper and lower force error limitations
of the hysteresis comparator. Tests on the experimental prototype show that
the newly proposed method is valid and fast in practical applications.
Keywords: Electromagnetic contactor, Bounce duration,
Fuzzy, Hysteresis, Microcontroller, Contacts, Controller
Title
of the Paper: A Search Mechanism
Based on Ontology Technology for Students in Elementary School
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Authors:
Dowming Yeh, Su-Ling Hsiang
Abstract: Searching information on the Web has become part of
everyone’s daily activity in the modern society. The Web brings much
convenience into our lives; however, with the amount of information growing in
a staggering speed, how to sieve out useful information and knowledge
effectively has become an important skill. In order to obtain a better search
result, one needs to know how to form appropriate key words and phrases for
search engines. However, elementary school students don’t have sufficient
abilities of sub-cognition, and they often form a search string in a natural
language which contains few keywords in a long sentence; therefore, the search
results do not often satisfy their need. This study addresses this problem by
introducing an agent to parse the search string, align synonyms, sift out
keywords, and include hyponyms in the intended field. Knowledge in a specific
learning unit is represented with Ontology technology and transformed into
keywords and associated structure. This study also integrates Google API and
establishes specific function characteristics to eliminate unrelated files to
conduct the search. The result shows that the prototype system can provide
pupils with more accurate results.
Keywords: Search engine, empirical study, natural
language, agent, ontology
Title
of the Paper: Comparative Genome
Sequence Analysis by Efficient Pattern Matching Technique
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Authors:
Muneer Ahmad, Hassan Mathkour
Abstract: Genetic Sequences of different species contain precious
biological information. This information is hidden in the order of appearing
nucleotide base characters (A-Adenine, T-Thymine, G-Guanine and C-Cytosine),
this order is definitely variant in different organisms but one can conclude
some of the similarities and differences in nature, habits and living of
species by comparing the biological information contained in sequence.
In this paper, we are presenting an algorithm that provides approximate
comparative match between any input strands. It will overcome the draw backs
and short comings in prevailing techniques. It becomes most difficult to find
approximate match when Genome Adoptive Points (GAPS) are present in the input
sequences, this algorithms tries to handle the complex situations and finds
the number of approximate matches for optimal results.
Keywords: Limitation Check, Upper Bound, Lower Bound,
Page Size, Position Specification, Counters
Title
of the Paper: Coding of Checksum
Components for Increasing the Control Reliability of Data Transmission for
Military Applications
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Authors:
Nikolaos Bardis
Abstract: Computer Systems used in Military and other challenging
applications, are often exposed to increased levels of electromagnetic
radiation. Embedded systems falling in this category often suffer from this
exposure due to the operation of the device to which they belong. Consequently
data communications within such devices need to be protected against
transmission errors. Current general purpose encoding schemes that are used in
other communication applications are prohibitively complex for this
application. In this paper an innovative extension to the well known checksum
concept is proposed that is capable of controlling errors in intra device data
transfers. The new technique is shown to be simple enough for implementation
and to increase the probability of detection of errors by several orders of
magnitude. The scheme is hence shown to be suitable for embedded computing
platforms for military and other demanding systems. More specifically, the
modified checksum is examined in respect of its suitability for use in schemes
for the transient error detection in schemes for reliable data storage within
computing systems and it is explained why it is extremely suitable for this
application. The modified checksum is also considered in the context of
algorithm based fault tolerance schemes and it is again concluded that it can
contribute to the overall scheme efficiency and effectiveness. The modified
checksum is hence shown to be an algorithmic tool that can significantly
contribute to the design of reliable and fault tolerant computing systems,
such as the ones used for military systems or other applications that operate
in adverse environments.
Keywords: Checksum, differential Boolean
transformations, error detection, data integrity, fault tolerance
Title
of the Paper: A Tool for Military
Officers Enchasing Life Long Learning Applied on the Paradigm of Risk
Preparedness and Management
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Authors:
Nikolaos V. Karadimas, Nikolaos Doukas, Nikolaos P.
Papastamatiou
Abstract: In this paper model for managing the Job Rotation of
personnel attached to specific military units is proposed. This model aims to
maintain the level of the overall preparedness of the units against known
risks, by maintaining the presence of skilled personnel present in the unit at
any time. The model is used for the development of a software tool that
manages the systematic training of army officers in risk prevention and crisis
management. The aim of this tool is to globally optimize the movements of army
officers between units and training centers so that no units are ever left
without skilled staff trained for a particular type of contingency. While
officers are in training, they prepare for new hazards and prepare emergency
plans for dealing with these particular hazards with the support of more
experienced trainers or mentors. When this rotation ends, officers return to
their units and assume responsibilities in both implementing the plans they
have helped create, as well as in disseminating the knowledge and skills they
have acquired and training more of the unit’s staff in being able to conduct
appropriate parts of the newly introduced emergency procedures.
Keywords: Risk Preparedness, Job Rotation, Training
Sessions, Military Units, Military Applications, Web Services, Grid
Architecture
Title
of the Paper: Information Spillover
Effects of IPOs using 2SLS
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Authors:
Jao-Hong Cheng, Huei-Ping Chen
Abstract: There are several Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) regulatory
changes implemented in Taiwan stock markets since 2005. One of those new
mechanisms is to release the stock IPOs pricing rules to underwriters. The
underwriters and listed companies have been growing up rapidly in recent
years, and the whole offer size has become full-scaled. However, foreign
scholars found that pioneer companies have many uncertainties in IPOs due to
there isn’t any information about offer price and proceeds to refer. When
companies want to decide the appropriate offer price and proceeds, they have
to spend a lot of time and money on information gathering. If there existed
information spillover, and the information would be acquired from the other
companies which had finished IPOs. Therefore, we try to research whether there
existed information spillover in Taiwan IPOs market using 2SLS and Probit to
analyze. By empirical results, there exist positive information spillover in
offer price and listing price revision. For underwriters, underwriter rank is
based on underwriter reputation, and the underwriters which have better rank
usually couldn’t get the high initial return.
Keywords: Initial Public Offerings (IPOs), information
spillover, underwriting reputation, Two-Stage Least Squares (2SLS)
Title
of the Paper: A Brand Position
Model for the Resort Hotels at Kenting Area in Taiwan
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Authors:
Tsuen-Ho Hsu, Hsiu-Hui Cheng, Ching-Cheng Shen
Abstract: Under the considerations for the rapid development in leisure
tourism and the demand increase for resort hotels, most enterprises will meet
a pressure of drastic competition. Therefore, they will intend to build a
unique brand in the mind of consumers and to enhance competitiveness and
increase their profits. In this study, we will address the issue on the
position of brand equity and key factors of competition for the resort hotels.
The questionnaire method will be applied to collect the data and the resort
hotels in Kenting area will be taken as an illustrative example in our study.
The primary findings of this study can be summarized as follows:
1. Customers will have a higher degree of recognition for the environmental
quality, local quality and uniqueness brand to the resort Hotels in Kenting
area.
2. According to the brand equity diagram derived by using the multidimensional
scaling (MDS) to those tourists at kenting area, we can find out that those
resort hotels can be clustered into four clusters.
From above findings, it can provide the useful reference about the marketing
strategy and differentiation competition for the resort hotels in Kenting
area. Besides, we also construct a brand equality recognition model by using
fisher’s discriminant function technique. It will aid the necessary analysis
since the enterprises would like to realize their position on the competition
environment via the brand equity recognition.
Keywords: Brand Equity, Resort Hotels, Multidimensional
Scaling (MDS), Discriminant Function
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