Digital Commons Network^™

Incremental Dcop Search Algorithms For Solving Dynamic Dcop Problems, William Yeoh, Pradeep Varakantham, Xiaoxun Sun, Sven Koenig

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Distributed constraint optimization (DCOP) problems are well-suited for modeling multi-agent coordination problems. However, it only models static problems, which do not change over time. Consequently, researchers have introduced the Dynamic DCOP (DDCOP) model to model dynamic problems. In this paper, we make two key contributions: (a) a procedure to reason with the incremental changes in DDCOPs and (b) an incremental pseudo-tree construction algorithm that can be used by DCOP algorithms such as any-space ADOPT and any-space BnB-ADOPT to solve DDCOPs. Due to the incremental reasoning employed, our experimental results show that any-space ADOPT and any-space BnB-ADOPT are up to 42% …

Incorporating Analytics Into A Business Process Modelling Course, Gottipati Swapna, Shankararaman, Venky

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Embedding analytics is about integrating data analytics into operational systems that are part of an organization’s business processes. Currently, most organizations focus on automation business processes and enhancing productivity. However, going forward, in order to stay competitive, organizations have to go beyond automating their processes, by making them more intelligent, by embedding analytics into their processes and business applications. Therefore, there is need for enhancing the knowledge and skills of BPM professionals with know-how on improving a business process by embedding analytics into the workflow. In this paper contribution, the authors share their experience on how an existing process modelling, …

Differentially Private Subspace Clustering, Yining Wang, Yu-Xiang Wang, Aarti Singh

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Subspace clustering is an unsupervised learning problem that aims at grouping data points into multiple “clusters” so that data points in a single cluster lie approximately on a low-dimensional linear subspace. It is originally motivated by 3D motion segmentation in computer vision, but has recently been generically applied to a wide range of statistical machine learning problems, which often involves sensitive datasets about human subjects. This raises a dire concern for data privacy. In this work, we build on the framework of differential privacy and present two provably private subspace clustering algorithms. We demonstrate via both theory and experiments that …

A Bayesian Recommender Model For User Rating And Review Profiling, Mingming Jiang, Dandan Song, Lejian Liao, Feida Zhu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Intuitively, not only do ratings include abundant information for learning user preferences, but also reviews accompanied by ratings. However, most existing recommender systems take rating scores for granted and discard the wealth of information in accompanying reviews. In this paper, in order to exploit user profiles' information embedded in both ratings and reviews exhaustively, we propose a Bayesian model that links a traditional Collaborative Filtering (CF) technique with a topic model seamlessly. By employing a topic model with the review text and aligning user review topics with "user attitudes" (i.e., abstract rating patterns) over the same distribution, our method achieves …

Adaptive Duty Cycling In Sensor Networks With Energy Harvesting Using Continuous-Time Markov Chain And Fluid Models, Ronald Wai Hong Chan, Pengfei Zhang, Ido Nevat, Sai Ganesh Nagarajan, Alvin Cerdena Valera, Hwee Xian Tan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The dynamic and unpredictable nature of energy harvesting sources available for wireless sensor networks, and the time variation in network statistics like packet transmission rates and link qualities, necessitate the use of adaptive duty cycling techniques. Such adaptive control allows sensor nodes to achieve long-run energy neutrality, where energy supply and demand are balanced in a dynamic environment such that the nodes function continuously. In this paper, we develop a new framework enabling an adaptive duty cycling scheme for sensor networks that takes into account the node battery level, ambient energy that can be harvested, and application-level QoS requirements. We …

Flow Experience In Virtual Worlds: Individuals Versus Dyads, Fiona Fui-Hoon Nah, Brenda Eschenbrenner

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Flow is a state of mind in which one is deeply absorbed and immersed in an activity to the point where nothing else matters. Although flow can occur in solitary and social contexts, which context fosters greater flow is unclear. Consistent with self-determination theory, dyads working collaboratively achieved higher states of flow than individuals working alone. In other words, dyads achieved higher states of focused concentration and experienced greater temporal dissociation than individuals working alone. Surprisingly and contradictory to previous findings, dyads did not experience greater enjoyment than individuals working alone. We attributed this surprising finding to the hedonic nature …

Compounds Released From Biomass Deconstruction: Understanding Their Effect On Cellulose Enzyme Hydrolysis And Their Biological Activity, Angele Djioleu

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The effect of compounds produced during biomass pretreatment on cellulolytic enzyme was investigated. Liquid prehydrolyzates were prepared by pretreating switchgrass using 24 combinations of temperature, time, and sulfuric acid concentration based on a full factorial design. Temperature was varied from 140°C to 180°C; time ranged from 10 to 40 min; and the sulfuric acid concentrations were 0.5% or 1% (v/v). Identified products in the prehydrolyzates included xylose, glucose, hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF), furfural, acetic acid, formic acid, and phenolic compounds at concentration ranging from 0 to 21.4 g/L. Pretreatment conditions significantly affected the concentrations of compounds detected in prehydrolyzates. When assayed in …

Paddling A Trail, Erin Jennings Gilleece

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Paddling A Trail documents construction of the first water trail in Arkansas. The 15 minute film is narrated by Arkansas Canoe Club Conservation Chair Debbie Doss. It follows Doss, and other volunteers as they mark the Wattensaw Bayou Trail in Hazen, Arkansas. The film is co-narrated by Kristen Bartlow of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. The footage was shot over three days, in two different locations. These were the White River in Northwest Arkansas and Wattensaw Bayou in Hazen, AR. The film illustrates the positive role trails can have on the environment and local economies. More importantly, the film …

Modified Polysulfone Nanofiltration Membrane Synthesis For Hydraulic Fracturing Water Recycle, Blake Alexander Johnson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The use of hydraulic fracturing has resulted in significant increases in the yield of oil and natural gas, as water pumped into wells at high pressure cracks the formations and releases the hydrocarbons that are locked in the rocks. This process has created large volumes of brackish water that is very difficult to process and is often disposed of into injection wells. Suspended solids and some dissolved solids are more readily removed, but the multivalent ions found in certain salts can precipitate in a well and complicate the reuse of flowback in future hydraulic fracturing operations.

Nanofiltration, a membrane separation …

Design And Development Of A Wearable Wireless Health Monitoring System: A Smart Watch Approach, Keerthi Paranikumar

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

According to Statistics, every year, about 610,000 people die because of heart disease in United States of America. (i.e. 1 in every 4 deaths.*) Heart disease is common for both men and women. Annually, about 370,000 people die because of coronary heart disease, which is the most common type of heart disease [1]. About 735,000 Americans have heart attack every year. In this, 210,000 people gets heart attack who already has heart problems and 525,000 people get heart attack for the first time [2]. Not many people know that they have heart problems. Around 47% of the people in United …

Evaluation Of Conservation Practices Through Simulation Modeling And Tool Development, Gurdeep Singh

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

For the first objective, predicted impacts of selected Mississippi River Basin Initiative (MRBI) conservation practices (CPs) on sediment and nutrient loss were assessed. The study area was L’Anguille River Watershed (LRW), a priority focus watershed of the MRBI program and the simulated CPs were filter strip, critical area planting, grade stabilization structure, irrigation land leveling, irrigation pipeline, irrigation water management, and nutrient management. The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model was calibrated (1998 – 2005) and validated (2006 – 2012) for flow, sediment, total phosphorus (TP), and nitrate-nitrogen (NO3-N) at the Colt site (503 sq. km. drainage area) and …

Satisfaction Of Graduates/Completers Of A Career And Technical Teacher Education In-Service Program: Professional Currency, Sho-Hsien Su

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the learning satisfaction of graduates or completers from the Career and Technical Teacher Education (CTTE) in-service program at a public university in the state of Kansas. The conceptual framework and the survey instrument were adapted from the Performance-Based Teacher Education learning packages and revised based on current educational situations, technologies, and terminologies to measure participants’ learning satisfaction. The participants included 96 career and technical education in-service teachers who had completed their degrees or certificates requirements from the CTTE in-service program between 2004 spring and 2015 summer. An on-line survey was administered by …

Dark Matter Halo Concentration And The Evolution Of Spiral Structure In N-Body, Barred Spiral Galaxies, Jazmin Esmeralda Berlanga Medina

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Motivated by the evidence of relationships between pitch angle (the tightness of spiral arm structure in the disk), P, and various indicators of central mass concentration, as well as the theoretical relationship between halo mass concentration and the density of visible matter in the central part of the galaxy, we look at a possible relationship between P and cvir (the virial concentration of the dark matter halo) in N-body simulations of barred, spiral galaxies. We also look at the evolution of pitch angle over time in higher temporal resolution than any data currently available in the literature. We find that …

"Socratic Circles Are A Luxury": Exploring The Conceptualization Of A Dialogic Tool In Three Science Classrooms, Michelle Renee Copelin

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Research has shown that dialogic instruction promotes learning in students. Secondary science has traditionally been taught from an authoritative stance, reinforced in recent years by testing policies requiring coverage. Socratic Circles are a framework for student-led dialogic discourse, which have been successfully used in English language arts and Social studies classrooms. The purpose of this research was to explore the implementation process of Socratic Circles in secondary science classes where they have been perceived to be more difficult. Focusing on two physical science classes and one chemistry class, this study described the nature and characteristics of Socratic Circles, teachers’ dispositions …

Capstone Projects Mining System For Insights And Recommendations, Melvrivk Aik Chun Goh, Swapna Gottipati, Venky Shankararaman

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In this paper, we present a classification based system to discover knowledge and trends in higher education students’ projects. Essentially, the educational capstone projects provide an opportunity for students to apply what they have learned and prepare themselves for industry needs. Therefore mining such projects gives insights of students’ experiences as well as industry project requirements and trends. In particular, we mine capstone projects executed by Information Systems students to discover patterns and insights related to people, organization, domain, industry needs and time. We build a capstone projects mining system (CPMS) based on classification models that leverage text mining, natural …

A Layered Hidden Markov Model For Predicting Human Trajectories In A Multi-Floor Building, Qian Li, Hoong Chuin Lau

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Tracking and modeling huge amount of users’ movement in a multi-floor building by using wireless devices is a challenging task, due to crowd movement complexity and signal sensing accuracy. In this paper, we use Layered Hidden Markov Model (LHMM) to fit the spatial-temporal trajectories (with large number of missing values). We decompose the problem into distinct layers that Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) are operated at different spatial granularities separately. Baum-Welch algorithm and Viterbi algorithm are used for finding the probable location sequences at each layer. By measuring the predicted result of trajectories, we compared the predicted results of both single …

Aesthetic Experience And Acceptance Of Human Computation Games, Xiaohui Wang, Dion Hoe-Lian Goh, Ee-Peng Lim, Adrian Wei Liang Vu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Human computation games (HCGs) are applications that leverage games to solve computational problems that are out reach of the capacity of computers. Game aesthetics are critical for HCG acceptance, and the game elements should motivate users to contribute time and effort. In this paper, we examine the effect of aesthetic experience on intention to use HCGs. A between-subjects experiment was conducted to compare a HCG and a human computation system (HCS). Results demonstrated that HCGs provided a greater sense of aesthetic experience and attracted more intentional usage than HCSs. Implications of this study are discussed.

Face Recognition With Multi-Stage Matching Algorithms, Xianming Chen

Dissertations

For every face recognition method, the primary goal is to achieve higher recognition accuracy and spend less computational costs. However, as the gallery size increases, especially when one probe image corresponds to only one training image, face recognition becomes more and more challenging. First, a larger gallery size requires more computational costs and memory usage. Meanwhile, that the large gallery sizes degrade the recognition accuracy becomes an even more significant problem to be solved.

A coarse parallel algorithm that equally divides training images and probe images into multiple processors is proposed to deal with the large computational costs and huge …

Openline Newsletter, December 2015/January 2016, Civil Service Council

OpenLine Newsletter

A monthly newsletter for Civil Service employees, December 2015/January 2016.

Dgtd Analysis Of Electromagnetic Scattering From Penetrable Conductive Objects With Ibc, Ping Li, Yifei Shi, Li (Lijun) Jun Jiang, Hakan Bagci

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

To avoid straightforward volumetric discretization, a discontinuous Galerkin time-domain (DGTD) method integrated with the impedance boundary condition (IBC) is presented in this paper to analyze the scattering from objects with finite conductivity. Two situations are considered. 1) The skin depth is smaller than the thickness of the conductive volume. 2) The skin depth is larger than the thickness of a thin conductive sheet. For the first situation, a surface impedance boundary condition (SIBC) is employed, wherein the surface impedance usually exhibits a complex relation with the frequency. To incorporate the SIBC into DGTD, the surface impedance is first approximated by …

On Neighborhood Effects In Location-Based Social Networks, Thanh-Nam Doan, Freddy Chong-Tat Chua, Ee-Peng Lim

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In this paper, we analyze factors that determine the check-in decisions of users on venues using a location-based social network dataset. Based on a Foursquare dataset constructed from Singapore-based users, we devise a stringent criteria to identify the actual home locations of a subset of users. Using these users' check-ins, we aim to ascertain the neighborhood effect on the venues visited, compared with the activity level of users. We further formulate the check-in count prediction and check-in prediction tasks. A comprehensive set of features have been defined and they encompass information from users, venues, their neighbors, and friendship networks. We …

Quantization Coefficients In Infinite Systems, Eugen Mihailescu, Mrinal Kanti Roychowdhury

School of Mathematical & Statistical Sciences Faculty Publications

We investigate quantization coefficients for probability measures μ on limit sets, which are generated by systems S of infinitely many contractive similarities and by probabilistic vectors. The theory of quantization coefficients for infinite systems has significant differences from the finite case. One of these differences is the lack of finite maximal antichains, and another is the fact that the set of contraction ratios has zero infimum; another difference resides in the specific geometry of S and of its noncompact limit set J . We prove that, for each r ∈ ( 0 , ∞ ) , there exists a unique …

How To Construct Global Justice, Aaron James

San Diego Law Review

Do social relationships between people give rise to any demands of social justice whatsoever? If they do, are they of any practical significance given the relationships living human beings are actually in? And, might they be so significant as to ground a theory of global justice—if not the whole of anything rightly called justice, then at least of the central range of issues in world politics? Finally, could that perhaps be what a political philosophy of global justice should mainly be about?

Here, in bare outline, is how the answers to all of these questions might be “yes,” at least …

Preface To Wi-Iat 2015 Workshops And Demo/Posters, Ah-Hwee Tan, Yuefeng Li

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This volume contains the papers selected for presentation at the workshops and demonstration/poster track as part of the 2015 IEEE/WIC/ACM International Conference on Web Intelligence (WI’15) and 2015 IEEE/WIC/ACM International Conference on Intelligent Agent Technology (IAT’15) held from 6 to 9 December 2015 in Singapore.

Modeling Of Gas Production From Shale Reservoirs Considering Multiple Transport Mechanisms, Chaohua Guo, Mingzhen Wei, Hong Liu

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Gas transport in unconventional shale strata is a multi-mechanism-coupling process that is different from the process observed in conventional reservoirs. In micro fractures which are inborn or induced by hydraulic stimulation, viscous flow dominates. And gas surface diffusion and gas desorption should be further considered in organic nano pores. Also, the Klinkenberg effect should be considered when dealing with the gas transport problem. In addition, following two factors can play significant roles under certain circumstances but have not received enough attention in previous models. During pressure depletion, gas viscosity will change with Knudsen number; and pore radius will increase when …

An Application Of Fuzzy Logic In Urban Traffic Incident Detection, Feda Wasfi Fayez Mustafa

Theses

Traffic congestion in urban areas is an increasing problem around the world. Traffic incidents (such as accidents) are considered as the major source of traffic congestion. Traffic incidents have negative impacts on traffic flow, air pollution and fuel consumption. As a result, increasing interest in finding new techniques to deal with this issue has been shown. Traffic incident-management systems can decrease the effect of such events and keep roads capacity as close as possible to normal levels. Incident detection system is an important part of any incident management system. This thesis proposes a new approach to incident detection in urban …

Building Crowd Movement Model Using Sample-Based Mobility Survey, Larry J. J. Lin, Shih-Fen Cheng, Hoong Chuin Lau

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Crowd simulation is a well-studied topic, yet it usually focuses on visualization. In this paper, we study a special class of crowd simulation, where individual agents have diverse backgrounds, ad hoc objectives, and non-repeating visits. Such crowd simulation is particularly useful when modeling human agents movement in leisure settings such as visiting museums or theme parks. In these settings, we are interested in accurately estimating aggregate crowd-related movement statistics. As comprehensive monitoring is usually not feasible for a large crowd, we propose to conduct mobility surveys on only a small group of sampled individuals. We demonstrate via simulation that we …

Active Crowdsourcing For Annotation, Shuji Hao, Chunyan Miao, Steven C. H. Hoi, Peilin Zhao

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Crowdsourcing has shown great potential in obtaining large-scale and cheap labels for different tasks. However, obtaining reliable labels is challenging due to several reasons, such as noisy annotators, limited budget and so on. The state-of-the-art approaches, either suffer in some noisy scenarios, or rely on unlimited resources to acquire reliable labels. In this article, we adopt the learning with expert~(AKA worker in crowdsourcing) advice framework to robustly infer accurate labels by considering the reliability of each worker. However, in order to accurately predict the reliability of each worker, traditional learning with expert advice will consult with external oracles~(AKA domain experts) …

Hierarchical Segmentation Of The Malawi Rift: The Influence Of Inherited Lithospheric Heterogeneity And Kinematics In The Evolution Of Continental Rifts, Daniel A. Lao-Davila, Haifa S. Al-Salmi, Mohamed G. Abdel Salam, Estella A. Atekwana

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

We used detailed analysis of Shuttle Radar Topography Mission-digital elevation model and observations from aeromagnetic data to examine the influence of inherited lithospheric heterogeneity and kinematics in the segmentation of largely amagmatic continental rifts. We focused on the Cenozoic Malawi Rift, which represents the southern extension of the Western Branch of the East African Rift System. This north trending rift traverses Precambrian and Paleozoic-Mesozoic structures of different orientations. We found that the rift can be hierarchically divided into first-order and second-order segments. In the first-order segmentation, we divided the rift into Northern, Central, and Southern sections. In its Northern Section, …

President’S Newsletter, Jean Bartels

President's Newsletter

No abstract provided.