Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

A Content-Driven Reputation System For The Wikipedia, B. Thomas Adler, Luca De Alfaro

Luca de Alfaro

On-line forums for the collaborative creation of bodies of information are a phenomenon of rising importance; the Wikipedia is one of the best-known examples. The open nature of such forums could benefit from a notion of reputation for its authors. Author reputation could be used to flag new contributions from low-reputation authors, and it could be used to allow only authors with good reputation to contribute to controversial or critical pages. A reputation system for the Wikipedia would also provide an incentive to give high-quality contributions.

We present in this paper a novel type of content-driven reputation system for Wikipedia …

Extended Collaboration Description Language (X-Codl), Jia Zhang

Jia Zhang

No abstract provided.

Creating Custom Containers With Generative Techniques, Gabriel A. Moreno

Gabriel A. Moreno

Component containers are a key part of mainstream component technologies, and play an important role in separating nonfunctional concerns from the core component logic. This paper addresses two different aspects of containers. First, it shows how generative programming techniques, using AspectC++ and metaprogramming, can be used to generate stubs and skeletons without the need for special compilers or interface description languages. Second, the paper describes an approach to create custom containers by composing different non-functional features. Unlike component technologies such as EJB, which only support a predefined set of container types, this approach allows different combinations of non-functional features to …

What Users Say They Want In Documentation, David G. Novick, Karen Ward

David G. Novick

While earlier work provided a partial view of users’ preferences about manuals, for most users in most work contexts the important question remains open: What do users want in documentation? This paper presents the results of a study in which a diverse cross-section of 25 users was interviewed in depth about their needs and preferences with respect to software help systems, whether printed or on-line, that they use at work. The study’s participants indicated that they preferred documentation, whether online or printed, that is easy to navigate, provides explanations at an appropriate level of technical detail, enables finding as well …

Magnifying-Lens Abstraction For Markov Decision Processes, Luca De Alfaro, Pritam Roy

Luca de Alfaro

We present a novel abstraction technique which allows the analysis of reachability and safety properties of Markov decision processes with very large state spaces. The technique, called magnifying-lens abstraction, copes with the state-explosion problem by partitioning the state-space into regions, and by computing upper and lower bounds for reachability and safety properties on the regions, rather than on the states. To compute these bounds, magnifying-lens abstraction iterates over the regions, considering the concrete states of each region in turn, as if one were sliding across the abstraction a magnifying lens which allowed viewing the concrete states. The algorithm adaptively refines …

Incorporating Support For Event Algebra In Relational Stream Systems, Vijay Dialani, Inderpal Narang

Vijay Dialani

Data stream management systems make prominent use of a subset of relational algebra for describing continuous queries. The phenomenon has highlighted the wide spread use of declarative interface for stream data manipulation. As relational algebra is set oriented while the data streams are essentially sequences of data, there exist some cases where the use of relational algebra to describe processing in a data stream management system is counter productive. Supporting event algebraic operations on stream systems represents one such case. We have developed a combination of sequence algebra and relational algebra that is capable of supporting event algebra. Our alternative …

Ubiquitous Provision Of Context Aware Web Services, Irene Chen, Stephen Yang, Jia Zhang

Jia Zhang

No abstract provided.

An Open Framework Supporting Multimedia Web Services, Jia Zhang, Jen-Yao Chung

Jia Zhang

No abstract provided.

Cryptogram Decoding For Optical Character Recognition, Gary Huang, Erik G. Learned-Miller, Andrew Mccallum

Erik G Learned-Miller

OCR systems for printed documents typically require large numbers of font styles and character models to work well. When given an unseen font, performance degrades even in the absence of noise. In this paper, we perform OCR in an unsupervised fashion without using any character models by using a cryptogram decoding algorithm. We present results on real and artificial OCR data.

The Umass Mobile Manipulator Uman: An Experimental Platform For Autonomous Mobile Manipulation, Dov Katz, Emily Horrell, Yuandong Yang, Brendan Burns, Thomas Buckley, Anna Grishkan, Volodymyr Zhylkovskyy, Oliver Brock, Erik G. Learned-Miller

Erik G Learned-Miller

Object identification is the task of identifying specific objects belonging to the same class such as cars. We often need to recognize an object that we have only seen a few times. In fact, we often observe only one example of a particular object before we need to recognize it again. Thus we are interested in building a system which can learn to extract distinctive markers from a single example and which can then be used to identify the object in another image as “same ” or “different”. Previous work by Ferencz et al. introduced the notion of hyper-features, which …

Bi-Level Clustering Of Mixed Categorical And Numerical Biomedical Data, Bill Andreopoulos, Aijun An, Xiaogang Wang

William B. Andreopoulos

Fault Injection-Based Test Case Generation For Soa-Oriented Software, Jia Zhang, Robin Qiu

Jia Zhang

No abstract provided.

Economics Of Information Security Investment In The Case Of Simultaneous Attacks, C. Derrick Huang, Qing Hu, Ravi S. Behara

Qing Hu

With billions of dollars being spent on information security related products and services each year, the economics of information security investment has become an important area of research, with significant implications for management practices. Drawing on recent studies that examine optimal security investment levels under various attack scenarios, we propose an economic model that considers simultaneous attacks from multiple external agents with distinct characteristics, and derive optimal investments based on the principle of benefit maximization. The relationships among the major variables, such as systems vulnerability, security breach probability, potential loss of security breach, and security investment levels, are investigated via …

A Research Capability On Management Of Engineering And Technology, Arcot Desai Narasimhalu

Arcot Desai NARASIMHALU

Companies, private and publicly funded research institutions have been engaged in research projects and research programs. This paper describes a research capability maturity model for managing technological innovations. The insights for this proposal were derived from studying a variety of research organizations for managing technological innovations in a publicly funded research institute in Singapore. The model was implemented over a period of time with different degrees of success in Kent Ridge Digital Labs, Singapore which has since been renamed Institute for Infocomm Research. The suggested maturity model has five layers – Ad-Hoc, Directed, Managed, Optimized, and Outsourced. Every research organization …

Australia's National Security: An Interview With Dr Katina Michael, G. Messaris, K. Michael

Professor Katina Michael

No abstract provided.

Homeland Security: Engaging The Frontlines - Symposium Proceedings, George H. Baker, Cheryl J. Elliott

George H Baker

The rise of the American homeland security endeavor under the leadership of the new Department of Homeland Security has been heralded by several major national strategy documents. These documents have served to organize efforts at top levels within the government and industry. However, the national strategy guidance is not getting to many organizations and people at the grass-roots level who can make the most difference in preventing attacks, protecting systems, and recovering from catastrophic events, viz. the general citizenry, private infrastructure owners, and local governments. To better understand grass-roots issues and solutions, James Madison University, in cooperation with the Federal …

Biochemical Characterization Of The Major Sorghum Grain Peroxidase, Mamoudou H. Dicko, Harry Gruppen, Riet Hilhorst, Alphons G. J. Voragen, Willen W. H. Van Berkel

Pr. Mamoudou H. DICKO, PhD

Computer Skills, Gender, And Technostress In Higher Education, Sonya Shepherd

Sonya S. Gaither

The creation of computer software and hardware, telecommunications, databases, and the Internet has affected society as a whole, and particularly higher education by giving people new productivity options and changing the way they work (Hulbert, 1998). In the so-called “information age” the increasing use of technology has become the driving force in the way people work, learn, and play (Drake, 2000). As this force evolves, the people using technology change also (Nelson, 1990). Adapting to technology is not simple. Some people tend to embrace change while others resist change (Wolski & Jackson, 1999). Before making a decision on whether to …

The Tablet Pc For Faculty: A Pilot Project, Rob Weitz, Bert Wachsmuth, Danielle Mirliss

Bert Wachsmuth

This paper describes a pilot project with the purpose of evaluating the usefulness of tablet PCs for university professors. The focus is on the value of tablets primarily with respect to teaching and learning (and not for research or administrative work). Sixty-four professors, distributed across the various schools of a university, were provided with tablet PCs and were trained in their use.

A History Of Political Experience, Leslie Marsh

Leslie Marsh

This book survives superficial but fails deeper scrutiny. A facile, undiscerning criticism of Lectures in the History of Political Thought (LHPT) is that on Oakeshott’s own account these are lectures on a non-subject: ‘I cannot detect anything which could properly correspond to the expression “the history of political thought”’ (p. 32). This is an entirely typical Oakeshottian swipe – elegant and oblique – at the title of the lecture course he inherited from Harold Laski. If title and quotation sit awkwardly we should remember that Oakeshott never prepared the text for publication – a fortiori he did not prepare it …

Collaborative Games: Lessons Learned From Board Games, Jose Zagal, Rick Jochen, Hsi Idris

Jose P Zagal

Collaborative mechanisms are starting to become prominent in computer games, like massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs); however, by their nature, these games are difficult to investigate. Game play is often complex and the underlying mechanisms are frequently opaque. In contrast, board games are simple. Their game play is fairly constrained and their core mechanisms are transparent enough to analyze. In this article, the authors seek to understand collaborative games. Because of their simplicity, they focus on board games. The authors present an analysis of collaborative games. In particular, they focus on Reiner Knizia’s LORDOFTHERINGS, considered by many to be the …

Functional Connectivity In A Baseline Resting-State Network In Autism, Vladimir Cherkassky, Rajesh Kana, Timothy Keller, Marcel Just

Marcel Adam Just

No abstract provided.

Service Grid For Business Computing, Zongwei Luo, Jia Zhang, Rosa Badia

Jia Zhang

In this chapter, we will introduce an advanced topic of grid computing – Web services-oriented grid for business computing. Web services represent a new concept of computing that enables diverse and distributed resources to communicate with each other based upon a set of standards. We will discuss what values the marriage of Web services and grid computing can bring to business computing and the current state of the art of the field. The layout of the chapter is as follows: Grid computing overview; Web services orientation; Service oriented grid; Integrated service platform for integration; and Challenges and considerations.

Compressed Dictionaries: Space Measures, Data Sets, And Experiments

Ankur Gupta

Detecting Acromegaly: Screening For Disease With A Morphable Model, Erik G. Learned-Miller, Qifeng Lung, Angela Paisley, Peter Trainer, Volker Blanz, Katrin Dedden, Ralph Miller

Erik G Learned-Miller

Acromegaly is a rare disorder which affects about 50 of every million people. The disease typically causes swelling of the hands, feet, and face, and eventually permanent changes to areas such as the jaw, brow ridge, and cheek bones. The disease is often missed by physicians and progresses beyond where it might if it were identified and treated earlier. We consider a semi-automated approach to detecting acromegaly, using a novel combination of support vector machines (SVMs) and a morphable model. Our training set consists of 24 frontal photographs of acromegalic patients and 25 of disease-free subjects. We modelled each subject's …

Privacy Issues Of Applying Rfid In Retail Industry, Haifei Li, Patrick C.K. Hung, Jia Zhang, David Ahn

Jia Zhang

This case study describes the privacy issues of applying Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) in the retail industry. With the dramatic price drop of RFID tags, it is possible that RFID be applied to individual items sold by a retailer. However, the RFID technology poses critical privacy challenges. In this study, we analyze the potential privacy issue of RFID utilization, and we propose a privacy authorization model aiming for precisely defining RFID privacy policies for the retail industry.

Brain Correlates Of Discourse Processing: An Fmri Investigation Of Irony And Conventional Metaphor Comprehension, Zohar Eviatar, Marcel Adam Just

Marcel Adam Just

No abstract provided.

Sentence Comprehension In Autism: Thinking In Pictures With Decreased Functional Connectivity, Rajesh K. Kana, Timothy A. Keller, Vladimir L. Cherkassky, Nancy J. Minshew, Marcel Adam Just

Marcel Adam Just

No abstract provided.

Algorithms For Optimizing Bandwidth Costs On The Internet, Micah Adler, Ramesh Sitaraman, Harish Venkataramani

Ramesh Sitaraman

Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) deliver web content to end-users from a large distributed platform of web servers hosted in data centers belonging to thousands of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) around the world. The bandwidth cost incurred by a CDN is the sum of the amounts it pays each ISP for routing traffic from its servers located in that ISP out to end-users. A large enterprise may also contract with multiple ISPs to provide redundant Internet access for its origin infrastructure using technologies such as multihoming and mirroring, thereby incurring a significant bandwidth cost across multiple ISPs. This paper initiates the …

Auction-Based Pricing Model For Web Service Providers, Jia Zhang, Ning Zhang, Liang-Jie Zhang

Jia Zhang

Applying auctions to Web services selection and invocation calls for examination due to the unique features of Web services, such as interoperable machine-to-machine interactions and reenterable bargaining services. In this paper we propose a formal model for Web services-based auctions. Examining one-sided sealed auction type, we prove mathematically that service requestors’ risk preferences could lead to different pricing strategies for service providers towards higher profit. We argue that Service Level Agreement (SLA) documents can be used to analyze service requestors’ preferences. On top of WS-Agreement, we propose a basic service requestor risk preference elicitation algorithm, as well as a historical …