Computer Sciences Commons^™

Why Matrix Factorization Works Well In Recommender Systems: A Systems-Based Explanation, Griselda Acosta, Manuel Hernandez, Natalia Villanueva-Rosales, Eric Smith, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

Many computer-based services use recommender systems that predict our preferences based on our degree of satisfaction with the past selections. One of the most efficient techniques making recommender systems successful is matrix factorization. While this technique works well, until now, there was no general explanation of why it works. In this paper, we provide such an explanation.

In Alsina Et Al. Derivation Of Min-Max Fuzzy Logic From Distributivity, All Conditions Are Necessary: A Proof, Vladik Kreinovich, Ildar Batyrshin, Nailya Kubysheva

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

In their 1983 paper, C. Alsina, E. Trillas, and L. Valverde proved that distributivity, monotonicity, and boundary conditions imply that the "and"-operation is min and the "or"-operation is max. In this paper, we show that all these conditions are necessary for Alsina et al. result to be true.

Beyond P-Boxes And Interval-Valued Moments: Natural Next Approximations To General Imprecise Probabilities, Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

To make an adequate decision, we need to know the probabilities of different consequences of different actions. In practice, we only have partial information about these probabilities -- this situation is known as imprecise probabilities. A general description of all possible imprecise probabilities requires using infinitely many parameters. In practice, the two most widely used few-parametric approximate descriptions are p-boxes (bounds on the values of the cumulative distribution function) and interval-valued moments (i.e., bounds on moments). In some situations, these approximations are not sufficiently accurate. So, we need more accurate more-parametric approximations. In this paper, we explain what are the …

Why Beta Priors: Invariance-Based Explanation, Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich, Kittawit Autchariyapanitkul

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

In the Bayesian approach, to describe a prior distribution on the set [0,1] of all possible probability values, typically, a Beta distribution is used. The fact that there have been many successful applications of this idea seems to indicate that there must be a fundamental reason for selecting this particular family of distributions. In this paper, we show that the selection of this family can indeed be explained if we make reasonable invariance requirements.

How To Gauge A Combination Of Uncertainties Of Different Type: General Foundations, Ingo Neumann, Vladik Kreinovich, Thach N. Nguyen

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

In many practical situations, for some components of the uncertainty (e.g., of the measurement error) we know the corresponding probability distribution, while for other components, we know only upper bound on the corresponding values. To decide which of the algorithms or techniques leads to less uncertainty, we need to be able to gauge the combined uncertainty by a single numerical value -- so that we can select the algorithm for which this values is the best. There exist several techniques for gauging the combination of interval and probabilistic uncertainty. In this paper, we consider the problem of gauging the combination …

Chatbots: Conversation Killers Or Makers?, Jing Jiang

MITB Thought Leadership Series

Whether you’re aware of it or not, the chances are you’ve been chatting to robots of late. While these bots are faceless and unseen, don’t be fooled into thinking they aren’t there. In fact, chatbots, have been around since the 1960s at least, but with the progress in artificial intelligence, cloud computing and voice recognition, they’ve received both a functionality and a popularity boost. From the cosmetic to the life-changing, nowadays, chatbots can do anything from helping a person lose weight to assisting refugees applying for asylum.

Lightweight And Efficient Neural Natural Language Processing With Quaternion Networks, Yi Tay, Aston Zhang, Anh Tuan Luu, Jinfeng Rao, Shuai Zhang, Shuohang Wang, Jie Fu, Siu Cheung Hui

SCIS Student Publications

Many state-of-the-art neural models for NLP are heavily parameterized and thus memory inefficient. This paper proposes a series of lightweight and memory efficient neural architectures for a potpourri of natural language processing (NLP) tasks. To this end, our models exploit computation using Quaternion algebra and hypercomplex spaces, enabling not only expressive inter-component interactions but also significantly (75%) reduced parameter size due to lesser degrees of freedom in the Hamilton product. We propose Quaternion variants of models, giving rise to new architectures such as the Quaternion attention Model and Quaternion Transformer. Extensive experiments on a battery of NLP tasks demonstrates the …

Reduction Of Order: Analytical Solution Of Film Formation In The Electrostatic Rotary Bell Sprayer, Mark Doerre, Nelson Akafuah

Institute of Research for Technology Development Faculty Publications

This brief paper explains the slight differences in governing equations for a fluid film in a spinning cone, and the mechanism that reduces the order of a solution. Spinning cones with a centrally supplied fluid that spreads over its inner surface as a thin film have been the subject of interest for many years. Though often cast as a mathematical analysis, understanding this process is important, especially in the application of automotive painting. The analysis consists of a system of equations obtained from the Navier–Stokes equations along with simple boundary conditions that describe radial and tangential momentum conservation. Solutions to …

Simple And Effective Curriculum Pointer-Generator Networks For Reading Comprehension Over Long Narratives, Yi Tay, Shuohang Wang, Anh Tuan Luu, Jie Fu, Minh C. Phan, Xingdi Yuan, Jinfeng Rao, Siu Cheung Hui, Aston Zhang

SCIS Student Publications

This paper tackles the problem of reading comprehension over long narratives where documents easily span over thousands of tokens. We propose a curriculum learning (CL) based Pointer-Generator framework for reading/sampling over large documents, enabling diverse training of the neural model based on the notion of alternating contextual difficulty. This can be interpreted as a form of domain randomization and/or generative pretraining during training. To this end, the usage of the Pointer-Generator softens the requirement of having the answer within the context, enabling us to construct diverse training samples for learning. Additionally, we propose a new Introspective Alignment Layer (IAL), which …

How To Apply Software Engineering Testing Methodologies To Education, Francisco Zapata, Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

Testing is a very important part of quality control in education. To decide how to best test, it makes sense to use experience of other areas where testing is important, where there is a large amount of experimental data comparing the efficiency of different testing strategies. One such area is software engineering. The experience of software engineering shows that the most efficient approach to testing is to test thoroughly on every single stage of the project. In regards to teaching, the resulting recommendation means making testing as frequent as possible, preferably giving weekly quizzes. At first glance, this may seem …

An Empirical Study Of User Support Tools In Open Source Software, Arif Raza, Luiz Fernando Capretz, Shuib Basri

Electrical and Computer Engineering Publications

End users’ positive response is essential for the success of any software. This is true for both commercial and Open Source Software (OSS). OSS is popular not only because of its availability, which is usually free but due to the user support it provides, generally through public platforms. The study model of this research establishes a relationship between OSS user support and available support tools. To conduct this research, we used a dataset of 100 OSS projects in different categories and examined five user support tools provided by different OSS projects. The results show that project trackers, user mailing lists, …

Message From Program Chairs, Bruce M. Mcmillin, David Lo

Computer Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

No abstract provided.

How To Reconcile Maximum Entropy Approach With Intuition: E.G., Should Interval Uncertainty Be Represented By A Uniform Distribution, Vladik Kreinovich, Olga Kosheleva, Songsak Sriboonchitta

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

In many practical situations, we only have partial information about the probabilities; this means that there are several different probability distributions which are consistent with our knowledge. In such cases, if we want to select one of these distributions, it makes sense not to pretend that we have a small amount of uncertainty -- and thus, it makes sense to select a distribution with the largest possible value of uncertainty. A natural measure of uncertainty of a probability distribution is its entropy. So, this means that out of all probability distributions consistent with our knowledge, we select the one whose …

Why The Obvious Necessary Condition Is (Often) Also Sufficient (Toncas): An Explanation Of The Phenomenon, Julio C. Urenda, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

In many graph-related problems, an obvious necessary condition is often also sufficient. This phenomenon is so ubiquitous that it was even named TONCAS, after the first letters of the phrase describing this phenomenon. In this paper, we provide a possible explanation for this phenomenon.

Why Lasso, En, And Clot: Invariance-Based Explanation, Hamza Alkhatib, Ingo Neumann, Vladik Kreinovich, Chon Van Le

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

In many practical situations, observations and measurement results are consistent with many different models -- i.e., the corresponding problem is ill-posed. In such situations, a reasonable idea is to take into account that the values of the corresponding parameters should not be too large; this idea is known as regularization. Several different regularization techniques have been proposed; empirically the most successful are LASSO method, when we bound the sum of absolute values of the parameters, and EN and CLOT methods in which this sum is combined with the sum of the squares. In this paper, we explain the empirical success …

Improving 3d Printed Prosthetics With Sensors And Motors, Rachel Zarin

Honors Projects

A 3D printed hand and arm prosthetic was created from the idea of adding bionic elements while keeping the cost low. It was designed based on existing models, desired functions, and materials available. A tilt sensor keeps the hand level, two motors move the wrist in two different directions, a limit switch signals the fingers to open and close, and another motor helps open and close the fingers. All sensors and motors were built on a circuit board, programmed using an Arduino, and powered by a battery. Other supporting materials include metal brackets, screws, guitar strings, elastic bands, small clamps, …

Social Media Text Mining Framework For Drug Abuse: An Opioid Crisis Case Analysis, Tareq Nasralah

Masters Theses & Doctoral Dissertations

Social media is considered as a promising and viable source of data for gaining insights into various disease conditions, patients’ attitudes and behaviors, and medications. The daily use of social media provides new opportunities for analyzing several aspects of communication. Social media as a big data source can be used to recognize communication and behavioral themes of problematic use of prescription drugs. Mining and analyzing such media have challenges and limitations with respect to topic deduction and data quality. There is a need for a structured approach to efficiently and effectively analyze social media content related to drug abuse in …

Measuring Influence On Linear Dynamical Networks, Jaekob Chenina

Theses and Dissertations

Influence has been studied across many different domains including sociology, statistics, marketing, network theory, psychology, social media, politics, and web search. In each of these domains, being able to measure and rank various degrees of influence has useful applications. For example, measuring influence in web search allows internet users to discover useful content more quickly. However, many of these algorithms measure influence across networks and graphs that are mathematically static. This project explores influence measurement within the context of linear time invariant (LTI) systems. While dynamical networks do have mathematical models for quantifying influence on a node-to-node basis, to the …

Zhvillimi I Aplikacionit Për Menaxhimin E Punëve, Tanju Şerif

Theses and Dissertations

Që nga fillimi i historisë së njerëzimit, njeriu është ballafaquar me menaxhimin e kohës. Gjuetia, kujdesi për familje, mbrojtja nga rreziqet e jashtme, nga fatkeqësitë natyrore, dhe përgatitjet për stinët e ftohta, kanë qenë nga sfidat e para të njerëzimit qe kanë kërkuar menaxhimin e kohës. Me zhvillimin e teknologjisë dhe socializimin e njerëzve ka lindur nevoja për të menaxhuar kohen më saktë. Kështu kanë filluar të përdoren mjete të ndryshme ndihmuese për menaxhimin e kohës. Më parë janë përdorur shkrimet, shënimet, fletoret, mjete të ndryshme që ndihmojnë kujtesën, kalendarët dhe së fundmi teknologjinë informative. Krahas menaxhimit individual, rendësi te …

Sistemet Operative Për Mobile, Me Fokus Në Android, Albulena Dabiqaj

Theses and Dissertations

Ky punim diplome u frymëzua nga evoluimi dhe prania gjithnjë e më e madhe e pajisjeve mobile në jetën tonë. Çdo ditë e më tepër po vetëdijesohemi se sa janë të rëndësishme këto pajisje mobile, dhe njëkohësisht edhe lind pyetja sa jemi të sigurt duke i përdorur ato?

Si sisteme operative mobile për këtë punim janë trajtuar:

Android – sistemi operativ i krijuar nga kompania Google mirëpo që është krejtësisht “Open Source”, pra që çdokush mund ta përdorë dhe modifikojë.

IOS – sistem operativ që është krijuar dhe është në pronësi të kompanisë Apple.

Qëllimi i ketij punimi akademik është …

Aplikimi I Rrjetave Kompjuterike Në Sistemet E Informacionit Në Shëndetësi, Arbian Shkodra

Theses and Dissertations

Ky seminar paraqet një çasje origjinale që të organizoj një rrjetë kompjuterike që lejon spitalet të menaxhoj dhe ketë akses në baza të të dhënave në distancë dhe në formë të sigurtë. Arkitektura, bazuar në konceptet SONA (Service Oriented Network Architecture) është dizajnuar duke marrur në konsideratë disa nga karakteristikat më të rëndësishme si: shkallëzueshmëria, integriteti me rrjete kompjuterike të tjera, çasje në distancë dhe në formë të sigurtë, lehtësim të përdorimit dhe siguri totale të të dhënave. Kjo u arrit duke përdorur dy forma të çasjes. E para çasje mirret me sigurinë e brendshme, duke u implementuar përmes lejimit …

Augmented Reality, Ardit Nurçaj

Theses and Dissertations

Implementimi i teknologjive AR në aplikacione po rezulton me popullaritet të përmasave globale e që çdo ditë e më shumë po ndikon tek njerëzit si në jetën personale ashtu edhe në atë profesionale. Ky hulumtim ka për synim shtjellimin e disa aspekteve bazike mbi AR dhe konceptet kryesore të kësaj teknologjie, duke ja filluar prej historikut të AR ku filloi çdo gjë e deri tek zhvillimet e viteve të fundit, pastaj do të jepen disa definicione se çka është kjo teknologji, do të shtjellohen disa koncepte se si funksionon kjo teknologji, pajisjet mbi të cilat ekzekutohet, disa nga aplikimet ku …

Mvc Si Model Në Jsp Dhe Asp.Net, Donjet Salihi

Theses and Dissertations

Ky punim diplome ka për qellim krahasimin e implementimit të Model-View-Controller (MVC) si model dizajnues që kohëve të fundit është duke u praktikuar në shumë organizata për zhvillimin e aplikacioneve në gjuhë të ndryshmë programuese. Ne do të fokusohemi kryesisht në dy nga platformat më të fuqishme në treg ASP.NET dhe JSP. Gjatë shfletimit të këtij punimi, fillimisht do njoftoheni me konceptet e modelit MVC, historiku i zhvillimit si model dizajnues dhe cilat nga platformat ekzistuese kanë punuar drejt ofrimit të një ambienti të përshtatshëm zhvillues për implementimin e MVC-së. Pasi të këmi marrë një ide të qartë rreth modelit …

Krahasimi I Asp.Net Kontrollave Me Telerik Asp.Net Kontrollat Ne Rapid Application Devolopment, Dijar Kadriu

Theses and Dissertations

Siç e dimë, sa i përket marrjes së informacionit, sa më shpejtë që informohemi, aq më të suksesshëm jemi dhe kur bëhet fjalë për kërkim të informacionit, atëherë gjithmonë na shkon mendja tek interneti apo më saktë në shfletues. Prandaj, në ditët e sotme gjithçka që ndërtohet, çdo kompani , çdo person, sot ka një vlerë në internet, qoftë si dhënës i informacionit apo si marrës i informacionit. Vet themelimi i web-it ishte arsye që komunikimi dhe marrja e informacioni të bëhet sa më shpejtë dhe sa më të saktë.

Ekzistojnë shumë metodologji të ndryshme që sot përdoren për ndërtimin …

Dobësitë Në Sigurinë E Rrjetave Lokale Pa Tela-(Wireless), Armir Bejtullahu

Theses and Dissertations

Ky studim ka të bëjë me çështjet e sigurisë së rrjetës lokale Wireless LAN (WLAN) si në aspektin e konfigurimit gjithashtu dhe në atë të enkriptimit. Në këtë temë është bërë një paraqitje e përgjithme e rrjetave lokale Wireless, pastaj punën time e kam bazuar në qështjen kryesore, në analizimin e hollësishëm të dobësive të rrjetave Wireless në aspektin e sigurisë, të cilat i kam dëshmuar edhe me eksperimente dhe testime të ndryshme të thyerjes së sigurisë së rrjetave me metodat të cilat do të shtjellohen dhe definohen.

Qëllimi kryesor i kësaj teme është që të performohen disa lloje të …

Krahasimi I Shërbimeve Të Ofruara Në Cloud Ndaj Shërbimeve Tradicionale, Enis Krapi

Theses and Dissertations

Teknologjia cloud është shfaqur si zhvillim i rëndësishëm në teknologjinë e informacionit. Përkundër të gjithave vëmendja është tek ajo se, analizat ekzistuese të përqëndrohen në çështjet që lidhen me objektivat, metodologjitë, shërbimet, kualitetin e shërbimeve të teknologjisë cloud, aspektin e sigururisë. Në këtë punim diplome shqyrtohen konceptet kyçe në cloud, sa i përket krahasimit të teknologjisë tradicionale dhe teknologjisë cloud si nga aspekti i menaxhimit, e poashtu edhe nga aspketi i sigurisë.

Pasi teknologjia cloud është vazhdimisht në evoluim, shpesh duhet sqaruar terminologjia dhe konceptet e përdorura në këtë teknologji. Këtu interneti futet me bazë në teknologjinë cloud, duke eksploruar …

Interpretable Fashion Matching With Rich Attributes, Xun Yang, Xiangnan He, Xiang Wang, Yunshan Ma, Fuli Feng, Meng Wang, Tat‑Seng Chua

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Understanding the mix-and-match relationships of fashion items receives increasing attention in fashion industry. Existing methods have primarily utilized the visual content to learn the visual compatibility and performed matching in a latent space. Despite their effectiveness, these methods work like a black box and cannot reveal the reasons that two items match well. The rich attributes associated with fashion items, e.g.,off-shoulder dress and black skinny jean, which describe the semantics of items in a human-interpretable way, have largely been ignored.This work tackles the interpretable fashion matching task, aiming to inject interpretability into the compatibility modeling of items. Specifically, given a …

Applying Case-Based Learning For A Postgraduate Software Architecture Course, Eng Lieh Ouh, Yunghans Irawan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Software architecture remains a difficult subject for learners to grasp and for educators to teach given its level of abstraction. On the other hand, case-based learning (CBL) is a popular teaching approach used across disciplines especially in business, medicine and law where students work in groups apply their knowledge to solve real-world case studies, or scenarios using their reasoning skills and existing theoretical knowledge. In this paper, we provide how we apply case-based learning to address the challenge in teaching a postgraduate software architecture course. Our learners are postgraduate students taking a master’s program in software engineering. We first describe …

Decentralizing Air Traffic Flow Management With Blockchain Based Reinforcement Learning, Nguyen Binh Duong Ta, Umang Chaudhary, Hong-Linh Truong

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

We propose and implement a decentralized, intelligent air traffic flow management (ATFM) solution to improve the efficiency of air transportation in the ASEAN region as a whole. Our system, named BlockAgent, leverages the inherent synergy between multi-agent reinforcement learning (RL) for air traffic flow optimization; and the rising blockchain technology for a secure, transparent and decentralized coordination platform. As a result, BlockAgent does not require a centralized authority for effective ATFM operations. We have implemented several novel distributed coordination approaches for RL in BlockAgent. Empirical experiments with real air traffic data concerning regional airports have demonstrated the feasibility and effectiveness …

Distributed State Estimation By Using Active-Passive Sensor Networks, Akhilesh Raj, S. Jagannathan, Tansel Yucelen

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper proposes a novel adaptive observer for heterogeneous sensor networks (HSNs) to estimate state vector of an unknown target or process by using the sensed output when the input to the target/process is also not known. In an HSN, nodes are considered either active or passive depending upon their ability to sense the target output. The local information exchange among the nodes is dictated by a connected graph. By using the criterion of collective observability, a novel distributed adaptive estimation is introduced where the nodes are allowed to have different sensor modalities. Stability analysis shows uniform ultimate boundedness of …