Science and Technology Studies Commons^™

Variational Bayesian Image Modelling, Li Chen, Feng Jiao, Dale Schuurmans, Shaojun Wang

Kno.e.sis Publications

We present a variational Bayesian framework for performing inference, density estimation and model selection in a special class of graphical models—Hidden Markov Random Fields (HMRFs). HMRFs are particularly well suited to image modelling and in this paper, we apply them to the problem of image segmentation. Unfortunately, HMRFs are notoriously hard to train and use because the exact inference problems they create are intractable. Our main contribution is to introduce an efficient variational approach for performing approximate inference of the Bayesian formulation of HMRFs, which we can then apply to the density estimation and model selection problems that arise when …

Framework For Semantic Web Process Composition, Kaarthik Sivashanmugam, John A. Miller, Amit P. Sheth, Kunal Verma

Kno.e.sis Publications

Web services have the potential to revolutionize e-commerce by enabling businesses to interact with each other on the fly. To date, however, Web processes using Web services have been created mostly at the syntactic level. Current composition standards focus on building processes based on the interface description of the participating services. This rigid approach, with its strong coupling between the process and the interface of the participating services, does not allow businesses to dynamically change partners and services. As shown in this article, Web process composition techniques can be enhanced by using semantic process templates to capture the semantic requirements …

Tontogen: A Synthetic Data Set Generator For Semantic Web Applications, Matthew Perry

Kno.e.sis Publications

No abstract provided.

From Semantic Search & Integration To Analytics, Amit P. Sheth

Kno.e.sis Publications

Semantics is seen as the key ingredient in the next phase of the Web infrastructure as well as the next generation of enterprise content management. Ontology is the centerpiece of the most prevalent semantic technologies and provides the basis of representing, acquiring, and utilizing knowledge. With the availability of several commercial products and many research tools, specifications and increasing adoption of Semantic Web standards such as RDF for metadata and OWL for ontology representation, ontology-driven techniques and systems have already enabled a new generation of industry strength semantic applications. In particular, Semagix's Freedom has powered applications in leading verticals such …

Late 19th- And Early 20th-Century Manufacture Of Drawn Glass Tubing For Glass Beads, Lester A. Ross

BEADS: Journal of the Society of Bead Researchers

Late 19th- and early 20th-century archaeological sites often contain machine-made drawn glass beads with unique shapes and perforations. Little information exists documenting when these beads were initially manufactured. Through an examination of hundreds of U.S. patents, it appears that the mechanized production of drawn beads could have occurred as early as the late 19th-century, but more likely, they were not mass produced until the end of World War I, after the invention of the Danner process for mechanically drawing glass tubing. Machine-made drawn beads with multiple sides and/or shaped perforations also appear to have been produced by the late-19th century, …

Captions And Color Plates (V. 17, 2005)

BEADS: Journal of the Society of Bead Researchers

No abstract provided.

The "Best K" For Entropy-Based Categorical Data Clustering, Keke Chen, Ling Liu

Kno.e.sis Publications

With the growing demand on cluster analysis for categorical data, a handful of categorical clustering algorithms have been developed. Surprisingly, to our knowledge, none has satisfactorily addressed the important problem for categorical clustering – how can we determine the best K number of clusters for a categorical dataset? Since categorical data does not have the inherent distance function as the similarity measure, traditional cluster validation techniques based on the geometry shape and density distribution cannot be applied to answer this question. In this paper, we investigate the entropy property of the categorical data and propose a BkPlot method for determining …

Inventory Management Improvement Techniques, James Lanman

Masters Theses

An inventory management system that does not ensure inventory record accuracy greatly reduces the ability of a company to control inventory levels and fulfill customer requirements. This study investigated how two principles of inventory management affected three business metrics: on-time delivery, inventory record accuracy, and inventory level management.

Eight manufacturers of aircraft parts and equipment in northeastern lllinois responded to a survey created to analyze the effects of ABC classification of inventory and cycle counting techniques on inventory management. Survey data were collected via teleconference with a representative of each manufacturer.

Half of the manufacturers reported using ABC inventory classification …

Implementation Of An Open Source Enterprise Resource Planning (Erp) System, Jing Shao

Masters Theses

Characterized with free access, free distribution and high adaptability, open source ERP system provides an alternative to the high cost of adopting an ERP system in small and medium-sized business (SMB). This research explored the possibility of adopting open source ERP system in SMB, with Compiere -- a typical open source ERP system. The ERP system was designed and customized for a fictitious computer manufacturing company. Major processes including partner relations, quote to invoice, requisition to invoice, material management, and project management were implemented.

Through this research, it was realized that necessary procedures of implementing an open source ERP system …

Web-Driven Database For E-Manufacturing Using Unified Modeling Language, Kaihong He

Masters Theses

E-manufacturing technology is enabling manufacturing companies to provide their customers with mass customization, from traditional mass production. This thesis explored how e-manufacturing strategy can be implemented using various technology to better serve customers and to efficiently manage inventory for manufacturing operations. In this study, a virtual computer manufacturing company was used to model e-manufacturing process in terms of customer interactions and inventory management. A web-driven database of inventory management was developed with Rational Unified Process. The e-manufacturing computing architecture was modeled in Unified Modeling Language.

The project implemented the e-manufacturing architecture using Java technology and Oracle database. Java Server Page …

A Uniform Approach To Logic Programming Semantics, Pascal Hitzler, Matthias Wendt

Computer Science and Engineering Faculty Publications

Part of the theory of programming and nonymonotonic reasoning concerns the study of fixed-point semantics for these paradigms. Several different semantics have been proposed during the last two decades, and some have been more successful and acknowledged than others. The rationales behind those various semantics have been manifold, depending on one's point of view, which may be that of a programmer or inspired by commonsense reasoning, and consequently the constructions which lead to these semantics are technically very diverse, and the exact relationships between them have not yet been fully understood. In this paper, we present a conceptually new method, …

Dlp - An Introduction, Denny Vrandecic, Pascal Hitzler, Rudi Studer

Computer Science and Engineering Faculty Publications

DLP - Description Logic Programs - is the name for the common language that is able to integrate knowledge bases described in Description Logic with Logic Programs. In this introduction, we offer a very short overview of DLP, the motivation for it, the benefits it offers and how to use it.

Glyde - An Expressive Xml Standard For The Representation Of Glycan, Satya S. Sahoo, Christopher Thomas, Amit P. Sheth, Cory Andrew Henson, William S. York

Kno.e.sis Publications

The amount of glycomics data being generated is rapidly increasing as a result of improvements in analytical and computational methods. Correlation and analysis of this large, distributed data set requires an extensible and flexible representational standard that is also ‘understood’ by a wide range of software applications. An XML-based data representation standard that faithfully captures essential structural details of a glycan moiety along with additional information (such as data provenance) to aid the interpretation and usage of glycan data, will facilitate the exchange of glycomics data across the scientific community. To meet this need, we introduce GLYcan Data Exchange (GLYDE) …

Semantic Web & Semantic Web Services: Applications In Healthcare And Scientific Research, Amit P. Sheth

Kno.e.sis Publications

No abstract provided.

Discovering Informative Subgraphs In Rdf Graphs, William H. Milnor, Cartic Ramakrishnan, Matthew Perry, Amit P. Sheth, John A. Miller, Krzysztof Kochut

Kno.e.sis Publications

Discovering patterns in graphs has long been an area of interest. In most contemporary approaches to such pattern discovery either quantitative anomalies or frequency of substructure is used to measure the interestingness of a pattern. In this paper we address the issue of discovering informative sub-graphs within RDF graphs. We motivate our work with an example related to Semantic Search. A user might pose a question of the form: ' What are the most relevant ways in which entity X is related to entity Y?' the response to which is a subgraph connecting X to Y. Relevance of the …

Integrated Technologies, Innovative Learning (Vol. Ii), Steve Rhine, Mark Bailey, Neal Grandgenett, Nebraska Department Of Education

Faculty Books and Monographs

Chapter 8: Midwestern Independence and Educational Technology Use: Evaluation Strategies of the Nebraska Catalyst Project, co-authored by Neal Grandgenett, UNO faculty member.

This chapter discusses the efforts of the Nebraska Catalyst Project and its collaborative evaluation process for monitoring progress of the integration of educational technology use into pre-service teacher education in the state. Nebraska is a very independent operational environment for educational institutions, which includes 535 K12 school districts, and 17 institutions of higher education accrediting Nebraska teachers. Such institutional independence meant that the higher education institutions and K12 school districts, although individually quite excellent, had limited experience in …

Local E-Government In Norway: Current Status And Emerging Issues, Leif Skiftenes Flak, Dag H. Olsen, Peter Wolcott

Information Systems and Quantitative Analysis Faculty Publications

Recent studies indicate that e-government initiatives have not held their promise of improving government services. The majority of efforts to benchmark e-government have had central government as the unit of analysis. This study employs the MeGAP-3 (The Municipal E-Government Assessmen Project) assessment tool to assess the status of municipal e-government in the Agder region in southern Norway, an area with high Internet penetration and mature information and communication technology (ICT) use. MeGAP-3 proved effective in providing a relative positioning of these Norwegian municipalities, but we argue that country specific assessment indicators are needed to complement the tool and enable cross-country …

Design And Implementation Of A Networked Control System, Mi Chen

Masters Theses

One of the major challenges faced by modem control systems is to integrate the computing, communication, and control into different levels of operations and information processes. The current practice to tackle these control problems focuses on distributed implementation of control systems. A Networked Control System (NCS) is one type of distributed control systems where the control loop is operated over a communication network.

This thesis discusses the structure and hierarchical model of a typical NCS, The prototype combines both network and control theory, addresses the detailed procedures on design, configuration, integration and implementation of a process control via communication network. …

Computer Security Perceptions Of Students Attending The School Of Technology At Eastern Illinois University, David C. Fulton

Masters Theses

Computer security is a major concern that demands attention. Computer viruses and other security risks proliferate on a daily basis. In the academic environment several disciplines of learning may share a common network or computer environment. This situation presents a number of challenges for a university. Allowing access to the Internet yet protecting the interests of the school can be a difficult undertaking. Data protection and the liabilities associated with protecting data is a major undertaking for a university.

This thesis examines the perceptions of students attending the School of Technology at Eastern Illinois University in the area of computer …

Cultural Competency In Healthcare: How Effective Are Cultural Diversity Training Modules Developed By The University Of Illinois, College Of Nursing,, Linda M. Moore

Masters Theses

Cultural diversity is a core part of our country and its impact has significant implications for quality health care delivery throughout the United States. The need for culturally competent health care services for diverse populations is gaining attention from health providers and educators. Cultural competency is about delivering quality patient care while demonstrating cultural awareness, respect, and concern for other cultures and social groups. Generally there has been a lack of research in the area of cultural competency in health care and the effectiveness of cultural competency training programs on health care providers. The purpose of this study was to …

Telecommunications Technology And Sovereignty: Effects On States As Information Transfer Increased From The Speed Of Oxcart To The Speed Of Light, James H. Radford

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

Sovereignty---the absolute and unlimited power of the state---provides independence of action. Information about actions or intentions of competitors, enemies, or even friends, arriving after extended periods of time, resulted in responses to fait accompli. When information travels nearly instantaneously, states must consider potentially rapid international reactions before the fact. This suggests that since a state's freedom of action has been abridged, the nature of their sovereignty has altered.

This study pursues the research question: In what ways does telecommunications technology affect state sovereignty? The evolution of sovereignty is compared to development of telecommunications technology over four distinct eras, each …