The structure of the genetic programming collaboration network

The genetic programming bibliography aims to be the most complete reference of papers on genetic programming. In addition to locating publications, it contains coauthor and coeditor relationships which have not previously been studied. These reveal some similarities and differences between our field and collaborative social networks in other scientific fields.

Using trust assumptions with security requirements

Assumptions are frequently made during requirements analysis of a system about the trustworthiness of its various components (including human components). These trust assumptions, whether implicit or explicit, affect the scope of the analysis, derivation of security requirements, and in some cases how functionality is realized. This paper presents trust assumptions in the context of analysis of security requirements. A running example shows how trust assumptions can be used by a requirements engineer to help define and limit the scope of analysis and to document the decisions made during the process. The paper concludes with a case study examining the impact of trust assumptions on software that uses the secure electronic transaction specification.

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Model transformation by example using inductive logic programming

Model transformation by example is a novel approach in model-driven software engineering to derive model transformation rules from an initial prototypical set of interrelated source and target models, which describe critical cases of the model transformation problem in a purely declarative way. In the current paper, we automate this approach using inductive logic programming (Muggleton and Raedt in J Logic Program 19-20:629–679, 1994) which aims at the inductive construction of first-order clausal theories from examples and background knowledge.

Evolving rule induction algorithms with multi-objective grammar-based genetic programming

Multi-objective optimization has played a major role in solving problems where two or more conflicting objectives need to be simultaneously optimized. This paper presents a Multi-Objective grammar-based genetic programming (MOGGP) system that automatically evolves complete rule induction algorithms, which in turn produce both accurate and compact rule models. The system was compared with a single objective GGP and three other rule induction algorithms. In total, 20 UCI data sets were used to generate and test generic rule induction algorithms, which can be now applied to any classification data set. Experiments showed that, in general, the proposed MOGGP finds rule induction algorithms with competitive predictive accuracies and more compact models than the algorithms it was compared with.

The 2007 IEEE CEC simulated car racing competition

This paper describes the simulated car racing competition that was arranged as part of the 2007 IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation. Both the game that was used as the domain for the competition, the controllers submitted as entries to the competition and its results are presented. With this paper, we hope to provide some insight into the efficacy of various computational intelligence methods on a well-defined game task, as well as an example of one way of running a competition. In the process, we provide a set of reference results for those who wish to use the simplerace game to benchmark their own algorithms. The paper is co-authored by the organizers and participants of the competition.

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XFlavor: providing XML features in media representation

We present XFlavor, a framework for providing XML representation of multimedia data. XFlavor can be used to convert multimedia data back and forth between binary and XML representations. Compared to bitstreams, XML documents are easier to access and manipulate, and consequently, the development of multimedia processing software is greatly facilitated, as one generic XML parser can be used to read and write different types of data in XML form.

Time-Optimal Coordination of Flexible Manufacturing Systems Using Deterministic Finite Automata and Mixed Integer Linear Programming

Automation and flexibility are often mentioned as key concepts in modern production industry. To increase the level of flexibility, deterministic finite automata (DFA) can be used to model, specify and verify the production systems. Often, it is also desirable to optimize some production criteria, such as for example the cycle time of a manufacturing cell. In this paper, a method for automatic conversion from DFA to a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) formulation is first presented. This conversion is developed for a number of DFA structures that have shown to be useful in practical applications. Special attention is paid to reducing the search region explored by the MILP solver. Second, a conversion from the MILP solution to a DFA supervisor is described. This allows to combine the advantages of DFA modeling with the efficiency of MILP and supervisory control theory to automatically generate time-optimal, collision-free and non-blocking working schedules for flexible manufacturing systems.

An empirical study of the impact of team size on software development effort

In this paper, we investigate the impact of team size on the software development effort. Using field data of over 200 software projects from various industries, we empirically test the impact of team size and other variables—such as software size in function points, ICASE tool and programming language type—on software development effort. Our results indicate that software size in function points significantly impacts the software development effort. The two-way interactions between function points and use of ICASE tool, and function points and language type are significant as well. Additionally, the interactions between team size and programming language type, and team size and use of ICASE tool were all significant.

Methods for quantitative usability requirements: a case study on the development of the user interface of a mobile phone

Quantitative usability requirements are a critical but challenging, and hence an often neglected aspect of a usability engineering process. A case study is described where quantitative usability requirements played a key role in the development of a new user interface of a mobile phone. Within the practical constraints of the project, existing methods for determining usability requirements and evaluating the extent to which these are met, could not be applied as such, therefore tailored methods had to be developed. These methods and their applications are discussed.

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Understanding and capturing people’s privacy policies in a mobile social networking application

A number of mobile applications have emerged that allow users to locate one another. However, people have expressed concerns about the privacy implications associated with this class of software, suggesting that broad adoption may only happen to the extent that these concerns are adequately addressed. In this article, we report on our work on PeopleFinder, an application that enables cell phone and laptop users to selectively share their locations with others (e.g. friends, family, and colleagues). The objective of our work has been to better understand people’s attitudes and behaviors towards privacy as they interact with such an application, and to explore technologies that empower users to more effectively and efficiently specify their privacy preferences (or “policies”). These technologies include user interfaces for specifying rules and auditing disclosures, as well as machine learning techniques to refine user policies based on their feedback. We present evaluations of these technologies in the context of one laboratory study and three field studies.

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Multimodal support to group dynamics

The complexity of group dynamics occurring in small group interactions often hinders the performance of teams. The availability of rich multimodal information about what is going on during the meeting makes it possible to explore the possibility of providing support to dysfunctional teams from facilitation to training sessions addressing both the individuals and the group as a whole. A necessary step in this direction is that of capturing and understanding group dynamics. In this paper, we discuss a particular scenario, in which meeting participants receive multimedia feedback on their relational behaviour, as a first step towards increasing self-awareness. We describe the background and the motivation for a coding scheme for annotating meeting recordings partially inspired by the Bales’ Interaction Process Analysis. This coding scheme was aimed at identifying suitable observable behavioural sequences. The study is complemented with an experimental investigation on the acceptability of such a service.

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Deployment and dynamic reconfiguration planning for distributed software systems

The quality of software systems are determined in part by their optimal configurations. Optimal configurations are desired when the software is being deployed and during its lifetime. However, initial deployment and subsequent dynamic reconfiguration of a software system is difficult because of the interplay of many interdependent factors, including cost, time, application state, and system resources. As the size and complexity of software systems increases, procedures (manual or automated) that assume a static software architecture and environment are becoming untenable. We have developed a novel technique for carrying out the deployment and reconfiguration planning processes that leverages recent advances in the field of temporal planning. We describe a tool called Planit, which manages the deployment and reconfiguration of a software system utilizing a temporal planner. Given a model of the structure of a software system, the network upon which the system should be hosted, and a goal configuration, Planit will use the temporal planner to devise possible deployments of the system. Given information about changes in the state of the system, network and a revised goal, Planit will use the temporal planner to devise possible reconfigurations of the system. We present the results of a case study in which Planit is applied to a system consisting of various components that communicate across an application-level overlay network. An earlier version of this paper was presented at ICTAI’03.

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How relative absolute can be: SUMI and the impact of the nature of the task in measuring perceived software usability

This paper addresses the possibility of measuring perceived usability in an absolute way. It studies the impact of the nature of the tasks performed in perceived software usability evaluation, using for this purpose the subjective evaluation of an application’s performance via the Software Usability Measurement Inventory (SUMI). The paper reports on the post-hoc analysis of data from a productivity study for testing the effect of changes in the graphical user interface (GUI) of a market leading drafting application. Even though one would expect similar evaluations of an application’s usability for same releases, the analysis reveals that the output of this subjective appreciation is context sensitive and therefore mediated by the research design. Our study unmasked a significant interaction between the nature of the tasks used for the usability evaluation and how users evaluate the performance of this application. This interaction challenges the concept of absolute benchmarking in subjective usability evaluation, as some software evaluation methods aspire to provide, since subjective measurement of software quality will be affected most likely by the nature of the testing materials used for the evaluation.

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Connecting the family with awareness systems

Awareness systems have attracted significant research interest for their potential to support interpersonal relationships. Investigations of awareness systems for the domestic environment have suggested that such systems can help individuals stay in touch with dear friends or family and provide affective benefits to their users. Our research provides empirical evidence to refine and substantiate such suggestions. We report our experience with designing and evaluating the ASTRA awareness system, for connecting households and mobile family members. We introduce the concept of connectedness and its measurement through the Affective Benefits and Costs of communication questionnaire (ABC-Q). We inform results that testify the benefits of sharing experiences at the moment they happen without interrupting potential receivers. Finally, we document the role that lightweight, picture-based communication can play in the range of communication media available.

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Evolving strategy for a probabilistic game of imperfect information using genetic programming

We provide the complete record of methodology that let us evolve BrilliAnt, the winner of the Ant Wars contest. Ant Wars contestants are virtual ants collecting food on a grid board in the presence of a competing ant. BrilliAnt has been evolved through a competitive one-population coevolution using genetic programming and fitnessless selection. In this paper, we detail the evolutionary setup that lead to BrilliAnt’s emergence, assess its direct and indirect human-competitiveness, and describe the behavioral patterns observed in its strategy.

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Understanding Programming Languages

We document the influence on programming language semantics of the Platonism/formalism divide in the philosophy of mathematics.

ONTRACK: Dynamically adapting music playback to support navigation

Listening to music on personal, digital devices whilst mobile is an enjoyable, everyday activity. We explore a scheme for exploiting this practice to immerse listeners in navigation cues. Our prototype, ONTRACK, continuously adapts audio, modifying the spatial balance and volume to lead listeners to their target destination. First we report on an initial lab-based evaluation that demonstrated the approach’s efficacy: users were able to complete tasks within a reasonable time and their subjective feedback was positive. Encouraged by these results we constructed a handheld prototype. Here, we discuss this implementation and the results of field-trials. These indicate that even with a low-fidelity realisation of the concept, users can quite effectively navigate complicated routes.

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Supporting scenario evolution

Scenarios have been shown to be very helpful in identifying and communicating requirements for computer-based systems (CBSs). However, they appear not to be applicable to the rest of the CBS development process. Making scenarios more useful for the entire software development lifecycle requires integrating scenarios to other representations used during CBS development. This integration is achieved with tracing technology. Having integrated scenarios into the entire software development lifecycle creates the necessity to maintain scenarios through the inevitable changes that they and other documents undergo and to subject them to configuration management. We have prototyped automated support for full-lifecycle scenario management and have applied it to some non-trivial systems.This paper is an amalgamation and extension of the conference papers numbered 8, 9, 10, and 11 in the bibliography of this paper.

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E-redesigning of society: towards experiential connectivity of generations in Lithuania

The paper reflects on the unique experience of social and technological development in Lithuania since the regaining of independence as a newly reshaped society constructing a distinctive competitive IST-based model at global level. This has presented Lithuanian pattern of how to integrate different experiences and relations between generations in implementing complex information society approaches. The resulting programme in general is linked to the Lisbon objectives of the European Union. The experience of transitional countries in Europe, each different but facing some common problems, may be useful to developing countries in Africa.

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