Evaluating an intelligent diagnosis system of historical text comprehension

This work aims to present and evaluate a Fuzzy-Case Based Reasoning Diagnosis system of Historical Text Comprehension. The synergism of fuzzy logic and case based reasoning techniques handles the uncertainty in the acquisition of human expert's knowledge regarding learner's observable behaviour and integrates the right balance between expert's knowledge described in the form of fuzzy sets and previous experiences documented in the form of cases. The formative evaluation focused on the comparison of the system's performance to the performance of human experts concerning the diagnosis accuracy. The system was also evaluated for its behaviour when using two different historical texts. Empirical evaluation conducted with human experts and real students indicated the need for revision of the diagnosis model. The evaluation results are encouraging for the system's educational impact on learners and for future work concerning an intelligent educational system for individualized learning.     

Routing and resource optimization in service overlay networks

Service Overlay Networks (SONs) create a virtual topology on top of the Internet and provide end-to-end quality of service guarantees without requiring support by the underlying network.The optimization of the resources utilized by an SON is a fundamental issue for an overlay operator owing to the costs involved and the need to satisfy user requirements. Careful decisions are necessary to provide enough capacity to overlay links, to route traffic, to assign users to access nodes and to deploy overlay nodes.In this paper, we propose two mathematical programming models for the user assignment problem, the traffic routing optimization and the dimensioning of the capacity reserved on overlay links in SONs. The first model minimizes the SON installation cost while providing full access to all users. The second model maximizes the SON profit by selecting which users to serve, based on the expected gain, and taking into consideration budget constraints of the SON operator. Moreover, we extend these models to include the optimization of the number and position of overlay nodes.We provide the optimal solutions of the proposed SON design formulations on a set of realistic-size instances and discuss the effect of different parameters on the characteristics of the planned networks. Numerical results show that the proposed approach is able to solve the problem to the optimum even for large-scale networks.     

Formal testing for separation assurance

In order to address the rapidly increasing load of air traffic operations, innovative algorithms and software systems must be developed for the next generation air traffic control. Extensive verification of such novel algorithms is key for their adoption by industry. Separation assurance algorithms aim at predicting if two aircraft will get closer to each other than a minimum safe distance; if loss of separation is predicted, they also propose a change of course for the aircraft to resolve this potential conflict. In this paper, we report on our work towards developing an advanced testing framework for separation assurance. Our framework supports automated test case generation and testing, and defines test oracles that capture algorithm requirements. We discuss three different approaches to test-case generation, their application to a separation assurance prototype, and their respective strengths and weaknesses. We also present an approach for statistical analysis of the large numbers of test results obtained from our framework.     

The joint Gateway Placement and Spatial Reuse Problem in Wireless Mesh Networks

A Wireless Mesh Network (WMN) is composed of multiple Access Points (APs) that are connected together using the radio channel and by a limited number of gateway APs connected to the Internet. In this paper, we address the problem of gateway placement that consists of minimizing the number of gateways while satisfying system performance requirements. Along with the placement problem, the formulation includes joint routing and scheduling to account for the problem of interference and to enable spacial reuse. The problem, which we coined GPSRP (Gateway Placement and Spatial Reuse Problem), allows a much more efficient use of the available resources and reduces overall gateway costs. This article presents for the first time a mathematical formulation of the problem and discusses its advantages and limitations with respect to other approaches.     

Selection of TBM and geotechnical assessment of a microtunnel in a difficult geological environment: a case of a natural gas pipeline beneath an active landslide (Albania)

Bulletin of Engineering Geology and the Environment - This present paper presents an adopted methodology for Micro Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) selection, based on the results of a...     

A framework for home energy management and its experimental validation

With the Smart Grid revolution and the increasing interest in renewable energy sources, the management of the electricity consumption and production of individual households and small residential communities is becoming an essential element of new power systems. The electric energy chain can greatly benefit from a flexible interaction with end-users based on the optimization of load profiles and the exploitation of local generation and energy storage. This paper proposes a framework for the development of a complete energy management system for individual residential units and small communities of domestic users, taking into account both the power system and the final users’ perspectives. All the main elements of the framework are considered, and contributions are provided on the users’ habits profiling, electricity generation forecast, energy load, and storage optimization. Specifically, we propose a linear regression model to predict the photovoltaic panels production, a stochastic method to forecast the home appliances usage, and two optimization models to optimize the electricity management of residential users with the goal of minimizing their bills. The study shows that it is possible to reduce the energy bill of residential users through the electricity optimization driven by dynamic energy prices. Moreover, remarkable improvements of the electric grid efficiency can be achieved with the cooperation among users, confirming that services for the coordination of the demand of groups of users allow huge benefits on the power system performance.     

The expansion of Google Scholar versus Web of Science: a longitudinal study

Web of Science (WoS) and Google Scholar (GS) are prominent citation services with distinct indexing mechanisms. Comprehensive knowledge about the growth patterns of these two citation services is lacking. We analyzed the development of citation counts in WoS and GS for two classic articles and 56 articles from diverse research fields, making a distinction between retroactive growth (i.e., the relative difference between citation counts up to mid-2005 measured in mid-2005 and citation counts up to mid-2005 measured in April 2013) and actual growth (i.e., the relative difference between citation counts up to mid-2005 measured in April 2013 and citation counts up to April 2013 measured in April 2013). One of the classic articles was used for a citation-by-citation analysis. Results showed that GS has substantially grown in a retroactive manner (median of 170 % across articles), especially for articles that initially had low citations counts in GS as compared to WoS. Retroactive growth of WoS was small, with a median of 2 % across articles. Actual growth percentages were moderately higher for GS than for WoS (medians of 54 vs. 41 %). The citation-by-citation analysis showed that the percentage of citations being unique in WoS was lower for more recent citations (6.8 % for citations from 1995 and later vs. 41 % for citations from before 1995), whereas the opposite was noted for GS (57 vs. 33 %). It is concluded that, since its inception, GS has shown substantial expansion, and that the majority of recent works indexed in WoS are now also retrievable via GS. A discussion is provided on quantity versus quality of citations, threats for WoS, weaknesses of GS, and implications for literature research and research evaluation.     

Radio planning of energy-aware cellular networks

This paper introduces a joint planning and management optimization approach for cellular networks to limit energy consumption while guaranteeing QoS and minimizing operators Capex and Opex. The modeling framework shows that an effective energy-efficient operation depends on the planning decisions. Conversely, it also shows that planning with energy management operation in view yields more versatile topologies than more traditional models based only on Capex. Results for LTE networks are provided and show that savings up to 65% in energy expenses are possible with slight increases in capital investments.     

Acquisition of CD24 expression by Lin-CD43+B220(low)ckit(hi) cells coincides with commitment to the B cell lineage

The present study describes three subsets of bone marrow-derived Lin CD43+B220(low) (B220(low)) progenitor cells which represent distinct stages in hematopoietic development. These populations differ in their expression of CD24 and ckit and the occurrence of IgH gene rearrangement. B220(low) CD24-ckit(hi) progenitors have their IgH loci in germ-line configuration and are multipotent since they can give rise to B cells, T cells and myeloid cells. B220lowckit(hi) cells which have acquired CD24 expression have retained IgH loci in germ-line configuration and the ability to generate B cells, however, they have lost the ability to generate T cells and myeloid cells. Thus acquisition of CD24 by B220(low) cells occurs concurrently with the transition from a multipotent to a lineage-restricted progenitor population. B220(low)CD24+ cells expressing low levels of ckit are also lineage restricted, giving rise to only B cells and have begun D-J(H) rearrangement, implying that initiation of IgH rearrangement coincides with the down-regulation of ckit expression.