User Behavior Model Based on Affordances and Emotions: A New Approach for an Optimal Use Method in Product–User Interactions

This study proposes a new approach to developing a user behavior model to explain how a user finds the optimal use. This is achieved by considering user concerns, task significances, affordances, and emotional responses as the interaction components and by exploring behavior sequences for a goal in using a product the first time. The tasks in the same group at each level in the user concern structure are therefore in a competing relationship in going up to a higher task. The task tree with the significances and the affordance probabilities can be analyzed. The order of a user’s exploring behavior sequences can be determined through comparisons of the expected significances, which can be obtained by the modified subjective expected utility theory. A user’s emotional responses for the tasks that a behavior sequence is composed of can be calculated by the modified decision affect theory. Here, the emotional response refers to a user’s internal reactions for the degree to which a product’s affordance features can meet his or her mental model in use. The average emotional response for a behavior sequence can be a user’s decisional factor for the optimal use method in using a product with a goal. Also, the design problems of a product can be checked from users’ point of view, and the emotional losses/changes by usage failures can be discussed. For an illustrative purpose, the proposed model is applied to a numerical example with some assumptions.     

ACNUC--a portable retrieval system for nucleic acid sequence databases: logical and physical designs and usage

ACNUC is a database structure and retrieval software for use with either the GenBank or EMBL nucleic acid sequence data collections. The nucleotide and textual data furnished by both collections are each restructured into a database that allows sequence retrieval on a multi-criterion basis. The main selection criteria are: species (or higher order taxon), keyword, reference, journal, author, and organelle; all logical combinations of these criteria can be used. Direct access to sequence regions that code for a specific product (protein, tRNA or rRNA) is provided. A versatile extraction procedure copies selected sequences, or fragments of them, from the database to user files suitable to be analysed by user-supplied application programs. A detailed help mechanism is provided to aid the user at any time during the retrieval session. All software has been written in FORTRAN 77 which guarantees a high degree of transportability to minicomputers or mainframes.     

DNA计算中编码序列的优化设计方案

提出了一种优化设计方案.该方案的各项评价指标均优于根据以往文献提供的方法所能得到的最好结果.尤其是所提出的海明距离测度方法,进一步保证了特异性杂交产生的自由能远大于非特异性杂交所产生的自由能,便于进行DNA编码序列的设计与选择,为可控的DNA计算提供可靠有效的编码序列.     

Optimizing Heuristic Evaluation Process in E-Commerce: Use of the Taguchi Method

This article proposes a 3-dimensional (3D) vision-based ambient user interface as an interaction metaphor that exploits a user's personal space and its dynamic gestures. In human-computer interaction, to provide natural interactions with a system, a user interface should not be a bulky or complicated device. In this regard, the proposed ambient user interface utilizes an invisible personal space to remove cumbersome devices where the invisible personal space is virtually augmented through exploiting 3D vision techniques. For natural interactions with the user's dynamic gestures, the user of interest is extracted from the image sequences by the proposed user segmentation method. This method can retrieve 3D information from the segmented user image through 3D vision techniques and a multiview camera. With the retrieved 3D information of the user, a set of 3D boxes (SpaceSensor) can be constructed and augmented around the user; then the user can interact with the system by touching the augmented SpaceSensor. In the user's dynamic gesture tracking, the computational complexity of SpaceSensor is relatively lower than that of conventional 2-dimensional vision-based gesture tracking techniques, because the touched positions of SpaceSensor are tracked. According to the experimental results, the proposed ambient user interface can be applied to various systems that require real-time user's dynamic gestures for their interactions both in real and virtual environments.     

挖掘语义轨迹频繁模式及拼车应用研究

现有各种轨迹分析主要利用聚类方法从多用户轨迹中挖掘公共停留点、计算用户相似度以发现热点、提取近似人群的公共属性，对同一用户计算相似度也无商业价值，因此很少对单用户轨迹分析展开研究。提出了基于地点语义的个体用户轨迹频繁模式挖掘方法。先逆地理编码求得语义轨迹并进行预处理从而求取Top-[k]候选频繁地点项集，进而采用时空序列求交集和分治归并方法，将长项集的频繁迭代计算转化为分层集合正则运算，从而求出频繁序列超集和子集。这种语义轨迹频繁模式挖掘能主动识别和发掘潜在的拼车需求，为共享拼车、HOV车道出行等基于位置的智能推荐提供更高的精准度。仿真拼车实验结果证明了该方法的适用性和高效性。     

Multimedia information retrieval based on pairwise comparison and its application to visual search

Finding a way to elicit user preferences in the context of multimedia information retrieval is an important issue that remains to be solved. Users are not usually able to find a sought after image or provide an example of what they want. One of several possible methods that might be used to solve this problem involves reasoning about user queries through the assessment of several samples. In this article we propose a method by which user queries are retrieved based on the pairwise comparison of sample alternatives. Pairwise comparison was originally designed for the ranking of alternatives. In our method we rank criteria according to their importance for the user and then use this information to retrieve relevant records from the database. The method was implemented in Matlab and tested on the Microsoft Research Cambridge Image Database.     

Retrieval and Visualization of Human Motion Data via Stick Figures

We propose 2D stick figures as a unified medium for visualizing and searching for human motion data. The stick figures can express a wide range or human motion, and they are easy to be drawn by people without any professional training. In our interface, the user can browse overall motion by viewing the stick figure images generated from the database and retrieve them directly by using sketched stick figures as an input query. We started with a preliminary survey to observe how people draw stick figures. Based on the rules observed from the user study, we developed an algorithm converting motion data to a sequence of stick figures. The feature‐based comparison method between the stick figures provides an interactive and progressive search for the users. They assist the user's sketching by showing the current retrieval result at each stroke. We demonstrate the utility of the system with a user study, in which the participants retrieved example motion segments from the database with 102 motion files by using our interface.     

Developing pattern recognition systems based on Markov models: The ESMERALDA framework

In this paper we describe ESMERALDA—an integrated Environment for Statistical Model Estimation and Recognition on Arbitrary Linear Data Arrays—which is a framework for building statistical recognizers operating on sequential data as, e.g., speech, handwriting, or biological sequences. ESMERALDA primarily supports continuous density Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) of different topologies and with user-definable internal structure. Furthermore, the framework supports the incorporation of Markov chain models (realized as statistical n-gram models) for long-term sequential restrictions and Gaussian mixture models (GMMs) for general classification tasks. ESMERALDA is used by several academic and industrial institutions. It was successfully applied to a number of challenging recognition problems in the fields of automatic speech recognition, offline handwriting recognition, and protein sequence analysis. The software is open source and can be retrieved under the terms of the LGPL.     

Generation of execution sequences for modular time critical systems

We define methods for generating execution sequences for time-critical systems based on their modularized formal specification. An execution sequence represents a behavior of a time critical system and can be used, before the final system is built, to validate the system specification against the user requirements (specification validation) and, after the final system is built, to verify whether the implementation satisfies the specification (functional testing). Our techniques generate execution sequences in the large, in that we focus on the connections among the abstract interfaces of the modules composing a modular specification. Execution sequences in the large are obtained by composing execution sequences in the small for the individual modules. We abstract from the specification languages used for the individual modules of the system, so our techniques can also be used when the modules composing the system are specified with different formalisms. We consider the cases in which connections give rise to either circular or noncircular dependencies among specification modules. We show that execution sequence generation can be carried out successfully under rather broad conditions and we define procedures for efficient construction of execution sequences. These procedures can be taken as the basis for the implementation of (semi)automated tools that provide substantial support to the activity of specification validation and functional testing for industrially-sized time critical systems     

A set of Macintosh computer programs for the design and analysis of synthetic genes

Computer programs that can be used for the design of synthetic genes and that are run on an Apple Macintosh computer are described. These programs determine nucleic acid sequences encoding amino acid sequences. They select DNA sequences based on codon usage as specified by the user, and determine the placement of base changes that can be used to create restriction enzyme sites without altering the amino acid sequence. A new algorithm for finding restriction sites by translating the restriction endonuclease target sequence in all three reading frames and then searching the given peptide or protein amino acid sequence with these short restriction enzyme peptide sequences is described. Examples are given for the creation of synthetic DNA sequences for the bovine prethrombin-2 and ribonuclease A genes.     

Exploring the structure of the space of compilation sequences using randomized search algorithms

Modern optimizing compilers apply a fixed sequence of optimizations, which we call a compilation sequence, to each program that they compile. These compilers let the user modify their behavior in a small number of specified ways, using command-line flags (e.g.,-O1,-O2,...). For five years, we have been working with compilers that automatically select an appropriate compilation sequence for each input program. These adaptive compilers discover a good compilation sequence tailored to the input program, the target machine, and a user-chosen objective function. We have shown, as have others, that program-specific sequences can produce better results than any single universal sequence [1, 7, 10, 21, 23] Our adaptive compiler looks for compilation sequences in a large and complex search space. Its typical compilation sequence includes 10 passes (with possible repeats) chosen from the 16 available—there are 16¹⁰ or [1,099,511,627,776] such sequences. To learn about the properties of such spaces, we have studied subspaces that consist of 10 passes drawn from a set of 5 (5¹⁰ or 9,765,625 sequences). These 10-of-5 subspaces are small enough that we can analyze them thoroughly but large enough to reflect important properties of the full spaces.This paper reports, in detail, on our analysis of several of these subspaces and on the consequences of those observed properties for the design of search algorithms. This work has been supported by the Los Alamos Computer Science Institute and by the National Science Foundation through grant CCR-0205303.     

Restrictive partially blind signature for resource-constrained information systems

Restrictive partially blind signature, which is designed for privacy-oriented information systems, allows a user to obtain a blind signature from a signer while the blind message must obey some certain rules. In order to reduce storage and communication costs, several public-key cryptosystems are constructed using characteristic sequences generated by linear feedback shift register (LFSR). In this paper, we present a new partially blind signature scheme with the restrictive property, which is based on nth order characteristic sequences generated by LFSR. By assuming the intractability of the discrete logarithm problem, our sequence-based schemes are provably secure in the random oracle model. We also present a practical e-cash application based on our restrictive partially blind signature. Due to the reduced representation of finite field elements and feasible sequence operations from LFSR, our scheme is time- and storage-efficient on both of signer and user sides. The advantages will make privacy-oriented applications more practical for resource-constrained devices.     

基于用户访问事务文法的序列关联规则发现

在Web挖掘中,应用关联规则发现方法可以发现Web页面之间用户访问的关联度.由于Web站点内含丰富的页面结构信息,也由于用户的访问总是要遵循一定的访问顺序,因此提出一种新的可以发现用户访问序列之间关联度的方法——序列关联规则发现方法.该方法首先得到用户访问事务;然后根据正则文法,定义了一种新的用户访问事务文法,用于从用户访问事务中得到用户序列访问事务;最后应用关联规则发现算法进而发现序列关联规则.为了进一步评价所发现的序列关联规则,引入了互信息的概念.发现的序列关联规则可以帮助Web站点的设计者更好地理解用户的访问,以用于调整Web站点的结构.     

MULTICOMP: a program package for multiple sequence comparison.

An algorithm for multiple sequence comparison was implemented in FORTRAN 77 for VAX/VMS in GCG-compatible format. The MULTICOMP program package includes several procedures with which one query sequence can be compared simultaneously to several DNA, RNA or amino acid sequences. The same technique was also introduced for comparing propensities of secondary structural features, which can be predicted on the basis of amino acid sequences. The technique has been applied to a wide range of sequence and structural analyses.     

基于分布式图像检索的结果合并

针对目前利用Web页面对数字图书馆进行查询存在的两方面的不足:无法判断从何处和如何精确查找信息,文章提出利用中央服务器在用户和分布式资料库之间充当网关角色,完成用户查询,着重解决如何将不同资料库中信息合并在一起,标准化检索图像的匹配值(数字图书馆所分配的),完成结果合并问题。实验证明,该算法应用于结果合并是可行的。     

A set of BASIC programs to evaluate relationships among protein sequences by optimum alignment and distance matrix analysis.

These six programs evaluate relationships among a number (> 2) of protein (or DNA) sequences. Program 1 automatically computes optimum alignments and total distances for all pairwise sequence combinations over any user desired range of the two gap penalties. Programs 2, 3 and 4 generate a square, symmetrical distance matrix, which can be exported for cluster analysis, or further analysed with programs 5 and 6 to give specific distances between sequences and extract sequence relationships. Data and results are exchanged among these programs, which are written in BASIC and compiled to run on Macintosh (68020/030/040) type machines with coprocessor and at least one MB of RAM. BASIC graphics commands or those for the Macintosh interface are avoided to facilitate use on other machines. Two groups of sequences are used to demonstrate (a) alignment, inter sequence distance calculation and dendrogram generation and (b) specific distance calculation and its usage in detecting sub groups of related sequences in dendrograms.     

A physically based approach with human–machine cooperation concept to generate assembly sequences

Assembly plan is considered one of the important stages to minimize the cost of manufacturer and to ensure the safety of assembly operation, the main problem of assembly sequence planning approach is how to reduce the deviation from the real manufacture conditions. In this paper, we have extensively investigated a novel approach to automatically generate the assembly sequences for industrial field, which is especially applied to other large-scale structures. A physically based assembly representation model includes not only the pre-determined basic assembly information, such as precedence relations between parts or subassemblies, geometric constraints, different assembly types, and also the dynamic real-time physical properties, such as the center position of gravity, the force strength of the part, et al. This representation model considered the influences on optimum sequences by assembly operations will be modified by the feedback from interactive virtual environment. Then, we select the safety, efficiency and complexity as the optimization objectives. A hybrid search approach may be used to find the optimum assembly sequence, which will be integrated into an interactive assembly virtual environment (IAVE). It means that the results of assembly interaction can be provided to update the assembly planning model as a feedback, by which the approach will take advantages of the immune memory for local optimum search. The user can adjust the assembly sequences with obvious good objective by interaction with IAVE to improve the performance of the search algorithm. We describe human–machine cooperation (HMC) method for ASP in this work, by which human also can play a pivotal role instead of pure soft-computing. A series of numerical experiments are done to validate the performance of the physically based approach (PBA) to generate assembly sequence, which shows the efficiency and the operability to guide the assembly work.     

Analyzing social choice and group ranking of online games for product mix innovation

With the increasing populations of the smartphones and mobile devices these years, the majority of people have played the mobile or online games on their smartphones. As such users have rapidly increased, this research is to propose an innovative service that can automatically recommend the users the appropriate online games as their optional references. In order for market competition, the most online games’ enterprises need to develop and sell the newer online game products or versions continuously for the customers who like to play online games. Now that the types and markets of online games have had the more diverse along with the sustainable development of online game products over time. This research is to propose an integrative analysis from a large amount of data -users’ preference sequences. Firstly, the research utilizes a sequence recommendation technology that can be used to analyze their preference sequences of online game’s types based on other similar users’ sequence preference data. In other words, these recommended online game’s types that can be generated according to the relationships between the query user’s preferences and users themselves. All sequences from numerous data are accumulated to be the inferences of the query users’ preferences. Secondly, the research also utilizes data mining methodology to explore the possibilities of different product mix of game types from numerous user data. For the main methodology, this research uses a ‘partial user ranking algorithm’ to analyze group ranking of online games based on similar users. The purpose is to explore how the players can be recommended based on the other users’ priorities, as well as the product mix of game types which can be the potential business trends come to markets. Furthermore, this study contributes to a research implication for online game industry, and the results also could be the business references of game combinations and product design.