Unified selection from lists,arrays, and objects

The first language computer science students learn, more often than not, is a common production language such as C++ or Java. A minority of curricula, however, begin with a language, such as Scheme, assumed to be a better framework for teaching about computation. SWAY is an experimental teaching language, as expressive as Scheme, but provides an easier transition to production languages. It is a functional language at its core, but adds assignment and a simple object system. One of the goals of SWAY is to incorporate C-style syntax, but to vary from that syntax when pedagogical or ease of programming needs arise. One such area that SWAY differs from languages with C-like expressions is in the selection of items from homogeneous and heterogeneous aggregates. Much like the overloading of the plus operator to add integers as well as reals, a single operator is used for selection in SWAY, regardless of the aggregate structure. It is shown that taking such an approach naturally eases the burden of moving from arrays to objects to lists, in any order, both in teaching and programming.     

Babble Noise: Modeling, Analysis, and Applications

Speech babble is one of the most challenging noise interference for all speech systems. Here, a systematic approach to model its underlying structure is proposed to further the existing knowledge of speech processing in noisy environments. This paper establishes a working foundation for the analysis and modeling of babble speech. We first address the underlying model for multiple speaker babble speech—considering the number of conversations versus the number of speakers contributing to babble. Next, based on this model, we develop an algorithm to detect the range of the number of speakers within an unknown babble speech sequence. Evaluation is performed using 110 h of data from the Switchboard corpus. The number of simultaneous conversations ranges from one to nine, or one to 18 subjects speaking. A speaker conversation stream detection rate in excess of 80% is achieved with a speaker window size of ${pm}1$ speakers. Finally, the problem of in-set/out-of-set speaker recognition is considered in the context of interfering babble speech noise. Results are shown for test durations from 2–8 s, with babble speaker groups ranging from two to nine subjects. It is shown that by choosing the correct number of speakers in the background babble an overall average performance gain of 6.44% equal error rate can be obtained. This study represents effectively the first effort in developing an overall model for speech babble, and with this, contributions are made for speech system robustness in noise.      

Turing machines, transition systems, and interaction

This paper presents persistent Turing machines (PTMs), a new way of interpreting Turing-machine computation, based on dynamic stream semantics. A PTM is a Turing machine that performs an infinite sequence of “normal” Turing machine computations, where each such computation starts when the PTM reads an input from its input tape and ends when the PTM produces an output on its output tape. The PTM has an additional worktape, which retains its content from one computation to the next; this is what we mean by persistence.A number of results are presented for this model, including a proof that the class of PTMs is isomorphic to a general class of effective transition systems called interactive transition systems; and a proof that PTMs without persistence (amnesic PTMs) are less expressive than PTMs. As an analogue of the Church-Turing hypothesis which relates Turing machines to algorithmic computation, it is hypothesized that PTMs capture the intuitive notion of sequential interactive computation.     

Schema evolution: Concepts, terminology, and solutions

Most applications must keep objects from one session to the next. This is known as persistence. But objects are not raw data: They are instances of classes. What happens if an object's class (its generator) changes from one session to the next? This problem is known as schema evolution (the term schema is borrowed from relational databases). This column defines a framework for addressing schema evolution in object technology     

A visual exploration of mobile phone users,land cover,time, and space

A series of maps were produced that together form a type of atlas of the Nokia Mobile Data Challenge (MDC). Like in a traditional geographic atlas, a limited number of base map configurations is generated, onto which various thematic elements are then overlaid. Two of those base maps are themselves derived from MDC data; the third is referenced in geographic space. Thematic overlays serve several purposes, including elaborating different elements from which the base map geometry had been derived, as well as linking other data to it. The core of the study presented here is an intersection of high-dimensional concepts, dimensionality reduction, geographic analysis, and visualization, intended as a point of departure towards an integrated, attribute-centered understanding of people’s movement patterns. Among the advances put forth is a new time-weighted kernel density model approach derived from journey vertices captured via GPS and WLAN.     

Characterizing Grids: Attributes, Definitions, and Formalisms

Grid systems and technologies have evolved over nearly a decade; yet, there is still no widely accepted definition for Grids. In particular, the essential attributes that distinguish Grids from other distributed computing environments have not been articulated. Most approaches to definition adopt a static view and consider only the properties and components of, or the applications supported by, Grids. The definition proposed in this paper is based on the runtime semantics of distributed systems. Rather than attempt to simply compare static characteristics of Grids and other distributed computing environments, this paper analyzes operational differences, from the viewpoint of an application executing in both environments. Our definition is expressed formally as an Abstract State Machine that facilitates the analysis of existing Grid systems or the design of new ones with rigor and precision. This new, semantical approach proposes an alternative to the currently accepted models for determining whether or not a distributed system is a Grid.     

Hyperbolic regression analysis for kinetics, electrophoresis, ELISA, RIA, Bradford, Lowry, and other applications

Hyperbolic regression analysis is an effective method for fitting experimental data points obtained from a variety of experiments in molecular biology, including enzyme kinetics, agarose gel electrophoresis of DNA fragments, SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis of proteins, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA), radioimmunoassays (RIA), Bradford protein quantitation assays, Lowry protein assays, and other applications. Hyperbolic regression yields excellent fitted curves without the biases that are introduced by carrying out linear regression on double reciprocal coordinates, and it produces one simple equation, encompassing all the data points, that can be used easily in a pocket calculator to estimate the values of unknown samples from the known standards.     

Perceptions of overuse,underuse, and change of use of a social media site: definition,measurement instrument,and their managerial impacts

Drawing on the person-environment fit model, this study investigates a user’s perceptions towards his/her online contacts’ overuse, underuse, and change of use of a social media site (SMS). A new instrument for measuring these perceptions is introduced. Using depersonalisation and continuance as an example, we test how the relationship between a user and an SMS can be impacted by his/her online contacts’ peculiar usage of the SMS. A survey-based methodology is used to collect data from Facebook users. The data analysis shows that a user is likely to feel estranged from an SMS, if he/she perceives that the website is being overused, underused, or used for non-social purposes by his/her online contacts. The depersonalisation can then have a strong negative effect on the user’s SMS continuance. This study takes the interpersonal influences between users into consideration when investigating a user’s relationship with an SMS. The findings can provide several practical implications for an SMS user retention management.     

Large scale systems: Systems, man, and cybernetics overview

Since its inception, the IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society has had an increasing influence on the field of large scale systems, particularly as these relate to areas of human interaction. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of some of the major areas of activity by SMC in large scale systems. The work of others has been taken liberally and full credit is due the many excellent contributors. The specific areas covered are Input-Output Models (from Chen [1]), Public System Methodology, Interpretive Structural Modeling (from Warfield [2] and Lendaris [3]), Transportation (from [4]), and Man-Machine Systems (from Greenstein and Rouse [5]).     

Context, situations, and design agents

The terms “context” and “situation” are often used interchangeably or to denote a variety of concepts. This paper aims to show that these are two different but related concepts and it reifies their difference within the framework of design agents. The external world of an agent is described as the aggregation of all entities that the agent could possibly sense or effect, where context is from its external world that an agent interacts with and is aware of. The interpreted world of an agent is described in terms of the experiences of that agent, where situations are processes that direct how interactive experiences proceed. Situations determine what part of the external world are in the current context, and situations influence interaction and so influence what and how common ground is acquired.     

On listing,sampling, and counting the chordal graphs with edge constraints

We discuss the problems to list, sample, and count the chordal graphs with edge constraints. The objects we look at are chordal graphs sandwiched by a given pair of graphs where we assume that at least one of the input graphs is chordal. The setting is a natural generalization of chordal completions and deletions. For the listing problem, we give an efficient algorithm running in polynomial time per output with polynomial space. As for the sampling problem, we give two clues that indicate that a random sampling is not easy. The first clue is that we show #P-completeness results for counting problems. The second clue is that we give an instance for which a natural Markov chain suffers from an exponential mixing time. These results provide a unified viewpoint from algorithms’ theory to problems arising from various areas such as statistics, data mining, and numerical computation.     

IT Innovations: Evaluate, Strategize, and Invest

Technology innovations have shaped the IT Industry since its inception. Adoption of a particular innovation is often a key survival factor: "fast followers" learn from others, monetize an innovation, and almost always make abnormal profits. Thus, the important question for IT professionals is, "How can I evaluate an emerging trend for its investment worthiness?" To answer this question, the author describes a diffusion of IT innovations framework that can evaluate emerging trends in the IT space. He also analyzed some current trends using this framework and suggests strategies for investing in them.     

Matching, linear systems, and the ball and beam

A recent approach to the control of underactuated systems is to look for control laws which will induce some specified structure on the closed loop system. In this paper, we describe one matching condition and an approach for finding all control laws that fit the condition. After an analysis of the resulting control laws for linear systems, we present the results from an experiment on a nonlinear ball and beam system.     

Design, Simulation, Fabrication, and Characterization of a Digital Variable Optical Attenuator

In this paper, we present the design, simulation, fabrication, and some measurement and characterization of a novel 16-bit digital variable optical attenuator (VOA) that attenuates by switching individual mirror of an array as an attempt to achieve input voltage variation independence and output linearization. The design was aided by a simulation package that features coupled electrostatic and mechanical solver. The mirror array spans an area of 1500$,times,$1500$mu m^2$and contains 16 equal-length rectangular micromirrors. Each mirror is suspended by two torsion beams. Experiments on beam design and width variations are conducted. Assuming Gaussian distribution, the mirror widths computed by an iteration algorithm vary from about 40 to 250$mu m$. Based on silicon-on-insulator (SOI) technology, two fabrication schemes to open the backside optical entrance were investigated. A hydrofluoric (HF) acid vapor-phase-etching (VPE) setup built to release the microstructure anhydrously is the key to achieve high yield especially for fragile components. Surface flatness, resonance frequencies, and tilt angles of selected mirrors were characterized. Quartz chips patterned with aluminum electrodes and 10$mu m$-high SU8 spacer columns were fabricated and assembled to corresponding device chips. Optical performance adversely affected by mirror bending is believed to originate from the intrinsic stress of the SOI wafer. 1271     

Safety,Security, and Rescue Missions with an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV)

Several missions with an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) in different realistic safety, security, and rescue field tests are presented. First, results from two safety and security missions at the 2009 European Land Robot Trials (ELROB) are presented. A UAV in form of an Airrobot AR100-B is used in a reconnaissance and in a camp security scenario. The UAV is capable of autonomous waypoint navigation using onboard GPS processing. A digital video stream from the vehicle is used to create photo maps—also known as mosaicking—in real time at the operator station. This mapping is done using an enhanced version of Fourier Mellin based registration, which turns out to be very fast and robust. Furthermore, results from a rescue oriented scenario at the 2010 Response Robot Evaluation Exercises (RREE) at Disaster City, Texas are presented. The registration for the aerial mosaicking is supplemented by an uncertainty metric and embedded into Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM), which further enhances the photo maps as main mission deliveries.     

Japanese Journal of Ergonomics Abstracts of papers,Vol. 18, No. 5, 1982

The real time extraction system of the frequency and amplitude of EEG was reported in an earlier paper. The present paper shows the information of the amplitude versus frequency included in EEG from an X-Y recorder, the availability of its two-dimensional displayed pattern is discussed, and two kinds of easy two-dimensional real time display systems are also mentioned.     

Rapid, safe, and incremental learning of navigation strategies

In this paper we propose a reinforcement connectionist learning architecture that allows an autonomous robot to acquire efficient navigation strategies in a few trials. Besides rapid learning, the architecture has three further appealing features. First, the robot improves its performance incrementally as it interacts with an initially unknown environment, and it ends up learning to avoid collisions even in those situations in which its sensors cannot detect the obstacles. This is a definite advantage over nonlearning reactive robots. Second, since it learns from basic reflexes, the robot is operational from the very beginning and the learning process is safe. Third, the robot exhibits high tolerance to noisy sensory data and good generalization abilities. All these features make this learning robot's architecture very well suited to real-world applications. We report experimental results obtained with a real mobile robot in an indoor environment that demonstrate the appropriateness of our approach to real autonomous robot control.     

Holism,Conceptual-Role Semantics,and Syntactic Semantics

This essay continues my investigation of `syntactic semantics': the theory that, pace Searle's Chinese-Room Argument, syntax does suffice for semantics (in particular, for the semantics needed for a computational cognitive theory of natural-language understanding). Here, I argue that syntactic semantics (which is internal and first-person) is what has been called a conceptual-role semantics: The meaning of any expression is the role that it plays in the complete system of expressions. Such a `narrow', conceptual-role semantics is the appropriate sort of semantics to account (from an `internal', or first-person perspective) for how a cognitive agent understands language. Some have argued for the primacy of external, or `wide', semantics, while others have argued for a two-factor analysis. But, although two factors can be specified–-one internal and first-person, the other only specifiable in an external, third-person way–-only the internal, first-person one is needed for understanding how someone understands. A truth-conditional semantics can still be provided, but only from a third-person perspective.     

Nature,nurture, and knowledge acquisition

The nature vs. nurture dualism has framed the modern conversation in biology and psychology. There is an analogous distinction for knowledge acquisition and artificial intelligence. In the context of building intelligent systems, nature means acquiring knowledge by being programmed or modeled that way. Nurture means acquiring knowledge by machine learning from data and information in the world. This paper develops the nature/nurture analogy in light of the history of knowledge acquisition, the current state of the art, and the future of intelligent machines learning from human knowledge.     

Planning for Entrepreneurial Innovation: Field Studies in USA,France, Mexico,and Lessons Learned

Technological innovation and entrepreneurship can promote regional economic development through the creation of new business ventures. The main critical factor of success is the presence of an infrastructure for entrepreneurial innovation, including New Business Incubators and Technology Parks. The paper discusses the basic elements of the infrastructure and how they can be planned and implemented. An illustrative example is the case history of work done in Cuernavaca, Mexico. The lessons learned from this project and similar projects in the USA and France are summarized and emphasis is given to the key role of an executive champion.