Action research and innovation in networks, dilemmas and challenges: two cases

Innovation plays a central role in economic development, at regional and national level. The paper takes a practical approach to innovation and the support of entrepreneurship, based on experience of facilitating two contrasting networks of enterprises. Action research is seen as having a central role, but with different approaches according to the innovation process concerned, and the part of the process.

Information and Communication Technologies: Perspectives and their Impact on Society

The most fundamental changes of information exchange and communication in society today have been caused by the fast and thorough penetration of all facets of life through networked computers and mobile phones, which will both soon merge with our traditional TV. In this report, these developments will be discussed on four different levels: individuals, groups, organisations and networks. Furthermore contradictory developmental patterns are considered: global versus regional development, entrepreneurship on different scales, data availability versus data security, reality versus virtuality, education, and the ethics of multimedia and the Internet.     

Searching and editing MPEG-compressed video in a distributed online environment

WebClip (on-line demo at http://www.ctr.columbia.edu/webclip) is a compressed video searching and editing system operating over the World Wide Web. WebClip uses a distributed client-server model including a server engine for content analysis/editing, and clients for interactive controls of video browsing/editing. It specializes several unique features, including compressed-domain video feature extraction and manipulation, multi-resolution video access, content based video browsing/retrieval, and a distributed network architecture.     

Perception-based hidden Markov models: a theoretical framework for data mining and knowledge discovery

 The combination of objective measurements and human perceptions using hidden Markov models with particular reference to sequential data mining and knowledge discovery is presented in this paper. Both human preferences and statistical analysis are utilized for verification and identification of hypotheses as well as detection of hidden patterns. As another theoretical view, this work attempts to formalize the complementarity of the computational theories of hidden Markov models and perceptions for providing solutions associated with the manipulation of the internet.     

Configuring the Mobile User: Sociological and Industry Views

This article considers the role of the consumer in the diffusion of mobile telecommunications technologies. There is presently little research on the consumption and use of mobile technologies, and the aim of the present paper is to facilitate discussion about the way consumer behaviour is currently understood in industry and academia. The paper considers key themes in social science research on mobile ICTs, and understandings of the consumer held by those in the mobile industry. Bringing these understandings together, we reiterate the now well attested view that the diffusion and consumption of mobile telephony and computing cannot be understood without investigating the contexts and processes of their use in everyday life.     

Troubleshooting: NP-hardness and solution methods

 Troubleshooting is one of the areas where Bayesian networks are successfully applied [9]. In this paper we show that the generally defined troubleshooting task is NP-hard. We propose a heuristic function that exploits the conditional independence of all actions and questions given the fault of the device. It can be used as a lower bound of the expected cost of repair in heuristic algorithms searching an optimal troubleshooting strategy. In the paper we describe two such algorithms: the depth first search algorithm with pruning and the AO^* algorithm. RID="*" ID="*" The authors were supported through grant #87.2 of National Centre for IT Research, Denmark and through grant MSMT VS96008 from the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic. We would like to thank Finn Verner Jensen for inspiring us to work on the discussed problem and for many valuable comments on this paper. We are grateful to Claus Skaanning for the detailed explanation of the BATS troubleshooter approach and to anonymous reviewers for helpful suggestions.     

Solving fuzzy problems in operations research: inventory control

 In this paper we are interested in generating good approximate solutions to single item, N-period, fuzzy inventory control problems. It is a fuzzy inventory control problem since some of the parameters (ordering cost, holding cost, penalty cost) can be fuzzy numbers. We consider three cases: (1) demand is known each period; (2) demand is unknown, and fuzzy each period; and (3) demand is fuzzy and backordering is allowed. We employ an evolutionary algorithm to search out good approximate solutions.     

Assessing continuity and compatibility in augmented reality systems

Integrating computer-based information into the real world of the user is becoming a crucial challenge for the designers of interactive systems. The Augmented Reality (AR) paradigm illustrates this trend. Information is provided by an AR system to facilitate or to enrich the natural way in which the user interacts with the real environment. We focus on the output of such systems and, in particular, on the smooth integration of additional information in the real environment of the user. We characterize the integration of the computer-provided entities with the real ones using two new properties: compatibility and continuity. After defining the two properties, we provide factors and an analytical method needed for assessing them. We also empirically study the two properties to highlight their impact on interaction. The CASPER system, developed in our teams, is used to illustrate the discussion. Published online: 14 May 2002     

Operator and parameter adaptation in genetic algorithms

 Genetic Algorithms are a class of powerful, robust search techniques based on genetic inheritance and the Darwinian metaphor of “Natural Selection”. These algorithms maintain a finite memory of individual points on the search landscape known as the “population”. Members of the population are usually represented as strings written over some fixed alphabet, each of which has a scalar value attached to it reflecting its quality or “fitness”. The search may be seen as the iterative application of a number of operators, such as selection, recombination and mutation, to the population with the aim of producing progressively fitter individuals. These operators are usually static, that is to say that their mechanisms, parameters, and probability of application are fixed at the beginning and constant throughout the run of the algorithm. However, there is an increasing body of evidence that not only is there no single choice of operators which is optimal for all problems, but that in fact the optimal choice of operators for a given problem will be time-variant i.e. it will depend on such factors as the degree of convergence of the population. Based on theoretical and practical approaches, a number of authors have proposed methods of adaptively controlling one or more of the operators, usually invoking some kind of “meta-learning” algorithm, in order to try and improve the performance of the Genetic Algorithm as a function optimiser. In this paper we describe the background to these approaches, and suggest a framework for their classification, based on the learning strategy used to control them, and what facets of the algorithm are susceptible to adaptation. We then review a number of significant pieces of work within the context of this setting, and draw some conclusions about the relative merits of various approaches and promising directions for future work.     

On possibility and probability measures in finite Boolean algebras

 In this paper, we study what possibility and necessity measures are like in a finite Boolean algebra, establishing a classification of possibility measures in this type of algebras. The relation between probability and possibility measures is studied. Some conditions for obtaining probabilities that are coherent with a possibility are given. Lastly, Euclidean distance is used for finding probabilities that are close to a given possibility. Also the closest probability is identified and turns out to be coherent. RID="*" ID="*" Research funded by CICYT (Spain) under projects PB98-1379-C02-02 and TIC00-1420. Authors wish to thank an anonymous referee whose comments and information helped them to improve this paper.     

Control and data abstraction: the cornerstones of practical formal verification

In spite of the impressive progress in the development of the two main methods for formal verification of reactive systems – Symbolic Model Checking and Deductive Verification, they are still limited in their ability to handle large systems. It is generally recognized that the only way these methods can ever scale up is by the extensive use of abstraction and modularization, which break the task of verifying a large system into several smaller tasks of verifying simpler systems. In this paper, we review the two main tools of compositionality and abstraction in the framework of linear temporal logic. We illustrate the application of these two methods for the reduction of an infinite-state system into a finite-state system that can then be verified using model checking. The technical contributions contained in this paper are a full formulation of abstraction when applied to a system with both weak and strong fairness requirements and to a general temporal formula, and a presentation of a compositional framework for shared variables and its application for forming network invariants.     

Proof theory of many-valued logic—linear optimization—logic design: connections and interactions

 In this paper proof theory of many-valued logic is connected with areas outside of logic, namely, linear optimization and computer aided logic design. By stating these not widely-known connections explicitly, I want to encourage interaction between the mentioned disciplines. Once familiar with the others’ terminology, I believe that the respective communities can greatly benefit from each other. Received: 20 March 1997 / Accepted: 1 April 1997     

Fuzzy closure operators II: induced relations,representation, and examples

 Closure operators (and related structures) are investigated from the point of view of fuzzy set theory. The paper is a follow up to [7] where fundamental notions and result have been established. The present approach generalizes the existing approaches in two ways: first, complete residuated lattices are used as the structures of truth values (leaving the unite interval [0,1] with minimum and other t-norms particular cases); second, the monotony condition is formulated so that it can reflect also partial subsethood (not only full subsethood as in other approaches). In this paper, we study relations induced by fuzzy closure operators (fuzzy quasiorders and similarities); factorization of closure systems by similarities and by so-called decrease of logical precision; representation of fuzzy closure operators by (crisp) closure operators; relation to consequence relations; and natural examples illustrating the notions and results. Supported by grant no. 201/99/P060 of the GA ČR and by NATO Advanced Fellowship B for 2000. The author would like to thank to Professor G. Gerla for helpful comments. Part of the paper written during author's research visit at the Center for Intelligent Systems, State University of New York at Binghamton. Support by the Center and by its director, Professor G.J. Klir, is gratefully acknowledged.     

Cognitive Automation for Tactical Mission Management: Concept and Prototype Evaluation in Flight Simulator Trials

This paper describes an approach to cognitive and cooperative operator assistance in the field of tactical flight mission management. A framework for a generic functional concept is derived from general considerations of human performance and cognitive engineering. A system built according to these human-centred design principles will be able to keep up with the change of situation parameters, in order to provide situational adapted operator assistance. Such a cognitive assistant system represents an approach to ensure the highest degree possible of situation awareness of the flight deck crew as well as a satisfactory workload level. This generic approach to mission management and crew assistance for military aircraft has been realised in different application domains such as military transport and air-to-ground attack. The Crew Assistant Military Aircraft is a functional prototype for the air transport application. Even applications in the domain of uninhabited aerial vehicles (UAV) are in reach. This paper mainly covers one state-of-the-art research and development activity in the domain of combat aircraft: the TMM – Tactical Mission Management System is an experimental solution for the air-to-ground attack role. The TMM has been implemented as a functional prototype in the mission avionics experimental cockpit (MAXC), a development flight simulator at ESG and evaluated with German Air Force pilots as subjects in simulator trials. Therefore, the TMM has been compared with a reference cockpit avionics configuration in terms of task performance, workload, situation awareness and operator acceptance. After giving an overview of the system concepts this paper reports on the experimental design and results of the simulator trial campaign.     

Universal Access in the Information Society: Methods, Tools, and Interaction Technologies

Accessibility and high quality of interaction with products, applications, and services by anyone, anywhere, and at any time are fundamental requirements for universal access in the emerging Information Society. This paper discusses these requirements, and their relation to the concept of automated adaptation of user interfaces. An example application is presented, showing how adaptation can be used to accommodate the requirements of different user categories and contexts of use. This application is then used as a vehicle for discussing a new engineering paradigm appropriate for the development of adaptation-based user interfaces. Finally, the paper investigates issues concerning the interaction technologies required for universal access. Published online: 23 May 2001     

User diversity and design representation: Towards increased effectiveness in Design for All

This paper addresses user modelling for “Design for All” in a model-based approach to Human-Computer Interaction, paying particular attention to placing user models within organisational role- and task-related contexts. After reviewing a variety of user modelling approaches, and deriving requirements for user modelling related to Design for All, the paper proposes a role-driven individualised approach. Such an approach is based on a model-based representation schema and a unifying notation that keeps the user’s models and the contextual information transparent and consistent. Individualisation is achieved by coupling symbolic model specifications with neural networking on synchronisation links between symbolic representation elements. As a result, user modelling for Design for All is achieved not by stereotypical user properties and functional roles, but by accommodating the actual users’ behaviour. Published online: 18 May 2001