Made-to-measure technologies for an online clothing store

The Internet is a compelling channel for selling garments. Several recent initiatives by companies such as Nordstrom, Macy's, and Lands End focus on made-to-measure manufacturing and shopping via the Internet. We present a Web application that provides more powerful access to and manipulation of clothing to facilitate clothing design, pattern derivation, and sizing. We apply 3D graphics technology to help create and simulate the virtual store.     

Semantic schema refinements for multilevel schema integration

Within the database field, schema refinements have been proved useful for documentation and maintenance purposes; moreover, schemata describing the reality of interest at different levels of abstraction are extensively used in Computer Aided Software Engineering tools and visual query languages. So, much effort has been spent in analyzing schema transformations and schema refinements. Till now, however, while the syntaxof schema transformations has been deeply investigated, the semantics has been very often neglected. In this paper we present a full formal framework, supporting both the syntax and the semantics of schema refinements. Such a formal framework is used to support a methodology able to merge a set of schemata and the top-down chains of refinement planes produced during their design. The result of this kind of integration, that we call multilevel integration, is an integrated schema plus an associated top-down chain of schemata. The integrated schema and the chain are related to the input schemata by interesting properties, giving rise to a two-dimensional structure useful for exploring the data content of complex information systems.     

Agent alliance formation using ART-networks as agent belief models

In today’s hyper-competitive business environments virtual organisations are becoming highly dynamic and unpredictable. Individuals may want to work together across organisation boundaries but do not have much prior knowledge about potential partners. The semantic web and its associated new standards appear very promising as candidates to support a new generation of virtual organisations. Whilst knowledge can be represented in a machine interpretable way, social-like behaviours can be expected in a virtual organisation. In this paper ontology definition techniques from the semantic web are applied to define a virtual state space of a virtual organisation. Actors involved in an organisation, from high level strategy making members to low level physical devices, advertise their skills and local knowledge in a community. A task initiator, with a virtual sensor to perceive the advertised skills and with an adaptive belief model about the community, seeks for the best matched partners for cooperation. The belief model is a fuzzy neural network based on Adaptive Resonance Theory which takes the advertisements of actors as its initial belief and learns actors’ actual capabilities through interaction experience. Dynamic alliances can then take place in an automated/semi-automated way that exhibit adaptive ability, self-organisation, unsupervised learning and competition ability. The alliances thus exhibit the inherent characteristics of realistic enterprises or human societies.     

Extracting Schema from an OEM Database

While the schema-less feature of the OEM(Object Exchange Modl)gives flexibility in representing semi-structured data,it brings difficulty in formulating database queries. Extracting schema from an OEM database then becomes an important research topic.This paper presents a new approach to this topic with th following reatures.(1)In addition to representing th nested label structure of an OEM database,the proposed OEM schema keeps up-tp-date information about instance objects of the database,The object-level information is useful in speeding up query evaluation.(2)The OEM schema is explicitly represented as a label-set,which is easy to construct and update.(3)The OEM schema of a database is statically built and dynamically updated.The time complexity of building the OEM schems is linear in the size of the OEM database.(4)The approach is applicable to a wide range of areas where the underlying schema is much smaller than the database itself(e.g.data warehouses that are made from a set of heterogeneous databases).     

智能主体的信念认知时态子结构逻辑模型*

智能主体获取信念的途径主要有两种：一种为他省,通过外界交互,从其他主体获取信息;另一种为自省,通过自己的历史数据库获取相关知识。对于主体信念的描述与刻画,两种途径缺一不可,但当前的BDI理论模型中较多地为他省系统,没有做到两者相结合。其次,在当前的许多理论模型中,通常使用的是二值逻辑、经典模态逻辑或其变形系统,使得相应的逻辑系统普遍存在逻辑全知和粗精度刻画等问题。针对上述问题进行了相关研究,采用了认知时态子结构逻辑建模的方法,表达了智能主体获得“双省”信念的方式,针对其建立了相应的逻辑系统BSoET。     

Consumer trust in an Internet store

The study reported here raises some questions about the conventional wisdom that the Internet creates a “level playing field” for large and small retailers and for retailers with and without an established reputation. In our study, consumers recognized differences in size and reputation among Internet stores, and those differences influenced their assessments of store trustworthiness and their perception of risk, as well as their willingness to patronize the store. After describing our research methods and results, we draw some implications for Internet merchants. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Conceptual schema for CAD

A conceptual schema and the associated concepts of entities, attributes, relations and consistency constraints established during the 1976 IFIP TC-2 conference are applied to engineering computer-aided design. Additional concepts of multiple hierarchies of models, structural versions, design control, design analysis and synthesis are required.     

Primitives for schema updates in an object-oriented database system: a proposal

Updating the schema is an important facility for object-oriented databases. However, updates should not result in inconsistencies either in the schema or in the database. We propose a classification of basic schema updates and define a set of parametrized primitives to perform schema updates which the designer will use to define his/her own update semantics.     

一种基于可传递置信模型的分布智能体决策融合方法*

在分析与研究对抗性多机器人系统决策问题的基础上,提出了一种基于可传递置信模型的多智能体决策融合方法;构建了决策融合体系架构,分别设计了基于证据推理的观测智能体模型,基于TBM的决策智能体模型以及决策融合中心模型,给出了相应的算法。通过在机器人足球中的应用及仿真实验,体现了本方法在对抗性多机器人系统中决策制定的良好性能及效果。     

An Experimental Ontology Server for an Information Grid Environment

Semantic web and grid technologies offer a promising approach to facilitate semantic information retrieval based on heterogeneous document repositories. In this paper the authors describe the design and implementation of an Ontology Server (OS) component to be used in a distributed contents management grid system. Such a system could be used to build collection document repositories, mutually interoperable at the semantic level. From the contents point of view, the distributed system is built as a collection of multimedia documents repository nodes glued together by an OS. A set of methodologies and tools to organize the knowledge space around the notion of contents community is developed, where each content provider will publish a set of ontologies to collect metadata information organized and published through a knowledge community, built on top of the OS. These methodologies were deployed while setting up a prototype to connect about 20 museums in the city of Naples (Italy).     

基于组件系统的安全机制

为大型组件应用提出了一种新的安全服务,使其集成该安全服务后,能保持原有组件应用的可扩展性和性能.首先分析了组件安全边界的拓扑结构与组件间的交互模式,为基于组件的系统提出了一种新的可扩展安全机制,并给出了一种组件间的双方认证协议,为其提供认证服务,最后对该认证协议进行了安全及性能分析.实验结果表明,该机制在保持原组件系统性能和可扩展性的基础上有效地提供了组件系统的安全性.     

信息检索的概率模式匹配

为解决不同的计算机平台、数据存储格式、文档模型以及结构文档模式的异构性,以及联邦数字图书馆和信息检索等应用环境中将一种模式下的数据结构转换成另一种模式下数据结构的需求.提出一个基于概率的模式匹配映射框架,称作PMap,使用概率论的方法,给出候选预测权值的概率学解释,从而选择一个最优的匹配方式.模式匹配就是寻找异构模式之间一致性,将主要应用在数据交换和联邦数字图书馆中的分布式信息检索领域中,使得异构文档获得统一的检索格式.     

Adaptive body schema for robotic tool-use

The development and expression of many higher-level cognitive functions, such as imitation, spatial perception and tool-use, relies on a multi-modal representation of the body known as the body schema. Although many studies support the hypothesis that the body schema is adaptive and alterable throughout ontogenetic development, the mechanisms underlying its plasticity have yet to be clarified. Here, we argue that the temporal integration of multisensory information is a plausible candidate mechanism to explain how manipulated objects (e.g., tools) can become incorporated into the body schema. To demonstrate the validity of our idea, we introduce a model of body schema adaptation instantiated in a small-sized, table-top, tool-using humanoid. The robot's task is to learn to reach for and touch a visually salient distant object, first with its 'bare' hand and then — using the acquired know-how — with a reach-extending tool (a stick). Our experimental results show that in order to successfully causally relate and integrate vision, touch and proprioception, and to learn to use the tool, timing is of crucial relevance. On a more general note, this study also suggests that synthetic modeling might not only be a valid avenue towards getting a better grasp on results provided by neuropsychology and neurophysiology, but also a powerful approach for building advanced tool-using robots.     

A specification schema for indenting programs

A two level specification of the functional behaviour of a class of indenting programs for Pascal is presented. The transformation that these programs perform on the input text is a composition of splitting input lines, altering the blank space between lexical tokens and computing the margin required in front of each of the split lines. The high level specification is given as a stylized Pascal grammar in Extended BNF. In contrast, the low level specifications, which are operationally closer to a program, and which define how syntactically invalid text is dealt with, require several mathematical functions that capture the essence of these basic transformations. The specifications of an indenting program for Pascal are then obtained as a further elaboration of these functions. Most indentation styles appearing in the literature can be specified with precision using methods developed in this paper. Our experience in this case study indicates that although specifications for real-life programs can be given using simple mathematics, the effort required is still considerable.     

Semantic schema theory for genetic programming

Schema theory is the most well-known model of evolutionary algorithms. Imitating from genetic algorithms (GA), nearly all schemata defined for genetic programming (GP) refer to a set of points in the search space that share some syntactic characteristics. In GP, syntactically similar individuals do not necessarily have similar semantics. The instances of a syntactic schema do not behave similarly, hence the corresponding schema theory becomes unreliable. Therefore, these theories have been rarely used to improve the performance of GP. The main objective of this study is to propose a schema theory which could be a more realistic model for GP and could be potentially employed for improving GP in practice. To achieve this aim, the concept of semantic schema is introduced. This schema partitions the search space according to semantics of trees, regardless of their syntactic variety. We interpret the semantics of a tree in terms of the mutual information between its output and the target. The semantic schema is characterized by a set of semantic building blocks and their joint probability distribution. After introducing the semantic building blocks, an algorithm for finding them in a given population is presented. An extraction method that looks for the most significant schema of the population is provided. Moreover, an exact microscopic schema theorem is suggested that predicts the expected number of schema samples in the next generation. Experimental results demonstrate the capability of the proposed schema definition in representing the semantics of the schema instances. It is also revealed that the semantic schema theorem estimation is more realistic than previously defined schemata.     

TOPSIS with belief structure for group belief multiple criteria decision making

The technique for order performance by similarity to ideal solution(TOPSIS)is one of the major techniques in dealing with multiple criteria decision making(MCDM)problems, and the belief structure(BS)model has been used successfully for uncertain MCDM with incompleteness, impreciseness or ignorance. In this paper, the TOPSIS method with BS model is proposed to solve group belief MCDM problems. Firstly, the group belief MCDM problem is structured as a belief decision matrix in which the judgments of each decision maker are described as BS models, and then the evidential reasoning approach is used for aggregating the multiple decision makers' judgments. Subsequently, the positive and negative ideal belief solutions are defined with the principle of TOPSIS. To measure the separation from ideal solutions, the concept and algorithm of belief distance measure are defined, which can be used for comparing the difference between BS models. Finally, the relative closeness and ranking index are calculated for ranking the alternatives. A numerical example is given to illustrate the proposed method.     

Strongly typed user interfaces in an abstract data store

The UMIST Abstract Data Store is a software tool which supports abstract data types together with flexible mechanisms for specifying, for each abstract data type, alternative user interface and memory representations appropriate to different physical media. These mechanisms facilitate the definition of types, the specification of their alternative representations and the creation and manipulation of their values in a persistent fashion. The media supported may include such things as disks and visual displays and collections of these connected together via a network. This paper focuses on the mechanisms which have evolved in this environment for specifying safe user interfaces to complex data structures.     

Inside an agent

When we discuss agent-based system construction with software developers or ask students to implement common agent architectures using object-oriented techniques, we find that it is not trivial for them to create an elegant system design from the standard presentation of these architectures in textbooks or research papers. To better communicate our interpretation of popular agent architectures, we draw UML (Unified Modeling Language) diagrams to guide an implementer's design. However, before we describe these diagrams, we need to review some basic features of agents. The paper considers an architecture showing a simple agent interacting with an environment. The agent senses its environment, uses what it senses to choose an action, and then performs the action through its effectors. Sensory input can include received messages, and action can be the sending of messages. To construct an agent, we need a more detailed understanding of how it functions. In particular, if we are to build one using conventional object-oriented analysis and design techniques, we should know in what ways an agent is more than just a simple object     

The role of polymorphism in schema evolution in an object-orienteddatabase

A polymorphic object algebra for an object-oriented database model is introduced. Types of schema modification that follow naturally from this model are described. It is shown to what extent queries return identical or equivalent results when the objects in the database are modified to conform to a modified schema