From IMS Management to SOA Based NGN Management

Although IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) based Next Generation Networks (NGNs) are already emerging as the common session control platform for converging fixed, mobile and cable networks, harmonized solutions for the management of these converged platforms have still got to be developed. This document describes a hands-on approach to NGN Management. Started with IMS specific management systems, succeeding research had to take into account the importance of the management of NGN SDPs as well. This work shows that the hybrid nature of an NGN, where services can be delivered at the IMS layer, by SIP signaling mechanisms, as well as at the SDP, via Web Services, requires a harmonized management approach. Taking into account Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) principles and policy based model driven architectures, this work shows that a unification of service composition and service management already at the workflow creation level, bares significant benefits in terms of automation and harmonization. Following the SOA paradigm, the approach presented here does not differentiate between business process management (BPM) and management process management. Focusing on Telemanagement Forum’s enhanced Telecom Operations Map service fulfillment and service assurance operations, this document describes an New Generation Software and Services (NGOSS) based implementation of a unified Operation Support System (OSS) for NGNs that encompasses many problems of former stovepipe management solutions in terms of automation, flexibility and manageability.     

Case Based Imprecision Estimates for Bayes Classifiers with the Bayesian Bootstrap

This article outlines a Bayesian bootstrap method for case based imprecision estimates in Bayes classification. We argue that this approach is an important complement to methods such as k-fold cross validation that are based on overall error rates. It is shown how case based imprecision estimates may be used to improve Bayes classifiers under asymmetrical loss functions. In addition, other approaches to making use of case based imprecision estimates are discussed and illustrated on two real world data sets. Contrary to the common assumption, Bayesian bootstrap simulations indicate that the uncertainty associated with the output of a Bayes classifier is often far from normally distributed.     

Assessment of water quality in Lake Garda (Italy) using Hyperion

For testing the integration of the remote sensing related technologies into the water quality monitoring programs of Lake Garda (the largest Italian lake), the spatial and spectral resolutions of Hyperion and the capability of physics-based approaches were considered highly suitable. Hyperion data were acquired on 22nd July 2003 and water quality was assessed (i) defining a bio-optical model, (ii) converting the Hyperion at-sensor radiances into subsurface irradiance reflectances, and (iii) adopting a bio-optical model inversion technique. The bio-optical model was parameterised using specific inherent optical properties of the lake and light field variables derived from a radiative transfer numerical model. A MODTRAN-based atmospheric correction code, complemented with an air/water interface correction was used to convert Hyperion at-sensor radiances into subsurface irradiance reflectance values. These reflectance values were comparable to in situ reflectance spectra measured during the Hyperion overpass, except at longer wavelengths (beyond 700 nm), where reflectance values were contaminated by severe atmospheric adjacency effects. Chlorophyll-a and tripton concentrations were retrieved by inverting two Hyperion bands selected using a sensitivity analysis applied to the bio-optical model. The sensitivity analysis indicated that the assessment of coloured dissolved organic matter was not achievable in this study due to the limited coloured dissolved organic matter concentration range of the lake, resulting in reflectance differences below the environmental measurement noise of Hyperion. The chlorophyll-a and tripton image-products were compared to in situ data collected during the Hyperion overpass, both by traditional sampling techniques (8 points) and by continuous flow-through systems (32 km). For chlorophyll-a the correlation coefficient between in situ point stations and Hyperion-inferred concentrations was 0.77 (data range from 1.30 to 2.16 mg m^− 3). The Hyperion-derived chlorophyll-a concentrations also match most of the flow-through transect data. For tripton, the validation was constrained by variable re-suspension phenomena. The correlation coefficient between in situ point stations and Hyperion-derived concentrations increased from 0.48 to 0.75 (data range from 0.95 to 2.13 g m^− 3) if the sampling data from the re-suspension zone was avoided. The comparison of Hyperion-derived tripton concentrations and flow-through transect data exhibited a similar mismatch. The results of this research suggest further studies to address compatibilities of validation methods for water body features with a high rate of change, and to reduce the contamination by atmospheric adjacency effects on Hyperion data at longer wavelengths in Alpine environment. The transferability of the presented method to other sensors and the ability to assess water quality independent from in situ water quality data, suggest that management relevant applications for Lake Garda (and other subalpine lakes) could be supported by remote sensing.     

Musical sonification supports visual discrimination of color intensity

ABSTRACT

Visual representations of data introduce several possible challenges for the human visual perception system in perceiving brightness levels. Overcoming these challenges might be simplified by adding sound to the representation. This is called sonification. As sonification provides additional information to the visual information, sonification could be useful in supporting the visual perception. In the present study, usefulness (in terms of accuracy and response time) of sonification was investigated with an interactive sonification test. In the test, participants were asked to identify the highest brightness level in a monochrome visual representation. The task was performed in four conditions, one with no sonification and three with different sonification settings. The results show that sonification is useful, as measured by higher task accuracy, and that the participant's musicality facilitates the use of sonification with better performance when sonification was used. The results were also supported by subjective measurements, where participants reported an experienced benefit of sonification.     

Large-scale information retrieval in software engineering - an experience report from industrial application

Software Engineering activities are information intensive. Research proposes Information Retrieval (IR) techniques to support engineers in their daily tasks, such as establishing and maintaining traceability links, fault identification, and software maintenance. We describe an engineering task, test case selection, and illustrate our problem analysis and solution discovery process. The objective of the study is to gain an understanding of to what extent IR techniques (one potential solution) can be applied to test case selection and provide decision support in a large-scale, industrial setting. We analyze, in the context of the studied company, how test case selection is performed and design a series of experiments evaluating the performance of different IR techniques. Each experiment provides lessons learned from implementation, execution, and results, feeding to its successor. The three experiments led to the following observations: 1) there is a lack of research on scalable parameter optimization of IR techniques for software engineering problems; 2) scaling IR techniques to industry data is challenging, in particular for latent semantic analysis; 3) the IR context poses constraints on the empirical evaluation of IR techniques, requiring more research on developing valid statistical approaches. We believe that our experiences in conducting a series of IR experiments with industry grade data are valuable for peer researchers so that they can avoid the pitfalls that we have encountered. Furthermore, we identified challenges that need to be addressed in order to bridge the gap between laboratory IR experiments and real applications of IR in the industry.     

Short-term synaptic plasticity can enhance weak signal detectability in nonrenewal spike trains

We study the encoding of weak signals in spike trains with interspike interval (ISI) correlations and the signals' subsequent detection in sensory neurons. Motivated by the observation of negative ISI correlations in auditory and electrosensory afferents, we assess the theoretical performance limits of an individual detector neuron receiving a weak signal distributed across multiple afferent inputs. We assess the functional role of ISI correlations in the detection process using statistical detection theory and derive two sequential likelihood ratio detector models: one for afferents with renewal statistics; the other for afferents with negatively correlated ISIs. We suggest a mechanism that might enable sensory neurons to implicitly compute conditional probabilities of presynaptic spikes by means of short-term synaptic plasticity. We demonstrate how this mechanism can enhance a postsynaptic neuron's sensitivity to weak signals by exploiting the correlation structure of the input spike trains. Our model not only captures fundamental aspects of early electrosensory signal processing in weakly electric fish, but may also bear relevance to the mammalian auditory system and other sensory modalities.     

Development of a biological detection platform utilizing a modular microfluidic stack

The goal of this project is to build a miniaturized, user-friendly cytometry setup (Datta et al. in Microfluidic platform for education and research. COMS, Baton Rouge, 2008; Frische et al. in Development of an miniaturized flow cytometry setup for visual cell inspection and sorting. Baton Rouge, Project Report, 2008) by combining a customized, microfluidic device with visual microscope inspection to detect and extract specific cells from a continuous sample flow. We developed a cytological tool, based on the Coulter particle counter principle, using a microelectrode array patterned on a borosilicate glass chip as electrical detection set-up which is fully embedded into a polymeric multi-layer microfluidic stack. The detection takes place between pairs of coplanar Cr/Au microelectrodes by sensing an impedance change caused by particles continuously carried within a microfluidic channel across the detection area under laminar flow conditions. A wide frequency range available for counting provides information on cell size, membrane capacitance, cytoplasm conductivity and is potentially of interest for in-depth cell diagnostic e.g. to detect damaged or cancerous cells and select them for extraction and further in-depth analysis.     

Steering the Craft: UI Elements and Visualizations for Supporting Progressive Visual Analytics

Progressive visual analytics (PVA) has emerged in recent years to manage the latency of data analysis systems. When analysis is performed progressively, rough estimates of the results are generated quickly and are then improved over time. Analysts can therefore monitor the progression of the results, steer the analysis algorithms, and make early decisions if the estimates provide a convincing picture. In this article, we describe interface design guidelines for helping users understand progressively updating results and make early decisions based on progressive estimates. To illustrate our ideas, we present a prototype PVA tool called Insights Feed for exploring Twitter data at scale. As validation, we investigate the tradeoffs of our tool when exploring a Twitter dataset in a user study. We report the usage patterns in making early decisions using the user interface, guiding computational methods, and exploring different subsets of the dataset, compared to sequential analysis without progression.