Search

The protection of the environment is an essential aspect of financial policies, and the funds allocation for environmental projects represent a significant financial stake, with economic, social and environmental impact. The financing of environment is possible to do by many and varied sources; the number of implemented projects is very high, given that environmental problems are numerous and the proposed goals are deeply anchored in reality. Because the reference area of environmental projects analysis is very wide, by present paper we propose to conduct an ex-post analysis of the situation related to environmental projects implemented in Romania, especially after 2007, the debut year of financing from European funds. The analysis will be performed starting from the objectives proposed in the financing programs and we will make an analysis based on comparison between achievements and proposals. The main programs designed to financing the environmental projects in Romania are: Sectorial Operational Programme Environment, Life+, financial mechanisms EEA, PHARE etc. The main topics for the financing proposals are: assessment of the environmental conditions, the natural resources conservation, the water quality improvement, the development of systems for a sustainable waste management, reducing the number of contaminated sites, biodiversity and natural heritage conservation, supporting the management of protected areas, implementation of the Nature 2000 network, reducing the risk of natural disasters affecting the population, rehabilitation of green spaces, environmental education activities etc. We consider that the investments in environmental projects is a relevant subject especially for the future. Our main premise is that an efficient environmental policy depends decisively on the ability to attract and manage the funds allocated for this purpose. The methodological approach is integrative and analyses the financial support for the environment. It also focuses on aspects of efficiency and responsibility. In fact, the present research is has an empirical and fundamental nature, based on observation and comparison methods with analysis and interpretation of official data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the experience of managing a requirements process between distributed parties with diverse interests in a research project context. We present some key 'lessons learned' from a new case study, the DESTECS project, and summarise lessons learned from previous experience reports. Key risks include obstacles imposed by the geographic distance, the different domain knowledge and working contexts of partners, and a risk that autonomous partners' goals do not always coincide. Our observations on a new case study broadly support a previous study, but we also propose some new lessons to learn, including the creation of a small, representative 'requirements authority' (RA), investing time in studying common concepts early in the project, and ensuring that expectations for requirements and for deliveries are made explicit. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An adequate task allocation plan is an effective strategy to reduce collaboration issues in distributed software development. Practitioners adopt distinct processes to allocate tasks as well as diverse labels for the same activities and artifacts. This diversity is also found in literature. Task allocation proposals consider different elements and use distinct names for the same concepts. The lack of a standardized vocabulary and of an understanding of the elements involved impairs knowledge acquisition and sharing. Our paper presents a domain ontology to represent concepts related to task allocation in distributed teams. The ontology was defined based on a literature systematic mapping and on the opinion of experts. Preliminary evaluation suggests that the relationships among concepts are valid in real projects. The ontology brings awareness to managers regarding the factors related to task allocation planning and provides researchers with a framework to define processes and design tools to support such activity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

MapReduce is one of the major successful framework to process large-scale data efficiently. Distributed programs can be implemented easily by describing only two methods, Map and Reduce. In Hadoop which is an open source implementation of MapReduce, a Job Tracker (master program in Hadoop) assigns Map Tasks and Reduce Tasks to Task Trackers (slave programs which execute the tasks). In an environment that multiple Hadoops are running on a physical machine, its computational resources should be shared by every Hadoop (Multi-Hadoop environment). In this environment, available computational resources of each Hadoop fluctuate dynamically by behaviors of other Hadoops. Therefore, the Job Tracker needs to decide assignment of tasks based on loads and available computation resources on the cluster (Job Tracker Initiative Task Scheduler). In this paper, we propose a method which decides the number of task executions in order to use computational resources efficiently based on a load on each computer. And we evaluate its performance, and our results show that the proposal method has achieved a reduction of execution times of jobs by about 11.1% in Multi-Hadoop environment as compared to original Hadoop. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

P2P file sharing is known to be superior to the client-server model especially in terms of scalability. However, at the beginning of a file distribution process, a lot of requests are still concentrated on an initial file providing peer (called initial seeder). To address the issue, some initial seeding methods (also called super seeding ones) have been proposed and implemented. Since the existing initial seeding methods assume that partial files (called pieces) are distributed over a network without any partitioning or disturbing peers, the initial seeder might stop offering pieces when the network is partitioned or some uncooperative peers are included. Therefore, a dynamic piece uploading method is proposed to address the issue and evaluated with simulation experiments. The simulation results on clustered networks show that the proposal can distribute the target file without stopping, while the existing initial seeding stops offering pieces and no peer can complete the target file. The proposal is also evaluated on the networks with some interfering peers, showing that it is less effective if waiting for copy creation function is active. Since Bit Torrent-like P2P systems create autonomous self-organizing networks, the proposal is regarded as an improvement of effective file distribution on such networks. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

P2P streaming today uses constant bit rate video, primarily because it is easier to cut such video into fixed-throughput sub streams and deliver it via multiple peers. This approach suffers from low reliability of end-to-end throughput which can cause playback freezes. It also suffers from extreme variation in throughput across peers. This paper proposes a variable-bit rate method for P2P streaming which solves these problems. The proposed method is designed for scalability as well as spontaneous network organization because of its low demand on resources. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, we consider the problem of finding an orientation of star graphs to have the minimum oriented diameter. In contrast to undirected binary n-cube which connects 2^n vertices with diameter n, an undirected star graph over n symbols (n-star) accommodates n! vertices with diameter frac3(n-1)2. Our main contribution is the proposal of an upper bound on the minimum oriented diameter of n-star. The proposed upper bound is $lceil5n2rceil+2$ for any ngeq 3, which is a significant improvement of the upper bound 2n(n-1) derived from a general inequality given by Chvacuterm a tal and Thomassen. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Foundational Ontologies help maintaining and expanding ontologies expressivity power, thus enabling them to be more precise and free of ambiguities. The use of modeling languages based on these ontologies, such as OntoUML, requires not only the modeler's experience regarding such languages, but also a good understanding about the domain being modeled. Aiming to facilitate, or even enable the modeling of complex domains, several techniques have been proposed in order to automatically generate ontologies from texts. However, none is able to generate well-founded ontologies (which are constructed based on Foundational Ontologies). Moreover, an important issue on learning from text is how to distinguish among different meanings of a word, which impacts on concepts expressed by the ontologies. Therefore, techniques for word sense disambiguation must be considered. This paper proposes a technique for automatically learn well-founded ontologies described in OntoUML through word sense disambiguation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Internet contains potentially harmful or inappropriate content in web pages that parents may not wish their children to access. A possible solution is an internet content filter, to block prohibitive content. This paper proposes a system called SMART SAINT, which can deliver high accuracy classifiers using a welcome combination of active semi-supervised learning and feature selection. The system proposes a combination of co-testing as an active semi-supervised learning method and Binormal Separation (BNS) as a feature selection method. We empirically evaluate the core implementation of the system on a real world dataset of approximately 10,000 web pages and results indicate that the combination is highly effective. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

During a multi-issue negotiation, negotiators must decide which issues to include in a negotiation agenda and in which order these issues should be negotiated. In this context, if negotiators change the order of issues in the agenda, the outcome of the negotiation can be affected. Here, we analyse the use of an argumentation-based negotiation planning approach to set this agenda in an argumentation-based negotiation context. In this approach, an agent builds argumentation plans, in which the actions represent the arguments that the negotiator should use to persuade its opponents. These plans integrated into the general planning process allow the agent to establish a negotiation agenda by determining in advance what opponents could be persuaded, what issues could be agreed and what is the order in which the issues should be negotiated. A case of study shows how this information is obtained. Finally, the experiments confirmed that the effectiveness and performance of the agent that establishes a negotiation agenda increase when the negotiation context offers multiple alternatives to negotiate. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Piaget's theory of social exchanges has been used as the basis for the analysis of interactions in Multiagent Systems, allowing the modeling of interactions as services exchange processes between pairs of agents, followed by the evaluation of those services by the agents involved, producing the so-called social exchange values. The purpose of this work is to develop a BDI-Fuzzy agent model for the Jason platform, with abilities to assess qualitatively, subjectively the social exchanges values originated in the provision and in the receipt of non-economic services, based on Piaget's theory of social exchanges. An application to the simulation of exchange processes in a social organization, namely, the urban vegetable garden San Jerónimo (Seville, Spain) is presented. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The current paper proposes a novel census model called ELOC for estimating future electrical load. Ideally ELOC will be a database of information on the power requirements of all electrical and electronic appliances manufactured and purchased within a region. When these products/appliances enter the market, the database would render them active and provide the most accurate data for load forecasting. ELOC by itself is not a forecasting technique, it is meant only to supplement existing techniques with accurate data. Stakeholder would be organizations ranging from Electrical Load manufacturers to end consumer on one end; power generating firm to end load on other end. This makes ELOCs design universally applicable. Our focus is on the Indian power system, its load and related reports, like, Grid disturbance report. Open source software tools My SQL, PHP are utilized to design, develop and executive proposed ELOC model. Once established ELOC may be further integrated with existing techniques (such as Barometric Forecasting, Geographical Information Systems) and technologies (such as rfids and Barcode tagging). [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A new algorithm, the progressive proposal particle filter, is introduced. The performance of a standard particle filter is highly dependent on the choice of importance density used to propagate the particles through time. The conditional posterior state density is the optimal choice, but this can rarely be calculated analytically or sampled from exactly. Practical particle filters rely on forming approximations to the optimal importance density, frequently using Gaussian distributions, but these are not always effective in highly nonlinear models. The progressive proposal method introduces the effect of each observation gradually and incrementally modifies the particle states so as to achieve an improved approximation to the optimal importance distribution. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The choice of proposal distribution affects critically the efficiency of a particle filter (PF). When it is not feasible to increase the number of particles, then more advanced proposals may avoid particle depletion. One further option is to compute the marginal posterior distribution. However, exact marginalization has quadratic complexity in the number of particles. This contribution discusses and compares some ideas for implementing a marginal PF with linear complexity, leading to an accept-reject algorithm. However, it turns out that the proposed solution can be interpreted as a way to implement the optimal proposal. Different proposals with and without marginalization are compared on a simple example. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Recently, the VHF band attracts attention for mobile use. For example, around 150 MHz is used in fire fighting and police radio et al. The microwave in VHF-band is especially useful for the communication network construction under the environment with a lot of obstacles. However, a present transceiver's antenna that sticks out long has the possibility to obstruct the user's activity. To solve this problem, we decided to use wearable antenna. In this paper, we propose the inverted-L antenna mounted on a helmet as a wearable antenna. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We propose an algorithm to track moving cells and microbes in a video. A major challenge in tracking living cells is that their movement is often nonlinear which causes problems in case of approaches using the generic particle filter (GPF) framework. In order to overcome this problem, we propose the use of an auxiliary particle filtering (APF) algorithm with dynamic variance adaptation of the posterior distribution to account for nonlinear movements. The object of interest in each frame is segmented using level sets. The proposed tracking algorithm is tested on real data and the tracking performance is compared with that of GPF and APF without dynamic variance adaptation. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm tracks more accurately compared to GPF and APF without variance adaption, with lesser number of particles, thereby reducing the running time. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Aiming at the shortcomings of color histogrambased observation model in traditional particle filter, a DCTbased observation model is presented. To reduce the particle degeneration effectively, a proposal distribution based on PSO method is put forward which can make full use of the current measurement. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm can achieve more accurate and robust tracking results. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Over time, it has been found there is valuable information within the data sets generated into different areas. These large data sets required to be processed with any data mining technique to get the hidden knowledge inside them. Due to nowadays many of data sets are integrated with a big number of instances and they do not have any information that can describe them, is necessary to use data mining methods such as clustering so it can permit to lump together the data according to its characteristics. Although there are algorithms that have good results with small or medium size data sets, they can provide poor results when they work with large data sets. Due to above mentioned in this paper we propose to use different cluster validation methods to determine clustering quality, as its analysis, so at the same time to determine in an empiric way the more reliable rates for working with large data sets. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, we propose a Markov model-based methodology aimed at detecting in real time the anomalies that the oxygen saturation pattern suffers during clinical interventions or procedures. To this end, we first extract a reference pattern from the patient in nominal conditions before the procedure takes place. Then, in a second stage, a measurement of the similarity between the reference pattern and the pattern of the epoch to be tested is obtained through the Williams' Index. This measurement is compared with a threshold to determine the normal/abnormal character of the pattern under test. Experiments on real data show that the proposed methodology is sensitive to the anomalies induced when the respiratory function is impaired; this is accomplished through the simulation of several situations (shortness of breath, interrupted breathing, hyperventilation and CO2 increasing in blood) in which the respiratory impairment is manually emulated. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, we explore the challenges and opportunities we face teaching computer simulation at a business school. While our students tend not to be as technically savvy as most engineering students, at times limiting the technical complexity of what we can cover in our courses, we are able to use simulation as a tool to analyze and discuss business problems in-depth. We explore the differences both between business and non-business simulation courses, as well as those between our graduate and undergraduate courses. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) methods have shown their effectiveness in data assimilation for wildfire simulation; however, when errors of wildfire simulation models are extremely large or rare events happen, the current SMC methods have limited impacts on improving the simulation results. The major problem lies in the proposal distribution that is commonly chosen as the system transition prior in order to avoid difficulties in importance weight updating. In this article, we propose a more effective proposal distribution by taking advantage of information contained in sensor data, and also present a method to solve the problem in weight updating. Experimental results demonstrate that a SMC method with this proposal distribution significantly improves wildfire simulation results when the one with a system transition prior proposal fails. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Intelligence is the logical ability of an entity to pursue its goal and ultimately achieving it successfully. Consequently, by comprehending and applying such ability in a collective environment, optimum results in goal attainment can be achieved. Such evidence is visible through the model of swarm intelligence in which entomological studies have been made to identify the social interactive behavior of ant and bee colonies. Harvesting successful collective behavior among these insects with such low level logical ability instigates further research on capturing the collective behavior of humans, who possess much higher state of intelligence. In this paper, we investigate and identify the emergence of collective intelligence amongst humans. This is done through the observation of face-to-face meetings in which two or more human entities are involved in formal and informal discussions. In this paper, the term personal intelligence is introduced to describe it's influence in generating successful Collective Intelligence. Finally, a preliminary theory is introduced to support the concept of Collective Intelligence. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses on the proposal of member of parliament A. Elksnins to the second reading of the Investigative Field Work Law. Among the topics discussed include provisions of the Investigative Field Work Law and the Criminal Procedure Law, Investigative Field Work Law that do not comply with the international rights, and proposal to assign the supervision of investigatory operations to chief justices. It highlights the European human rights regulatory acts for the inhabitants of Latvia.

The advent ofWeb-based services and cloud computing has instigated an explosive growth in demand for datacenters. Traditionally, Internet companies would lease datacenter space and servers from vendors that often emphasize flexibility over efficiency. But as these companies grew larger, they sought to reduce acquisition and operation costs by building their own datacenters. Facebook reached this stage earlier in 2011 when it unveiled its first customized datacenter in Prineville, Oregon. In designing this datacenter, Facebook took a blank-slate approach where all aspects were rethought for maximum efficiency. Although the resulting datacenter is optimized for Facebook's workload, it is general enough to be appeal to a wide variety of applications. This paper describes our choices and innovations in the thermal design of the datacenter building, which employs 100% outside-air economization. The efficiency of this design is manifest in an average infrastructure energy use reduction of 86% compared to leased space, and an overall energy use reduction of 29%. This reduction in turn translates to a power usage efficiency of 1.08, measured over the summer of 2011. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Smart grids have received great attention in recent years. Among many technologies that are used in smart grids, the concept of vehicle-to-grid (V2G) arises, which allows the use of electric vehicles' batteries to provide energy back to the grid when needed. An interesting research approach is the formation of coalitions among electric vehicles to provide electric power back to the grid, increasing the reliability and stability of the grid. In this paper, we propose a technique that uses smart grids' domain information to establish constraints on coalition formation process, promoting the pruning of the coalition structure's search space. We evaluate our approach by showing that it can drastically prune the search space, which makes coalition formation possible for a relatively higher number of agents. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Hofstede et al. cultured negotiating agents simulation produced realistic behavior by incorporating Hofstede's dimensional model of culture in the agent's negotiation protocol and overall behavior. Given such a promising model to generate actual human-like behavior in artificial agents, and the lack of sound and well accepted replication methodologies, we reviewed our original replication research: the parameters sensitivity test replication, a new real countries indices simulation replication, the roadblocks encountered during the process and the suggestions in order to avoid such obstacles. New results continue to show a relational equivalence. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents the idea for achieving trustworthiness by splitting responsibilities between different parties mutually mistrusting one another. These parties are called mistrust-parties because some kind of mistrust between these parties is actively created to prevent potentially manipulative cooperation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Web search engines profile their users by storing and analyzing their past searches. Profiles reflect the interests of the users and enable web search engines to offer a better service. In this way, search results are personalized to fulfill the expectations of each individual user. Nevertheless, this service is not provided without cost. User profiles contain information that can be considered private and personal. This represents a serious privacy threat which must be addressed. Several privacy-preserving techniques which try to prevent this situation can be found in the literature. In this paper, we focus on those that work directly in the computer of the users without requiring any external entity. More specifically, we propose a new single-party scheme that addresses the trade-off between privacy and quality of service but it does not require any change at the server side. The performance of this new method has been evaluated using real search queries extracted from the AOL's files. The results achieved show that our proposal works as expected and it can be considered a proper option for those users who are concerned about their privacy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents an educational experience based on collaborative learning techniques. As its central activity, students participated in the resolution of a potential end of semester examination. Furthermore, in addition to the typical strategies of this didactic methodology, and also as an important part of this experience, transversal competences, such as oral and written communication, have been exercised. Moreover, resources and activities usually provided by virtual campus, such as Forums and Wikis, were fostered. Finally students were also involved in assessment tasks. Although the main conclusion is that prior knowledge of the wording of the final exam has not been a guarantee of good results; analysis of the different elements involved in the experience, and how students have participated in them, provide us with material for reflection and improvement of the teaching practice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

• The “gap” between environmental information producers and consumers • What is your value proposition? • Communication “teams” • Recommendations • A proposal [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

To realize the provision of secure Android applications, this paper proposes an application development and management system, or ADMS for short, that is operated and maintained by application developers and the market manager. ADMS requires (i) Android OS to be equipped with a "security manager", (ii) all application developers to embed a code for event notification into applications to tell every event to the security manager whenever an application launches a security-related event, and (iii) market manager to remove all such applications that don't include the event notification code. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In public key encryption, we need to be able to verify the certificate from a certificate authority to prevent impersonation. In this paper, we propose an encryption system in which we can verify a public key without the certificate. We can realize our encryption system without a impersonation nor a key escrow problem. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]