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The article focuses on the initiatives implemented by the Nature Publishing Group to the journal "Nature" to enhance the accessibility of the research papers it has published. Machine access is being enhanced by the open text-mining. Papers reporting full genome sequences are freely accessible on the group's Web sites from the moment of publication. The group also introduces a creative commons licence for the reuse of such genome papers that allows non-commercial publishers to reuse the pdf and html versions of the paper.

This paper focuses on the application of model predictive control (MPC) for the spacecraft trajectory tracking problems. The motivation of the use of MPC, also known as receding horizon control, relies on its ability in dealing with control, state, and path constraints that naturally arise in practical trajectory planning problems. Two different MPC schemes are constructed to solve the reconnaissance trajectory tracking problem. Since the MPC solves the online optimal control problems at each sampling instant, the computational cost associated with it can be high. In order to decrease the computational demand due to the optimization process, a newly proposed two-nested gradient method is used and embedded in the two MPC schemes. Simulation results are provided to illustrate the effectiveness and feasibility of the two MPC tracking algorithms combined with the improved optimization technique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a load-balanced resource directory (LB-RD) architecture based on the constrained application protocol (CoAP), and is aimed at addressing the scalability issue with the centralized resource discovery approach in large-scale Internet of Things (IoT) local networks. To balance the traffic load due to a large number of messages concentrated on the resource directory (RD), the LB-RD serves as an intermediary agent between the servers and the RD. Its architecture includes the following three essential functional blocks: server group management (SGM), message aggregation (MA), and message forwarding scheduling (MFS). The SGM manages the uniform resource identifier (URI) list for a group of servers associated with the LB-RD. The MA aggregates the registration/update messages received from the servers into a single aggregated message. Finally, the MFS determines the forwarding time for the LB-RD to send its aggregated message to the RD. To verify the effectiveness of the LBRD architecture, an experimental simulation is conducted under various scenarios. The results show that the LB-RD architecture achieves better performance than the existing RD approach in terms of the number of lost messages and the message loss rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Online search intermediaries, such as Amazon or Expedia, use rankings (ordered lists) to present third-party sellers’ products to consumers. These rankings decrease consumer search costs and increase the probability of a match with a seller, ultimately increasing consumer welfare. Constructing relevant rankings requires understanding their causal effect on consumer choices. However, this is challenging because rankings are endogenous: consumers pay more attention to highly ranked products, and intermediaries rank the most relevant products at the top. In this paper, I use the first data set with experimental variation in the ranking from a field experiment at Expedia to make three contributions. First, I identify the causal effect of rankings and show that they affect what consumers search, but conditional on search, do not affect purchases. Second, I quantify the effect of rankings using a sequential search model and find an average position effect of $1.92, which is lower than literature estimates obtained without experimental variation. I also use model predictions, data patterns, and a feature of the data set (opaque offers) to show rankings lower search costs, instead of affecting consumer expectations or utility. Finally, I show a utility-based ranking built on this model’s estimates benefits consumers and the search intermediary. Data and the online appendix are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mksc.2017.1072. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An important concept in the fifth generation of mobile networks is multitenancy, which allows diverse operators sharing the same wireless infrastructure. To support this feature in conjunction with the challenging performance requirements of future networks, more automated and faster planning of the required radio capacity is needed. Likewise, installing small cells is an effective resource to provide greater performance and capacity to both indoor and outdoor places. This paper proposes a new framework for automated cell planning in multitenant small cell networks. In particular, taking advantage of the available network data, a set of detailed planning specifications over time and space domains are generated in order to meet the contracted capacity by each tenant. Then, the network infrastructure and configuration are updated according to an algorithm that considers different actions such as adding/removing channels and adding or relocating small cells. The simulation results show the effectiveness of various methods to derive the planning specifications depending on the correlation between the tenant's and network's traffic demands. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents a novel online diagnostics method capable of detecting winding deformations in two-winding single-phase transformers. The main idea is to identify changes in the short-circuit impedance. The combination of 3-D Lissajous curve methods with a Butterworth low-pass filter allows for the accurate determination of winding deformation of large power transformers in real time. The method is very robust and capable of detecting deformations at the early stage even when the measurements are noisy. Only information already available to the differential protection relay is needed. The proposed diagnostics method has been validated with circuit and finite-element simulations plus a lab experiment. The results show that the proposed online diagnostics technique has the ability to identify winding deformation problems under severe conditions, such as nonsinusoidal input, nonlinear loading, and measurement noise. Under ideal conditions (no signal noise), the inductive identification error of the proposed online diagnostics method identifies the parameters with less than 0.09% error. When accepting a measurement noise of 1%, the error on the identification of inductance is less than 0.13%. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A social approach can be exploited for the Internet of Things (IoT) to manage a large number of connected objects. These objects operate as autonomous agents to request and provide information and services to users. Establishing trustworthy relationships among the objects greatly improves the effectiveness of node interaction in the social IoT and helps nodes overcome perceptions of uncertainty and risk. However, there are limitations in the existing trust models. In this paper, a comprehensive model of trust is proposed that is tailored to the social IoT. The model includes ingredients such as trustor, trustee, goal, trustworthiness evaluation, decision, action, result, and context. Building on this trust model, we clarify the concepts of trust in the social IoT in five aspects such as: 1) mutuality of trustor and trustee; 2) inferential transfer of trust; 3) transitivity of trust; 4) trustworthiness update; and 5) trustworthiness affected by dynamic environment. With network connectivities that are from real-world social networks, a series of simulations are conducted to evaluate the performance of the social IoT operated with the proposed trust model. An experimental IoT network is used to further validate the proposed trust model. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A trend for low-power conversion system is to integrate every component to a single chip. Magnetic component has been the key to determine the power density of the integrated switching power converter. In this paper, a hybrid resonant buck-type converter with an ultracompact custom-designed coupled inductor is presented for low-power integrated on-chip applications. This converter achieves zero-voltage switching for the high-side switch and near zero-voltage zero-current switching for low-side and auxiliary switches. The soft-switching condition allows the circuit operating at high switching frequencies. An ultracompact planar coupled inductor with a dimension of 5.25 mm × 1.95 mm × 3.86 mm is designed and customized for future integrated on-chip applications. The high-power density of this magnetics component is achieved by high switching frequency and optimized printed circuit board (PCB) windings design. A hardware prototype with 24 to 60-V input and 3.3 to 5-V, 3-A output operating at 2–3 MHz is presented to verify the circuit operation. The prototype achieves a peak efficiency of 90.7% using silicon devices at 2-MHz switching frequency. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents a methodology and results in developing program as well as course objectives to be included in curriculum proposals. This study provide a literature review and uses steps of keyword indexing, thematic analysis, as well as the popular Bloom's taxonomy field of text in effort to phrase program objectives that follow standards set for this purpose. A set of program objectives for a program in Data Analytics derived by this methodology is presented in the conclusions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an agent cooperation mechanism for scheduling operations in a manufacturing network, while allowing manufacturers to absolutely control their scheduling activities. The study includes a thorough review of recent publications, a real-life industrial use case of a manufacturing network, an agent-based model of the network simulated with recursive porous agent simulation toolkit, the Muth and Thompson (MT10) scheduling data set, and the visualization of results in Microsoft Project. Results of a study of a four-layer cooperation mechanism showed that for the MT10 problem, manufacturer arrangement 0–5–7–2–3–8–1–9–6–4–0 was found to maximize the utilitarian social welfare of the manufacturing network. In terms of make-span, the network achieved a maximum of 1125 which was beyond the known optimal 930. Results suggest that manufacturers could express their scheduling goals and their preferences with whom they wanted to cooperate. These were measured by the time incentive and compatibility indicators. The latter could also be used to track the optimality loss in make-span optimization when implementing the decentralized scheduling approach in the context of manufacturing networks. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the functions of stories in an online peer-to-peer advice forum on pregnancy and parenting, particularly drawing attention to how parents as advice-givers use stories in health-related discussions. The analysis shows that stories are multi-functional, serving to establish rapport with advice-seekers, give and support advice, express and substantiate agreement or disagreement. The results add to the current scholarship by showing that response stories can be used to give etiological (causal) assessments of others' health issues, thus delivering a diagnostic opinion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

These instructions give guidelines for preparing papers for this publication. Presents information for authors publishing in this journal. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The paper presents a new system for ECG (ElectroCardioGraphy) signal recognition using different neural classifiers and a binary decision tree to provide one more processing stage to give the final recognition result. As the base classifiers, the three classical neural models, i.e., the MLP (Multi Layer Perceptron), modified TSK (Takagi-Sugeno-Kang) and the SVM (Support Vector Machine), will be applied. The coefficients in ECG signal decomposition using Hermite basis functions and the peak-to-peak periods of the ECG signals will be used as features for the classifiers. Numerical experiments will be performed for the recognition of different types of arrhythmia in the ECG signals taken from the MIT-BIH (Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Boston's Beth Israel Hospital) Arrhythmia Database. The results will be compared with individual base classifiers' performances and with other integration methods to show the high quality of the proposed solution [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on reducing cheating opportunities of online test assessment. Increasing use of online test in all course presentation formats (online, blended/hybrid or facilitated) has elevated faculty concerns of cheating. Efforts by educators to reduce cheating have been ongoing and with some success but, as the results of a study reported here more is needed. Two sections of a course, one online and one onsite were offered the same semester, with the same instructor, syllabus, textbook and tests. The online students took all tests online. The onsite students took all exams online except the last two tests and final exam which were paper and pencil taken in the classroom. Online students scored higher than onsite students on all tests with one exception. The scores were significantly higher when the onsite students took the paper and pencil tests. Online testing introduces a new testing environment that requires more thought and care to reduce cheating and uphold academic integrity. Faculty using online testing must make decisions each semester on how best to achieve the benefits of online assessment while keeping cheating in check. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the mobility analysis of spatial and planar manipulators used in amusement parks. In this paper is presented a topological structure analysis for many types of serial and parallel manipulators, referring to the calculation of mobility (degree of freedom) of these types of complex mechanisms. It is used a new formula to calculate the mobility according to the number of drivelines, which are considered having identical operations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developing new mathematical frameworks such as distributed dynamic routing algorithms for constructing optimal incremental paths from a node to another node is an important challenge in data communication networks. These new algorithms can model network resources optimally and increase network performances. A bundle of single routes in a current communication path, which starts from a source node and ends to a destination node, can consist of several successive nodes and links. The Incremental term emphasizes that the number of routes (links and nodes) in a current path can change so that achieving more data rate and optimal efficiency in the network. In this paper, our problem is to add/omit some routes consisting of some nodes and links to/from the current unicast path dynamically and optimally. We call this problem the Optimal Dynamic Distributed Unicast Routing (ODDUR) problem and it is a NP-complete problem. This problem can be formulated as a new type of Linear Programming Problem (LPP) for finding a minimum cost multichannel unicast path, which this path will minimize end-to-end delay and bandwidth consumption along the routes from the source node to the destination node. In this paper, at first a new mathematical framework will be constructed and then this framework will propose the new optimal dynamic distributed unicast routing algorithm for solving our LPP problem. This algorithm will compute an optimal solution for our LPP based on the simplex method and postoptimality computations and will reduce computations and consumed time. Simulation results will show that our new algorithm is more efficient than other available algorithms in terms of utilization of bandwidths and data rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mention Wikipedia in a group of people and a lively discussion is sure to follow with terms such as peer-review, editing policies, and Web 2.0 entering the conversation. Wikipedia is the open access, Web 2.0 encyclopedia that is harnessing the power (and knowledge) of the masses and making it freely available to the Internet audience. With open access, problems have appeared and solutions have been implemented; however, many netizens (network citizens) are only aware of the negative and high profile misuses of Wikipedia, skewing their view of this knowledge repository. This paper studies how one group of information seekers, librarians, is utilizing this freely accessible web resource in their work, and how positive and negative awareness affects this usage. Usage statistics, awareness statistics, and gender differences for Wikipedia usage are presented in this paper and discussed. Comparisons of librarian statistics to previously published data on university faculty and student usage of Wikipedia are presented. It is established that librarians have greater awareness of negative issues surrounding Wikipedia than of positive issues. This awareness drives usage of Wikipedia in personal and professional settings. Results also indicate that there are no major gender differences in awareness of positive and negative issues concerning Wikipedia, but that males tend to use Wikipedia more than females, confirming the results of previous studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

3D building models of the world exhibit multi-scale properties. Different level-of-details (LoDs) are important for different applications. Therefore, generation of multi-scale representation of 3D building models to fulfill the demands of these applications is a generalization problem. In order to generalize 3D buildings, different pieces of information need to be preserved or removed to restrict the amount of data represented on a certain LoD. In this work, a three-step strategy based on simplification, aggregation and reconstruction of generalized buildings represented in City Geography Markup Language (CityGML) is proposed. The minimum length of edges (threshold value) for removal of amount of data is restricted to generalization specifications of CityGML characterized by differing accuracies and minimal dimensions of objects for each LoD. The main part of this paper is simplification of ground plans. For this purpose, a new approach is proposed to restrict number of edges, curves, and corners of ground plan of 3D building model on a certain LoD. Algorithms for simplification with the aim to derive LoD1 from exterior shells of buildings at LoD3 are implemented and tested on a number of buildings of Putrajaya city. The experiments showed that length of edge as threshold value is directly proportional to the size of generalized models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Geospatial Delhi Limited (GSDL), a Govt. of NCT of Delhi Company formed in order to provide the geospatial information of National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCTD) to the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (GNCTD) and its organs such as DDA, MCD, DJB, State Election Department, DMRC etc., for the benefit of all citizens of Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (GNCTD). This paper describes the development of Geospatial Map based Portal for Delimitation of MCD Wards (GMPDW) and election of 3 Municipal Corporations of NCT of Delhi. The portal has been developed as a map based spatial decision support system (SDSS) for delimitation of MCD Wards and draw of peripheral wards boundaries to planning and management of MCD Election process of State Election Commission, and as an MCD election related information searching tools (Polling Station, MCD Wards and Assembly constituency etc.,) for the citizens of NCTD. The GMPDW is based on Client-Server architecture model. It has been developed using Arc GIS Server 10.0 with .NET (pronounced dot net) technology. The GMPDW is scalable to enterprise SDSS with enterprise Geo Database & Virtual Private Network (VPN) connectivity. Spatial data to GMPDW includes Enumeration Block (EB) and Enumeration Blocks Group (EBG) boundaries of Citizens of Delhi, Assembly Constituency, Parliamentary Constituency, Election District, Landmark locations of Polling Stations & basic amenities (Police Stations, Hospitals, Schools and Fire Stations etc.). GMPDW could help achieve not only the desired transparency and easiness in planning process but also facilitates through efficient & effective tools for management of MCD election. It enables a faster response to the changing ground realities in the development planning, owing to its in-built scientific approach and openended design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deduplication serves as a fundamental way to eliminate replicas and save space and network bandwidth in various storage systems. However, the performance of most existing deduplication systems can be further improved on normal reads, which carry crucial weight in currently popular WORM access model. Specifically, most existing deduplication systems achieve globally even layout via the simple round-robin algorithm and ignore the interrelationship between chunks and IO requests in the placement policy, thus failing to achieve the local even placement within a request and causing read imbalance problem. In this paper, we focus on deduplication over small-scale storage systems with adequate bandwidth in between and propose a deduplication system with request-aware placement policy named GLE-Dedup to achieve even placement both globally and locally for better read performance. Differing from conventional approaches of chunk-based placement, GLE-Dedup employs a group placement for chunks and the group size is mainly determined by the request ID to achieve request-awareness. We place chunks belonging to the same IO request into different independent nodes as much as possible to achieve even placement locally within a request and meanwhile maintain global balance with rotation among chunk groups. In this way, better parallelism is exploited for higher read performance. Experiment results under the real-world CAFTL trace have shown the effectiveness and advantage of GLE-Dedup over B-Dedup and R-Dedup respectively under round-robin and random placement. For example, our GLE-Dedup could achieve about 18.9 and 24 % read improvement respectively compared with B-Dedup and R-Dedup. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A huge amount of sensing data are generated by a large number of pervasive IoT devices. In order to find meaningful information from the big data, it is essential to perform pre-processing, in which many outlier data points need to be removed, because they deteriorate as time passes. Although pre-processing is essential in the big data field, there has been a significant lack of research works with case studies. In this paper, big data pre-processing methods are investigated and proposed. To evaluate the pre-processing methods for accurate analysis, we used a collection of digital tachograph (DTG) data. We obtained DTG sensing data of 6198 driving vehicles over a year. We studied five kinds of pre-processing methods: filtering ranges, excluding meaningless values, comparing filters from variables, applying statistical techniques, and finding driving patterns. In addition, we developed a MapReduce program using a Hadoop ecosystem and deployed big data to perform the pre-processing analysis. Through the pre-processing steps, we confirmed that the proportion of DTG sensing data points including any errors was up to 27.09%. Compared to the traditional brute-force way to detect, ours had 71.1% additional detection effect. In addition, we confirmed that outlier data points, which are difficult to detect through simple range error pre-processing, could be well detected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The evolvable hardware (EHW) is widely used in the design of fault-tolerant system. Fault-tolerant system is really a real-time system, and the recovery time is necessary in fault detection and recovery. However, when applying EHW, real-time characteristic is usually ignored. In this paper, a fault-tolerant strategy based on EHW is proposed. The recovery time, predicted by the fault tree analysis (FTA), is considered as a constraint condition. A configuration library is set up in the design phase to accelerate the repair process of the anticipated faults. An evolvable algorithm (EA) based on similarity is applied to evolve the repair circuit for the unanticipated faults. When the library reaches the upper, the target system is reconfigured by the EA-repair technology. Extensive experiments are conducted to show that our method can improve the fault-tolerance of the system while satisfying the real-time requirement on FPGA platform. In a long run system, our method can keep a higher fault recovery rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The complexity of algorithms implemented in digital systems grows. Methods are developed for most effective use of both hardware resources and energy. For engineers the problem of hardware resources optimization in design of control units is still an important issue. The standard way of implementing the control unit as a finite-state machine (FSM) is not satisfactory as it consumes considerable amounts of field-programmable gate arrays (FPGA) resources. This paper is devoted to the design of a Moore FSM in FPGA structure using look-up tables and embedded memory blocks (EMB) elements. The problem background is discussed. The method of the design of Moore FSM logic circuits with EMB based on splitting the set of logical conditions and the encoding of logical conditions is presented. Examples of design and research results are given. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the approach to functional test automation of services (black-box testing) and service architectures (grey-box testing) that has been developed within the MIDAS project and is accessible on the MIDAS SaaS. In particular, the algorithms and techniques adopted for addressing input and oracle generation, dynamic scheduling, and session planning issues supporting service functional test automation are illustrated. More specifically, the paper details: (i) the test input generation based on formal methods and temporal logic specifications, (ii) the test oracle generation based on service formal specifications, (iii) the dynamic scheduling of test cases based on probabilistic graphical reasoning, and (iv) the reactive, evidence-based planning of test sessions with on-the-fly generation of new test cases. Finally, the utilisation of the MIDAS prototype for the functional test of operational services and service architectures in the healthcare industry is reported and assessed. A planned evolution of the technology deals with the testing and troubleshooting of distributed systems that integrate connected objects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do users from Carnegie Mellon University form social communities on Facebook? Do signal processing researchers tightly collaborate with each other? Do Chinese restaurants in Manhattan cluster together? These seemingly different problems share a common structure: an attribute that may be localized on a graph. In other words, nodes activated by an attribute form a subgraph that can be easily separated from other nodes. In this paper, we thus focus on the task of detecting localized attributes on a graph. We are particularly interested in categorical attributes such as attributes in online social networks, ratings in recommender systems, and viruses in cyber-physical systems because they are widely used in numerous data mining applications. To solve the task, we formulate a statistical hypothesis testing problem to decide whether a given attribute is localized or not. We propose two statistics: Graph wavelet statistic and graph scan statistic, both of which are provably effective in detecting localized attributes. We validate the robustness of the proposed statistics on both simulated data and two real-world applications: High air-pollution detection and keyword ranking in a coauthorship network collected from IEEE Xplore. Experimental results show that the proposed graph wavelet statistic and graph scan statistic are effective and efficient. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Motivation: The past decade has seen the introduction of new technologies that lowered the cost of genomic sequencing increasingly. We can even observe that the cost of sequencing is dropping significantly faster than the cost of storage and transmission. The latter motivates a need for continuous improvements in the area of genomic data compression, not only at the level of effectiveness (compression rate), but also at the level of functionality (e.g. random access), configurability (effectiveness versus complexity, coding tool set . . .) and versatility (support for both sequenced reads and assembled sequences). In that regard, we can point out that current approaches mostly do not support random access, requiring full files to be transmitted, and that current approaches are restricted to either read or sequence compression. Results: We propose AFRESh, an adaptive framework for no-reference compression of genomic data with random access functionality, targeting the effective representation of the raw genomic symbol streams of both reads and assembled sequences. AFRESh makes use of a configurable set of prediction and encoding tools, extended by a Context-Adaptive Binary Arithmetic Coding scheme (CABAC), to compress raw genetic codes. To the best of our knowledge, our paper is the first to describe an effective implementation CABAC outside of its’ original application. By applying CABAC, the compression effectiveness improves by up to 19% for assembled sequences and up to 62% for reads. By applying AFRESh to the genomic symbols of the MPEG genomic compression test set for reads, a compression gain is achieved of up to 51% compared to SCALCE, 42% compared to LFQC and 44% compared to ORCOM. When comparing to generic compression approaches, a compression gain is achieved of up to 41% compared to GNU Gzip and 22% compared to 7-Zip at the Ultra setting. Additionaly, when compressing assembled sequences of the Human Genome, a compression gain is achieved up to 34% compared to GNU Gzip and 16% compared to 7-Zip at the Ultra setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper proposes an information technology framework for the development of an embedded remote system for non-destructive observation and study of sensitive archaeological sites. The overall concept and motivation are described. The general hardware layout and software configuration are presented. The paper concentrates on the implementation of the following informational technology components: (a) a geographically unique identification scheme supporting a global key space for a key-value store; (b) a common method for octree modeling for spatial geometrical models of the archaeological artifacts, and abstract object representation in the global key space; (c) a broadcast of the archaeological information as an Extensible Markup Language (XML) stream over the Web for worldwide availability; and (d) a set of testing methods increasing the fault tolerance of the system. This framework can serve as a foundation for the development of a complete system for remote archaeological exploration of enclosed archaeological sites like buried churches, tombs, and caves. An archaeological site is opened once upon discovery, the embedded computer system is installed inside upon a robotic platform, equipped with sensors, cameras, and actuators, and the intact site is sealed again. Archaeological research is conducted on a multimedia data stream which is sent remotely from the system and conforms to necessary standards for digital archaeology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The availability of technology has a big impact on education, and that is the main reason for discussing the use of technologies in mathematical education in our paper. The availability of technology influences how mathematical contents could be presented to students. We present the benefits of learning mathematical concepts through real life situations in elementary mathematical education. Particularly, we will analyze classroom examples which will give students a clearer picture of the connection between the real world and learned mathematics. For that purpose we will use technology in the form of Geogebra. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the authors propose an effective scheme for association rule mining of personal hobbies in social networks. By introducing the connection and clipping techniques, the authors are able to ignore unrelated items in the process of finding frequent itemsets, resulting in more accurate candidate itemsets. More specifically, set operations, which are used in the process of combining frequent itemsets, can dramatically reduce the number of databases visited. Furthermore, to explore more practical rules, interestingness level is also introduced to eliminate rules that few people are interested in. The authors' proposed association rule mapping is shown to be able to provide new insights for supporting personalized services and virtual marketing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented that discusses the issue theme of the work of philosopher Joseph Ransdell, his thought on philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce, and his curating of internet forums for the discussion of Peirce's philosophy.

Recent technologies allowed a major growth of geographical datasets with different levels of detail, different point of views, and different specifications, but on the same geographical extent. These datasets need to be integrated in order to benefit from their diversity. Conflation is one of the solutions to provide integration. Conflation aims at combining data that represent same entities from several datasets, into a richer new dataset. This paper proposes a framework that provides a geometrical conflation that preserves the characteristic shapes of geographic data. The framework is based on least squares adjustment, inspired from least squares based generalization techniques. It does not require very precise pre-matching, which is interesting as automatic matching remains a challenging task. Several constraints are proposed to preserve different kind of shape and relations between features, while conflating data. The framework is applied to a real land use parcels conflation problem with excellent results. The least squares based conflation is evaluated, notably with comparisons with existing techniques like rubber sheeting. The paper also describes how the framework can be extended to other geometrical optimization problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As defined in the information technology area, a repository represents a digital collection in which data is preserved and maintained in an organized and structured manner. This comes helpful for many projects that envisage sharing specific databases, files or resources for being accessed or distributed. More, several free and open-source software solutions for designing open-access repositories are available at present, having features very similar to the systems built for document management. Trying to implement such digital collection, as extra-readings and references related to Nanoscience and Nanotechnology area, in the frame of the LLP KA3-ICT project no. 511787-LLP-1-2010-1-TR-KA3-KA3MP: "Nano-Tech Science Education", it was set up a repository/database for being used by students, Science prospective teachers and teachers, as a part of a Virtual Lab, which represents the main project product - an experimental virtual aid created for Science education. The Lab mainly consists of experimental room, podcasting room and repository, and serves as a platform for Science lessons, as a database of teaching materials, and as a hub for science-learning-related graphic aids and recorded and illustrated appealing experiments on Nanoscience and Nanotechnology. Its repository includes articles, books, chapters, posters, videos, experiments, methodological documents which introduce in fact, actual findings and researches developed in different countries. Basically, the main role of the repository is to update the virtual lab users' knowledge and to raise their awareness on Nanoscience and Nanotechnology. The paper presents the features of the designed repository, its main services, and specific developments. As this is an instrument under continuous updating, the paper offers also a status of its actual structure and content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on three main subjects: (1) monitoring quality of life (QoL) in old age; (2) international and interdisciplinary collaboration for QoL research; and (3) computer-based technology and infrastructure assisting (1) and (2). This type of computer-supported cooperative work in the social sciences has been termed eHumanities or eSocial Science. Although QoL issues matter for all ages, given the size of population aging and the demographic outlook of developed countries, QoL in old age is one of the most pressing issues to study (Walker and Mollenkopf in Quality of life in old age: international and multi-disciplinary perspectives, Springer, The Netherlands, ). Despite the recognized need for good measurement methods in QoL (e.g., Stiglitz et al. in The measurement of economic performance and social progress revisited. progress revisited. OFCE working documents, Observatoire Francais des Conjonctures Economiques (OFCE), Paris, ), effective mechanisms allowing cross-country comparisons are still rare. In the context of QoL or human well-being research and measurement, one of the most influential concepts is the capability approach (CA). Yet, the operationalization of the CA has long been one of the serious challenges faced by capabilities and quality of life researchers. As regards to this issue, we argue that modern technology has the potential to provide ample tools for enhancing the measurement of human well-being, and facilitating large-scale collaborative research on the QoL. This paper demonstrates a methodology, procedures, and tools that we have developed, based on the new technologies designed and developed for both governmental and intergovernmental (OECD) sponsored assessments and that are ready to be used for QoL analysis. We propose a viable alternative for facilitating international and interdisciplinary research collaboration to develop a methodology and a dashboard of indicators to monitor the progress of human well-being over the years and to formalize its multidimensional measure for international comparisons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper presents methods to develop metrics that compare Big Deal journal packages and the journals within those packages. Deal-level metrics guide selection of a Big Deal for termination. Journal-level metrics guide selection of individual subscriptions from journals previously provided by a terminated deal. The paper argues that, while the proposed metrics provide helpful quantitative data for comparative analysis, selection of individual subscriptions must also involve informed judgment about a library's subject coverage needs and alternative sources of access. The paper also discusses how replacing a Big Deal with a reduced number of individual subscriptions may affect the collections budget, use of other resources, and interlibrary loan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]