Complementary Lipschitz continuity results for the distribution of intersections or unions of independent random sets in finite discrete spaces

We prove that intersections and unions of independent random sets in finite spaces achieve a form of Lipschitz continuity. More precisely, given the distribution of a random set $\Xi$, the function mapping any random set distribution to the distribution of its intersection (under independence assumption) with $\Xi$ is Lipschitz continuous with unit Lipschitz constant if the space of random set distributions is endowed with a metric defined as the $L_k$ norm distance between inclusion functionals also known as commonalities. Moreover, the function mapping any random set distribution to the distribution of its union (under independence assumption) with $\Xi$ is Lipschitz continuous with unit Lipschitz constant if the space of random set distributions is endowed with a metric defined as the $L_k$ norm distance between hitting functionals also known as plausibilities. Using the epistemic random set interpretation of belief functions, we also discuss the ability of these distances to yield conflict measures. All the proofs in this paper are derived in the framework of Dempster-Shafer belief functions. Let alone the discussion on conflict measures, it is straightforward to transcribe the proofs into the general (non necessarily epistemic) random set terminology

A distance measure of interval-valued belief structures

Interval-valued belief structures are generalized from belief function theory, in terms of basic belief assignments from crisp to interval numbers. The distance measure has long been an essential tool in belief function theory, such as conflict evidence combinations, clustering analysis, belief function and approximation. Researchers have paid much attention and proposed many kinds of distance measures. However, few works have addressed distance measures of interval-valued belief structures up. In this paper, we propose a method to measure the distance of interval belief functions. The method is based on an interval-valued one-dimensional Hausdorff distance and Jaccard similarity coefficient. We show and prove its properties of non-negativity, non-degeneracy, symmetry and triangle inequality. Numerical examples illustrate the validity of the proposed distance

Advances and Applications of Dezert-Smarandache Theory (DSmT) for Information Fusion (Collected Works), Vol. 4

The fourth volume on Advances and Applications of Dezert-Smarandache Theory (DSmT) for information fusion collects theoretical and applied contributions of researchers working in different fields of applications and in mathematics. The contributions (see List of Articles published in this book, at the end of the volume) have been published or presented after disseminating the third volume (2009, http://fs.unm.edu/DSmT-book3.pdf) in international conferences, seminars, workshops and journals. First Part of this book presents the theoretical advancement of DSmT, dealing with Belief functions, conditioning and deconditioning, Analytic Hierarchy Process, Decision Making, Multi-Criteria, evidence theory, combination rule, evidence distance, conflicting belief, sources of evidences with different importance and reliabilities, importance of sources, pignistic probability transformation, Qualitative reasoning under uncertainty, Imprecise belief structures, 2-Tuple linguistic label, Electre Tri Method, hierarchical proportional redistribution, basic belief assignment, subjective probability measure, Smarandache codification, neutrosophic logic, Evidence theory, outranking methods, Dempster-Shafer Theory, Bayes fusion rule, frequentist probability, mean square error, controlling factor, optimal assignment solution, data association, Transferable Belief Model, and others. More applications of DSmT have emerged in the past years since the apparition of the third book of DSmT 2009. Subsequently, the second part of this volume is about applications of DSmT in correlation with Electronic Support Measures, belief function, sensor networks, Ground Moving Target and Multiple target tracking, Vehicle-Born Improvised Explosive Device, Belief Interacting Multiple Model filter, seismic and acoustic sensor, Support Vector Machines, Alarm classification, ability of human visual system, Uncertainty Representation and Reasoning Evaluation Framework, Threat Assessment, Handwritten Signature Verification, Automatic Aircraft Recognition, Dynamic Data-Driven Application System, adjustment of secure communication trust analysis, and so on. Finally, the third part presents a List of References related with DSmT published or presented along the years since its inception in 2004, chronologically ordered

Distinct contributions of the fornix and inferior longitudinal fasciculus to episodic and semantic autobiographical memory

Autobiographical memory (AM) is multifaceted, incorporating the vivid retrieval of contextual detail (episodic AM), together with semantic knowledge that infuses meaning and coherence into past events (semantic AM). While neuropsychological evidence highlights a role for the hippocampus and anterior temporal lobe (ATL) in episodic and semantic AM, respectively, it is unclear whether these constitute dissociable large-scale AM networks. We used high angular resolution diffusion-weighted imaging and constrained spherical deconvolution-based tractography to assess white matter microstructure in 27 healthy young adult participants who were asked to recall past experiences using word cues. Inter-individual variation in the microstructure of the fornix (the main hippocampal input/output pathway) related to the amount of episodic, but not semantic, detail in AMs e independent of memory age. Conversely, microstructure of the inferior longitudinal fasciculus, linking occipitotemporal regions with ATL, correlated with semantic, but not episodic, AMs. Further, these significant correlations remained when controlling for hippocampal and ATL grey matter volume, respectively. This striking correlational double dissociation supports the view that distinct, large-scale distributed brain circuits underpin context and concepts in AM

An investigation into 3D printing of osteological remains: the metrology and ethics of virtual anthropology

Three-dimensional (3D) printed human remains are being utilised in courtroom demonstrations of evidence within the UK criminal justice system. This presents a potential issue given that the use of 3D replicas has not yet been empirically tested or validated for use in crime reconstructions. Further, recent movements to critically evaluate the ethics surrounding the presentation of human remains have failed to address the use of 3D printed replica bones. As such, this research addresses the knowledge gap surrounding the accuracy of 3D printed replicas of skeletal elements and investigates how the public feels about the use of 3D printed replicas. Three experimental studies focussed on metrology and identified 3D printed replicas to be accurate to within ± 2.0 mm using computed tomography (CT) scanning, and to within ± 0.2 mm or to 0-5% difference using micro-CT. The potential loss of micromorphological details was also examined and identified that quality control steps were key in identifying and mitigating loss of detail. A fourth experimental study collected data on the opinion of the public of the use of 3D printed human remains in courtroom demonstrations. Respondents were broadly positive and considered that prints can be produced ethically by maintaining the dignity and respect of the decedent. A framework that helps to assess ethical practices was developed as well as an adaptable pathway that can assist with assessing the quality and accuracy of 3D prints. The findings from this research contribute to an empirical evidence base that can underpin future 3D printed crime reconstructions and provides guidance for creating accurate 3D prints that can inform future practice and research endeavours

Recent Advances in Forensic Anthropological Methods and Research

Forensic anthropology, while still relatively in its infancy compared to other forensic science disciplines, adopts a wide array of methods from many disciplines for human skeletal identification in medico-legal and humanitarian contexts. The human skeleton is a dynamic tissue that can withstand the ravages of time given the right environment and may be the only remaining evidence left in a forensic case whether a week or decades old. Improved understanding of the intrinsic and extrinsic factors that modulate skeletal tissues allows researchers and practitioners to improve the accuracy and precision of identification methods ranging from establishing a biological profile such as estimating age-at-death, and population affinity, estimating time-since-death, using isotopes for geolocation of unidentified decedents, radiology for personal identification, histology to assess a live birth, to assessing traumatic injuries and so much more

Data Journeys in the Sciences

This groundbreaking, open access volume analyses and compares data practices across several fields through the analysis of specific cases of data journeys. It brings together leading scholars in the philosophy, history and social studies of science to achieve two goals: tracking the travel of data across different spaces, times and domains of research practice; and documenting how such journeys affect the use of data as evidence and the knowledge being produced. The volume captures the opportunities, challenges and concerns involved in making data move from the sites in which they are originally produced to sites where they can be integrated with other data, analysed and re-used for a variety of purposes. The in-depth study of data journeys provides the necessary ground to examine disciplinary, geographical and historical differences and similarities in data management, processing and interpretation, thus identifying the key conditions of possibility for the widespread data sharing associated with Big and Open Data. The chapters are ordered in sections that broadly correspond to different stages of the journeys of data, from their generation to the legitimisation of their use for specific purposes. Additionally, the preface to the volume provides a variety of alternative “roadmaps” aimed to serve the different interests and entry points of readers; and the introduction provides a substantive overview of what data journeys can teach about the methods and epistemology of research

Semantics and the stratification of explanation in cognitive science

This work is concerned with a pervasive problem in Cognitive Science which I have called the "stratificational" approach. I argue that the division into "levels of explanation" that runs as a constant theme through much work in Cognitive Science and in particular natural language semantics, is in direct conflict with neuroscientific evidence. I claim it is also in conflict with a right understanding of the philosophical notion of "evidence". The neuroscientific work is linked with the philosophical problem to provide a critique of concrete cases of research within the natural language semantics community. More recent neuroscientifically aware research is examined and it is demonstrated that it suffers similar problems due to the same deep running assumptions as those which effect traditional formalist theory. The contribution of this thesis is thought to be that of a demonstration of the essential nature and indeed the ubiquity of the basic assumptions in the field. Also, a new link is forged between the concerns of the formalists and certain seemingly more abstract philosophical work. This link enables us to see how much philosophical problems infect research into cognition and language. It is argued that practical research in Cognitive Science simply cannot be seen to be independent of the philosophical basis of the entire subject. The resulting picture of Cognitive Science and its place is outlined and explored with special emphasis on what I have called the "Principle of Semantic Indistinguishabliity" which says that the contribution of what can be broadly termed "environment" is epitemologically opaque to our cognition. The importance of this principle is discussed.The purpose of this work is to draw out a fundamental thread of reasoning and methodology that underlies most traditional work, and some not so traditional work, in Cognitive Science. It will be argued that this line of reasoning is at odds with the implications of modern neuroscience and cannot base a reasonable claim to "explain" human cognition. The picture I shall identify is that which I shall call "stratified". This, in general, is an attempt at explanation that divides into "levels of explanation", each with its own concepts that are said to be essential to the explanation of a phenomenon. There are specific and pragmatic manifestations of this, I discuss these in Chapter 3 and 7 in particular. There are also more abstract expressions of the same tendency which I examine mainly in Chapter 6. One of the principle tasks is to demonstrate the links between the assumptions of the more abstract formulations of this approach and th eir pragmatic instantiations in work in Cognitive Science. This allows it to be made clear that certain methodological problems are ubiquitous within the field and are not simply a result of the particular pragmatics of a particular research area.In Cognitive Science as a whole, it is generally appreciated today that there are problems to do with integration of traditional formal systems and the evolutionary and biological aspects of human cognition. One aim of this work is exactly to give an argument, supported from work in the brain sciences, that a certain methodology - particularly that enshrined within formal systems in language semantics - is strongly denied its evidential basis as a result of certain empirical considerations. It is also denied much of its basis as a result of the incongruity between the original motivations of logical formalism and the use to which this formalism is put today. The conclusion of this is that Cognitive Science's role in certain areas is severely limited and it crucially relies on an amount of empirical brain research in places thought usually to be completely separate from the "low-level" evidence from neuroscience. Part of my thesis is that stratified systems and particularly systems of formal logic within linguistics and semantics, cannot possibly be independent in the way imagined. There is also exploration of a general point regarding the character of the relation between strata in a stratified theory. There is, I shall argue, an irresolvable tension between the desire to have separate strata which are both independent but related. We shall see this both in concrete terms in the discussion of Fodor and in the abstract in the discussion of McDowell.George Lakoffhas expressed agreement with this particular premise: " ... linguistic results ... indicate that human reason uses some of the same mechanisms involved in perception and ... human reason can be seen as growing out of perceptual and motor mechanisms."1If this is correct, then I think that there are enormous implications for Cognitive Science in its practise of semantics since the mechanisms of motor and perceptual systems impose radical constraints when applied in the area of semantics.Given this, my aim is to demonstrate that certain seemingly theoryindependent areas of research in Cognitive Science such as linguistics and natural language semantics are actually infected with damaging assumptions from certain misguided philosophical positions. The idea that we can simply model things in Cognitive Science and wait for someone else to sort out the theoretical structure into which all of the models will fit is not tenable. I shall demonstrate this in several concrete cases and couple this with a critique from neuroscience which is crucially related to a more philosophical critique of fundamental assumptions. The structure of the work is as follows. Firstly, I give an overview of foundational issues in Cognitive Science by discussing central works. Then, I introduce the main problems in concrete form by way of an examination of certain approaches to inference in formal semantics. Chapter 4 expands on this in an analysis of the notion of "compositionality" with reference to the "stratificational" approach I find apparent in traditional work in Cognitive Science and the assumptions it disguises. Chapter 5 introduces the themes from neuroscience and the relations they have to the philosophical critique in Chapter 6. In Chapter 7, I demonstrate that the assumptions I have identified are present even in work motivated by a desire to leave behind the formalist program. I explain why this is the case and the implications this has for a correct view of "evidence" in Cognitive Science. At this point, I deal with pertinent objections to my view stemming from the parts of the discipline I have mentioned. Chapter 8 condenses the problem and shows the fundamentals of the whole problem in relief, suggesting what all of the preceding means for Cognitive Science

Contextual Social Networking

The thesis centers around the multi-faceted research question of how contexts may be detected and derived that can be used for new context aware Social Networking services and for improving the usefulness of existing Social Networking services, giving rise to the notion of Contextual Social Networking. In a first foundational part, we characterize the closely related fields of Contextual-, Mobile-, and Decentralized Social Networking using different methods and focusing on different detailed aspects. A second part focuses on the question of how short-term and long-term social contexts as especially interesting forms of context for Social Networking may be derived. We focus on NLP based methods for the characterization of social relations as a typical form of long-term social contexts and on Mobile Social Signal Processing methods for deriving short-term social contexts on the basis of geometry of interaction and audio. We furthermore investigate, how personal social agents may combine such social context elements on various levels of abstraction. The third part discusses new and improved context aware Social Networking service concepts. We investigate special forms of awareness services, new forms of social information retrieval, social recommender systems, context aware privacy concepts and services and platforms supporting Open Innovation and creative processes. This version of the thesis does not contain the included publications because of copyrights of the journals etc. Contact in terms of the version with all included publications: Georg Groh, [email protected] zentrale Gegenstand der vorliegenden Arbeit ist die vielschichtige Frage, wie Kontexte detektiert und abgeleitet werden können, die dazu dienen können, neuartige kontextbewusste Social Networking Dienste zu schaffen und bestehende Dienste in ihrem Nutzwert zu verbessern. Die (noch nicht abgeschlossene) erfolgreiche Umsetzung dieses Programmes führt auf ein Konzept, das man als Contextual Social Networking bezeichnen kann. In einem grundlegenden ersten Teil werden die eng zusammenhängenden Gebiete Contextual Social Networking, Mobile Social Networking und Decentralized Social Networking mit verschiedenen Methoden und unter Fokussierung auf verschiedene Detail-Aspekte näher beleuchtet und in Zusammenhang gesetzt. Ein zweiter Teil behandelt die Frage, wie soziale Kurzzeit- und Langzeit-Kontexte als für das Social Networking besonders interessante Formen von Kontext gemessen und abgeleitet werden können. Ein Fokus liegt hierbei auf NLP Methoden zur Charakterisierung sozialer Beziehungen als einer typischen Form von sozialem Langzeit-Kontext. Ein weiterer Schwerpunkt liegt auf Methoden aus dem Mobile Social Signal Processing zur Ableitung sinnvoller sozialer Kurzzeit-Kontexte auf der Basis von Interaktionsgeometrien und Audio-Daten. Es wird ferner untersucht, wie persönliche soziale Agenten Kontext-Elemente verschiedener Abstraktionsgrade miteinander kombinieren können. Der dritte Teil behandelt neuartige und verbesserte Konzepte für kontextbewusste Social Networking Dienste. Es werden spezielle Formen von Awareness Diensten, neue Formen von sozialem Information Retrieval, Konzepte für kontextbewusstes Privacy Management und Dienste und Plattformen zur Unterstützung von Open Innovation und Kreativität untersucht und vorgestellt. Diese Version der Habilitationsschrift enthält die inkludierten Publikationen zurVermeidung von Copyright-Verletzungen auf Seiten der Journals u.a. nicht. Kontakt in Bezug auf die Version mit allen inkludierten Publikationen: Georg Groh, [email protected]