Explaining Inferences in Bayesian Networks

While Bayesian network (BN) can achieve accurate predictions even with erroneous or incomplete evidence, explaining the inferences remains a challenge. Existing approaches fall short because they do not exploit variable interactions and cannot account for com-pensations during inferences. This paper proposes the Explaining BN Inferences (EBI) procedure for explaining how variables interact to reach conclusions. EBI explains the value of a target node in terms of the influential nodes in the target’s Markov blanket under specific contexts, where the Markov nodes include the target’s parents, children, and the children’s other parents. Working back from the target node, EBI shows the deriva-tion of each intermediate variable, and finally explains how missing and erroneous evidence values are compensated. We validated EBI on a variety of problem domains, including mushroom classification, water purification and web page recommendation. The experi-ments show that EBI generates high quality, concise and comprehensible explanations for BN inferences, in particular the underlying compensation mechanism that enables BN to outperform alternative prediction systems, such as decision tree. 1

Impact of Occupant Behaviour (OB) on building energy use and thermal comfort: From stochastic modelling and occupant profiling to interdisciplinary user engagement

L'abstract è presente nell'allegato / the abstract is in the attachmen

Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing 2023

The Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing (PSB) 2023 is an international, multidisciplinary conference for the presentation and discussion of current research in the theory and application of computational methods in problems of biological significance. Presentations are rigorously peer reviewed and are published in an archival proceedings volume. PSB 2023 will be held on January 3-7, 2023 in Kohala Coast, Hawaii. Tutorials and workshops will be offered prior to the start of the conference.PSB 2023 will bring together top researchers from the US, the Asian Pacific nations, and around the world to exchange research results and address open issues in all aspects of computational biology. It is a forum for the presentation of work in databases, algorithms, interfaces, visualization, modeling, and other computational methods, as applied to biological problems, with emphasis on applications in data-rich areas of molecular biology.The PSB has been designed to be responsive to the need for critical mass in sub-disciplines within biocomputing. For that reason, it is the only meeting whose sessions are defined dynamically each year in response to specific proposals. PSB sessions are organized by leaders of research in biocomputing's 'hot topics.' In this way, the meeting provides an early forum for serious examination of emerging methods and approaches in this rapidly changing field

Ecosystemic Evolution Feeded by Smart Systems

Information Society is advancing along a route of ecosystemic evolution. ICT and Internet advancements, together with the progression of the systemic approach for enhancement and application of Smart Systems, are grounding such an evolution. The needed approach is therefore expected to evolve by increasingly fitting into the basic requirements of a significant general enhancement of human and social well-being, within all spheres of life (public, private, professional). This implies enhancing and exploiting the net-living virtual space, to make it a virtuous beneficial integration of the real-life space. Meanwhile, contextual evolution of smart cities is aiming at strongly empowering that ecosystemic approach by enhancing and diffusing net-living benefits over our own lived territory, while also incisively targeting a new stable socio-economic local development, according to social, ecological, and economic sustainability requirements. This territorial focus matches with a new glocal vision, which enables a more effective diffusion of benefits in terms of well-being, thus moderating the current global vision primarily fed by a global-scale market development view. Basic technological advancements have thus to be pursued at the system-level. They include system architecting for virtualization of functions, data integration and sharing, flexible basic service composition, and end-service personalization viability, for the operation and interoperation of smart systems, supporting effective net-living advancements in all application fields. Increasing and basically mandatory importance must also be increasingly reserved for human–technical and social–technical factors, as well as to the associated need of empowering the cross-disciplinary approach for related research and innovation. The prospected eco-systemic impact also implies a social pro-active participation, as well as coping with possible negative effects of net-living in terms of social exclusion and isolation, which require incisive actions for a conformal socio-cultural development. In this concern, speed, continuity, and expected long-term duration of innovation processes, pushed by basic technological advancements, make ecosystemic requirements stricter. This evolution requires also a new approach, targeting development of the needed basic and vocational education for net-living, which is to be considered as an engine for the development of the related ‘new living know-how’, as well as of the conformal ‘new making know-how’

Felt_space infrastructure: Hyper vigilant spatiality to valence the visceral dimension

Felt_space infrastructure: Hypervigilant spatiality to valence the visceral dimension. This thesis evolves perception as a hypothesis to reframe architectural praxis negotiated through agent-situation interaction. The research questions the geometric principles of architectural ordination to originate the ‘felt_space infrastructure’, a relational system of measurement concerned with the role of perception in mediating sensory space and the cognised environment. The methodological model for this research fuses perception and environmental stimuli, into a consistent generative process that penetrates the inner essence of space, to reveal the visceral parameter. These concepts are applied to develop a ‘coefficient of affordance’ typology, ‘hypervigilant’ tool set, and ‘cognitive_tope’ design methodology. Thus, by extending the architectural platform to consider perception as a design parameter, the thesis interprets the ‘inference schema’ as an instructional model to coordinate the acquisition of spatial reality through tensional and counter-tensional feedback dynamics. Three site-responsive case studies are used to advance the thesis. The first case study is descriptive and develops a typology of situated cognition to extend the ‘granularity’ of perceptual sensitisation (i.e. a fine-grained means of perceiving space). The second project is relational and questions how mapping can coordinate perceptual, cognitive and associative attention, as a ‘multi-webbed vector field’ comprised of attractors and deformations within a viewer-centred gravitational space. The third case study is causal, and demonstrates how a transactional-biased schema can generate, amplify and attenuate perceptual misalignment, thus triggering a visceral niche. The significance of the research is that it progresses generative perception as an additional variable for spatial practice, and promotes transactional methodologies to gain enhanced modes of spatial acuity to extend the repertoire of architectural practice

Development of Conceptual Constructs for Organisational BIM Adoption and their Systematic Application within the UK Architecture Sector

Building Information Modelling (BIM) is an innovation that is transforming practices within the Architectural, Engineering, Construction and Operation (AECO) sectors. The investigation of the process of BIM adoption and diffusion has attracted significant interest from industry and academia. Drivers and factors influencing BIM adoption were examined at different levels, ranging from individual and group through organisations and supply chains to whole market level. However, there is still a dearth of studies that extensively integrate drivers and factors affecting the decision to adopt BIM by organisations. Existing studies often seek to develop approaches for forecasting BIM diffusion, and are generally focused on the diffusion phase, after BIM has been adopted. Therefore, this study aims to improve the understanding of the BIM adoption process within organisations and across markets by developing the necessary conceptual constructs (e.g., BIM adoption taxonomy, adoption process model, adoption two-dimensional characterisation model, and systems thinking models) and providing the supporting empirical evidence. This study provided an in-depth analysis of the BIM adoption process within organisations. It developed a unified BIM adoption taxonomy that contains an extensive array of adoption factors. Following the validation of the taxonomy, its factors were used within a proposed conceptual model, which combined the Innovation Diffusion Theory with the Institutional Theory, to perform a multifaceted analysis of the BIM adoption process. A set of 11 most influencing factors on BIM adoption process was identified and included: Willingness to adopt BIM, Communication behaviour of an organisation, Observability of BIM benefits, Compatibility of BIM, Social motivations among organisation's members, Relative advantage of BIM, Organisational culture, Top management support, Organisational readiness, Coercive pressures (Governmental mandate, informal mandate), and Organisation size. Focussing on these 11 most influencing factors, several analyses were performed to understand the interplays between these factors - while considering specific instances of certain factors (i.e. organisation size, and external isomorphic pressure) over time (i.e., Pre-2011, 2011-2016, and Post-2016 exemplifying three key time periods in the UK national BIM strategy). The results showed that the Relative advantage of BIM is the most important and influencing factor across all the three stages of the adoption process (i.e., Awareness stage, Intention stage, and Decision stage) of the BIM adoption process. Coercive pressures (e.g. Governmental mandate, informal mandate) had a direct influence on both formulating the intention and the decision to adopt BIM across the three-time horizons (i.e., Pre-2011, 2011-2016, and Post-2016). For the Pre-2011 period, the coercive pressures were mostly informal mandate/pressures by the parent companies and partners, while during 2011-2016 and Post-2016 periods, it is predominantly the UK Government mandate which was announced in 2011 and entered into effect in 2016. Several Systems Thinking models were developed to show the interdependencies among the factors that affect the BIM adoption process at different time periods and stages of the BIM adoption process. Such models infer patterns of behaviour of BIM adoption as complex systems and can be used to guide the development and implementation of BIM strategies. For example, by relating each factor within the system thinking model to the player group(s) who can exert influence upon it, the complementary role of the player groups can be planned to facilitate the BIM adoption process according to the patterns identified in the corresponding systems thinking model. The different patterns developed through the specialised systems thinking models can be used to develop tailored BIM adoption strategies for the different scenarios involved. At a global level (overall aim), this study provided an understanding of how intra-organisational BIM adoption and inter-organisational BIM diffusion occurs. At a local level (individual objectives), the key knowledge deliverables in this study (i.e., the taxonomy, conceptual model for BIM adoption process, two-dimensional characterisation model of BIM adoption, and systems thinking models) and the empirical investigation represent a new contribution to knowledge with each contributing from a specific standpoint. The Unified BIM Adoption Taxonomy is the first – if not the sole – statistically validated BIM adoption taxonomy that includes an extensive array of adoption drivers and factors and combines constructs from both the Institutional and the Innovation Diffusion theories. The conceptual model for analysing BIM adoption and its use for the empirical investigation of BIM adoption within the UK Architecture sector explored and identified relationships that were not known before (i.e., triggering the BIM Awareness and formulating an Intention about BIM adoption is not limited to Internal Environment Characteristics and the Innovation Characteristics respectively - as suggested by Rogers’ theory, but occurs by a combination of both characteristics). The two-dimensional characterisation model of BIM adoption clarified new interplays between adoption factors, the organisation size, and time (i.e., pairs of positively and negatively correlated factors vary based on time horizon). The classification of factors into cause and effect groups using the F-DEMATEL provided a new understanding of the independencies between factors which can be used to tailor and prioritise implementation actions and investments. The developed Systems Thinking Models enabled an attentive analysis of mutual interactions between adoption factors as part of a causal relationship networks. The developed instances of such models for different temporal scenarios and stages of the BIM adoption stage can be exploited by the industry player groups (i.e., Policy-makers, decision-makers, change agents, etc.) to promote BIM adoption process within the organisations and BIM diffusion across a market. The key knowledgeable deliverables can be used to perform various analyses of the BIM adoption process, providing evidence and insights for decision-makers within organisations and across a whole market when formulating BIM adoption and diffusion strategies. In particular, they can assist researchers, decision-makers, and policy-makers with a better understanding of the BIM adoption process and can guide the development of BIM strategies and plan for BIM adoption and diffusion. Ultimately, they contribute to promote BIM adoption within the architectural sector through the suggested adoption patterns

Bioinformatics

This book is divided into different research areas relevant in Bioinformatics such as biological networks, next generation sequencing, high performance computing, molecular modeling, structural bioinformatics, molecular modeling and intelligent data analysis. Each book section introduces the basic concepts and then explains its application to problems of great relevance, so both novice and expert readers can benefit from the information and research works presented here

3D-in-2D Displays for ATC.

This paper reports on the efforts and accomplishments of the 3D-in-2D Displays for ATC project at the end of Year 1. We describe the invention of 10 novel 3D/2D visualisations that were mostly implemented in the Augmented Reality ARToolkit. These prototype implementations of visualisation and interaction elements can be viewed on the accompanying video. We have identified six candidate design concepts which we will further research and develop. These designs correspond with the early feasibility studies stage of maturity as defined by the NASA Technology Readiness Level framework. We developed the Combination Display Framework from a review of the literature, and used it for analysing display designs in terms of display technique used and how they are combined. The insights we gained from this framework then guided our inventions and the human-centered innovation process we use to iteratively invent. Our designs are based on an understanding of user work practices. We also developed a simple ATC simulator that we used for rapid experimentation and evaluation of design ideas. We expect that if this project continues, the effort in Year 2 and 3 will be focus on maturing the concepts and employment in a operational laboratory settings