4,786 research outputs found

    Towards Reverse Engineering of PDF Documents

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    summary:We present a progress report on our ongoing project of reverse engineering scientific PDF documents. The aim is to obtain mathematical markup that can be used as source for regenerating a document that resembles the original as closely as possible. This source can then be a basis for further document processing. Our current tool uses specialised PDF extraction together with image analysis to produce near perfect input for parsing mathematical formula. Applying a linear grammar and specific drivers for each output format to this input, we can produce an accurate reproduction of formulae when presented with their coordinates. In this paper we will show how this information can be exploited to discover the locations of both inline and display formulae, and also to perform rudimentary layout analysis of the whole document, identifying structures such as headings and paragraphs

    Hierarchical relational models for document networks

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    We develop the relational topic model (RTM), a hierarchical model of both network structure and node attributes. We focus on document networks, where the attributes of each document are its words, that is, discrete observations taken from a fixed vocabulary. For each pair of documents, the RTM models their link as a binary random variable that is conditioned on their contents. The model can be used to summarize a network of documents, predict links between them, and predict words within them. We derive efficient inference and estimation algorithms based on variational methods that take advantage of sparsity and scale with the number of links. We evaluate the predictive performance of the RTM for large networks of scientific abstracts, web documents, and geographically tagged news.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/09-AOAS309 the Annals of Applied Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aoas/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

    A Comparison of Clustering Techniques for Malware Analysis

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    In this research, we apply clustering techniques to the malware detection problem. Our goal is to classify malware as part of a fully automated detection strategy. We compute clusters using the well-known �-means and EM clustering algorithms, with scores obtained from Hidden Markov Models (HMM). The previous work in this area consists of using HMM and �-means clustering technique to achieve the same. The current effort aims to extend it to use EM clustering technique for detection and also compare this technique with the �-means clustering

    Philip K. Dick and the Spectre of the Subject

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    This thesis considers the American author Philip K. Dick (1928 - 1982) from a philosophical framework informed by the work of the contemporary philosopher Alain Badiou. Drawing from three different phases of Dick’s career, I aim to demonstrate that his The Man in the High Castle (1962), Time Out of Joint (1959) and the later short story “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale” can examine and comment upon the ethical call in Badiou’s subtractive schema of the event. However, this is not to suggest that the thesis is a ventriloquist application of philosophy to text. Rather, the work will also consider Badiou’s Lacanian heritage and move to discuss the grand categories the two thinkers share in common: the Real, truth, subject and the ethical call through an analysis of Dick’s fiction

    Financial reporting quality control for internal control implementation

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    Though at the enterprises the estimation of a financial condition is annually, it is necessary to develop, to improve constantly and to evaluate the system of the internal control, necessary to develop a technique of the reporting quality estimation of the enterprise specially for the certain enterprise in view of all features, to take advantage of statistical data and to draw corresponding conclusions, to make constant monitoring. The purpose of development of the mechanism - detection of deviations of data in the reporting from actual results of activity, definition of clauses causing distortion of a real financial condition of the enterprise, revealing of size of influence of the given distortions and qualities of the reporting as a whole on decision-making, and also revealing of the reasons causing these deviations and distortions, and development of recommendations on corresponding correction separate directions for improvement of quality of the reporting. How can high reporting quality and internal control create an advantage? In survey of institutional investors is reported that investors apply a penalty if they believe a company’s internal control to be insufficient. Sixty-one percent of respondents said they had avoided investing in companies and 48% had de-invested in companies where internal control was considered inadequate. As additional support, they study went on to report that 82% of respondents agreed that good internal control was worth a premium on share price. These institutional investors are pushing for greater transparency on risk issues and related internal control efforts. Simply put, an organization’s ability to implement and maintain a leading-class control framework can create competitive advantage in today’s market. A system of the financial reporting conducting with strong management, quality control and good legislative base is the key factor of economic development. The trust of investors in the financial and not financial information is based on strong Internal Control, high-quality standards of the financial reporting, audit and ethics, thus, standards and Internal Control play the leading part in assistance of economic growth and financial stability in the country. Nevertheless, every company meets the problems of implementation of the internal control. Among them there can be problems in labor qualification, legislation and so on. It is also necessary to examine the successful experience at the micro level.Though at the enterprises the estimation of a financial condition is annually, it is necessary to develop, to improve constantly and to evaluate the system of the internal control, necessary to develop a technique of the reporting quality estimation of the enterprise specially for the certain enterprise in view of all features, to take advantage of statistical data and to draw corresponding conclusions, to make constant monitoring. The purpose of development of the mechanism - detection of deviations of data in the reporting from actual results of activity, definition of clauses causing distortion of a real financial condition of the enterprise, revealing of size of influence of the given distortions and qualities of the reporting as a whole on decision-making, and also revealing of the reasons causing these deviations and distortions, and development of recommendations on corresponding correction separate directions for improvement of quality of the reporting. How can high reporting quality and internal control create an advantage? In survey of institutional investors is reported that investors apply a penalty if they believe a company’s internal control to be insufficient. Sixty-one percent of respondents said they had avoided investing in companies and 48% had de-invested in companies where internal control was considered inadequate. As additional support, they study went on to report that 82% of respondents agreed that good internal control was worth a premium on share price. These institutional investors are pushing for greater transparency on risk issues and related internal control efforts. Simply put, an organization’s ability to implement and maintain a leading-class control framework can create competitive advantage in today’s market. A system of the financial reporting conducting with strong management, quality control and good legislative base is the key factor of economic development. The trust of investors in the financial and not financial information is based on strong Internal Control, high-quality standards of the financial reporting, audit and ethics, thus, standards and Internal Control play the leading part in assistance of economic growth and financial stability in the country. Nevertheless, every company meets the problems of implementation of the internal control. Among them there can be problems in labor qualification, legislation and so on. It is also necessary to examine the successful experience at the micro level.

    Cultural Context-Aware Models and IT Applications for the Exploitation of Musical Heritage

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    Information engineering has always expanded its scope by inspiring innovation in different scientific disciplines. In particular, in the last sixty years, music and engineering have forged a strong connection in the discipline known as “Sound and Music Computing”. Musical heritage is a paradigmatic case that includes several multi-faceted cultural artefacts and traditions. Several issues arise from the analog-digital transfer of cultural objects, concerning their creation, preservation, access, analysis and experiencing. The keystone is the relationship of these digitized cultural objects with their carrier and cultural context. The terms “cultural context” and “cultural context awareness” are delineated, alongside the concepts of contextual information and metadata. Since they maintain the integrity of the object, its meaning and cultural context, their role is critical. This thesis explores three main case studies concerning historical audio recordings and ancient musical instruments, aiming to delineate models to preserve, analyze, access and experience the digital versions of these three prominent examples of musical heritage. The first case study concerns analog magnetic tapes, and, in particular, tape music, a particular experimental music born in the second half of the XX century. This case study has relevant implications from the musicology, philology and archivists’ points of view, since the carrier has a paramount role and the tight connection with its content can easily break during the digitization process or the access phase. With the aim to help musicologists and audio technicians in their work, several tools based on Artificial Intelligence are evaluated in tasks such as the discontinuity detection and equalization recognition. By considering the peculiarities of tape music, the philological problem of stemmatics in digitized audio documents is tackled: an algorithm based on phylogenetic techniques is proposed and assessed, confirming the suitability of these techniques for this task. Then, a methodology for a historically faithful access to digitized tape music recordings is introduced, by considering contextual information and its relationship with the carrier and the replay device. Based on this methodology, an Android app which virtualizes a tape recorder is presented, together with its assessment. Furthermore, two web applications are proposed to faithfully experience digitized 78 rpm discs and magnetic tape recordings, respectively. Finally, a prototype of web application for musicological analysis is presented. This aims to concentrate relevant part of the knowledge acquired in this work into a single interface. The second case study is a corpus of Arab-Andalusian music, suitable for computational research, which opens new opportunities to musicological studies by applying data-driven analysis. The description of the corpus is based on the five criteria formalized in the CompMusic project of the University Pompeu Fabra of Barcelona: purpose, coverage, completeness, quality and re-usability. Four Jupyter notebooks were developed with the aim to provide a useful tool for computational musicologists for analyzing and using data and metadata of such corpus. The third case study concerns an exceptional historical musical instrument: an ancient Pan flute exhibited at the Museum of Archaeological Sciences and Art of the University of Padova. The final objective was the creation of a multimedia installation to valorize this precious artifact and to allow visitors to interact with the archaeological find and to learn its history. The case study provided the opportunity to study a methodology suitable for the valorization of this ancient musical instrument, but also extendible to other artifacts or museum collections. Both the methodology and the resulting multimedia installation are presented, followed by the assessment carried out by a multidisciplinary group of experts

    When is a debt bad or doubtful in terms of the Income Tax Act?

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    Bad debt deductions and doubtful debt allowances provide relief to taxpayers who would be subject to income tax on amounts accrued to them which may never be received. No definition of a bad or doubtful debt is provided in the Income Tax Act. This dissertation considered current legislation, historical court cases, academic writing and the views expressed by SARS through explanatory memoranda and directives in order to establish when a debt becomes bad or doubtful and the extent of the relief granted. This dissertation also considered the future of the doubtful debt allowance in light of the change of accounting standards from IAS 39 to IFRS 9. There are no specific requirements for a debt to become bad or doubtful. Whether a debt is bad is a factual question taking into account all relevant facts. Whether a debt is doubtful and the extent of the allowance granted is determined by the Commissioner, but that determination must be reasonable. The Commissioner relies on IAS 39 rules of impairment as the starting point for determination of a doubtful debt allowance. IFRS 9 determines impairment in a significantly different manner to IAS 39, abandoning the requirement that a “loss event” must have occurred. Adoption of IFRS 9 will result in a change to the determination of doubtful debt allowances, for example, by reducing the generally accepted rate of 25% of identified doubtful debts or by requiring the taxpayer to compile a list of debts which would have qualified as doubtful under IAS 39

    Negotiating with a logical-linguistic protocol in a dialogical framework

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    This book is the result of years of reflection. Some time ago, while working in commodities, the author felt how difficult it was to decide the order in which to use arguments during a negotiation process. What would happen if we translated the arguments into cards and played them according to the rules of the Bridge game? The results were impressive. There was potential for improvement in the negotiation process. The investigation went deeper, exploring players, cards, deals and the information concealed in the players´ announcements, in the cards and in the deals. This new angle brought the research to NeuroLinguistic Patterns and cryptic languages, such as Russian Cards. In the following pages, the author shares her discovery of a new application for Logical Dialogues: Negotiations, tackled from basic linguistic structures placed under a dialogue form as a cognitive system which ‘understands’ natural language, with the aim to solve conflicts and even to serve peace

    Research into the development of a traffic safety indicator

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    Descripcion y cuantificacion de parametros que describen la seguridad del trafico captados mediante camaras y con tecnologia de reconocimiento de objetos, para un posterior calculo de un indice de seguridad que tambien sera definido matematicament
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