New Fundamental Technologies in Data Mining

The progress of data mining technology and large public popularity establish a need for a comprehensive text on the subject. The series of books entitled by "Data Mining" address the need by presenting in-depth description of novel mining algorithms and many useful applications. In addition to understanding each section deeply, the two books present useful hints and strategies to solving problems in the following chapters. The contributing authors have highlighted many future research directions that will foster multi-disciplinary collaborations and hence will lead to significant development in the field of data mining

Proceedings of the First Workshop on Computing News Storylines (CNewsStory 2015)

This volume contains the proceedings of the 1st Workshop on Computing News Storylines (CNewsStory 2015) held in conjunction with the 53rd Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics and the 7th International Joint Conference on Natural Language Processing (ACL-IJCNLP 2015) at the China National Convention Center in Beijing, on July 31st 2015. Narratives are at the heart of information sharing. Ever since people began to share their experiences, they have connected them to form narratives. The study od storytelling and the field of literary theory called narratology have developed complex frameworks and models related to various aspects of narrative such as plots structures, narrative embeddings, characters’ perspectives, reader response, point of view, narrative voice, narrative goals, and many others. These notions from narratology have been applied mainly in Artificial Intelligence and to model formal semantic approaches to narratives (e.g. Plot Units developed by Lehnert (1981)). In recent years, computational narratology has qualified as an autonomous field of study and research. Narrative has been the focus of a number of workshops and conferences (AAAI Symposia, Interactive Storytelling Conference (ICIDS), Computational Models of Narrative). Furthermore, reference annotation schemes for narratives have been proposed (NarrativeML by Mani (2013)). The workshop aimed at bringing together researchers from different communities working on representing and extracting narrative structures in news, a text genre which is highly used in NLP but which has received little attention with respect to narrative structure, representation and analysis. Currently, advances in NLP technology have made it feasible to look beyond scenario-driven, atomic extraction of events from single documents and work towards extracting story structures from multiple documents, while these documents are published over time as news streams. Policy makers, NGOs, information specialists (such as journalists and librarians) and others are increasingly in need of tools that support them in finding salient stories in large amounts of information to more effectively implement policies, monitor actions of “big players” in the society and check facts. Their tasks often revolve around reconstructing cases either with respect to specific entities (e.g. person or organizations) or events (e.g. hurricane Katrina). Storylines represent explanatory schemas that enable us to make better selections of relevant information but also projections to the future. They form a valuable potential for exploiting news data in an innovative way.JRC.G.2-Global security and crisis managemen

SPH modeling of water-related natural hazards

This paper collects some recent smoothed particle hydrodynamic (SPH) applications in the field of natural hazards connected to rapidly varied flows of both water and dense granular mixtures including sediment erosion and bed load transport. The paper gathers together and outlines the basic aspects of some relevant works dealing with flooding on complex topography, sediment scouring, fast landslide dynamics, and induced surge wave. Additionally, the preliminary results of a new study regarding the post-failure dynamics of rainfall-induced shallow landslide are presented. The paper also shows the latest advances in the use of high performance computing (HPC) techniques to accelerate computational fluid dynamic (CFD) codes through the efficient use of current computational resources. This aspect is extremely important when simulating complex three-dimensional problems that require a high computational cost and are generally involved in the modeling of water-related natural hazards of practical interest. The paper provides an overview of some widespread SPH free open source software (FOSS) codes applied to multiphase problems of theoretical and practical interest in the field of hydraulic engineering. The paper aims to provide insight into the SPH modeling of some relevant physical aspects involved in water-related natural hazards (e.g., sediment erosion and non-Newtonian rheology). The future perspectives of SPH in this application field are finally pointed out

DIAGNOSTIC ET ANALYSE DE L’ENVIRONNEMENT ACOUSTIQUE DES CONFIGURATIONS URBAINES SAHARIENNES. CAS DE BISKRA.

La pollution sonore affecte une part considérable de la population mondiale, y compris les habitants Sahariens. L’expansion proliférante des villes et le trafic routier constituent les principales causes de la recrudescence des effets négatifs du bruit sur l’environnement et la qualité de vie de ces habitants. Par ailleurs, les pays développés et les agglomérations Sahariennes connaissent un manque de données acoustiques et une énorme lacune en matière des normes et des procédures nécessaires à la planification urbaine. La présente étude vise à examiner l’environnement acoustique des différents tissus urbains constituant la ville de Biskra, comme elle s’appuie principalement sur des approches méthodologiques multidisciplinaires traitant la dimension objective, voire subjective. Premièrement, la théorie de la Syntaxe Spatiale visant à analyser la morphologie urbaine. En se focalisant sur l’analyse des segments angulaires qui permet un diagnostic détaillé des propriétés de l’avant-plan et de l’arrière-plan. Le potentiel des deux concepts de « à-mouvement » et « à travers-mouvement » permet une exploration perspicace des mouvements mécaniques et piétonniers à l'échelle locale et globale. Par conséquent, plusieurs rayons métriques ont été utilisés : 400 m, 800 m, 1200 m, 1600 m, 2000 m, 2400 m et 3200 m. Ensuite, une approche expérimentale, consistant à évaluer l’environnement acoustique en effectuant 240 stations de mesures à l’aide d’un sonomètre étalonné. Ces stations, enregistrant chacune 600 valeurs de niveau sonore équivalent continu pondéré A (LeqA), sont pour la plupart installées à proximité des zones résidentielles et des bords des principales autoroutes, voies de circulation et axes piétonniers. Les données obtenues ont été modélisées à l’aide de différents modèles d’interpolation fournis par le système d’information géographique (QGIS et SAGA GIS), notamment : Distance Inverse Pondérée (Gaussienne, Exponentielle, Quadratique K2) et Krigeage (Ordinaire, Universel). Finalement, l’approche subjective consiste à élaborer un sondage abordant trois axes distincts : la qualité affective perçue, la carte mentale sonore et les préférences en matière de paysage sonore. Les résultats mettent en évidence le caractère bruyant de Biskra, tout en soulignant l’efficacité du model IDW. Ils démontrent aussi une corrélation positive moyenne à forte des mesures syntaxiques à l’échelle globale et locale, impliquant une explication partielle des configurations urbaines et acoustiques par ces variables spatiales. Cette étude approfondie constitue un point de départ pour soulever cette question auprès des planificateurs et décideurs de la ville afin de créer un plan d’action pratique pour une stratégie de développement durable

Enabling the Development and Implementation of Digital Twins : Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Construction Applications of Virtual Reality

Welcome to the 20th International Conference on Construction Applications of Virtual Reality (CONVR 2020). This year we are meeting on-line due to the current Coronavirus pandemic. The overarching theme for CONVR2020 is "Enabling the development and implementation of Digital Twins". CONVR is one of the world-leading conferences in the areas of virtual reality, augmented reality and building information modelling. Each year, more than 100 participants from all around the globe meet to discuss and exchange the latest developments and applications of virtual technologies in the architectural, engineering, construction and operation industry (AECO). The conference is also known for having a unique blend of participants from both academia and industry. This year, with all the difficulties of replicating a real face to face meetings, we are carefully planning the conference to ensure that all participants have a perfect experience. We have a group of leading keynote speakers from industry and academia who are covering up to date hot topics and are enthusiastic and keen to share their knowledge with you. CONVR participants are very loyal to the conference and have attended most of the editions over the last eighteen editions. This year we are welcoming numerous first timers and we aim to help them make the most of the conference by introducing them to other participants

Microscopy and Analysis

Microscopes represent tools of the utmost importance for a wide range of disciplines. Without them, it would have been impossible to stand where we stand today in terms of understanding the structure and functions of organelles and cells, tissue composition and metabolism, or the causes behind various pathologies and their progression. Our knowledge on basic and advanced materials is also intimately intertwined to the realm of microscopy, and progress in key fields of micro- and nanotechnologies critically depends on high-resolution imaging systems. This volume includes a series of chapters that address highly significant scientific subjects from diverse areas of microscopy and analysis. Authoritative voices in their fields present in this volume their work or review recent trends, concepts, and applications, in a manner that is accessible to a broad readership audience from both within and outside their specialist area