Validating simulated interaction for retrieval evaluation

A searcher’s interaction with a retrieval system consists of actions such as query formulation, search result list interaction and document interaction. The simulation of searcher interaction has recently gained momentum in the analysis and evaluation of interactive information retrieval (IIR). However, a key issue that has not yet been adequately addressed is the validity of such IIR simulations and whether they reliably predict the performance obtained by a searcher across the session. The aim of this paper is to determine the validity of the common interaction model (CIM) typically used for simulating multi-query sessions. We focus on search result interactions, i.e., inspecting snippets, examining documents and deciding when to stop examining the results of a single query, or when to stop the whole session. To this end, we run a series of simulations grounded by real world behavioral data to show how accurate and responsive the model is to various experimental conditions under which the data were produced. We then validate on a second real world data set derived under similar experimental conditions. We seek to predict cumulated gain across the session. We find that the interaction model with a query-level stopping strategy based on consecutive non-relevant snippets leads to the highest prediction accuracy, and lowest deviation from ground truth, around 9 to 15% depending on the experimental conditions. To our knowledge, the present study is the first validation effort of the CIM that shows that the model’s acceptance and use is justified within IIR evaluations. We also identify and discuss ways to further improve the CIM and its behavioral parameters for more accurate simulations

Customer-oriented risk assessment in Network Utilities

For companies that distribute services such as telecommunications, water, energy, gas, etc., quality perceived by the customers has a strong impact on the fulfillment of financial goals, positively increasing the demand and negatively increasing the risk of customer churn (loss of customers). Failures by these companies may cause customer affection in a massive way, augmenting the intention to leave the company. Therefore, maintenance performance and specifically service reliability has a strong influence on financial goals. This paper proposes a methodology to evaluate the contribution of the maintenance department in economic terms, based on service unreliability by network failures. The developed methodology aims to provide an analysis of failures to facilitate decision making about maintenance (preventive/predictive and corrective) costs versus negative impacts in end-customer invoicing based on the probability of losing customers. Survival analysis of recurrent failures with the General Renewal Process distribution is used for this novel purpose with the intention to be applied as a standard procedure to calculate the expected maintenance financial impact, for a given period of time. Also, geographical areas of coverage are distinguished, enabling the comparison of different technical or management alternatives. Two case studies in a telecommunications services company are presented in order to illustrate the applicability of the methodology

Porting Decision Tree Algorithms to Multicore using FastFlow

The whole computer hardware industry embraced multicores. For these machines, the extreme optimisation of sequential algorithms is no longer sufficient to squeeze the real machine power, which can be only exploited via thread-level parallelism. Decision tree algorithms exhibit natural concurrency that makes them suitable to be parallelised. This paper presents an approach for easy-yet-efficient porting of an implementation of the C4.5 algorithm on multicores. The parallel porting requires minimal changes to the original sequential code, and it is able to exploit up to 7X speedup on an Intel dual-quad core machine.Comment: 18 pages + cove

ALLOCATING BIOSECURITY RESOURCES IN SPACE AND TIME

Invasive species can cause significant damage to natural environments, agricultural systems, human populations and the economy as a whole. Biological invasions are complex dynamic systems which are inherently uncertain and their control involves allocation of surveillance and treatment resources in space and time. A complicating factor is that there are at least two types of surveillance: active and passive. Active surveillance, undertaken by pest control agencies, has high sensitivity but generally low coverage because of its high cost. Passive surveillance, undertaken by the public, has low sensitivity and may have high coverage depending on human population density. Its effectiveness depends on the extent to which information campaigns succeed in engaging the public to help locate and report pests. Here we use a spatio-temporal model to study the efficient allocation of search and treatment resources in space and time. In particular we look for complementarities between passive and active surveillance. We identify strategies that increase the probability of eradication and/or decrease the cost of managing an invasion. We also explore ways in which the public can be engaged to achieve cost-effective improvements in the probability of detecting and eradicating a pest.search theory, invasive species, dispersal, passive surveillance., Environmental Economics and Policy,

Assembly and Disassembly Planning by using Fuzzy Logic & Genetic Algorithms

The authors propose the implementation of hybrid Fuzzy Logic-Genetic Algorithm (FL-GA) methodology to plan the automatic assembly and disassembly sequence of products. The GA-Fuzzy Logic approach is implemented onto two levels. The first level of hybridization consists of the development of a Fuzzy controller for the parameters of an assembly or disassembly planner based on GAs. This controller acts on mutation probability and crossover rate in order to adapt their values dynamically while the algorithm runs. The second level consists of the identification of theoptimal assembly or disassembly sequence by a Fuzzy function, in order to obtain a closer control of the technological knowledge of the assembly/disassembly process. Two case studies were analyzed in order to test the efficiency of the Fuzzy-GA methodologies

Hospital Cost Accounting: Saving Lives and Saving on Costs

Within an industry constantly pursuing accuracy, a cost accounting system that addresses the ongoing concerns of saving money and increasing efficiency is a must. Now more than ever, hospitals require reliable information to combat the conflicting relationship between an increase in spending on new instruments and specialized staff, but a decrease in funding. This project explores potential avenues to find a successful cost accounting method using past research, analysis of hospitals’ current environments, and expert opinions from hospital and healthcare personnel. Each hospital is different based on their environment, surrounding population, type of services provided, and personal demands. This study seeks to contribute to previous studies attempting to debunk the navigation process for each hospital looking to find their cost accounting perfect match and where sights should be set on in the future