KEMNAD: A Knowledge Engineering Methodology for Negotiating Agent Development

Automated negotiation is widely applied in various domains. However, the development of such systems is a complex knowledge and software engineering task. So, a methodology there will be helpful. Unfortunately, none of existing methodologies can offer sufficient, detailed support for such system development. To remove this limitation, this paper develops a new methodology made up of: (1) a generic framework (architectural pattern) for the main task, and (2) a library of modular and reusable design pattern (templates) of subtasks. Thus, it is much easier to build a negotiating agent by assembling these standardised components rather than reinventing the wheel each time. Moreover, since these patterns are identified from a wide variety of existing negotiating agents(especially high impact ones), they can also improve the quality of the final systems developed. In addition, our methodology reveals what types of domain knowledge need to be input into the negotiating agents. This in turn provides a basis for developing techniques to acquire the domain knowledge from human users. This is important because negotiation agents act faithfully on the behalf of their human users and thus the relevant domain knowledge must be acquired from the human users. Finally, our methodology is validated with one high impact system

A Comprehensive Survey of Deep Learning in Remote Sensing: Theories, Tools and Challenges for the Community

In recent years, deep learning (DL), a re-branding of neural networks (NNs), has risen to the top in numerous areas, namely computer vision (CV), speech recognition, natural language processing, etc. Whereas remote sensing (RS) possesses a number of unique challenges, primarily related to sensors and applications, inevitably RS draws from many of the same theories as CV; e.g., statistics, fusion, and machine learning, to name a few. This means that the RS community should be aware of, if not at the leading edge of, of advancements like DL. Herein, we provide the most comprehensive survey of state-of-the-art RS DL research. We also review recent new developments in the DL field that can be used in DL for RS. Namely, we focus on theories, tools and challenges for the RS community. Specifically, we focus on unsolved challenges and opportunities as it relates to (i) inadequate data sets, (ii) human-understandable solutions for modelling physical phenomena, (iii) Big Data, (iv) non-traditional heterogeneous data sources, (v) DL architectures and learning algorithms for spectral, spatial and temporal data, (vi) transfer learning, (vii) an improved theoretical understanding of DL systems, (viii) high barriers to entry, and (ix) training and optimizing the DL.Comment: 64 pages, 411 references. To appear in Journal of Applied Remote Sensin

International Research Infrastructure Landscape 2019 : A European Perspective

The report is the final product of the RISCAPE project, funded by the European Commission H2020 programme

Information and Communication Technologies for Agriculture (ICT4Ag) in sub-Saharan Africa: A bibliometrics perspective based on web of science data, 1991–2018

The purpose of this study was to assess research articles published on ICT4Ag in subSaharan Africa, with a view to determining the application of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the agricultural sector in the region. The agricultural sector in sub-Saharan Africa is one of the most important sectors that have greatly benefited from the application of ICTs. Research on the application of ICTs is rapidly expanding and therefore requires synthesis to gauge the extent of publication, the subject focus of the research on ICTs for agriculture (hereafter simply referred to as ICT4Ag), and the trend of publication and countries contributing to research on ICT4Ag in sub-Saharan African countries. Relevant data were obtained from the Web of Science (WoS) citation databases using a search query, which combined a variety of agricultural terms and several key, words that constitute ICTs. It was found that ICTs are largely applied for communication and dissemination of agricultural information to and among stakeholders, including farmers and extension workers. Areas of application involve land use, crops [production], animal husbandry, conservation, [soil and crop]  management, and climate change. In terms of the broad disciplinary context, the application of ICTs in agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa occurs mostly in agronomy, environmental sciences, and dairy and animal science. Although only a few specific names of ICTs were found in the literature on agriculture, ICT-led activities and applications such as remote sensing, GIS, computer programs, software, Landsat, and information systems, among others, provided insight into not only the areas but also the nature of ICT  application in agriculture in the region. The internet, radio, computers and mobile phones were among the few types of ICTs that featured in the ICT4Ag literature and are, therefore, deemed to be the commonly used in agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa. Concerning the foreign countries that have collaborated with sub-Saharan Africa in ICT4Ag research, the USA, France and England featured the most, thereby signalling the continuation of colonial legacies in the region. Furthermore, the pattern of collaboration may signal the nature of knowledge and innovation diffusion for ICT4Ag in sub-Saharan Africa. Finally, results reveal a diversity of areas of ICT application in agriculture in the region. The study makes recommendations for further research in other geographical regions for comparison purposes; a study to explore other bibliographic databases such as Scopus; and a study to assess the impact of the ICTs on agricultural performance of the affected countries. Key words: Sub-Saharan Africa, Information technologies, Innovations, ICTs, ICT4Ag, Agriculture, Farming, Bibliometric

Abstract syntax as interlingua: Scaling up the grammatical framework from controlled languages to robust pipelines

Syntax is an interlingual representation used in compilers. Grammatical Framework (GF) applies the abstract syntax idea to natural languages. The development of GF started in 1998, first as a tool for controlled language implementations, where it has gained an established position in both academic and commercial projects. GF provides grammar resources for over 40 languages, enabling accurate generation and translation, as well as grammar engineering tools and components for mobile and Web applications. On the research side, the focus in the last ten years has been on scaling up GF to wide-coverage language processing. The concept of abstract syntax offers a unified view on many other approaches: Universal Dependencies, WordNets, FrameNets, Construction Grammars, and Abstract Meaning Representations. This makes it possible for GF to utilize data from the other approaches and to build robust pipelines. In return, GF can contribute to data-driven approaches by methods to transfer resources from one language to others, to augment data by rule-based generation, to check the consistency of hand-annotated corpora, and to pipe analyses into high-precision semantic back ends. This article gives an overview of the use of abstract syntax as interlingua through both established and emerging NLP applications involving GF

WeChat as infrastructure: the techno-nationalist shaping of Chinese digital platforms

In the current research on media and communication, Western internet companies (e.g. Google and Facebook) are typically described as digital platforms, yet these actors increasingly rely on infrastructural properties to expand and maintain their market power. Through the case study of the Chinese social media application, WeChat, we argue that WeChat is an example of a non-Western digital media service that owes its success first to its platformization and then to the infrastructuralization of its platform model. Moreover, our findings show that the infrastructuralization of the WeChat platform model in China is shaped by markedly techno-nationalist media regulations and an increasingly overt cyber-sovereignty agenda. Drawing on the results of the analysis of technical documentation, business reports, as well as observations and interviews, we first present WeChat as both a platform and an infrastructure, and then we contextualize WeChat in the history of ICT infrastructure and the development of the internet in China. Finally, we analyze the specific role of the WeChat Pay service in establishing a new monetary transaction standard. We conclude by inquiring whether this emerging techno-nationalist model could be a plausible platform regulation in the future