Alternating Back-Propagation for Generator Network

This paper proposes an alternating back-propagation algorithm for learning the generator network model. The model is a non-linear generalization of factor analysis. In this model, the mapping from the continuous latent factors to the observed signal is parametrized by a convolutional neural network. The alternating back-propagation algorithm iterates the following two steps: (1) Inferential back-propagation, which infers the latent factors by Langevin dynamics or gradient descent. (2) Learning back-propagation, which updates the parameters given the inferred latent factors by gradient descent. The gradient computations in both steps are powered by back-propagation, and they share most of their code in common. We show that the alternating back-propagation algorithm can learn realistic generator models of natural images, video sequences, and sounds. Moreover, it can also be used to learn from incomplete or indirect training data

Dynamic recomposition of documents from distributed data sources

Dynamic recomposition of documents refers to the process of on-the-fly creation of documents. A document can be generated from several documents that are stored at distributed data sites. The source can be queried and results obtained in the form of XML. These XML documents can be combined after a series of transformation operations to obtain the target document. The resultant document can be stored statically or in the form of a command, which can be invoked later to recompose this document dynamically. Also, in case a change is made to a document, then only the change can be stored, instead of storing the modified document in its entirety. The purpose of this research was to provide a way to recompose dynamic documents. A solution is proposed at the level of algebra for update and recomposition of documents stored at distributed data sources. The issue of representation of a document by a command, i.e., a composition operator and/or an editing command along with one or more path expressions has also been researched. The construction of a dynamic document has three phases to it. The first one is the information retrieval. Phase two deals with building of real document: this includes the filtering of retrieved data by selecting relevant subset of a document and then applying update operations, and finally the ordering and assembling of the document. The final phase consists of displaying or storing or exchanging it over the web through a convenient means

Detecting Coordination Problems in Collaborative Software Development Environments

Software development is rarely an individual effort and generally involves teams of developers collaborating to generate good reliable code. Among the software code there exist technical dependencies that arise from software components using services from other components. The different ways of assigning the design, development, and testing of these software modules to people can cause various coordination problems among them. We claim\ud that the collaboration of the developers, designers and testers must be related to and governed by the technical task structure. These collaboration practices are handled in what we call Socio-Technical Patterns.\ud The TESNA project (Technical Social Network Analysis) we report on in this paper addresses this issue. We propose a method and a tool that a project manager can use in order to detect the socio-technical coordination problems. We test the method and tool in a case study of a small and innovative software product company

Composing Online: A Case Study of Embodiment, Digitality, and YouTube

This study examines YouTube channel, ContraPoints, by trans woman Natalie Wynn. It begins with close readings and analyses of an example video and body of comments from Wynn’s oeuvre that draw conclusions about how trans embodiment intersects with online, multimodal composing. The study finds that, in her video “Beauty,” Wynn’s bodily presentation and rhetorical attitudes towards dominant norms of gender and sexuality constantly shift. Furthermore, the study uncovers evidence that commenter attitudes about gender and sexuality in the video “Autogynephilia” likewise shift as a result of encounters with the video and with other commenters. Next, the study reads the YouTube video page as an assemblage composed of smaller assemblages, or modules. I discover that each of the modules relate to one another in such a way as to endow the YouTube video page assemblage with the capacities to enter social justice movements, yet the specific properties of the modules on ContraPoints video pages fail to provide the sufficient conditions to exercise this capacity. Nevertheless, the study concludes that ContraPoints video page assemblages do have the capacity to generate interpersonal, communal reflections on complex issues around gender and sexuality, reflections that may give rise to changing beliefs. These belief changes are necessary for any future community-building that may enable social justice movements aimed at expanding rights around gender and sexuality. This case study, then, offers one answer among infinite possible answers to Phil Bratta and Scott Sundvall’s question of how composers with diverse embodiments address systems of domination using digital technology. The study also suggests that assemblage theory represents a productive framework for interpreting online, multimodal compositions that incorporate large bodies of information, or big-data assemblages

Heritage Preservation as Strategy for Recomposing Conflict Territories

Heritage admits diverse readings depending on different territorial spaces, contexts, and knowledge fields. The relation between Heritage and the social contexts is one of these knowledge areas. But Heritage accepts a dual perception as a cultural reflection. It may be considered either as the origins of the conflicts or the engine for recomposing disrupted territories. The paper proposes a reflection on the topics related to conflict territories and the roles currently played by Cultural Heritage. The recomposition of conflict territories is based on a continuous intercultural approach with important contributions from human rights, genders equality, intercultural dialogue perspectives and the fact of taking heritage as a territorial stabilization factor. The paper presents specific practical cases in the Eastern Mediterranean region where actions on Heritage religious elements collide with the national sovereign of the respective current countries. A comparative study among these different actions proves that the initial clashes can be progressively transformed into strategies able to become the future guideline for the resolution of heritage regional conflicts. These conflicts reflect two discourses: political (with strong links between national identity and religion) and scientific (with a clash between static concept and dynamic vision) where objects interact with the visitors

Sustainable Urban Project. The role of public spaces in adapting cities to the effects of climate change

Contemporary urban planning is nowadays getting involved into thematic related with the slow and unceasing city transformations. This circumstance highlights the need for overcoming the sectoral approach to urban complexity, in favor of a more integrated one. The context to which reference is made is the urban area; the challenge is about the adaptation to the physical, social and economic transformations; the intervention tool to which the contribution refers is that of Urban Project. The authors focus is referred to the urban transformations induced by the effects of climate change, with specific reference to the increasingly frequent floods: highlighting their effects ,in terms of design, on public spaces, and analyzing some good practices that have managed to transform the calamitous event into an urban development engine. The paper proposes a critical reflection on two case studies, “Water Square” in Benthemplein and “Climate tiles” in Copenhagen that represent ways of intervening on public space, at different scale, the first one in the field of urban planning, the latter in the field of Urban Design, complementary approaches for an ecological reconversion of city areas compromised by the effects of climate change

Insightful analysis of historical sources at scales beyond human capabilities using unsupervised Machine Learning and XAI

Historical materials are abundant. Yet, piecing together how human knowledge has evolved and spread both diachronically and synchronically remains a challenge that can so far only be very selectively addressed. The vast volume of materials precludes comprehensive studies, given the restricted number of human specialists. However, as large amounts of historical materials are now available in digital form there is a promising opportunity for AI-assisted historical analysis. In this work, we take a pivotal step towards analyzing vast historical corpora by employing innovative machine learning (ML) techniques, enabling in-depth historical insights on a grand scale. Our study centers on the evolution of knowledge within the `Sacrobosco Collection' -- a digitized collection of 359 early modern printed editions of textbooks on astronomy used at European universities between 1472 and 1650 -- roughly 76,000 pages, many of which contain astronomic, computational tables. An ML based analysis of these tables helps to unveil important facets of the spatio-temporal evolution of knowledge and innovation in the field of mathematical astronomy in the period, as taught at European universities

Consistent Unanticipated Adaptation for Context-Dependent Applications

Unanticipated adaptation allows context-dependent applications to overcome the limitation of foreseen adaptation by incorporating previously unknown behavior. Introducing this concept in language-based approaches leads to inconsistencies as an object can have different views in different contexts. Existing language-based approaches do not address unanticipated adaptation and its associated run-time inconsistencies. We propose an architecture for unanticipated adaptation at run time based on dynamic instance binding crafted in a loosely manner to asynchronously replace adaptable entities that allow for behavioral changes of objects. To solve inconsistencies, we introduce the notion of transactions at the object level. Transactions guard the changing objects during their execution, ensuring consistent views. This allows for disruption-free, safe updates of adaptable entities by means of consistent unanticipated adaptation