40,288 research outputs found
Comparing Segmentation by Time and by Motion in Visual Search: An fMRI Investigation
Abstract
Brain activity was recorded while participants engaged in a difficult visual search task for a target defined by the spatial configuration of its component elements. The search displays were segmented by time (a preview then a search display), by motion, or were unsegmented. A preparatory network showed activity to the preview display, in the time but not in the motion segmentation condition. A region of the precuneus showed (i) higher activation when displays were segmented by time or by motion, and (ii) correlated activity with larger segmentation benefits behaviorally, regardless of the cue. Additionally, the results revealed that success in temporal segmentation was correlated with reduced activation in early visual areas, including V1. The results depict partially overlapping brain networks for segmentation in search by time and motion, with both cue-independent and cue-specific mechanisms.</jats:p
Using food-web theory to conserve ecosystems
© 2016, Nature Publishing Group. All rights reserved.Food-web theory can be a powerful guide to the management of complex ecosystems. However, we show that indices of species importance common in food-web and network theory can be a poor guide to ecosystem management, resulting in significantly more extinctions than necessary. We use Bayesian Networks and Constrained Combinatorial Optimization to find optimal management strategies for a wide range of real and hypothetical food webs. This Artificial Intelligence approach provides the ability to test the performance of any index for prioritizing species management in a network. While no single network theory index provides an appropriate guide to management for all food webs, a modified version of the Google PageRank algorithm reliably minimizes the chance and severity of negative outcomes. Our analysis shows that by prioritizing ecosystem management based on the network-wide impact of species protection rather than species loss, we can substantially improve conservation outcomes
Using Automatic Static Analysis to Identify Technical Debt
The technical debt (TD) metaphor describes a tradeoff between short-term and long-term goals in software development. Developers, in such situations, accept compromises in one dimension (e.g. maintainability) to meet an urgent demand in another dimension (e.g. delivering a release on time). Since TD produces interests in terms of time spent to correct the code and accomplish quality goals, accumulation of TD in software systems is dangerous because it could lead to more difficult and expensive maintenance. The research presented in this paper is focused on the usage of automatic static analysis to identify Technical Debt at code level with respect to different quality dimensions. The methodological approach is that of Empirical Software Engineering and both past and current achieved results are presented, focusing on functionality, efficiency and maintainabilit
Investigative Simulation: Towards Utilizing Graph Pattern Matching for Investigative Search
This paper proposes the use of graph pattern matching for investigative graph
search, which is the process of searching for and prioritizing persons of
interest who may exhibit part or all of a pattern of suspicious behaviors or
connections. While there are a variety of applications, our principal
motivation is to aid law enforcement in the detection of homegrown violent
extremists. We introduce investigative simulation, which consists of several
necessary extensions to the existing dual simulation graph pattern matching
scheme in order to make it appropriate for intelligence analysts and law
enforcement officials. Specifically, we impose a categorical label structure on
nodes consistent with the nature of indicators in investigations, as well as
prune or complete search results to ensure sensibility and usefulness of
partial matches to analysts. Lastly, we introduce a natural top-k ranking
scheme that can help analysts prioritize investigative efforts. We demonstrate
performance of investigative simulation on a real-world large dataset.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures. Paper to appear in the Fosint-SI 2016 conference
proceedings in conjunction with the 2016 IEEE/ACM International Conference on
Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining ASONAM 201
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