Speeding up the combination of multiple descriptors for different boundary conditions

Content-based complex data retrieval is becoming increasingly common in many types of applications. The content of these data is represented by intrinsic characteristics, extracted from them which together with a distance function allows similarity queries. Aimed at reducing the “semantic gap”, characterized by the disagreement between the computational representation of the extracted low-level features and how these data are interpreted by the human perception, the use of multiple descriptors has been the subject of several studies. This paper proposes a new method to carry out the combination of multiple descriptors for different boundary conditions in which the balancing is carried out in pairs, starting by the best candidate descriptor. In the experiments, the proposed method achieved computational cost up to 3650 times smaller than the exhaustive search for the best linear combination of descriptors, keeping almost the same average precision, with variations lower than 0.9%.Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq

Session-based concurrency, declaratively

Session-based concurrency is a type-based approach to the analysis of message-passing programs. These programs may be specified in an operational or declarative style: the former defines how interactions are properly structured; the latter defines governing conditions for correct interactions. In this paper, we study rigorous relationships between operational and declarative models of session-based concurrency. We develop a correct encoding of session 휋-calculus processes into the linear concurrent constraint calculus (횕회회), a declarative model of concurrency based on partial information (constraints). We exploit session types to ensure that our encoding satisfies precise correctness properties and that it offers a sound basis on which operational and declarative requirements can be jointly specified and reasoned about. We demonstrate the applicability of our results by using our encoding in the specification of realistic communication patterns with time and contextual information

Session-based concurrency, declaratively

Session-based concurrency is a type-based approach to the analysis of message-passing programs. These programs may be specified in an operational or declarative style: the former defines how interactions are properly structured; the latter defines governing conditions for correct interaction

Manipulations in Prediction Markets : Analysis of Trading Behaviour not Conforming with Trading Regulations

Fraud and manipulation in prediction markets are systematic results of incentive incompatibility, which, if present, have to be detected and balanced. "Manipulations in Prediction Markets" gives a critical insight into manipulations that are most likely to occur in prediction markets. In a general approach the book discusses the issue of incentives in markets and the breakdown of the incentive system. On this basis a new way of detecting irregular trading behaviour is introduced

Adaptive and Reactive Rich Internet Applications

In this thesis we present the client-side approach of Adaptive and Reactive Rich Internet Applications as the main result of our research into how to bring in time adaptivity to Rich Internet Applications. Our approach leverages previous work on adaptive hypermedia, event processing and other research disciplines. We present a holistic framework covering the design-time as well as the runtime aspects of Adaptive and Reactive Rich Internet Applications focusing especially on the run-time aspects

A systematic approach for detecting faults in agent designs

This thesis proposes a mechanism, including automated tool support, for early-phase defect detection by comparing the plan structures of a belief-desire-intention (BDI) agent design against the following: (1) requirement models, specified in terms of scenarios and goals; and (2) agent communication models. The intuition of our approach is to extract sets of possible behaviour runs from the agent-behaviour models and to verify whether these runs conform to the specifications of the system-to-be. The proposed approach in this thesis is applicable at design time and does not require source code. Our approach is based on the Prometheus agent-design methodology but is applicable to other methodologies that support the same notions. We evaluate the proposed verification framework on designs, ranging from student projects to case studies of industry-level projects. Our evaluation demonstrates that even a simple specification developed by relatively experienced developers is prone to defects, and our approach is successful in uncovering most of these defects. In addition, we conduct a scalability analysis of our methods, and the outcomes reveal that our approach can scale when designs grow in size

Eine Dienstleistungsbeschreibungsmethode für Dienstleistungsökosysteme - Metamodelle, Modellierungsnotationen und Modelltransformationen

Globalization and rapid technological change elevates the role of the Internet in terms of business service offering and procurement. At the same time, companies specialize on core competencies on the one hand, and on the other hand, integrate with other firms into “service ecosystems” in order to serve market needs in a flexible manner. One challenge in this setting is how to develop and describe novel business services within service ecosystems for efficient trade in services over the Internet. This work proposes a method for describing business services that integrates into business service development processes. The development of such a method leads to three major challenges: Firstly, it is necessary to determine which properties are appropriate for describing business services. This work analyzes existing approaches in the marketing, information systems, and computer science domain and develops a model for a formal description that facilitates offering and discovering of business services. Secondly, business service description elicitation, documentation, and communication must be provided for the whole business service development process. This work’s approach includes the development of an appropriate modeling notation as an extension of the Unified Modeling Notation (UML). Thirdly, there is a need for transforming business service descriptions into software realization languages that are suitable for the Internet. This contribution offers an automatic transformation of business service descriptions into Web Services Description Language (WSDL) documents using model-to-model transformation scripts. The method for describing business services was evaluated by implementing an integrated modeling environment along with related transformation scripts as well as by two case studies in the insurance and IT outsourcing industry.Im Rahmen der fortschreitenden Globalisierung und des technischen Wandels spielt das Internet eine immer größere Rolle um Dienstleistungen anzubieten und zu vermitteln. Zur selben Zeit spezialisieren sich Unternehmen zunehmend auf ihre Kernkompetenzen und schließen sich in „Service Ecosystems“ zusammen, um flexibel auf den Markt reagieren zu können. Eine wichtige Fragestellung hierbei ist, wie neue Dienstleistungen innerhalb von Service Ecosystems entwickelt und beschrieben werden können um effizient über das Internet gehandelt zu werden. Hierzu schlägt die vorliegende Arbeit eine Methode zur Beschreibung von Dienstleistungen vor, die sich in Dienstleistungsentwicklungsprozesse integrieren lässt. Die Entwicklung einer solchen Methode führt zu drei Herausforderungen: Erstens muss herausgefunden werden, welche Eigenschaften sich für die Beschreibung von Dienstleistungen eignen. Diese Arbeit untersucht existierende Ansätze im Bereich Marketing, Wirtschaftsinformatik und Angewandte Informatik und erarbeitet ein Modell für eine formale Beschreibung von Dienstleistungen, welches das Anbieten und Finden von Dienstleistungen im Internet vereinfacht. Zweitens muss die Aufnahme, Dokumentation und Kommunikation von Beschreibungen über den gesamten Dienstleistungsentwicklungsprozess gewährleistet werden. Der in der Arbeit verfolgte Ansatz ist die Entwicklung einer geeigneten Modellierungsnotation als Erweiterung der Unified Modeling Language (UML). Drittens bedarf es einer Überführung der konzeptionellen Beschreibung für Dienstleistungen in Softwarerealisierungssprachen, die im Internet Anwendung finden. Der Beitrag dieser Arbeit umfasst die automatische Überführung der Dienstleistungsbeschreibung in ein Web Service Description Language (WSDL) Dokument mittels Modell-zu-Modell Transformationen. Die Methode zur Beschreibungen von Dienstleistungen wurde einerseits durch Implementierung einer integrierten Modellierungsumgebung und zugehöriger Transformationsskripte und andererseits durch zwei Fallstudien in der Versicherungs- und IT Outsourcing Branche in der Praxis evaluiert