278,220 research outputs found
Route Planning in Transportation Networks
We survey recent advances in algorithms for route planning in transportation
networks. For road networks, we show that one can compute driving directions in
milliseconds or less even at continental scale. A variety of techniques provide
different trade-offs between preprocessing effort, space requirements, and
query time. Some algorithms can answer queries in a fraction of a microsecond,
while others can deal efficiently with real-time traffic. Journey planning on
public transportation systems, although conceptually similar, is a
significantly harder problem due to its inherent time-dependent and
multicriteria nature. Although exact algorithms are fast enough for interactive
queries on metropolitan transit systems, dealing with continent-sized instances
requires simplifications or heavy preprocessing. The multimodal route planning
problem, which seeks journeys combining schedule-based transportation (buses,
trains) with unrestricted modes (walking, driving), is even harder, relying on
approximate solutions even for metropolitan inputs.Comment: This is an updated version of the technical report MSR-TR-2014-4,
previously published by Microsoft Research. This work was mostly done while
the authors Daniel Delling, Andrew Goldberg, and Renato F. Werneck were at
Microsoft Research Silicon Valle
Differences in intention to use educational RSS feeds between Lebanese and British students: A multi‑group analysis based on the technology acceptance model
Really Simple Syndication (RSS) offers a means for university students to receive timely updates from virtual learning environments. However, despite its utility, only 21% of home students surveyed at a university in Lebanon claim to have ever used the technology. To investigate whether national culture could be an influence on intention to use RSS, the survey was extended to British students in the UK. Using the Technology Adoption Model (TAM) as a research framework, 437 students responded to a questionnaire containing four constructs: behavioral intention to use; attitude towards benefit; perceived usefulness; and perceived ease of use. Principle components analysis and structural equation modelling were used to explore the psychometric qualities and utility of TAM in both contexts. The results show that adoption was significantly higher, but also modest, in the British context at 36%. Configural and metric invariance were fully supported, while scalar and factorial invariance were partially supported. Further analysis shows significant differences between perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use across the two contexts studied. Therefore, it is recommended that faculty demonstrate to students how educational RSS feeds can be used effectively to increase awareness and emphasize usefulness in both contexts
Practical applications of probabilistic model checking to communication protocols
Probabilistic model checking is a formal verification technique for the analysis of systems that exhibit stochastic behaviour. It has been successfully employed in an extremely wide array of application domains including, for example, communication and multimedia protocols, security and power management. In this chapter we focus on the applicability of these techniques to the analysis of communication protocols. An analysis of the performance of such systems must successfully incorporate several crucial aspects, including concurrency between multiple components, real-time constraints and randomisation. Probabilistic model checking, in particular using probabilistic timed automata, is well suited to such an analysis. We provide an overview of this area, with emphasis on an industrially relevant case study: the IEEE 802.3 (CSMA/CD) protocol. We also discuss two contrasting approaches to the implementation of probabilistic model checking, namely those based on numerical computation and those based on discrete-event simulation. Using results from the two tools PRISM and APMC, we summarise the advantages, disadvantages and trade-offs associated with these techniques
A Survey on Continuous Time Computations
We provide an overview of theories of continuous time computation. These
theories allow us to understand both the hardness of questions related to
continuous time dynamical systems and the computational power of continuous
time analog models. We survey the existing models, summarizing results, and
point to relevant references in the literature
A guided tour of asynchronous cellular automata
Research on asynchronous cellular automata has received a great amount of
attention these last years and has turned to a thriving field. We survey the
recent research that has been carried out on this topic and present a wide
state of the art where computing and modelling issues are both represented.Comment: To appear in the Journal of Cellular Automat
Smart Geographic object: Toward a new understanding of GIS Technology in Ubiquitous Computing
One of the fundamental aspects of ubiquitous computing is the instrumentation
of the real world by smart devices. This instrumentation constitutes an
opportunity to rethink the interactions between human beings and their
environment on the one hand, and between the components of this environment on
the other. In this paper we discuss what this understanding of ubiquitous
computing can bring to geographic science and particularly to GIS technology.
Our main idea is the instrumentation of the geographic environment through the
instrumentation of geographic objects composing it. And then investigate how
this instrumentation can meet the current limitations of GIS technology, and
offers a new stage of rapprochement between the earth and its abstraction. As
result, the current research work proposes a new concept we named Smart
Geographic Object SGO. The latter is a convergence point between the smart
objects and geographic objects, two concepts appertaining respectively to
Quadtrees as an Abstract Domain
Quadtrees have proved popular in computer graphics and spatial databases as a way of representing regions in two dimensional space. This hierarchical data-structure is flexible enough to support non-convex and even disconnected regions, therefore it is natural to ask whether this datastructure can form the basis of an abstract domain. This paper explores this question and suggests that quadtrees offer a new approach to weakly relational domains whilst their hierarchical structure naturally lends itself to representation with boolean functions
Verification of Timed Automata Using Rewrite Rules and Strategies
ELAN is a powerful language and environment for specifying and prototyping
deduction systems in a language based on rewrite rules controlled by
strategies. Timed automata is a class of continuous real-time models of
reactive systems for which efficient model-checking algorithms have been
devised. In this paper, we show that these algorithms can very easily be
prototyped in the ELAN system. This paper argues through this example that
rewriting based systems relying on rules and strategies are a good framework to
prototype, study and test rather efficiently symbolic model-checking
algorithms, i.e. algorithms which involve combination of graph exploration
rules, deduction rules, constraint solving techniques and decision procedures
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