Analyzing Multiple Product Development Projects Based On Information and Resource Constraints

Product development (PD) and engineering design processes are often characterized by the information flowing among activities. In PD, this flow forms a complex activity weba process that can be viewed as a complex system. Most literature on the subject of information flow in PD focuses on a single project, where precedence information constraints (based solely on necessary information and possible assumptions) determine the execution sequence for the activities and the resultant project lead-time. In this paper, we consider multiple PD projects that share a common set of design resources. Especially in this setting, precedence information availability is insufficient to assure that activities will execute on time. We extend the information flow modeling literature by including resource availability. We model several PD projects as a portfolio, where activity execution is based on both information and resource availability. We demonstrate the effects of accounting for resource constraints on both individual projects and portfolio lead-time distributions

Estimation de la demande domestique d’eau potable en Algerie

La littérature économique sur le secteur algérien de l’eau est très mince, voire inexistante, en particulier sur l’estimation de la demande en eau potable des ménages. Cette contribution vise précisément à combler un tant soi peu ce déficit. Elle a pour objet une tentative d’estimation d’une fonction de demande d’eau potable pour les communes algériennes. Cet exercice s’inscrit dans le cadre d’un système de tarification par tranches progressives. Sur le plan méthodologique, l’exercice se déroule en deux étapes. Dans une première étape, prenant appui sur les travaux de Nordin (1976), de Corral et al. (1998), de Martinez-Espiñeira (2003) et de Diakite et Thomas (2009), nous proposons une méthode d’approximation des proportions d’usagers dans chaque tranche de consommation permettant une modélisation ainsi qu’une estimation du choix des blocs opéré par les usagers. Ceci nous permettra, dans une deuxième étape, de procéder à l’estimation de la fonction de demande proprement dite. Des variables techniques et des données sur les produits chimiques ont en conséquence été introduites dans la fonction de demande, en plus des données portant sur la consommation et sur le prix de l’eau. Les méthodes économétriques appliquées sont des méthodes spécifiques de traitement de données de panel permettant d’éviter tout biais dans l’estimation des coefficients. L’estimation fait apparaître des élasticités-prix et revenu via l’élasticité de la variable désormais connue dans la littérature sous le nom de «différence» significatives, évaluées respectivement à -0,37 et - 0,05. Ces coefficients sont utilisés pour simuler l’impact de réformes tarifaires et leur impact sur le bien être des usagers.Mots clés: Ressources en eau potable, Fonction de demande domestique, Prix moyen, Fréquence et plages horaires de distribution, Méthodes spécifiques de traitement de données de pane

Deep Transfer Learning Applications in Intrusion Detection Systems: A Comprehensive Review

Globally, the external Internet is increasingly being connected to the contemporary industrial control system. As a result, there is an immediate need to protect the network from several threats. The key infrastructure of industrial activity may be protected from harm by using an intrusion detection system (IDS), a preventive measure mechanism, to recognize new kinds of dangerous threats and hostile activities. The most recent artificial intelligence (AI) techniques used to create IDS in many kinds of industrial control networks are examined in this study, with a particular emphasis on IDS-based deep transfer learning (DTL). This latter can be seen as a type of information fusion that merge, and/or adapt knowledge from multiple domains to enhance the performance of the target task, particularly when the labeled data in the target domain is scarce. Publications issued after 2015 were taken into account. These selected publications were divided into three categories: DTL-only and IDS-only are involved in the introduction and background, and DTL-based IDS papers are involved in the core papers of this review. Researchers will be able to have a better grasp of the current state of DTL approaches used in IDS in many different types of networks by reading this review paper. Other useful information, such as the datasets used, the sort of DTL employed, the pre-trained network, IDS techniques, the evaluation metrics including accuracy/F-score and false alarm rate (FAR), and the improvement gained, were also covered. The algorithms, and methods used in several studies, or illustrate deeply and clearly the principle in any DTL-based IDS subcategory are presented to the reader

Evaluation economique des performances des services d’eau potable Algeriens

En Algérie, le recours à des entreprises spécialisées dans la production et la distribution d’eau potable implique  la nécessité de disposer d’évaluations du coût de ces activités. Cet article propose une étude micro-économétrique de la fonction de coût de l’alimentation en eau potable sur des données de panel, avec pour  objectif d’évaluer les performances des services d’eau potable algériens. Nous prenons en compte les différentes caractéristiques d’une industrie en réseau et notamment la fréquence de distribution d’AEP.  L’estimation de la fonction de coût de production d’eau permet d’évaluer d’une part, le coût marginal de production et d’autre part, les différentes mesures de rendements (élasticités, économies de densité de  production, économies d’échelle, économies d’envergure etc.), afin d’apporter des indications utiles sur la performance des réseaux de production et de distribution d’eau potable en Algérie.MOTS-CLES: Ressources en eau potable, données de panel, fonction de coût de production, fréquence et plages horaires de distribution

Assessment of Rework Probabilities for Simulating Product Development Processes Using the Design Structure Matrix (DSM)

This paper uses the Design Structure Matrix (DSM) to model and simulate the performance of development processes. Though the simulation is a powerful tool for analyzing process performance, its ability is limited by the quality of input information used in the analysis. DSM simulation requires process data that is hard to assess or estimate directly from development participants. In this paper, we propose a methodology that allows a more practical estimation of an important simulation parameter: rework probabilities. Furthermore, we show how does this assessment method (combined with simulation) allow managers to evaluate process improvement plans based on two resulting process measures: reliability and robustness. The method is illustrated with a real application from the automotive industry

The complementary roles of non-verbal cues for Robust Pronunciation Assessment

Research on pronunciation assessment systems focuses on utilizing phonetic and phonological aspects of non-native (L2) speech, often neglecting the rich layer of information hidden within the non-verbal cues. In this study, we proposed a novel pronunciation assessment framework, IntraVerbalPA. % The framework innovatively incorporates both fine-grained frame- and abstract utterance-level non-verbal cues, alongside the conventional speech and phoneme representations. Additionally, we introduce ''Goodness of phonemic-duration'' metric to effectively model duration distribution within the framework. Our results validate the effectiveness of the proposed IntraVerbalPA framework and its individual components, yielding performance that either matches or outperforms existing research works.Comment: 5 pages, submitted to ICASSP 202

Automatic Pronunciation Assessment -- A Review

Pronunciation assessment and its application in computer-aided pronunciation training (CAPT) have seen impressive progress in recent years. With the rapid growth in language processing and deep learning over the past few years, there is a need for an updated review. In this paper, we review methods employed in pronunciation assessment for both phonemic and prosodic. We categorize the main challenges observed in prominent research trends, and highlight existing limitations, and available resources. This is followed by a discussion of the remaining challenges and possible directions for future work.Comment: 9 pages, accepted to EMNLP Finding

Multi-View Multi-Task Representation Learning for Mispronunciation Detection

The disparity in phonology between learner's native (L1) and target (L2) language poses a significant challenge for mispronunciation detection and diagnosis (MDD) systems. This challenge is further intensified by lack of annotated L2 data. This paper proposes a novel MDD architecture that exploits multiple `views' of the same input data assisted by auxiliary tasks to learn more distinctive phonetic representation in a low-resource setting. Using the mono- and multilingual encoders, the model learn multiple views of the input, and capture the sound properties across diverse languages and accents. These encoded representations are further enriched by learning articulatory features in a multi-task setup. Our reported results using the L2-ARCTIC data outperformed the SOTA models, with a phoneme error rate reduction of 11.13% and 8.60% and absolute F1 score increase of 5.89%, and 2.49% compared to the single-view mono- and multilingual systems, with a limited L2 dataset.Comment: 5 page