Where is evolutionary computation going? A temporal analysis of the EC community

Studying an evolving complex system and drawing some conclusions from it is an integral part of nature-inspired computing; being a part of that complex system, some insight can also be gained from our knowledge of it. In this paper we study the evolution of the evolutionary computation co-authorship network using social network analysis tools, with the aim of extracting some conclusions on its mechanisms. In order to do this, we first examine the evolution of macroscopic properties of the EC co-authorship graph, and then we look at its community structure and its corresponding change along time. The EC network is shown to be in a strongly expansive phase, exhibiting distinctive growth patterns, both at the macroscopic and the mesoscopic level.

Ignorance is bliss? An empirical analysis of the determinants of PSS usefulness in practice

Planning support systems (PSS) enabled by smart city technologies (big data and information and communication technologies (ICTs)) are becoming more widespread in their availability, but have not yet been fully recognized as being useful in planning practice. Thus, a better understanding of the determinants of PSS usefulness in practice helps to improve the functional support of PSS for smart cities. This study is based on a recent international questionnaire (268 respondents) designed to evaluate the perceptions of scholars and practitioners in the smart city planning field. Based on the empirical evidence, this paper recommends that it is imperative for PSS developers and users to be more responsive to the fit for task-technology and user-technology (i.e., utility and usability, respectively) since they positively contribute to PSS usefulness in practice and to be more sensitive to the potential negative effects of contextual factors on PSS usefulness in smart cities. The empirical analyses further suggest that rather than merely striving for integrating smart city technologies into advancing PSS, the way that innovative PSS are integrated into the planning framework (i.e., how well PSS can satisfy the needs of planning tasks and users by considering context-specificities) is of great significance in promoting PSS's actual usefulness.     

On the combination of logical and probabilistic models for?information analysis

Formal logical tools are able to provide some amount of reasoning support for information analysis, but are unable to represent uncertainty. Bayesian network tools represent probabilistic and causal information, but in the worst case scale as poorly as some formal logical systems and require specialized expertise to use effectively. We describe a framework for systems that incorporate the advantages of both Bayesian and logical systems. We define a formalism for the conversion of automatically generated natural deduction proof trees into Bayesian networks. We then demonstrate that the merging of such networks with domain-specific causal models forms a consistent Bayesian network with correct values for the formulas derived in the proof. In particular, we show that hard evidential updates in which the premises of a proof are found to be true force the conclusions of the proof to be true with probability one, regardless of any dependencies and prior probability values assumed for the causal model. We provide several examples that demonstrate the generality of the natural deduction system by using inference schemes not supportable directly in Horn clause logic. We compare our approach to other ones, including some that use non-standard logics.     

Statistical methods for analysis of Parkinson’s disease gait pattern and classification

Multimedia Tools and Applications - Understanding the human gait and extracting intrinsic feature helps to classify walking patterns of Parkinson disease patients. The measurement of time series...     

What is the relation between slow feature analysis and independent component analysis?

We present an analytical comparison between linear slow feature analysis and second-order independent component analysis, and show that in the case of one time delay, the two approaches are equivalent. We also consider the case of several time delays and discuss two possible extensions of slow feature analysis.     

Teaching science for the workplace? An analysis of Canadian science curriculum documents

Abstract

This article reports on the analysis of 108 science curriculum documents from the 13 Canadian provinces and territories exploring the explicit links that the science curriculum makes with the world of work. The document analysis was undertaken to examine the extent to which the contemporary Canadian provincial and territorial science curriculum documents represent objectives and goals that relate to science in the workplace. Because Canadian curriculum documents are reviewed periodically, the research was timed so that it captured the moment at which a significant number of these policy documents had been revised and released: December 2004. The article begins with a review of the nature of the knowledge or New Economy. Then previous document analysis research on science curriculum policy is discussed. The present study's findings suggest that curriculum policy makers are generally inattentive to the world of work and, in particular, to the demands of the New Economy. Implications of the research include the need to review the purposes of science education in Canada. Questions we might ask include, ‘To what extent might school science attempt to bridge the worlds of school and work?’ and ‘How might the bridge be built to this large part of life after school?’     

Who are the users? Who are the developers? Webs of users and developers in the development process of a technical standard

The paper presents an empirical study of user involvement in developing a technical standard for a scientific community's information system project. The case illustrates how multiple perspectives are involved when considering the user role in practice. The case presents a situation where both developers and users were pre‐defined in the design and development phases of the standard as homogeneous groups of actors. Groups of actors changed to become more heterogeneous and ‘fluid’ in the deployment and implementation phases, thus forming ‘webs of developers’ and ‘webs of users’. Detailed analysis of the process in its entirety shows the blurredness of boundaries between ‘developer’ and ‘user’ categories and roles, and reveals challenges at social and organizational levels. Three models pertaining to the system development process are presented in order to illuminate differing perspectives on the user and on the development process itself. The paper draws theoretically from information systems, social informatics, and science and technology studies. The research contributes to a deeper, interdisciplinary understanding of ‘the’ user, of multiple roles in systems development, and of dynamic sets of user–developer relations.     

What is the Right R&D Strategy for Overcoming the Difficulties of the South Korean IT Industry?

This study proposes new strategies for the information technology (IT) industry in South Korea, provides objectives for the South Korean IT industry and articulates the roles of the Korean government agencies, companies and users. Specifically, it covers South Korean IT strategies employed during several periods, including a stagnant period and a more recent period reflecting new successful IT environments of developed countries. South Korean IT companies should recognize the importance of user interface and user experience technologies as a next key global IT industry trend. Raising this awareness is critical in increasing the global competitiveness of the Korean IT industry. Furthermore, South Korean government agencies should take more active role in constructing and improving interactive environments that would benefit both companies and users. For future research, it is imperative to investigate the specific roles of companies, users and government agencies with respect to IT usage.     

Learning the harmonic analysis: is visualization an effective approach?

Multimedia Tools and Applications - Understanding the structure of music compositions requires an ability built over time, through the study of the music theory and the application of countless...     

What is the role of IT in innovation? A bibliometric analysis of research development in IT innovation

With the wide diffusion of information technology (IT) in our daily life and work, it is clear that product innovation and service innovation have more and more connection with IT, and IT has become an important tool or component in innovation. The purpose of this paper is to provide insights into future studies pertaining to this area by investigating the research development of IT innovation using bibliometric analysis. The status of IT innovation study is analysed through citation analysis with the help of CiteSpace. Influential references, hot topics, top-tier journals and important institutes are all detected, and the intellectual structure of recent studies is also mapped in this study, and we find that research on IT innovation is mainly from two directions, innovation study group and information systems study group. Finally, we follow the logic of Nambisan [2013. “Information Technology and Product/Service Innovation: A Brief Assessment and Some Suggestions for Future Research.” Journal of the Association for Information Systems 14 (4): 215–226] to explore the relationship between IT and innovation through reviewing papers in the top journals in this field. We find that most studies treat IT as an enabler of innovation. Although some recent studies try to pay attention to the role of IT as a trigger for innovation and give some rationale for the IT–innovation relationship, further studies are still required to uncover the trigger effect mechanism.     

Waht is the ultimate form of communication?

This article addresses the issue of ideal communication and the way to achieve it. First, it is proposed that the technological trend of moving from logical to ideal communication is similar to a journey on the path to find the original self and spiritual enlightenment. Then it is stated that new media, which have interaction capabilities and can realize immersion, may be the means to achieve ideal communication. It is also pointed out, by referring to phenomena in Zen, that there is a danger of developing imperfect communication on the way to achieving ideal communication. This work was presented in part at the Sixth International Symposium on artificial Life and Robotics, Tokyo, January 15–17, 2001.     

What is the academic efficacy of podcasting?

Podcasting may be an answer to some of the challenges to higher education to modernize, to open up, and to develop a competitive edge. However, over the years there have been many high claims for new technology, and not all of them have been redeemed. In terms of academic performance, it may therefore be asked if podcasting really is worth the investment? Looking for at least a tentative answer, the present paper reviews an extensive body of scholarly literature published 2004–2009 on experiences with podcasting in higher education.     

Explainable AI for domain experts: a post Hoc analysis of deep learning for defect classification of TFT–LCD panels

Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing - The deep learning (DL) model has performed successfully in various fields, including manufacturing. DL models for defect image data analysis in the...     

When is the discretization of a spatially distributed system good enough for control?

This paper describes a new and straightforward method for controlling spatially distributed plants based on low-order models obtained from spatial discretization techniques. A suitable level of discretization is determined by computing the sequence of ν-gaps between weighted models of successively finer spatial resolution, and bounding this by another sequence with an analytic series. It is proved that such a series forms an upper bound on the ν-gap between a weighted model in the initial sequence and the spatially distributed weighted plant. This enables the synthesis, on low-order models, of robust controllers that are guaranteed to stabilize the actual plant, a feature not shared by most model reduction methods where the gap between the high-order model and plant is often not known, and where the gap between high-order and reduced models may be too expensive to compute. Since the calculation of the current bound is based on weighted models of small state-dimension, the new method avoids the numerical problems inherent in large-scale model reduction based approaches. The ideas presented in this paper are demonstrated on a disturbance rejection problem for a 1D heat equation.     

Multiclass classification of Parkinson’s disease using cepstral analysis

This paper addressees the problem of an early diagnosis of PD (Parkinson’s disease) by the classification of characteristic features of person’s voice knowing that 90% of the people with PD suffer from speech disorders. We collected 375 voice samples from healthy and people suffer from PD. We extracted from each voice sample features using the MFCC and PLP Cepstral techniques. All the features are analyzed and selected by feature selection algorithms to classify the subjects in 4 classes according to UPDRS (unified Parkinson’s disease Rating Scale) score. The advantage of our approach is the resulting and the simplicity of the technique used, so it could also extended for other voice pathologies. We used as classifier the discriminant analysis for the results obtained in previous multiclass classification works. We obtained accuracy up to 87.6% for discrimination between PD patients in 3 different stages and healthy control using MFCC along with the LLBFS algorithm.     

Who is sleepier on the night shift? The influence of bio-psycho-social factors on subjective sleepiness of female nurses during the night shift

Sleepiness is a common complaint during the night shift and may impair performance. The current study aims to identify bio-psycho-social factors associated with subjective sleepiness during the night shift. Ninety-two female nurses working rotating shifts completed a sociodemographic questionnaire, the Munich ChronoType Questionaire for shift workers, the Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index, and the Pre-sleep Arousal Scale. Subjective sleepiness was measured hourly during two night shifts using the Karolinska Sleepiness Scale, and activity monitors assessed sleep duration 24-h before each shift. Findings showed that increased sleepiness was associated with increased age in nurses with early chronotypes and with more children. High cognitive pre-sleep arousal, but not sleep, was associated with increased sleepiness, especially in late chronotypes. The impact of bio-psycho-social factors on night shift sleepiness is complex, and depends on mutual interactions between these factors. Nurses most prone to increased sleepiness must develop personal strategies for maintaining vigilance on the night shift.

Practitioner Summary: This study aims to identify bio-psycho-social factors associated with subjective sleepiness of female nurses during the night shift. Increasing sleepiness was associated with increased age in nurses with early chronotypes and with more children. Increased cognitive pre-sleep arousal, but not sleep, was associated with increased sleepiness, especially in late chronotypes.