Granule-based knowledge representation for intra and inter transaction association mining

Abstract With the phenomenal growth of electronic data and information, there are many demands for the development of efficient and effective systems (tools) to perform the issue of data mining tasks on multidimensional databases. Association rules describe associations between items in the same transactions (intra) or in different transactions (inter). Association mining attempts to find interesting or useful association rules in databases: this is the crucial issue for the application of data mining in the real world. Association mining can be used in many application areas, such as the discovery of associations between customers’ locations and shopping behaviours in market basket analysis. Association mining includes two phases. The first phase, called pattern mining, is the discovery of frequent patterns. The second phase, called rule generation, is the discovery of interesting and useful association rules in the discovered patterns. The first phase, however, often takes a long time to find all frequent patterns; these also include much noise. The second phase is also a time consuming activity that can generate many redundant rules. To improve the quality of association mining in databases, this thesis provides an alternative technique, granule-based association mining, for knowledge discovery in databases, where a granule refers to a predicate that describes common features of a group of transactions. The new technique first transfers transaction databases into basic decision tables, then uses multi-tier structures to integrate pattern mining and rule generation in one phase for both intra and inter transaction association rule mining. To evaluate the proposed new technique, this research defines the concept of meaningless rules by considering the co-relations between data-dimensions for intratransaction-association rule mining. It also uses precision to evaluate the effectiveness of intertransaction association rules. The experimental results show that the proposed technique is promising.

Toward the adaptive generation of bespoke game content

In this chapter, we explore methods for automatically generating game content—and games themselves—adapted to individual players in order to improve their playing experience or achieve a desired effect. This goes beyond notions of mere replayability and involves modeling player needs to maximize their enjoyment, involvement, and interest in the game being played. We identify three main aspects of this process: generation of new content and rule sets, measurement of this content and the player, and adaptation of the game to change player experience. This process forms a feedback loop of constant refinement, as games are continually improved while being played. Framed within this methodology, we present an overview of our recent and ongoing research in this area. This is illustrated by a number of case studies that demonstrate these ideas in action over a variety of game types, including 3D action games, arcade games, platformers, board games, puzzles, and open-world games. We draw together some of the lessons learned from these projects to comment on the difficulties, the benefits, and the potential for personalized gaming via adaptive game design.

Evolutions of an Online Generation: Education, Industry and IMC

This paper traces the evolutions of a new generation of students who are predominantly the ‘online generation’; explores the emerging impact of this generation on industry; identifies the changing role of education from traditional classroom to an online environment; and explores the contribution related to integrated marketing communications (IMC). Educational requirements from a business perspective must incorporate global business demands; virtual learning environments progress the online generation towards a post-modern learning state. The central proposition of this paper is that the emergence of IMC in evolving industry practices is influenced by student generations who are producing a new paradigm of alignment between education and industry. This is purely a conceptual exploration using limited examples to provide some context and illustrate the questions raised for consideration.

The generation of virtual prototypes for performance optimization

I am suspicious of tools without a purpose - tools that are not developed in response to a clearly defined problem. Of course tools without a purpose can still be useful. However the development of first generation CAD was seriously impeded because the solution came before the problem. We are in danger of repeating this mistake if we do not clarify the nature of the problem that we are trying to solve with the next generation of tools. Back in the 1980s I used to add a postscript slide at the end of CAD conference presentations and the applause would invariably turn to concern. The slide simple asked: can anyone remember what it was about design that needed aiding before we had computer aided design?