Social network analysis of an online dating network

Online social networks can be found everywhere from chatting websites like MSN, blogs such as MySpace to social media such as YouTube and second life. Among them, there is one interesting type of online social networks, online dating network that is growing fast. This paper analyzes an online dating network from social network analysis point of view. Observations are made and results are obtained in order to suggest a better recommendation system for people-to-people networks.

Loop closure detection on a suburban road network using a continuous appearance-based trajectory

This paper presents a novel technique for performing SLAM along a continuous trajectory of appearance. Derived from components of FastSLAM and FAB-MAP, the new system dubbed Continuous Appearance-based Trajectory SLAM (CAT-SLAM) augments appearancebased place recognition with particle-filter based ‘pose filtering’ within a probabilistic framework, without calculating global feature geometry or performing 3D map construction. For loop closure detection CAT-SLAM updates in constant time regardless of map size. We evaluate the effectiveness of CAT-SLAM on a 16km outdoor road network and determine its loop closure performance relative to FAB-MAP. CAT-SLAM recognizes 3 times the number of loop closures for the case where no false positives occur, demonstrating its potential use for robust loop closure detection in large environments.

Leveraging the network information for evaluating answer quality in a collaborative question answering portal

Collaborative question answering (cQA) portals such as Yahoo! Answers allow users as askers or answer authors to communicate, and exchange information through the asking and answering of questions in the network. In their current set-up, answers to a question are arranged in chronological order. For effective information retrieval, it will be advantageous to have the users’ answers ranked according to their quality. This paper proposes a novel approach of evaluating and ranking the users’answers and recommending the top-n quality answers to information seekers. The proposed approach is based on a user-reputation method which assigns a score to an answer reflecting its answer author’s reputation level in the network. The proposed approach is evaluated on a dataset collected from a live cQA, namely, Yahoo! Answers. To compare the results obtained by the non-content-based user-reputation method, experiments were also conducted with several content-based methods that assign a score to an answer reflecting its content quality. Various combinations of non-content and content-based scores were also used in comparing results. Empirical analysis shows that the proposed method is able to rank the users’ answers and recommend the top-n answers with good accuracy. Results of the proposed method outperform the content-based methods, various combinations, and the results obtained by the popular link analysis method, HITS.

Tunable decoupling and matching network for diversity enhancement of closely spaced antennas

A tunable decoupling and matching network (DMN) for a closely spaced two-element antenna array is presented. The DMN achieves perfect matching for the eigenmodes of the array and thus simultaneously isolates and matches the system ports while keeping the circuit small. Arrays of closely spaced wire and microstrip monopole pairs are used to demonstrate the proposed DMN. It is found that monopoles with different lengths can be used for the design frequency by using this DMN, which increases the design flexibility. This property also enables frequency tuning using the DMN only without having to change the length of the antennas. The proposed DMN uses only one varactor to achieve a tuning range of 18.8% with both return loss and isolation better than 10-dB when the spacing between the antenna is 0.05λ. When the spacing increases to 0.1λ, the simulated tuning range is more than 60%.

Service delivery framework : an architectural strategy for next-generation service delivery in business network

The next-generation of service-oriented architecture (SOA) needs to scale for flexible service consumption, beyond organizational and application boundaries, into communities, ecosystems and business networks. In wider and, ultimately, global settings, new capabilities are needed so that business partners can efficiently and reliably enable, adapt and expose services. Those services can then be discovered, ordered, consumed, metered and paid for, through new applications and opportunities, driven by third-parties in the global “village”. This trend is already underway, in different ways, through different early adopter market segments. This paper proposes an architectural strategy for the provisioning and delivery of services in communities, ecosystems and business networks – a Service Delivery Framework (SDF). The SDF is intended to support multiple industries and deployments where a SOA platform is needed for collaborating partners and diverse consumers. Specifically, it is envisaged that the SDF allows providers to publish their services into network directories so that they can be repurposed, traded and consumed, and leveraging network utilities like B2B gateways and cloud hosting. To support these different facets of service delivery, the SDF extends the conventional service provider, service broker and service consumer of the Web Services Architecture to include service gateway, service hoster, service aggregator and service channel maker.

Dual-band Decoupling and Matching Network Design for very Closely Spaced Antennas

A practical method for the design of dual-band decoupling and matching networks (DMN) for two closely spaced antennas using discrete components is presented. The DMN reduces the port-to-port coupling and enhances the diversity of the antennas. By applying the DMN, the radiation efficiency can also be improved when one port is fed and the other port is match terminated. The proposed DMN works at two frequencies simultaneously without the need for any switch. As a proof of concept, a dual-band DMN for a pair of monopoles spaced 0.05λ apart is designed. The measured return loss and port isolation exceed 10 dB from 1.71 GHz to 1.76 GHz and from 2.27 GHz to 2.32 GHz.

Direct evaluation of IEC 61850-9-2 process bus network performance

This letter presents a technique to assess the overall network performance of sampled value process buses based on IEC 61850-9-2 using measurements from a single location in the network. The method is based upon the use of Ethernet cards with externally synchronized time stamping, and characteristics of the process bus protocol. The application and utility of the method is demonstrated by measuring latency introduced by Ethernet switches. Network latency can be measured from a single set of captures, rather than comparing source and destination captures. Absolute latency measures will greatly assist the design testing, commissioning and maintenance of these critical data networks.

Evolutionary placement of continuously operating reference stations of network Real-Time Kinematic

Network RTK (Real-Time Kinematic) is a technology that is based on GPS (Global Positioning System) or more generally on GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) observations to achieve centimeter-level accuracy positioning in real time. It is enabled by a network of Continuously Operating Reference Stations (CORS). CORS placement is an important problem in the design of network RTK as it directly affects not only the installation and running costs of the network RTK, but also the Quality of Service (QoS) provided by the network RTK. In our preliminary research on the CORS placement, we proposed a polynomial heuristic algorithm for a so-called location-based CORS placement problem. From a computational point of view, the location-based CORS placement is a largescale combinatorial optimization problem. Thus, although the heuristic algorithm is efficient in computation time it may not be able to find an optimal or near optimal solution. Aiming at improving the quality of solutions, this paper proposes a repairing genetic algorithm (RGA) for the location-based CORS placement problem. The RGA has been implemented and compared to the heuristic algorithm by experiments. Experimental results have shown that the RGA produces better quality of solutions than the heuristic algorithm.

Granule mining and its application for network traffic characterization

Decision table and decision rules play an important role in rough set based data analysis, which compress databases into granules and describe the associations between granules. Granule mining was also proposed to interpret decision rules in terms of association rules and multi-tier structure. In this paper, we further extend granule mining to describe the relationships between granules not only by traditional support and confidence, but by diversity and condition diversity as well. Diversity measures how diverse of a granule associated with the other ganules, it provides a kind of novel knowledge in databases. Some experiments are conducted to test the proposed new concepts for describing the characteristics of a real network traffic data collection. The results show that the proposed concepts are promising.

Neural network-based detection of virtual environment anomalies

The increasingly widespread use of large-scale 3D virtual environments has translated into an increasing effort required from designers, developers and testers. While considerable research has been conducted into assisting the design of virtual world content and mechanics, to date, only limited contributions have been made regarding the automatic testing of the underpinning graphics software and hardware. In the work presented in this paper, two novel neural network-based approaches are presented to predict the correct visualization of 3D content. Multilayer perceptrons and self-organizing maps are trained to learn the normal geometric and color appearance of objects from validated frames and then used to detect novel or anomalous renderings in new images. Our approach is general, for the appearance of the object is learned rather than explicitly represented. Experiments were conducted on a game engine to determine the applicability and effectiveness of our algorithms. The results show that the neural network technology can be effectively used to address the problem of automatic and reliable visual testing of 3D virtual environments.

Network interactions and performance of a multi-function IEC 61850 process bus

New substation technology, such as non-conventional instrument transformers,and a need to reduce design and construction costs, are driving the adoption of Ethernet based digital process bus networks for high voltage substations. Protection and control applications can share a process bus, making more efficient use of the network infrastructure. This paper classifies and defines performance requirements for the protocols used in a process bus on the basis of application. These include GOOSE, SNMP and IEC 61850-9-2 sampled values. A method, based on the Multiple Spanning Tree Protocol (MSTP) and virtual local area networks, is presented that separates management and monitoring traffic from the rest of the process bus. A quantitative investigation of the interaction between various protocols used in a process bus is described. These tests also validate the effectiveness of the MSTP based traffic segregation method. While this paper focusses on a substation automation network, the results are applicable to other real-time industrial networks that implement multiple protocols. High volume sampled value data and time-critical circuit breaker tripping commands do not interact on a full duplex switched Ethernet network, even under very high network load conditions. This enables an efficient digital network to replace a large number of conventional analog connections between control rooms and high voltage switchyards.

An intelligent network control system for plug-in electric vehicles and the associate communication mechanism

The development of an intelligent plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) network is an important research topic in the smart grid environment. An intelligent PEV network enables a flexible control of PEV charging and discharging activities and hence PEVs can be utilized as ancillary service providers in the power system concerned. Given this background, an intelligent PEV network architecture is first developed, and followed by detailed designs of its application layers, including the charging and discharging controlling system, mobility and roaming management, as well as communication mechanisms associated. The presented architecture leverages the philosophy in mobile communication network buildup

Applied sub-transmission & distribution reliability assessment of SEQEB network in Queensland

In this paper a combined subtransmission and distribution reliability analysis of SEQEB’s outer suburban network is presented. The reliability analysis was carried out with a commercial software package which evaluates both energy and customer indices. Various reinforcement options were investigated to ascertain the impact they have on the reliability of supply seen by the customers. The customer and energy indices produced by the combined subtransmission and distribution reliability studies contributed to optimise capital expenditure to the most effective areas of the network.

A New DER coordination in LV network based on the concept of distributed control

Given the paradigm of smart grid as the promising backbone for future network, this paper uses this paradigm to propose a new coordination approach for LV network based on distributed control algorithm. This approach divides the LV network into hierarchical communities where each community is controlled by a control agent. Different level of communication has been proposed for this structure to control the network in different operation modes.

Common DC link in residential LV network to improve the penetration level of Small-Scale Embedded Generators

This paper presents a new approach for network upgrading to improve the penetration level of Small Scale Generators in residential feeders. In this paper, it is proposed that a common DC link can be added to LV network to alleviate the negative impact of increased export power on AC lines, allowing customers to inject their surplus power with no restrictions to the common DC link. In addition, it is shown that the proposed approach can be a pathway from current AC network to future DC network.