Towards user profiling for web recommendation

Collaborative recommendation is one of widely used recommendation systems, which recommend items to visitor on a basis of referring other's preference that is similar to current user. User profiling technique upon Web transaction data is able to capture such informative knowledge of user task or interest. With the discovered usage pattern information, it is likely to recommend Web users more preferred content or customize the Web presentation to visitors via collaborative recommendation. In addition, it is helpful to identify the underlying relationships among Web users, items as well as latent tasks during Web mining period. In this paper, we propose a Web recommendation framework based on user profiling technique. In this approach, we employ Probabilistic Latent Semantic Analysis (PLSA) to model the co-occurrence activities and develop a modified k-means clustering algorithm to build user profiles as the representatives of usage patterns. Moreover, the hidden task model is derived by characterizing the meaningful latent factor space. With the discovered user profiles, we then choose the most matched profile, which possesses the closely similar preference to current user and make collaborative recommendation based on the corresponding page weights appeared in the selected user profile. The preliminary experimental results performed on real world data sets show that the proposed approach is capable of making recommendation accurately and efficiently.

The real-time refinement calculus: A foundation for machine-independent real-time programming

The real-time refinement calculus is an extension of the standard refinement calculus in which programs are developed from a precondition plus post-condition style of specification. In addition to adapting standard refinement rules to be valid in the real-time context, specific rules are required for the timing constructs such as delays and deadlines. Because many real-time programs may be nonterminating, a further extension is to allow nonterminating repetitions. A real-time specification constrains not only what values should be output, but when they should be output. Hence for a program to implement such a specification, it must guarantee to output values by the specified times. With standard programming languages such guarantees cannot be made without taking into account the timing characteristics of the implementation of the program on a particular machine. To avoid having to consider such details during the refinement process, we have extended our real-time programming language with a deadline command. The deadline command takes no time to execute and always guarantees to meet the specified time; if the deadline has already passed the deadline command is infeasible (miraculous in Dijkstra's terminology). When such a realtime program is compiled for a particular machine, one needs to ensure that all execution paths leading to a deadline are guaranteed to reach it by the specified time. We consider this checking as part of an extended compilation phase. The addition of the deadline command restores for the real-time language the advantage of machine independence enjoyed by non-real-time programming languages.

First in-vivo trials of a fibre Bragg grating based temperature profiling system

We describe the results of in-vivo trials of a portable fiber Bragg grating based temperature profile monitoring system. The probe incorporates five Bragg gratings along a single fiber and prevents the gratings from being strained. Illumination is provided by a superluminescent diode, and a miniature CCD based spectrometer is used for demultiplexing. The CCD signal is read into a portable computer through a small A/D interface; the computer then calculates the positions of the center wavelengths of the Bragg gratings, providing a resolution of 0.2°C. Tests were carried out on rabbits undergoing hyperthermia treatment of the kidney and liver via inductive heating of metallic implants and comparison was made with a commercial Fluoroptic thermometry system.

Computer control of machines utilising independent drive mechanisms

The thesis describes an investigation into methods for the specification, design and implementation of computer control systems for flexible manufacturing machines comprising multiple, independent, electromechanically-driven mechanisms. An analysis is made of the elements of conventional mechanically-coupled machines in order that the operational functions of these elements may be identified. This analysis is used to define the scope of requirements necessary to specify the format, function and operation of a flexible, independently driven mechanism machine. A discussion of how this type of machine can accommodate modern manufacturing needs of high-speed and flexibility is presented. A sequential method of capturing requirements for such machines is detailed based on a hierarchical partitioning of machine requirements from product to independent drive mechanism. A classification of mechanisms using notations, including Data flow diagrams and Petri-nets, is described which supports capture and allows validation of requirements. A generic design for a modular, IDM machine controller is derived based upon hierarchy of control identified in these machines. A two mechanism experimental machine is detailed which is used to demonstrate the application of the specification, design and implementation techniques. A computer controller prototype and a fully flexible implementation for the IDM machine, based on Petri-net models described using the concurrent programming language Occam, is detailed. The ability of this modular computer controller to support flexible, safe and fault-tolerant operation of the two intermittent motion, discrete-synchronisation independent drive mechanisms is presented. The application of the machine development methodology to industrial projects is established.

First in-vivo trials of a fibre Bragg grating based temperature profiling system

We describe the results of in-vivo trials of a portable fiber Bragg grating based temperature profile monitoring system. The probe incorporates five Bragg gratings along a single fiber and prevents the gratings from being strained. Illumination is provided by a superluminescent diode, and a miniature CCD based spectrometer is used for demultiplexing. The CCD signal is read into a portable computer through a small A/D interface; the computer then calculates the positions of the center wavelengths of the Bragg gratings, providing a resolution of 0.2 °C. Tests were carried out on rabbits undergoing hyperthermia treatment of the kidney and liver via inductive heating of metallic implants and comparison was made with a commercial Fluoroptic thermometry system.

An investigation into the use of knowledge representation in computer-integrated manufacturing

In a certain automobile factory, batch-painting of the body types in colours is controlled by an allocation system. This tries to balance production with orders, whilst making optimally-sized batches of colours. Sequences of cars entering painting cannot be optimised for easy selection of colour and batch size. `Over-production' is not allowed, in order to reduce buffer stocks of unsold vehicles. Paint quality is degraded by random effects. This thesis describes a toolkit which supports IKBS in an object-centred formalism. The intended domain of use for the toolkit is flexible manufacturing. A sizeable application program was developed, using the toolkit, to test the validity of the IKBS approach in solving the real manufacturing problem above, for which an existing conventional program was already being used. A detailed statistical analysis of the operating circumstances of the program was made to evaluate the likely need for the more flexible type of program for which the toolkit was intended. The IKBS program captures the many disparate and conflicting constraints in the scheduling knowledge and emulates the behaviour of the program installed in the factory. In the factory system, many possible, newly-discovered, heuristics would be awkward to represent and it would be impossible to make many new extensions. The representation scheme is capable of admitting changes to the knowledge, relying on the inherent encapsulating properties of object-centres programming to protect and isolate data. The object-centred scheme is supported by an enhancement of the `C' programming language and runs under BSD 4.2 UNIX. The structuring technique, using objects, provides a mechanism for separating control of expression of rule-based knowledge from the knowledge itself and allowing explicit `contexts', within which appropriate expression of knowledge can be done. Facilities are provided for acquisition of knowledge in a consistent manner.

Computer automation of land evaluation procedures

This study was concerned with the computer automation of land evaluation. This is a broad subject with many issues to be resolved, so the study concentrated on three key problems: knowledge based programming; the integration of spatial information from remote sensing and other sources; and the inclusion of socio-economic information into the land evaluation analysis. Land evaluation and land use planning were considered in the context of overseas projects in the developing world. Knowledge based systems were found to provide significant advantages over conventional programming techniques for some aspects of the land evaluation process. Declarative languages, in particular Prolog, were ideally suited to integration of social information which changes with every situation. Rule-based expert system shells were also found to be suitable for this role, including knowledge acquisition at the interview stage. All the expert system shells examined suffered from very limited constraints to problem size, but new products now overcome this. Inductive expert system shells were useful as a guide to knowledge gaps and possible relationships, but the number of examples required was unrealistic for typical land use planning situations. The accuracy of classified satellite imagery was significantly enhanced by integrating spatial information on soil distribution for Thailand data. Estimates of the rice producing area were substantially improved (30% change in area) by the addition of soil information. Image processing work on Mozambique showed that satellite remote sensing was a useful tool in stratifying vegetation cover at provincial level to identify key development areas, but its full utility could not be realised on typical planning projects, without treatment as part of a complete spatial information system.

Nootropia : a user profiling model based on a self-organising term network

Artificial Immune Systems are well suited to the problem of using a profile representation of an individual’s or a group’s interests to evaluate documents. Nootropia is a user profiling model that exhibits similarities to models of the immune system that have been developed in the context of autopoietic theory. It uses a self-organising term network that can represent a user’s multiple interests and can adapt to both short-term variations and substantial changes in them. This allows Nootropia to drift, constantly following changes in the user’s multiple interests, and, thus, to become structurally coupled to the user.

A Computer-Based Strategy for Practical Skills Teaching

An adaptive learning technology embedded in e-learning environments ensures choice of the structure, content, and activities for each individual learner according to the teaching team’s domain and didactic knowledge and skills. In this paper a computer-based scenario for application of an adaptive navigation technology is proposed and demonstrated on an example course topic.

Method of Linear Programming as an Idea for High School Curriculum

2010 Mathematics Subject Classification: 97D40, 97M10, 97M40, 97N60, 97N80, 97R80

How do practitioners understand? Practitioner perceptions of an object-oriented programming.

In the computer science community, there is considerable debate about the appropriate sequence for introducing object-oriented concepts to novice programmers. Research into novice programming has struggled to identify the critical aspects that would provide a consistently successful approach to teaching introductory object-oriented programming. Starting from the premise that the conceptions of a task determine the type of output from the task, assisting novice programmers to become aware of what the required output should be, may lay a foundation for improving learning. This study adopted a phenomenographic approach. Thirty one practitioners were interviewed about the ways in which they experience object-oriented programming and categories of description and critical aspects were identified. These critical aspects were then used to examine the spaces of learning provided in twenty introductory textbooks. The study uncovered critical aspects that related to the way that practitioners expressed their understanding of an object-oriented program and the influences on their approach to designing programs. The study of the textbooks revealed a large variability in the cover of these critical aspects.