Applying machine learning to catalogue matching in astrophysics

We present the results of applying automated machine learning techniques to the problem of matching different object catalogues in astrophysics. In this study, we take two partially matched catalogues where one of the two catalogues has a large positional uncertainty. The two catalogues we used here were taken from the H I Parkes All Sky Survey (HIPASS) and SuperCOSMOS optical survey. Previous work had matched 44 per cent (1887 objects) of HIPASS to the SuperCOSMOS catalogue. A supervised learning algorithm was then applied to construct a model of the matched portion of our catalogue. Validation of the model shows that we achieved a good classification performance (99.12 per cent correct). Applying this model to the unmatched portion of the catalogue found 1209 new matches. This increases the catalogue size from 1887 matched objects to 3096. The combination of these procedures yields a catalogue that is 72 per cent matched.

The human factors of automatic speech recognition in control room systems

This thesis addresses the viability of automatic speech recognition for control room systems; with careful system design, automatic speech recognition (ASR) devices can be useful means for human computer interaction in specific types of task. These tasks can be defined as complex verbal activities, such as command and control, and can be paired with spatial tasks, such as monitoring, without detriment. It is suggested that ASR use be confined to routine plant operation, as opposed the critical incidents, due to possible problems of stress on the operators' speech.  It is proposed that using ASR will require operators to adapt a commonly used skill to cater for a novel use of speech. Before using the ASR device, new operators will require some form of training. It is shown that a demonstration by an experienced user of the device can lead to superior performance than instructions. Thus, a relatively cheap and very efficient form of operator training can be supplied by demonstration by experienced ASR operators. From a series of studies into speech based interaction with computers, it is concluded that the interaction be designed to capitalise upon the tendency of operators to use short, succinct, task specific styles of speech. From studies comparing different types of feedback, it is concluded that operators be given screen based feedback, rather than auditory feedback, for control room operation. Feedback will take two forms: the use of the ASR device will require recognition feedback, which will be best supplied using text; the performance of a process control task will require task feedback integrated into the mimic display. This latter feedback can be either textual or symbolic, but it is suggested that symbolic feedback will be more beneficial. Related to both interaction style and feedback is the issue of handling recognition errors. These should be corrected by simple command repetition practices, rather than use error handling dialogues. This method of error correction is held to be non intrusive to primary command and control operations. This thesis also addresses some of the problems of user error in ASR use, and provides a number of recommendations for its reduction.

Exploring the integration of data mining and data visualization

Due to the rapid advances in computing and sensing technologies, enormous amounts of data are being generated everyday in various applications. The integration of data mining and data visualization has been widely used to analyze these massive and complex data sets to discover hidden patterns. For both data mining and visualization to be effective, it is important to include the visualization techniques in the mining process and to generate the discovered patterns for a more comprehensive visual view. In this dissertation, four related problems: dimensionality reduction for visualizing high dimensional datasets, visualization-based clustering evaluation, interactive document mining, and multiple clusterings exploration are studied to explore the integration of data mining and data visualization. In particular, we 1) propose an efficient feature selection method (reliefF + mRMR) for preprocessing high dimensional datasets; 2) present DClusterE to integrate cluster validation with user interaction and provide rich visualization tools for users to examine document clustering results from multiple perspectives; 3) design two interactive document summarization systems to involve users efforts and generate customized summaries from 2D sentence layouts; and 4) propose a new framework which organizes the different input clusterings into a hierarchical tree structure and allows for interactive exploration of multiple clustering solutions.

Entre lo público y lo privado: empleadores y trabajadoras domésticas frente al Tribunal del Trabajo Doméstico de la ciudad de Buenos Aires

El servicio doméstico ocupa un lugar ambiguo entre los mundos público y privado. Desarrollado en el interior de los hogares de los empleadores, da lugar a relaciones en las que lo laboral y lo afectivo están imbricados. Los juicios laborales entre empleadores y trabajadoras domésticas constituyen un escenario privilegiado para observar el solapamiento de estas dimensiones. Si las demandas de las trabajadoras frente a las instituciones de justicia sitúan esta relación en el mundo público, las respuestas de los empleadores muchas veces buscan resituarlas en el orden privado. Por otra parte, en algunos escenarios, las demandas de las trabajadoras son también expresadas en un lenguaje que remite a lo privado. En este artículo analizamos las lógicas de la confl ictividad judicial establecidas en las estrategias de empleadores y trabajadoras frente al Tribunal del Trabajo Doméstico (TTD), un organismo creado en 1956 para atender los confl ictos individuales que derivan de las relaciones de trabajo de este sector en la ciudad de Buenos Aires. Tomamos dos horizontes temporales caracterizados por cambios en la regulación del trabajo, en general, y del servicio doméstico, en particular: el de los primeros años de funcionamiento del TTD y el cambio de siglo.

Exploring the Justificational Status of Assertions Made About Nursing’s Collective Beliefs

Nursing publications frequently reference groups (e.g. the group nurses). The nature and capabilities of group agents or collective subjects, and the relationship between nursing as a group and nurses as individuals is, however, rarely made explicit in these publications. Following Alvin Goldman, questions pertaining to groups can be classified as metaphysical or epistemic. Metaphysical questions take two forms. First, we might ask about the ontological status of group agents. For example, to what extent, if at all, do group agents exist and act independently of their constituent members? Second, we can ask whether group agents have psychological states or properties that can, for example, be formulated as propositional attitudes and, if they can, in what ways are group attitudes correlated with or tied to those of individual group members? In this presentation, having recognised the potential reality of group ontological and psychological being, I examine an under researched element of social epistemology. Specifically, the potential of non-individualist reliabilism (social process reliabilism) to justify doxastic group beliefs (i.e. statements such as “nurses believe that”) are considered. It is suggested that this issue has concrete implications for how we think about nursing.

The acquisition of adjunct control: grammar and processing

This dissertation uses children’s acquisition of adjunct control as a case study to investigate grammatical and performance accounts of language acquisition. In previous research, children have consistently exhibited non-adultlike behavior for sentences with adjunct control. To explain children’s behavior, several different grammatical accounts have been proposed, but evidence for these accounts has been inconclusive. In this dissertation, I take two approaches to account for children’s errors. First, I spell out the predictions of previous grammatical accounts, and test these predictions after accounting for some methodological concerns that might have influenced children’s behavior in previous studies. While I reproduce the non-adultlike behavior observed in previous studies, the predictions of previous grammatical accounts are not borne out, suggesting that extragrammatical factors are needed to explain children’s behavior. Next, I consider the role of two different types of extragrammatical factors in predicting children’s non-adultlike behavior. With a new task designed to address the task demands in previous studies, children exhibit significantly higher accuracy than with previous tasks. This suggests that children’s behavior has been influenced by task- specific processing factors. In addition to the task, I also test the predictions of a similarity-based interference account, which links children’s errors to the same memory mechanisms involved in sentence processing difficulties observed in adults. These predictions are borne out, supporting a more continuous developmental trajectory as children’s processing mechanisms become more resistant to interference. Finally, I consider how children’s errors might influence their acquisition of adjunct control, given the distribution in the linguistic input. I discuss the results of a corpus analysis, including the possibility that adjunct control could be learned from the input. The kinds of information that could be useful to a learner become much more limited, however, after considering the processing limitations that would interfere with the representations available to the learner.

Por baixo da pele outra pele: conjunto de obras artísticas. Corpo, ecrã e interface para uma visualidade háptica interativa

A tese teórico-prática de doutoramento apresentada contempla a investigação, a criação, a produção e a conceptualização da instalação artística interativa intitulada Por baixo da pele outra pele. A Obra é constituída por três objetos tridimensionais concebidos à escala humana. Recorre a materiais flexíveis, como têxteis, convidando o público (interator), à envolvência física, numa relação corporal sensorial e sensual com a obra. Os objetos contêm dispositivos técnicos interativos e sensores tácteis, que, ao serem utilizados, desencadeiam estímulos multissensoriais no espectador. A instalação interativa focaliza a experiência háptica e íntima do interator considerando os seus mecanismos sensoriais e cognitivos como um potencial aparato na construção de experiências fenomenológicas, singulares e individuais. A autora considera a interatividade enquanto elemento potenciador da experiência estética visual háptica. Na argumentação conceitual da obra, reflete-se sobre o tema da visualidade háptica interativa a partirdos conceitos de ecrã, corpo e interface, assim como de endossensorialidade. Instrumentam-se metodologias de investigação em ação, experimentais e observacionais. Apresentam-se os processos investigativos, criativos e técnicos necessários ao desenvolvimento e à materialização da instalação artística. A investigação revela-se de grande interesse para o avanço da pesquisa de novas linguagens experimentais apresentando estratégias de criação artística que, ao privilegiarem o corpo físico e fenomenológico do interator, transpõe a experiência háptica interativa para um grau interno de imersão motoro-sensorial; Underneath the skin another skin: art installation. Body, screen and interface towards an interactive haptic visuality. Abstract: The theoretical-practical doctorate dissertation presents the research and conceptual framework behind, and the processes leading to, the creation and production of the interactive installation art piece Underneath the skin, another skin. The piece is presented in the shape of three human-scale tridimentional objects. It is made from flexible materials, such as textiles, inviting the (interacting) audience, to physically engage in a bodily sensorial, and sensuous, relationship with the artwork. The objects enclose interactive devices and tactile sensors that, when used, trigger in the interactor multiple sensorial stimuli. The interactive installation focuses on the interactor's intimate haptic experience taking in consideration his or hers sensorial and cognitive mechanisms as a potential apparatus in the construction of unique individual phenomenological experiences. The author understands interactivity as a triggering element into an haptic visual aesthetical experience. The supporting conceptual reasoning deals with thought and criticism on interactive haptic visuality applied to the concepts of screen, body and interface, as well as with that of endo-sensoriality. The dissertation describes the use of experimental and observation research methodologies. It also elaborates on the research, creative and technical processes at play in the installation's development and realization. The research at hand has shown great potential for the further development of new experimental languages, as it presents art-creation strategies privileging the interactor's physical and phenomenological body, and thus able to take the interactive haptic experience onto an greater inner level of motor-sensorial immersion.

Implementazione di un margine di copertura dinamico per la riduzione dei ritardi nelle consegne: il caso Ducati Motor Holding S.p.A.

Le criticità sorte in seguito alla diffusione della Pandemia da Covid-19, a partire dal 2020, sono numerose. In tal senso, all’interno della logistica, rivestono un ruolo molto rilevante i numerosi ritardi nelle consegne, che trovano maggiore evidenza nelle spedizioni via mare. Pertanto, l’adozione di strategie volte ad aumentare la resilienza delle catene di approvvigionamento, rendendole in grado di resistere alle criticità del presente e alle possibili evoluzioni del futuro, diventa sempre più importante. L’obiettivo del presente studio è l’individuazione di una strategia che permetta di rispondere alle criticità legate ai ritardi nelle consegne dei materiali, per ridurre i problemi da essi causati. L’azienda in cui questo studio è stato svolto è la Ducati Motor Holding S.p.A., produttrice di motocicli. Infatti, nelle aziende manifatturiere, il ritardo nell’arrivo dei componenti determina delle conseguenze nella produzione ed eventuali ritardi nella consegna del prodotto finito. Per fronteggiare queste difficoltà, il metodo individuato consiste nell’analisi dei dati storici relativi ai ritardi rilevati e nella previsione dei ritardi futuri, utilizzando le tecniche di previsione basate sulle serie storiche. L’individuazione del numero di giorni di ritardo previsti viene utilizzata per determinare ogni mese il margine di copertura ottimale con cui effettuare gli ordini ai fornitori, in modo da evitare problemi nella produzione. Questo margine di copertura è definito dinamico, poiché non è fissato tutto l’anno per un medesimo materiale, ma varia ogni mese in base alle previsioni effettuate, garantendo così la flessibilità necessaria per rispondere alle contingenze esterne. In questo modo, riducendo i ritardi nelle consegne e, di conseguenza, i ritardi nella produzione, si ottiene un risparmio economico in termini di costi da sostenere, considerando i costi di stoccaggio e i costi di recupero delle moto incomplete.

Utilisation de la visualisation interactive pour l’analyse des dépendances dans les logiciels

La compréhension de la structure d’un logiciel est une première étape importante dans la résolution de tâches d’analyse et de maintenance sur celui-ci. En plus des liens définis par la hiérarchie, il existe un autre type de liens entre les éléments du logiciel que nous appelons liens d’adjacence. Une compréhension complète d’un logiciel doit donc tenir compte de tous ces types de liens. Les outils de visualisation sont en général efficaces pour aider un développeur dans sa compréhension d’un logiciel en lui présentant l’information sous forme claire et concise. Cependant, la visualisation simultanée des liens hiérarchiques et d’adjacence peut donner lieu à beaucoup d’encombrement visuel, rendant ainsi ces visualisations peu efficaces pour fournir de l’information utile sur ces liens. Nous proposons dans ce mémoire un outil de visualisation 3D qui permet de représenter à la fois la structure hiérarchique d’un logiciel et les liens d’adjacence existant entre ses éléments. Notre outil utilise trois types de placements différents pour représenter la hiérarchie. Chacun peut supporter l’affichage des liens d’adjacence de manière efficace. Pour représenter les liens d’adjacence, nous proposons une version 3D de la méthode des Hierarchical Edge Bundles. Nous utilisons également un algorithme métaheuristique pour améliorer le placement afin de réduire davantage l’encombrement visuel dans les liens d’adjacence. D’autre part, notre outil offre un ensemble de possibilités d’interaction permettant à un usager de naviguer à travers l’information offerte par notre visualisation. Nos contributions ont été évaluées avec succès sur des systèmes logiciels de grande taille.

Interactive quantum information theory

La théorie de l'information quantique s'est développée à une vitesse fulgurante au cours des vingt dernières années, avec des analogues et extensions des théorèmes de codage de source et de codage sur canal bruité pour la communication unidirectionnelle. Pour la communication interactive, un analogue quantique de la complexité de la communication a été développé, pour lequel les protocoles quantiques peuvent performer exponentiellement mieux que les meilleurs protocoles classiques pour certaines tâches classiques. Cependant, l'information quantique est beaucoup plus sensible au bruit que l'information classique. Il est donc impératif d'utiliser les ressources quantiques à leur plein potentiel. Dans cette thèse, nous étudions les protocoles quantiques interactifs du point de vue de la théorie de l'information et étudions les analogues du codage de source et du codage sur canal bruité. Le cadre considéré est celui de la complexité de la communication: Alice et Bob veulent faire un calcul quantique biparti tout en minimisant la quantité de communication échangée, sans égard au coût des calculs locaux. Nos résultats sont séparés en trois chapitres distincts, qui sont organisés de sorte à ce que chacun puisse être lu indépendamment. Étant donné le rôle central qu'elle occupe dans le contexte de la compression interactive, un chapitre est dédié à l'étude de la tâche de la redistribution d'état quantique. Nous prouvons des bornes inférieures sur les coûts de communication nécessaires dans un contexte interactif. Nous prouvons également des bornes atteignables avec un seul message, dans un contexte d'usage unique. Dans un chapitre subséquent, nous définissons une nouvelle notion de complexité de l'information quantique. Celle-ci caractérise la quantité d'information, plutôt que de communication, qu'Alice et Bob doivent échanger pour calculer une tâche bipartie. Nous prouvons beaucoup de propriétés structurelles pour cette quantité, et nous lui donnons une interprétation opérationnelle en tant que complexité de la communication quantique amortie. Dans le cas particulier d'entrées classiques, nous donnons une autre caractérisation permettant de quantifier le coût encouru par un protocole quantique qui oublie de l'information classique. Deux applications sont présentées: le premier résultat général de somme directe pour la complexité de la communication quantique à plus d'une ronde, ainsi qu'une borne optimale, à un terme polylogarithmique près, pour la complexité de la communication quantique avec un nombre de rondes limité pour la fonction « ensembles disjoints ». Dans un chapitre final, nous initions l'étude de la capacité interactive quantique pour les canaux bruités. Étant donné que les techniques pour distribuer de l'intrication sont bien étudiées, nous nous concentrons sur un modèle avec intrication préalable parfaite et communication classique bruitée. Nous démontrons que dans le cadre plus ardu des erreurs adversarielles, nous pouvons tolérer un taux d'erreur maximal de une demie moins epsilon, avec epsilon plus grand que zéro arbitrairement petit, et ce avec un taux de communication positif. Il s'ensuit que les canaux avec bruit aléatoire ayant une capacité positive pour la transmission unidirectionnelle ont une capacité positive pour la communication interactive quantique. Nous concluons avec une discussion de nos résultats et des directions futures pour ce programme de recherche sur une théorie de l'information quantique interactive.

A flight test comparison of take-off performance of two liaison type airplane configurations.

"Project no. 9-38-01-000 T 204, Contract no. DA 44-177- TC-462."

Dynamics of effectuation and causation in technology-based new ventures (INTERACTIVE PAPER)

The creation of new ventures is a process characterized by the need to decide and take action in the face of uncertainty, and this is particularly so in the case of technology-based ventures. Effectuation theory (Sarasvathy, 2001) has advanced two possible approaches for making decisions while facing uncertainty in the entrepreneurial process. Causation logic is based on prediction and aims at lowering uncertainty, whereas effectuation logic is based on non-predictive action and aims at working with uncertainty. This study aims to generate more fine-grained insight in the dynamics of effectuation and causation over time. We address the following questions: (1) What patterns can be found in effectual and causal behaviour of technology-based new ventures over time? And (2) How may patterns in the dynamics of effectuation and causation be explained?