Introduction to Domain-Driven Data Mining Special Section

In the last decade, data mining has emerged as one of the most dynamic and lively areas in information technology. Although many algorithms and techniques for data mining have been proposed, they either focus on domain independent techniques or on very specific domain problems. A general requirement in bridging the gap between academia and business is to cater to general domain-related issues surrounding real-life applications, such as constraints, organizational factors, domain expert knowledge, domain adaption, and operational knowledge. Unfortunately, these either have not been addressed, or have not been sufficiently addressed, in current data mining research and development.Domain-Driven Data Mining (D3M) aims to develop general principles, methodologies, and techniques for modeling and merging comprehensive domain-related factors and synthesized ubiquitous intelligence surrounding problem domains with the data mining process, and discovering knowledge to support business decision-making. This paper aims to report original, cutting-edge, and state-of-the-art progress in D3M. It covers theoretical and applied contributions aiming to: 1) propose next-generation data mining frameworks and processes for actionable knowledge discovery, 2) investigate effective (automated, human and machine-centered and/or human-machined-co-operated) principles and approaches for acquiring, representing, modelling, and engaging ubiquitous intelligence in real-world data mining, and 3) develop workable and operational systems balancing technical significance and applications concerns, and converting and delivering actionable knowledge into operational applications rules to seamlessly engage application processes and systems.

Novel Venom Proteins Produced by Differential Domain-Expression Strategies in Beaded Lizards and Gila Monsters (genus Heloderma)

The origin and evolution of venom proteins in helodermatid lizards were investigated by multidisciplinary techniques. Our analyses elucidated novel toxin types resultant from three unique domain-expression processes: 1) The first full-length sequences of lethal toxin isoforms (helofensins) revealed this toxin type to be constructed by an ancestral monodomain, monoproduct gene (beta-defensin) that underwent three tandem domain duplications to encode a tetradomain, monoproduct with a possible novel protein fold; 2) an ancestral monodomain gene (encoding a natriuretic peptide) was medially extended to become a pentadomain, pentaproduct through the additional encoding of four tandemly repeated proline-rich peptides (helokinestatins), with the five discrete peptides liberated from each other by posttranslational proteolysis; and 3) an ancestral multidomain, multiproduct gene belonging to the vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP)/glucagon family being mutated to encode for a monodomain, monoproduct (exendins) followed by duplication and diversification into two variant classes (exendins 1 and 2 and exendins 3 and 4). Bioactivity characterization of exendin and helokinestatin elucidated variable cardioactivity between isoforms within each class. These results highlight the importance of utilizing evolutionary-based search strategies for biodiscovery and the virtually unexplored potential of lizard venoms in drug design and discovery.

A Low Complexity Video Watermarking in H.264 Compressed Domain

In this paper, a new blind and readable H.264 compressed domain watermarking scheme is proposed in which the embedding/extracting is performed using the syntactic elements of the compressed bit stream. As a result, it is not necessary to fully decode a compressed video stream both in the embedding and extracting processes. The method also presents an inexpensive spatiotemporal analysis that selects the appropriate submacroblocks for embedding, increasing watermark robustness while reducing its impact on visual quality. Meanwhile, the proposed method prevents bit-rate increase and restricts it within an acceptable limit by selecting appropriate quantized residuals for watermark insertion. Regarding watermarking demands such as imperceptibility, bit-rate control, and appropriate level of security, a priority matrix is defined which can be adjusted based on the application requirements. The resulted flexibility expands the usability of the proposed method.

SVD-Based Universal Spatial Domain Image Steganalysis

This paper is concerned with the universal (blind) image steganalysis problem and introduces a novel method to detect especially spatial domain steganographic methods. The proposed steganalyzer models linear dependencies of image rows/columns in local neighborhoods using singular value decomposition transform and employs content independency provided by a Wiener filtering process. Experimental results show that the novel method has superior performance when compared with its counterparts in terms of spatial domain steganography. Experiments also demonstrate the reasonable ability of the method to detect discrete cosine transform-based steganography as well as the perturbation quantization method.

Time domain wave separation using multiple microphones

Methods of measuring the acoustic behavior of tubular systems can be broadly characterized as steady state measurements, where the measured signals are analyzed in terms of infinite duration sinusoids, and reflectometry measurements which exploit causality to separate the forward and backward going waves in a duct. This paper sets out a multiple microphone reflectometry technique which performs wave separation by using time domain convolution to track the forward and backward going waves in a cylindrical source tube. The current work uses two calibration runs (one for forward going waves and one for backward going waves) to measure the time domain transfer functions for each pair of microphones. These time domain transfer functions encode the time delay, frequency dependent losses and microphone gain ratios for travel between microphones. This approach is applied to the measurement of wave separation, bore profile and input impedance. The work differs from existing frequency domain methods in that it combines the information of multiple microphones within a time domain algorithm, and differs from existing time domain methods in its inclusion of the effect of losses and gain ratios in intermicrophone transfer functions.

Gross anatomy and positional homology of gills, gonopores, and nephridiopores in “basal” living chitons (Polyplacophora: Lepidopleurina)

Traditional shell characters are insufficient to differentiate taxa within the polyplacophoran order Lepidopleurida. Additional morphological character sets from soft anatomy (e.g., gamete morphology, gill arrangement, and locations of gonopores and nephidiopores) have previously been described from only a small number of taxa. This study reports for the first time, positions of the gonopores and nephridiopores for 17 species in the Lepidopleurina. The position of both types of pores on the longitudinal body axis varies within a generalized range of the posterior third of the body; however, the separation between the pores as a proportion of the specimen’s foot length varies from 3.7% to 17% in different species. Positions of pores relative to the serial gills are also variable within species, and future studies may require a new descriptive basis in order to resolve positional homology. The order Lepidopleurida occupies a critical position with respect to understanding larger-scale patterns in polyplacophoran (and molluscan) evolution.

Finite difference time domain modeling of phase grating diffusion

In this paper, a method for modeling diffusion caused by non-smooth boundary surfaces in simulations of room acoustics using finite difference time domain (FDTD) technique is investigated. The proposed approach adopts the well-known theory of phase grating diffusers to efficiently model sound scattering from rough surfaces. The variation of diffuser well-depths is attained by nesting allpass filters within the reflection filters from which the digital impedance filters used in the boundary implementation are obtained. The presented technique is appropriate for modeling diffusion at high frequencies caused by small surface roughness and generally diffusers that have narrow wells and infinitely thin separators. The diffusion coefficient was measured with numerical experiments for a range of fractional Brownian diffusers.

A Frequency Domain Algorithm for Wave Separation

We propose a frequency domain adaptive algorithm for
wave separation in wind instruments. Forward and backward travelling waves are obtained from the signals acquired by two microphones placed along the tube, while the
separation ?lter is adapted from the information given by a
third microphone. Working in the frequency domain has a
series of advantages, among which are the ease of design of
the propagation ?lter and its differentiation with respect to
its parameters.
Although the adaptive algorithm was developed as a ?rst
step for the estimation of playing parameters in wind instruments it can also be used, without any modi?cations, for
other applications such as in-air direction of arrival (DOA)
estimation. Preliminary results on these applications will
also be presented.