15635960
Improved variable and value ranking techniques for mining categorical traffic accident data
The ever increasing size of datasets used for data mining and machine learning applications has placed a renewed emphasis on algorithm performance and processing strategies. This paper addresses algorithms for ranking variables in a dataset, as well as for ranking values of a specific variable. We propose two new techniques, called Max Gain (MG) and Sum Max Gain Ratio (SMGR), which are well-correlated with existing techniques, yet are much more intuitive. MG and SMGR were developed for the public safety domain using categorical traffic accident data. Unlike the typical abstract statistical techniques for ranking variables and values, the proposed techniques can be motivated as useful intuitive metrics for non-statistician practitioners in a particular domain. Additionally, the proposed techniques are generally more efficient than the more traditional statistical approaches.
2351489
An Empirical Study Using Task Assignment Patterns to Improve the Accuracy of Software Effort Estimation
In most software development organizations, there is seldom a one-to-one mapping between software developers and development tasks. It is frequently necessary to concurrently assign individuals to multiple tasks and to assign more than one individual to work cooperatively on a single task. A principal goal in making such assignments should be to minimize the effort required to complete each task. But what impact does the manner in which developers are assigned to tasks have on the effort requirements? This paper identifies four task assignment factors: team size, concurrency, intensity, and fragmentation. These four factors are shown to improve the predictive ability of the well-known intermediate COCOMO cost estimation model. A parsimonious effort estimation model is also derived that utilizes a subset of the task assignment factors and unadjusted function points. For the data examined, this parsimonious model is shown to have goodness of fit and quality of estimation superior to that of the COCOMO model, while utilizing fewer cost factors.
14137582
NASA's standards advisor pilot: search solutions for an intranet
With the immense progress in web technologies, lots of information can be acquired from a simple query. Unfortunately with the available tools today, the information obtained can be unfocussed and voluminous. It requires user to search through information galore before he can obtain the exact answer to the query. This arouses the need for a search technology which produces exact result in spite of simple query. This paper focuses on evaluating three search technologies - Verity Ultraseek, Copernic Enterprise search and ISYS:web for the NASA Standards Advisor Project. From the results obtained by using sample documents and sample queries it is shown that Verity Ultraseek outperformed Copernic and ISYS: web in both search capabilities and retrieval performance.
6086610
Security for fixed sensor networks
Sensor networks consist of resource-constrained sensors operating in a variety of environments. Given the severe constraints on these sensors, it is a particularly challenging problem to choose and design valid security protocols for such networks. This problem has recently given rise to new research addressing the security issues. This paper presents an overview of the important works, specifically the new mechanisms and protocols, which have been introduced or are still under development in this area.
206448594
Enhancing the Cocomo Estimation Models
In software engineering, team task assignments appear to have a significant potential impact on a project's overall success. The authors propose task assignment effort adjustment factors that can help tune existing estimation models. They show significant improvements in the predictive abilities of both Cocomo I and II by enhancing them with these factors.
17812918
Acquiring and delivering lessons learned for NASA scientists and engineers: a dynamic approach
Web forms are a common mechanism for collecting information online. They pose some limitations which negatively affect ease and flexibility of user interaction. These limitations are more pronounced when collecting information that can not be broken down into well defined and agreed upon structures. Lessons Learned or any kind of 'knowledge' is an example of such information. In this paper we introduce a concept of 'Dynamic Forms' which is aimed at enhancing user interaction while collecting unstructured information, 'Lessons Learned' in particular.
61043025
Auditory icons in large-scale collaborative environments
3217704
Conceptual-Model-Based Data Extraction from Multiple-Record Web Pages
Abstract Electronically available data on the Web is exploding at an ever increasing pace. Much of this data is unstructured, which makes searching hard and traditional database querying impossible. Many Web documents, however, contain an abundance of recognizable constants that together describe the essence of a document's content. For these kinds of data-rich, multiple-record documents (e.g., advertisements, movie reviews, weather reports, travel information, sports summaries, financial statements, obituaries, and many others) we can apply a conceptual-modeling approach to extract and structure data automatically. The approach is based on an ontology – a conceptual model instance – that describes the data of interest, including relationships, lexical appearance, and context keywords. By parsing the ontology, we can automatically produce a database scheme and recognizers for constants and keywords, and then invoke routines to recognize and extract data from unstructured documents and structure it according to the generated database scheme. Experiments show that it is possible to achieve good recall and precision ratios for documents that are rich in recognizable constants and narrow in ontological breadth. Our approach is less labor-intensive than other approaches that manually or semiautomatically generate wrappers, and it is generally insensitive to changes in Web-page format.
226549
Using type enforcement to assure a configurable guard
Prior to the introduction of guard systems for electronic mail, guards tended to be overly specialized and not versatile enough for today's user community. The paper examines the use of type enforcement to create a highly assured yet administrator configurable guard. The administrator must be able to trust that the configuration provided will indeed be followed. This occurs by using highly assured or trusted components. These trusted components are then linked together via type enforcement to form a pipeline, with one input channel for data to enter the guard, and one separate, connected output channel for data to exit the guard. These channels are connected via assured processes whose behavior is restricted by the type enforcement mechanism. Furthermore, type enforcement is also used to isolate many components of the guard, which simplifies the assurance arguments. This technology is applied in the latest operational guards developed by the Secure Computing Corporation.
36936116
Design of Knowledge-Based Systems with a Knowledge-Based Assistant
The authors propose a model for an intelligent assistant to aid in building knowledge-based systems (KBSs) and discuss a preliminary implementation. The assistant participates in KBS construction, including acquisition of an initial model of a problem domain, acquisition of control and task-specific inference knowledge, testing and validation, and long-term maintenance of encoded knowledge. The authors present a hypothetical scenario in which the assistant and a KBS designer cooperate to create an initial domain model and then discuss five categories of knowledge the assistant requires to offer such help. They discuss two software technologies on which the assistant is based: an object-oriented programming language, and a user-interface framework. >
39456630
Technology Introduction in a Systemic Context for IT Project Success
The management of information technology (IT) introduction is a complex, interconnected systemic process. Sub-optimal solutions may result when an enterprise fails to analyse a broad spectrum of worthy solutions, taking a systemic standpoint. The information technologies selected and the means adopted to introduce those technologies, can be crucial to the eventual success or failure of an IT project. In this paper various analyses crucial to the management of change are identified and critically examined. The potential consequences of failure to successfully carry out such analyses are canvassed.