952506
ID Modulation: Embedding Sensor Data in an RFID Timeseries
This paper reports the first use of ID Modulation to embed a bitstream representing sensor information in a standards-compliant Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) channel. Like other forms of information hiding, ID Modulation embeds a new, lower bit-rate channel in a pre-existing host channel, without requiring any changes to the protocols defining the host channel. Like most other forms of information hiding, the embedded data is represented as correlations introduced into the host channel data stream. Most previous applications of information hiding have emphasized either secrecy (as in steganography) or robustness to removal (as in watermarking). The benefit of information hiding that is most important for the application reported here is backward compatibility with pre-existing standards and hardware. It has allowed us to build a new communication layer (for transmitting sensor data) on top of current RFID infrastructure.
1781725
Developments in Steganography
This paper presents two main results. The first is a new approach to steganography in which data is encoded in correlations among the pixels in an image. Almost all previous steganographic methods encode data in correlations between the pixels and a known external reference signal. This method hints at the existence of public key watermarking techniques, which will be defined.
17082505
Designing Biomorphs with an Interactive Genetic Algorithm
We describe an interactive version of the Genetic Algorithm which can be used to evolve Fourier series based \biomorphs." The user plays the role of a binary-valued objective function. The usual Genetic operators of Selection, Mutation, and Crossover are applied normally. We discuss the Interactive Genetic Algorithm's use as a teaching tool and in domains in which measures of utility are di cult or impossible to specify mathematically. We argue that the evolution of biomorphs can be considered an ergonomic design problem, and with the evolution of biomorphs as an example, we argue that a large class of design problems can be cast as \imprecise optimization" and \solved" with Interactive Genetic Algorithms. Thus IGAs can be used for applications that fall somewhere between AI, optimization, and CAD.
5213007
Applying electric field sensing to human-computer interfaces
A non-contact sensor based on the interaction of a person with electric fields for human-computer interface is investigated. Two sensing modes are explored: an external electric field shunted to ground through a human body, and an external electric field transmitted through a human body to stationary receivers. The sensors are low power (milliwatts), high resolution (millimeter) low cost (a few dollars per channel), have low latency (millisecond), high update rate (1 kHz), high immunity to noise (>72 dB), are not affected by clothing, surface texture or reflectivity, and can operate on length scales from microns to meters. Systems incorporating the sensors include a finger mouse, a room that knows the location of its occupant, and people-sensing furniture. Haptic feedback using passive materials is described. Also discussed are empirical and analytical approaches to transform sensor measurements into position information.
14619787
Field Mice: Extracting Hand Geometry from Electric Field Measurements
Several members of a family of techniques called Electric Field Sensing are described. Each sensing technique can be understood as a measurement of the value of a different component in an effective circuit diagram that summarizes all possible current pathways involving the body to be sensed and the sensing electrodes. An analytical model of the sensor response is presented, and then a probabilistic framework for inferring geometrical information from field measurements is described. The inference framework is demonstrated for the cases of a two-dimensional and a three-dimensional mouse.
932967
Modulation and Information Hiding in Images
We use concepts from communication theory to characterize information hiding schemes: the amount of information that can be hidden, its perceptibility, and its robustness to removal can be modeled using the quantities channel capacity, signal-to-noise ratio, and jamming margin. We then introduce new information hiding schemes whose parameters can easily be adjusted to trade off capacity, imperceptibility, and robustness as required in the application. The theory indicates the most aggressive feasible parameter settings. We also introduce a technique called predistortion for increasing resistance to JPEG compression. Analogous tactics are presumably possible whenever a model of anticipated distortion is available.
2206785
What Have Gene Libraries Done for AIS?
Artificial Immune Systems (AIS) have been shown to be useful, practical and realisable approaches to real-world problems. Most AIS implementations are based around a canonical algorithm such as clonotypic learning, which we may think of as individual, lifetime learning. Yet a species also learns. Gene libraries are often thought of as a biological mechanism for generating combinatorial diversity of antibodies. However, they also bias the antibody creation process, so that they can be viewed as a way of guiding the lifetime learning mechanisms. Over time, the gene libraries in a species will evolve to an appropriate bias for the expected environment (based on species memory). Thus gene libraries are a form of meta-learning which could be useful for AIS. Yet they are hardly ever used. In this paper we consider some of the possible benefits and implications of incorporating the evolution of gene libraries into AIS practice. We examine some of the issues that must be considered if the implementation is to be successful and beneficial.
15945659
Distributed Query Processing on the Grid
Distributed query processing (DQP) has been widely used in data intensive applications where data of relevance to users is stored in multiple locations. This paper argues: (i) that DQP can be important in the Grid, as a means of providing high-level, declarative languages for integrating data access and analysis; and (ii) that the Grid provides resource management facilities that are useful to developers of DQP systems. As well as discussing and illustrating how DQP technologies can be deployed within the Grid, the paper describes a prototype implementation of a DQP system running over Globus.
44866557
A Multiple-Criterion Model for Machine Scheduling
We consider a scheduling problem involving a single processor being utilized by two or more customers. Traditionally, such scenarios are modeled by assuming that each customer has the same criterion. In practice, this assumption may not hold. Instead of using a single criterion, we examine the implications of minimizing an aggregate scheduling objective function in which jobs belonging to different customers are evaluated based on their individual criteria. We examine three basic scheduling criteria: minimizing makespan, minimizing maximum lateness, and minimizing total weighted completion time. Although determining a minimum-cost schedule according to any one of these criteria is polynomially solvable, we demonstrate that when minimizing a mix of these criteria, the problem becomes NP-hard.
33249562
The Transfusion Medicine Tutor: Using Expert Systems Technology to Teach Domain-Specific Problem-Solving Skills
This study provides data regarding the effectiveness of the expert system-based Transfusion Medicine Tutor (TMT) when used by medical technology students to learn an important problem-solving task, the identification of alloantibodies in a patient's blood for the purpose of finding compatible blood for transfusion. The results show that the students who were taught by an instructor using TMT to provide the instructional environment went from 0% correct on a pre-test case to 87%–93% correct on post-tests (N=15). This compares with an improvement rate of 20% by a control group (N=15) who used a passive version of the system with the tutoring functions turned off. The results also demonstrate the importance of relying on objective performance data rather than questionnaire data to evaluate systems, as there was no difference in the subjective responses of the students to these two different versions of the system.
5170537
The TREC2001 Video Track: Information Retrieval on Digital Video Information
The development of techniques to support content-based access to archives of digital video information has recently started to receive much attention from the research community. During 2001, the annual TREC activity, which has been benchmarking the performance of information retrieval techniques on a range of media for 10 years, included a "track" or activity which allowed investigation into approaches to support searching through a video library. This paper is not intended to provide a comprehensive picture of the different approaches taken by the TREC2001 video track participants but instead we give an overview of the TREC video search task and a thumbnail sketch of the approaches taken by different groups. The reason for writing this paper is to highlight the message from the TREC video track that there are now a variety of approaches available for searching and browsing through digital video archives, that these approaches do work, are scalable to larger archives and can yield useful retrieval performance for users. This has important implications in making digital libraries of video information attainable.