27176673
The Latest Development on Cognitive Informatics
Cognitive informatics (CI) is a cutting-edge and profound interdisciplinary research area that tackles the common root problems and foundations of modern informatics, computation, software engineering, AI, and life sciences. CI is a new frontier that studies internal information processing mechanisms and processes of the brain, and their applications in computing, software, and ICT industries. Conventional information theory (Shannon, 1948) treated information as a measure of the probability of messages received from a channel. It was focused on information transmission rather than information itself. Modern information theory perceives information as any aspect of the natural world that can be abstracted and digitally represented. With this orientation, information is regarded as entities of messages, rather than a probabilistic measurement of them as in the classical information theory. However, it is recognized that current information theories are still in a category of external informatics. Complementing to these, there is a whole range of extremely interesting new research areas known as CI, a term which was coined by the author in 2001. I think, therefore I am (Rene Descartes, 1596–1650).’ CI draws the attention of research on the internal information processing mechanisms of the brain, which are perceived as the foundation of next generation IT and software technologies, such as neural computers, bio-computers, novel methodologies of software engineering, quantum information processing, and powerful ICT systems. This talk focuses on the natural information processing mechanisms and cognitive processes. The latest development on CI at the First IEEE International Conference on Cognitive Informatics (ICCI’02) will be reported. At heoretical framework of CI as an emerging and interdisciplinary research area will be presented. The objectives of this talk are to draw attention of researchers, practitioners and graduate students on the investigation of cognitive mechanisms and processes of human information processing, and to stimulate the collaborative international effort on CI research and engineering applications.
29450095
Cognitive models of the brain
The human brain is the most complicated organ in the universe and a new frontier yet to be explored in an interdisciplinary approach. Investigation of the brain is a unique problem that requires recursive mental power to explore the brain using the brain. This paper attempts to develop functional and cognitive models of the brain by using cognitive informatics and formal methodologies. This paper adopts a memory-based approach to explore the brain, and to demonstrate that memory is the foundation for any natural intelligence. Structures of memories are explored and cognitive models of the natural intelligence are proposed. Cognitive mechanisms of the brain, including hypotheses and theories on the thinking engine of the brain, long-term memory establishment, and roles of sleep in long-term memory development, are investigated. The models and theories are applied to explain a number of fundamental physiological and psychological phenomena.
40360434
Measurement of the cognitive functional complexity of software
One of the central problems in software engineering is its inherited complexity. It is recognized that cognitive informatics plays an important role in understanding the fundamental characteristics of software. This paper models the cognitive weights of basic control structures of software, and develops a new concept of cognitive functional size for measuring software complexity. Comparative case studies between the cognitive functional size and physical sizes of 20 programs are conducted. It is found that for a given design, although the physical sizes of software may vary in a wide range, the cognitive functional sizes are much stable and independent from implementation technologies and programming languages. Therefore, the cognitive functional size provides a novel, stable and practical software complexity measurement and is helpful to explain the fundamental nature of software complexity in the phase of design, implementation, or maintenance in software engineering.
21455681
A layered reference model of the brain
Based on the advances of research in cognitive informatics and related fields, this paper attempts to develop a layered reference model of the brain that explains the functional mechanisms and cognitive processes of the natural intelligence. A variety of life functions and cognitive processes have been identified in cognitive informatics, cognitive science, neuropsychology, and neurophilosophy. In order to formally and rigorously describe a comprehensive and coherent set of mental processes and their relationships, an integrated reference model of the brain is established, which encompasses 37 cognitive processes at six layers known as the sensation, memory, perception, action, meta and higher cognitive layers from bottom up. The reference model of the brain may be applied to explain a wide range of physiological, psychological, and cognitive phenomena in cognitive informatics, particularly relationships between the inherited and the acquired life functions, as well as the subconscious and conscious cognitive processes.
16244688
Formal Description of Time Management in Real-Time Operating Systems
This paper describes the formal specification of the time management subsystem of a real-time operating system. Real-time process algebra (RTPA) is adopted to formally specify the system. The architecture, static behaviors, and dynamic behaviors of a CPU time manager are systematically specified that form an abstract model of the system. The formal specifications are implemented in C, on which the system performance can be tested and verified
21184887
The cognitive processes of abstraction and formal inferences
Theoretical research is predominately an inductive process; while applied research is mainly a deductive process. Both inference processes are based on the cognitive process and means of abstraction. This paper describes the cognitive processes of abstraction and formal inferences such as deduction, induction, abduction, and analogy. The hierarchy of abstraction and the descriptivity of abstract means at different levels are analyzed. A set of mathematical models of formal inference methodologies are developed. Formal descriptions of the five cognitive processes of abstraction and inferences are presented using real-time process algebra (RTPA). Applications of abstraction and formal inferences in dealing with complicated problems in large-scale software system development in software engineering are discussed.
961760
Revisiting Colored Networks and Privacy Preserving Censorship
Reliable networks are obviously an important aspect of critical information infrastructures. Dolev-Dwork-Waarts-Yung linked research on reliable point-to-point networks with privacy and authenticity. In their threat model the adversary can only take over a number of nodes bounded by a threshold k. Hirt-Maurer introduced the concept of an adversary structure (i.e. the complement of an access structure). Kumar-Goundan-Srinathan-Rangan and Desmedt-Wang-Burmester generalized Dolev-Dwork-Waarts-Yung scenarios to the case of a general adversary structure. 
 
Burmester-Desmedt introduced a special adversary structure, now called a color based adversary structure. Their argument in favor of their model is that using automated attacks (such as worms), a vulnerability can be exploited on all computers in the network running the same platform (color). In their model the adversary can control all nodes that use up to k different platforms (or colors). 
 
We will demonstrate one of the limitations of their model. Although the family of color based adversary structures has a trivial representation which size grows polynomial in the size of the graph, we will demonstrate in this paper that deciding reliability issues and security issues are co-NP-complete. 
 
In most societies censorship is common. Indeed, for centuries it has often been viewed by authorities as an essential security tool. We apply the computational complexity result to study censorship. Authorities may require network designers to demonstrate the capability to censor the internet. We present a zero-knowledge interactive proof for the case of a color based adversary structure.
62532074
A decision-theoretic approach to the evaluation of information retrieval systems
Evaluation research on information retrieval (IR) systems has thus far been narrowly focused and disjointed. This research attempts to narrow the gap by providing a comprehensive and integrated multiple criteria decision-theoretic approach for the evaluation of IR systems. The approach, which is based on the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), is illustrated in the context of a domain-specific IR system. The novelty of this approach lies in the focus on the user aspect and the application of decision-making theories in the IR field.
14805900
Shape-based 3D surface correspondence using geodesics and local geometry
This paper describes a new method for determining correspondence between points on pairs of surfaces based on shape using a combination of geodesic distance and surface curvature. An initial sparse set of corresponding points is generated using a shape-based matching procedure. Geodesic interpolation is employed in order to capture the complex surface. In addition, surface correspondence and triangulation are computed simultaneously in a hierarchical way. Results applied to human cerebral cortical surfaces are shown to evaluate the approach.
378133
LFM-Pro: a tool for detecting significant local structural sites in proteins
MOTIVATION
The rapidly growing protein structure repositories have opened up new opportunities for discovery and analysis of functional and evolutionary relationships among proteins. Detecting conserved structural sites that are unique to a protein family is of great value in identification of functionally important atoms and residues. Currently available methods are computationally expensive and fail to detect biologically significant local features.


RESULTS
We propose Local Feature Mining in Proteins (LFM-Pro) as a framework for automatically discovering family-specific local sites and the features associated with these sites. Our method uses the distance field to backbone atoms to detect geometrically significant structural centers of the protein. A feature vector is generated from the geometrical and biochemical environment around these centers. These features are then scored using a statistical measure, for their ability to distinguish a family of proteins from a background set of unrelated proteins, and successful features are combined into a representative set for the protein family. The utility and success of LFM-Pro are demonstrated on trypsin-like serine proteases family of proteins and on a challenging classification dataset via comparison with DALI. The results verify that our method is successful both in identifying the distinctive sites of a given family of proteins, and in classifying proteins using the extracted features.


AVAILABILITY
The software and the datasets are freely available for academic research use at http://bioinfo.ceng.metu.edu.tr/Pub/LFMPro.
5135938
Privacy preserving database application testing
Traditionally, application software developers carry out their tests on their own local development databases. However, such local databases usually have only a small number of sample data and hence cannot simulate satisfactorily a live environment, especially in terms of performance and scalability testing. On the other hand, the idea of testing applications over live production databases is increasingly problematic in most situations primarily due to the fact that such use of live production databases has the potential to expose sensitive data to an unauthorized tester and to incorrectly update information in the underlying database. In this paper, we investigate techniques to generate mock databases for application software testing without revealing any confidential information from the live production databases. Specifically, we will design mechanisms to create the deterministic rule set R, non-deterministic rule set N R, and statistic data set S for a live production database. We will then build a security Analyzer which will process the triplet <R',N R',S'> together with security requirements (security policy) and output a new triplet <R',N R',S'> The security Analyzer will guarantee that no confidential information could be inferred from the new triplet <R',N R',S'> The mock database generated from this new triplet can simulate the live environment for testing purpose, while maintaining the privacy of data in the original database.