Journal of
Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics
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 ISSN: 1690-4524 (Online)



TABLE OF CONTENTS





EDITORIAL
William Lesso, Nagib Callaos
Pages: 1-2

A Distributed Feature-based Environment for Collaborative Design
Wei-Dong Li, Yi-Qiang Lu, Hong Zhou, Soh-Khim Ong, Andrew YC Nee, Jerry YH Fuh, Yoke-San Wong
Pages: 3-8
ABSTRACT:
This paper presents a client/server design environment based on 3D feature-based modelling and Java technologies to enable design information to be shared efficiently among members within a design team. In this environment, design tasks and clients are organised through working sessions generated and maintained by a collaborative server. The information from an individual design client during a design process is updated and broadcast to other clients in the same session through an event-driven and call-back mechanism. The downstream manufacturing analysis modules can be wrapped as agents and plugged into the open environment to support the design activities. At the server side, a feature-feature relationship is established and maintained to filter the varied information of a working part, so as to facilitate efficient information update during the design process.


A Specific Encoding Scheme for Genetic Stereo Correspondence Searching: Application to Obstacle Detection
Hazem Issa, Yassine Ruichek, Jack-Gérard Postaire
Pages: 9-17
ABSTRACT:
Stereo correspondence is one of the most active research areas in computer vision. It consists in identifying features in two or more stereo images that are generated by the same physical feature in the three-dimensional space. In our approach, the matching problem is first turned into an optimization task where a fitness function, representing the constraints on the solution, is to be minimized. The optimization process is then performed by means of a genetic algorithm with a new encoding scheme. Experimental results are presented to demonstrate the robustness and the reliability of the proposed approach for obstacle detection in front of a vehicle using linear stereo vision.


A Systems Perspective on the Quality Description of Software Components
Otto Preiss, Alain Wegmann
Pages: 18-24
ABSTRACT:
In this paper we present our rational for proposing a conceptual model for the description of quality attributes of software artifacts, in particular suited to software components. The scientific foundations for our quality description model are derived from researching systems science for its value to software engineering. In this work we realized that software engineering is concerned with a number of interrelated conceptual as well as concrete systems. Each of them exhibits the basic system theoretic principles and is strongly related to certain types of qualities. Such qualities receive particular attention in the context of large software systems, where systems are a combination of in-house and third party products and are increasingly integrated by means of software component technology. Consequently, a quality data sheet is needed by component users to gain trust in, and to evaluate the possible employment of, a candidate component. Interestingly, the concept of a software component appears in most of the aforementioned different types of systems. Hence, it is an excellent means to carry quality related information that belonged to different spheres up to now. The qualities range from those related to the development economics to those related to the execution performance.


A Web-based Architecture Enabling Multichannel Telemedicine Applications
Fabrizio Lamberti, Bartolomeo Montrucchio, Andrea Sanna, Claudio Zunino
Pages: 25-31
ABSTRACT:
Telemedicine scenarios include today in-hospital care management, remote teleconsulting, collaborative diagnosis and emergency situations handling. Different types of information need to be accessed by means of etherogeneous client devices in different communication environments in order to enable high quality continuous sanitary assistance delivery wherever and whenever needed.
In this paper, a Web-based telemedicine architecture based on Java, XML and XSL technologies is presented. By providing dynamic content delivery services and Java based client applications for medical data consultation and modification, the system enables effective access to an Electronic Patient Record based standard database by means of any device equipped with a Web browser, such as traditional Personal Computers and workstation as well as modern Personal Digital Assistants.
The effectiveness of the proposed architecture has been evaluated in different scenarios, experiencing fixed and mobile clinical data transmissions over Local Area Networks, wireless LANs and wide coverage telecommunication network including GSM and GPRS.


Attribute Reduction and Information Granularity
Li-hong Wang, Geng-feng Wu
Pages: 32-37
ABSTRACT:
In the view of granularity, this paper analyzes the influence of three attribute reducts on an information system, finding that the possible reduct and m - decision reduct will make the granule view coarser, while discernible reduct will not change the granule view. In addition, we investigate the combination of reducts from two partial information systems in parallel or in incremental data mining and urge that the union of partial possible reducts can be regarded as a possible reduct for union of partial information systems.


Comparative Analysis of Sparse Matrix Algorithms For Information Retrieval
Nazli Goharian, Ankit Jain, Qian Sun
Pages: 38-46
ABSTRACT:
We evaluate and compare the storage efficiency of different sparse matrix storage formats as index structure for text collection and their corresponding sparse matrixvector multiplication algorithm to perform query processing in information retrieval (IR) application. We show the results of our implementations for several sparse matrix algorithms such as Coordinate Storage (COO), Compressed Sparse Column (CSC), Compressed Sparse Row (CSR), and Block Sparse Row (BSR) sparse matrix algorithms, using a standard text collection. Evaluation is based on the storage space requirement for each indexing structure and the efficiency of the query-processing algorithm. Our results demonstrate that CSR is more efficient in terms of storage space requirement and query processing timing over the other sparse matrix algorithms for Information Retrieval application. Furthermore, we experimentally evaluate the mapping of various existing index compression techniques used to compress index in information retrieval systems (IR) on Compressed Sparse Row Information Retrieval (CSR IR).


Distributed Virtual Reality: System Concepts for Cooperative Training and Commanding in Virtual Worlds
Eckhard Freund, Jürgen Rossmann
Pages: 47-54
ABSTRACT:
The general aim of the development of virtual reality technology for automation applications at the IRF is to provide the framework for Projective Virtual Reality which allows users to “project” their actions in the virtual world into the real world primarily by means of robots but also by other means of automation. The framework is based on a new task-oriented approach which builds on the “task deduction” capabilities of a newly developed virtual reality system and a task planning component. The advantage of this new approach is that robots which work at great distances from the control station can be controlled as easily and intuitively as robots that work right next to the control station. Robot control technology now provides the user in the virtual world with a “prolonged arm” into the physical environment, thus paving the way for a new quality of userfriendly man machine interfaces for automation applications. Lately, this work has been enhanced by a new structure that allows to distribute the virtual reality application over multiple computers. With this new step, it is now possible for multiple users to work together in the same virtual room, although they may physically be thousands of miles apart. They only need an Internet or ISDN connection to share this new experience. Last but not least, the distribution technology has been further developed to not just allow users to cooperate but to be able to run the virtual world on many synchronized PCs so that a panorama projection or even a cave can be run with 10 synchronized PCs instead of high-end workstations, thus cutting down the costs for such a visualization environment drastically and allowing for a new range of applications.


Extending Teach and Repeat to Pivoting Wheelchairs
Guillermo Del Castillo, Steven B. Skaar, Linda Fehr
Pages: 55-62
ABSTRACT:
The paper extends the teach-and-repeat paradigm that has been successful for the control of holonomic robots to nonholonomic wheelchairs which may undergo pivoting action over the course of their taught movement. Due to the nonholonomic nature of the vehicle kinematics, estimation is required -- in the example given herein, based upon video detection of wall-mounted cues -- both in the teaching and the tracking events. In order to accommodate motion that approaches pivoting action as well as motion that approaches straight-line action, the estimation equations of the Extended Kalman Filter and the control equations are formulated using two different definitions of a nontemporal independent variable. The paper motivates the need for pivoting action in real-life settings by reporting extensively on the abilities and limitations of estimation-based teach-and-repeat action where pivoting and near-pivoting action is disallowed. Following formulation of the equations in the near-pivot mode, the paper reports upon experiments where taught trajectories which entail a seamless mix of near-straight and near-pivot action are tracked.


Flash Learning Games Wow Students and Instructors: Moving Toward An Academic Gaming Portal
Dan H Lim
Pages: 62-66
ABSTRACT:
This paper describes and discusses the rationale, background, design, and implementation of Flash learning games. The paper explains why Macromedia Flash has been selected as the authoring tool in the development of highly interactive learning games for online learning. The background evolutionary process of developing the learning games points out why it has been a daunting task to create compelling learning games that impact learning. Designing learning game objects that allow other educators to customize game content is the core of this paper. The author envisions this academic gaming project will evolve into an academic gaming portal, developed in conjunction with other major institutional partners.



Fuzzy Behaviors for Control of Mobile Robots
Saleh Zein-Sabatto, Ali Sekmen, Poolsak Koseeyaporn
Pages: 68-74
ABSTRACT:
In this research work, an RWI B-14 robot has been used as the development platform to embody some basic behaviors that can be combined to build more complex robotics behaviors. Emergency, avoid-obstacle, left wall- following, right wall-following, and move-to-point behaviors have been designed and embodied as basic robot behaviors. The basic behaviors developed in this research are designed based on fuzzy control technique and are integrated and coordinated to from complex robotics system. More behaviors can be added into the system as needed. A robot task can be defined by the user and executed by the intelligent robot control system. Testing results showed that fuzzy behaviors made the robot move intelligently and adapt to changes in its environment.


Fuzzy control in robot-soccer, evolutionary learning in the first layer of control
Peter J Thomas, Russel J Stonier
Pages: 75-80
ABSTRACT:
In this paper an evolutionary algorithm is developed to learn a fuzzy knowledge base for the control of a soccer playing micro-robot from any configuration belonging to a grid of initial configurations to hit the ball along the ball to goal line of sight. The knowledge base uses relative co-ordinate system including left and right wheel velocities of the robot. Final path positions allow forward and reverse facing robot to ball and include its physical dimensions.


HMM based Korean Named Entity Recognition
Yi-Gyu Hwang, Eui-Sok Chung, Soo-jong Lim
Pages: 81-86
ABSTRACT:
In this paper, we present a named entity recognition model for Korean Language. Named entity recognition is an essential and important process of Question Answering and Information Extraction system. This paper proposes a HMM based named entity recognition using compound word construction principles. In Korean, above 60% of NE (Named-Entity) is a compound word. This compound word may be consisted of proper noun, common noun, or bound noun, etc. There is an intercontextual relationship among nouns which consists NE. NE and surrounding words of NE have a contextual relationship. For considering these relationships, we classified nouns into 4 word classes (Independent Entity, Constituent Entity, Adjacent Entity, Not an Entity). With this classification, our system gets contextual and lexical information by stochastic based machine leaning method from a NE labeled training data. Experimental result shows that this approach is better approach than rulebased in the Korean named-entity recognition.


Implementing Case Tools in the Inteligent Telecommunication Systems
Bahador Ghahramani, Azad Azadmanesh
Pages: 87-95
ABSTRACT:
This paper discusses an intelligent and Internet-based Telecommunication System Specification Model (TSSM) using Computer Aided Systems Engineering tools (CASE tools). TSSM implements CASE tools to mechanize its lifecycle development maintenance and integration process. This model is developed to improve the system analysts (SA) efforts in their design and development of major software and hardware initiatives. This model also improves the SA effectiveness by guiding them through the system’s Lifecycle Development Process (LDP). The CASE tools are used to support, integrate, and monitor all LDP functions of the system.


Integrating and Processing XML Documents with JavaBeans Components
Yin-Wah Chiou
Pages: 96-101
ABSTRACT:
The eXtensible Markup Language (XML) and JavaBeans component model have gained wide popularity in the Object Web computing. This paper explores how JavaBeans components can be used to integrate and process the XML documents. It covers Bean Markup Language (BML), XML BeanMaker, XML Bean Suite, and Xbeans. The most powerful JavaBeans connection language is BML, which represents an integration of XML and JavaBeans components to provide a mechanism for implementing active content. XML BeanMaker is used to generate JavaBeans from XML DTD files. XML Bean Suite is a toolkit of JavaBeans components to provide a comprehensive set of functionality to manipulate XML content. The Xbean is a powerful paradigm to process XML-based distributed applications.


Robot Control Using UML and Multi-agent System
Ales Pavliska, Vilem Srovnal
Pages: 102-107
ABSTRACT:
Increased industrialization and new markets have led to an accumulation of used technical consumer goods, which results in greater exploitation of raw materials, energy and landfill sites. In order to reduce the use of natural resources conserve precious energy and limit the increase in waste volume. The application of disassembly techniques is the first step towards this prevention of waste. These techniques form a reliable and clean approach: “noble” or high-graded recycling. This paper presents a multi agent system for disassembly process, which is implemented in a computer-aided application for supervising of the disassembling system: the Interactive Intelligent Interface for Disassembling System. Unified modeling language diagrams are used for an internal and external definition of the disassembling system.


Using Factor Analysis to Identify Topic Preferences Within MBA Courses
Earl Chrysler, Stuart Van Auken
Pages: 108-113
ABSTRACT:
This study demonstrates the role of a principal components factor analysis in conducting a gap analysis as to the desired characteristics of business alumni. Typically, gap analyses merely compare the emphases that should be given to areas of inquiry with perceptions of actual emphases. As a result, the focus is upon depth of coverage. A neglected area in need of investigation is the breadth of topic dimensions and their differences between the normative (should offer) and the descriptive (actually offer). The implications of factor structures, as well as traditional gap analyses, are developed and discussed in the context of outcomes assessment.


Toward A Practical General Systems Methodological Theory
Nagib Callaos, Belkis Sánchez de Callaos
Pages: 114-120
ABSTRACT:
Our main purpose in this paper is to describe the way in which we have been relating General System Theory (GST) to practice and to the design of a General Systems Methodology (GSM). Our first step was to apply GST to design a methodology for software development. Then, in a second step, by means of the experience/knowledge learned from applying the methodology to developing specific information systems, a continuous designing and re-designing process started, which simultaneously generalized the methodology and increased its complexity adding new methodical modules for an increasing diversity tasks needed for different specific systems and/or situations. The methodological kernel increased it generality and the sub-methodological modules increased in specificity and details. The methodological intersection of special methodologies increased its generality, because it its commonalities to a higher methodological diversity, and the union set of methodologies included more special methodologies for systems of different nature and for a higher diversity of situations, or environmental conditions. This paved the way for a General Systems Methodology which, because it includes cognitive/thinking methodological perspective it might take us back to the theoretical realm, i.e. to a methodological theory which, in turn, would pave the way to theoretical methodology. In this way Theory and methodologies would interact with each other in cybernetic loops, including negative and positive reciprocal feedback, as well as reciprocal feedforward.