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<link rel="Stylesheet" href="/infosci/styles.css" type="text/css"> <h2>Information Science Discussion Papers Series: 2001 Abstracts</h2> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2001-01">2001/01: Evolving fuzzy neural networks for on-line knowledge discovery</a></h3> <h4>N. Kasabov</h4> <p>Fuzzy neural networks are connectionist systems that facilitate learning from data, reasoning over fuzzy rules, rule insertion, rule extraction, and rule adaptation. The concept evolving fuzzy neural networks (EFuNNs), with respective algorithms for learning, aggregation, rule insertion, rule extraction, is further developed here and applied for on-line knowledge discovery on both prediction and classification tasks. EFuNNs operate in an on-line mode and learn incrementally through locally tuned elements. They grow as data arrive, and regularly shrink through pruning of nodes, or through node aggregation. The aggregation procedure is functionally equivalent to knowledge abstraction. The features of EFuNNs are illustrated on two real-world application problems—one from macroeconomics and another from Bioinformatics. EFuNNs are suitable for fast learning of on-line incoming data (e.g., financial and economic time series, biological process control), adaptive learning of speech and video data, incremental learning and knowledge discovery from growing databases (e.g. in Bioinformatics), on-line tracing of processes over time, life-long learning. The paper includes also a short review of the most common types of rules used in the knowledge-based neural networks for knowledge discovery and data mining.</p> <p><strong>Keywords: </strong>fuzzy rules evolving fuzzy neural networks on-line learning macroeconomics bioinformatics</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2001-01.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 707 KB)</p> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2001-02">2001/02: The Styx agent methodology</a></h3> <h4>G. Bush, S. Cranefield and M.K. Purvis</h4> <p>Agent-oriented software engineering is a promising new approach to software engineering that uses the notion of an agent as the primary entity of abstraction. The development of methodologies for agent-oriented software engineering is an area that is currently receiving much attention, there have been several agent-oriented methodologies proposed recently and survey papers are starting to appear. However the authors feel that there is still much work necessary in this area; current methodologies can be improved upon. This paper presents a new methodology, the Styx Agent Methodology, which guides the development of collaborative agent systems from the analysis phase through to system implementation and maintenance. A distinguishing feature of Styx is that it covers a wider range of software development life-cycle activities than do other recently proposed agent-oriented methodologies. The key areas covered by this methodology are the specification of communication concepts, inter-agent communication and each agent’s behaviour activation—but it does not address the development of application-specific parts of a system. It will be supported by a software tool which is currently in development.</p> <p><strong>Keywords: </strong>agent-based software engineering methodologies for agent-oriented software development</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2001-02.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 153 KB)</p> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2001-03">2001/03: Implementing agent communication languages directly from UML specifications</a></h3> <h4>S. Cranefield, M.K. Purvis and M. Nowostawski</h4> <p>This paper proposes the use of the Unified Modelling Language (UML) as a formalism for defining an abstract syntax for Agent Communication Languages (ACLs) and their associated content languages. It describes an approach supporting an automatic mapping from high-level abstract specifications of language structures to specific computer language bindings that can be directly used by an agent platform. Some advantages of this approach are that it provides a framework for specifying and experimenting with alternative agent communication languages and reduces the error-prone manual process of generating compatible bindings and grammars for different syntaxes. A prototype implementation supporting an automatic conversion from an abstract communication language expressed in UML to a native Java API and a Resource Description Framework (RDF) serialisation format is described.</p> <p><strong>Keywords: </strong>agent communication languages, abstract syntax, UML, XMI, Java binding, marshalling, RDF</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2001-03.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 488 KB)</p> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2001-04">2001/04: UML and the Semantic Web</a></h3> <h4>S. Cranefield</h4> <p>This paper discusses technology to support the use of UML for representing ontologies and domain knowledge in the Semantic Web. Two mappings have been defined and implemented using XSLT to produce Java classes and an RDF schema from an ontology represented as a UML class diagram and encoded using XMI. A Java application can encode domain knowledge as an object diagram realised as a network of instances of the generated classes. Support is provided for marshalling and unmarshalling this object-oriented knowledge to and from an RDF/XML serialisation.</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2001-04.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 482 KB)</p> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2001-05">2001/05: A layered approach for modelling agent conversations</a></h3> <h4>M. Nowostawski, M.K. Purvis and S. Cranefield</h4> <p>Although the notion of conversations has been discussed for some time as a way in which to provide an abstract representation of extended agent message exchange, there is still no consensus established concerning how to use these abstractions effectively. This paper describes a layered approach based on coloured Petri Nets that can be used for modelling complex, concurrent conversations among agents in a multi-agent system. The approach can be used both to define simple conversation protocols and to define more complex conversation protocols composed of a number of simpler conversations. With this method it is possible (a) to capture the concurrent characteristics of a conversation, (b) to capture the state of a conversation at runtime, and (c) to reuse conversation structures for the processing of multiple concurrent messages. A prototype implementation of such a system with some examples is described.</p> <p><strong>Keywords: </strong>agent communication languages conversations conversation protocols Petri Nets conversation monitoring and visualising</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2001-05.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 216 KB)</p> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2001-06">2001/06: A multi-level approach and infrastructure for agent-oriented software development</a></h3> <h4>M. Nowostawski, G. Bush, M.K. Purvis and S. Cranefield</h4> <p>An architecture, and the accompanying infrastructural support, for agent-based software developement is described which supports the use of agent-oriented ideas at multiple levels of abstraction. At the lowest level are micro-agents, which are robust and efficient implementations of streamlined agents that can be used for many conventional programming tasks. Agents with more sophisticated functionality can be constructed by combining these micro-agents into more complicated agents. Consequently the system supports the consistent use of agent-based ideas throughout the software engineering process, since higher level agents may be hierarchically refined into more detailed agent implementations. We outline how micro-agents are implemented in Java and how they have been used to construct the Opal framework for the construction of more complex agents that are based on the FIPA specifications.</p> <p><strong>Keywords: </strong>agents multi-agent system multi-agent platform scalability</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2001-06.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 293 KB)</p> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2001-07">2001/07: UML-based ontology modelling for software agents</a></h3> <h4>S. Cranefield, S. Haustein and M.K. Purvis</h4> <p>Ontologies play an important role in defining the terminology that agents use in the exchange of knowledge-level messages. As object-oriented modelling, and the Unified Modeling Language (UML) in particular, have built up a huge following in the field of software engineering and are widely supported by robust commercial tools, the use of UML for ontology representation in agent systems would help to hasten the uptake of agent-based systems concepts into industry. This paper examines the potential for UML to be used for ontology modelling, compares it to traditional description logic formalisms and discusses some further possibilities for applying UML-based technologies to agent communication systems.</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2001-07.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 143 KB)</p> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2001-08">2001/08: Generating ontology-specific content languages</a></h3> <h4>S. Cranefield and M.K. Purvis</h4> <p>This paper examines a recent trend amongst software agent application and platform developers to desire the ability to send domain-specific objects within inter-agent messages. If this feature is to be supported without departing from the notion that agents communicate in terms of knowledge, it is important that the meaning of such objects be well understood. Using an object-oriented metamodelling approach, the relationships between ontologies and agent communication and content languages in FIPA-style agent systems are examined. It is shown how object structures in messages can be considered as expressions in ontology-specific extensions of standard content languages. It is also argued that ontologies must distingish between objects with and objects without identity. Traditionally ontologies are used in agent systems “by reference”. An agent is not required to explicitly reason with the ontology, or even to have an online copy available. The names of ontologies can simply be used as a contract between agents undertaking a dialogue: they each claim to be using an interpretation of the terms used in the conversation that conforms to the ontology. The content language uses a string-based syntax to represent sentences in the language which are constructed using constants and function and predicate symbols from the ontology as well as built-in language symbols such as “and” and “or”.</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2001-08.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 171 KB)</p> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2001-09">2001/09: View-based consistency and its implementation</a></h3> <h4>Z. Huang, C. Sun, M.K. Purvis and S. Cranefield</h4> <p>This paper proposes a novel View-based Consistency model for Distributed Shared Memory. A view is a set of ordinary data objects that a processor has the right to access in a data-race-free program. The View-based Consistency model only requires that the data objects of a view are updated before a processor accesses them. Compared with other memory consistency models, the View-based Consistency model can achieve data selection without user annotation and can reduce much false-sharing effect. This model has been implemented based on TreadMarks. Performance results have shown that for all our applications the View-based Consistency model outperforms the Lazy Release Consistency model.</p> <p><strong>Keywords: </strong>distributed shared memory, sequential consistency, false sharing</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2001-09.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 139 KB)</p> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2001-10">2001/10: Distributed information access in New Zealand</a></h3> <h4>H. Nicholls and R. Gibb</h4> <p>The purpose of this document is to describe the key technology issues for distributed information access in New Zealand. It is written from an industrial and public sector perspective, representing the views and findings of a wide cross-section of institutions in public and private sectors. It is an output of Objective 2 of the Distributed Information Systems project funded under contract UO0621 by the New Zealand Foundation for Research, Science and Technology (FRST).</p> <p>It complements other project material produced by the academic research team at the University of Otago and its collaborators.</p> <p>It focuses on requirements and applications, and is intended to provide a real-world, New Zealand-oriented context for the research in distributed information technologies (DIST).</p> <p>The report represents the culmination of a series of workshops, industrial consultations, a questionnaire, and the experiences of the authors’ institutions during the project, and therefore it supplements any previously produced material.</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2001-10.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 1.3 MB)</p> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2001-11">2001/11: Naturalistic decision making in emergency ambulance command and control</a></h3> <h4>W. Wong and A. Blandford</h4> <p>This paper reports on a field study into the nature of decision making in the command and control of emergency ambulances at the London Ambulance Service (LAS). This paper will describe how real-time decisions are made by emergency medical dispatchers and the decision strategies they invoke as they assess the situation, plan and co-ordinate the dispatch of emergency ambulances.</p> <p>A cognitive task analysis approach known as the Critical Decision Method (Hoffman et al., 1998; Klein et al., 1989) was used in the study. The study showed that decision making in emergency ambulance command and control involves four major processes—assessment of the situation, assessment of resources, planning, and co-ordinating and control. These four processes function within an awareness of goings-on in and around the sectors that the dispatchers operate in. This awareness is referred to as situation awareness and is being reported elsewhere (Wong & Blandford, submitted). The decision making process resembles the decision making described by naturalistic decision making models (see (Zsambok & Klein, 1997) for an extensive discussion on the topic) and is an extension of the Integrated Decision Model (Wong, 1999). The study also suggested that a lot of effort was directed at understanding and assessing the situation and in maintaining a constant awareness of the situation. These observations have significant implications for the design of information systems for command and control purposes. These implications will be discussed separately in another paper.</p> <p>The paper will first introduce the domain of EMD at the LAS, then explain how the Critical Decision Method was used in the data collection and in the data anlaysis. It will then describe how decisions are made, particularly during major incidents, and then discuss the implications of those findings for the design of command and control systems.</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2001-11.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 204 KB)</p> <link rel="Stylesheet" href="/infosci/styles.css" type="text/css"> <h2>Information Science Discussion Papers Series: 2001 Abstracts</h2> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2001-01">2001/01: Evolving fuzzy neural networks for on-line knowledge discovery</a></h3> <h4>N. Kasabov</h4> <p>Fuzzy neural networks are connectionist systems that facilitate learning from data, reasoning over fuzzy rules, rule insertion, rule extraction, and rule adaptation. The concept evolving fuzzy neural networks (EFuNNs), with respective algorithms for learning, aggregation, rule insertion, rule extraction, is further developed here and applied for on-line knowledge discovery on both prediction and classification tasks. EFuNNs operate in an on-line mode and learn incrementally through locally tuned elements. They grow as data arrive, and regularly shrink through pruning of nodes, or through node aggregation. The aggregation procedure is functionally equivalent to knowledge abstraction. The features of EFuNNs are illustrated on two real-world application problems—one from macroeconomics and another from Bioinformatics. EFuNNs are suitable for fast learning of on-line incoming data (e.g., financial and economic time series, biological process control), adaptive learning of speech and video data, incremental learning and knowledge discovery from growing databases (e.g. in Bioinformatics), on-line tracing of processes over time, life-long learning. The paper includes also a short review of the most common types of rules used in the knowledge-based neural networks for knowledge discovery and data mining.</p> <p><strong>Keywords: </strong>fuzzy rules evolving fuzzy neural networks on-line learning macroeconomics bioinformatics</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2001-01.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 321 KB)</p> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2001-02">2001/02: The Styx agent methodology</a></h3> <h4>G. Bush, S. Cranefield and M.K. Purvis</h4> <p>Agent-oriented software engineering is a promising new approach to software engineering that uses the notion of an agent as the primary entity of abstraction. The development of methodologies for agent-oriented software engineering is an area that is currently receiving much attention, there have been several agent-oriented methodologies proposed recently and survey papers are starting to appear. However the authors feel that there is still much work necessary in this area; current methodologies can be improved upon. This paper presents a new methodology, the Styx Agent Methodology, which guides the development of collaborative agent systems from the analysis phase through to system implementation and maintenance. A distinguishing feature of Styx is that it covers a wider range of software development life-cycle activities than do other recently proposed agent-oriented methodologies. The key areas covered by this methodology are the specification of communication concepts, inter-agent communication and each agent’s behaviour activation—but it does not address the development of application-specific parts of a system. It will be supported by a software tool which is currently in development.</p> <p><strong>Keywords: </strong>agent-based software engineering methodologies for agent-oriented software development</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2001-02.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 103 KB)</p> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2001-03">2001/03: Implementing agent communication languages directly from UML specifications</a></h3> <h4>S. Cranefield, M.K. Purvis and M. Nowostawski</h4> <p>This paper proposes the use of the Unified Modelling Language (UML) as a formalism for defining an abstract syntax for Agent Communication Languages (ACLs) and their associated content languages. It describes an approach supporting an automatic mapping from high-level abstract specifications of language structures to specific computer language bindings that can be directly used by an agent platform. Some advantages of this approach are that it provides a framework for specifying and experimenting with alternative agent communication languages and reduces the error-prone manual process of generating compatible bindings and grammars for different syntaxes. A prototype implementation supporting an automatic conversion from an abstract communication language expressed in UML to a native Java API and a Resource Description Framework (RDF) serialisation format is described.</p> <p><strong>Keywords: </strong>agent communication languages, abstract syntax, UML, XMI, Java binding, marshalling, RDF</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2001-03.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 451 KB)</p> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2001-04">2001/04: UML and the Semantic Web</a></h3> <h4>S. Cranefield</h4> <p>This paper discusses technology to support the use of UML for representing ontologies and domain knowledge in the Semantic Web. Two mappings have been defined and implemented using XSLT to produce Java classes and an RDF schema from an ontology represented as a UML class diagram and encoded using XMI. A Java application can encode domain knowledge as an object diagram realised as a network of instances of the generated classes. Support is provided for marshalling and unmarshalling this object-oriented knowledge to and from an RDF/XML serialisation.</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2001-04.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 912 KB)</p> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2001-05">2001/05: A layered approach for modelling agent conversations</a></h3> <h4>M. Nowostawski, M.K. Purvis and S. Cranefield</h4> <p>Although the notion of conversations has been discussed for some time as a way in which to provide an abstract representation of extended agent message exchange, there is still no consensus established concerning how to use these abstractions effectively. This paper describes a layered approach based on coloured Petri Nets that can be used for modelling complex, concurrent conversations among agents in a multi-agent system. The approach can be used both to define simple conversation protocols and to define more complex conversation protocols composed of a number of simpler conversations. With this method it is possible (a) to capture the concurrent characteristics of a conversation, (b) to capture the state of a conversation at runtime, and (c) to reuse conversation structures for the processing of multiple concurrent messages. A prototype implementation of such a system with some examples is described.</p> <p><strong>Keywords: </strong>agent communication languages conversations conversation protocols Petri Nets conversation monitoring and visualising</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2001-05.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 131 KB)</p> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2001-06">2001/06: A multi-level approach and infrastructure for agent-oriented software development</a></h3> <h4>M. Nowostawski, G. Bush, M.K. Purvis and S. Cranefield</h4> <p>An architecture, and the accompanying infrastructural support, for agent-based software developement is described which supports the use of agent-oriented ideas at multiple levels of abstraction. At the lowest level are micro-agents, which are robust and efficient implementations of streamlined agents that can be used for many conventional programming tasks. Agents with more sophisticated functionality can be constructed by combining these micro-agents into more complicated agents. Consequently the system supports the consistent use of agent-based ideas throughout the software engineering process, since higher level agents may be hierarchically refined into more detailed agent implementations. We outline how micro-agents are implemented in Java and how they have been used to construct the Opal framework for the construction of more complex agents that are based on the FIPA specifications.</p> <p><strong>Keywords: </strong>agents multi-agent system multi-agent platform scalability</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2001-06.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 155 KB)</p> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2001-07">2001/07: UML-based ontology modelling for software agents</a></h3> <h4>S. Cranefield, S. Haustein and M.K. Purvis</h4> <p>Ontologies play an important role in defining the terminology that agents use in the exchange of knowledge-level messages. As object-oriented modelling, and the Unified Modeling Language (UML) in particular, have built up a huge following in the field of software engineering and are widely supported by robust commercial tools, the use of UML for ontology representation in agent systems would help to hasten the uptake of agent-based systems concepts into industry. This paper examines the potential for UML to be used for ontology modelling, compares it to traditional description logic formalisms and discusses some further possibilities for applying UML-based technologies to agent communication systems.</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2001-07.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 102 KB)</p> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2001-08">2001/08: Generating ontology-specific content languages</a></h3> <h4>S. Cranefield and M.K. Purvis</h4> <p>This paper examines a recent trend amongst software agent application and platform developers to desire the ability to send domain-specific objects within inter-agent messages. If this feature is to be supported without departing from the notion that agents communicate in terms of knowledge, it is important that the meaning of such objects be well understood. Using an object-oriented metamodelling approach, the relationships between ontologies and agent communication and content languages in FIPA-style agent systems are examined. It is shown how object structures in messages can be considered as expressions in ontology-specific extensions of standard content languages. It is also argued that ontologies must distingish between objects with and objects without identity. Traditionally ontologies are used in agent systems “by reference”. An agent is not required to explicitly reason with the ontology, or even to have an online copy available. The names of ontologies can simply be used as a contract between agents undertaking a dialogue: they each claim to be using an interpretation of the terms used in the conversation that conforms to the ontology. The content language uses a string-based syntax to represent sentences in the language which are constructed using constants and function and predicate symbols from the ontology as well as built-in language symbols such as “and” and “or”.</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2001-08.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 131KB)</p> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2001-09">2001/09: View-based consistency and its implementation</a></h3> <h4>Z. Huang, C. Sun, M.K. Purvis and S. Cranefield</h4> <p>This paper proposes a novel View-based Consistency model for Distributed Shared Memory. A view is a set of ordinary data objects that a processor has the right to access in a data-race-free program. The View-based Consistency model only requires that the data objects of a view are updated before a processor accesses them. Compared with other memory consistency models, the View-based Consistency model can achieve data selection without user annotation and can reduce much false-sharing effect. This model has been implemented based on TreadMarks. Performance results have shown that for all our applications the View-based Consistency model outperforms the Lazy Release Consistency model.</p> <p><strong>Keywords: </strong>distributed shared memory, sequential consistency, false sharing</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2001-09.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 207 KB)</p> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2001-10">2001/10: Distributed information access in New Zealand</a></h3> <h4>H. Nicholls and R. Gibb</h4> <p>The purpose of this document is to describe the key technology issues for distributed information access in New Zealand. It is written from an industrial and public sector perspective, representing the views and findings of a wide cross-section of institutions in public and private sectors. It is an output of Objective 2 of the Distributed Information Systems project funded under contract UO0621 by the New Zealand Foundation for Research, Science and Technology (FRST).</p> <p>It complements other project material produced by the academic research team at the University of Otago and its collaborators.</p> <p>It focuses on requirements and applications, and is intended to provide a real-world, New Zealand-oriented context for the research in distributed information technologies (DIST).</p> <p>The report represents the culmination of a series of workshops, industrial consultations, a questionnaire, and the experiences of the authors’ institutions during the project, and therefore it supplements any previously produced material.</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2001-10.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 1.8 MB)</p> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2001-11">2001/11: Naturalistic decision making in emergency ambulance command and control</a></h3> <h4>W. Wong and A. Blandford</h4> <p>This paper reports on a field study into the nature of decision making in the command and control of emergency ambulances at the London Ambulance Service (LAS). This paper will describe how real-time decisions are made by emergency medical dispatchers and the decision strategies they invoke as they assess the situation, plan and co-ordinate the dispatch of emergency ambulances.</p> <p>A cognitive task analysis approach known as the Critical Decision Method was used in the study. The study showed that decision making in emergency ambulance command and control involves four major processes—assessment of the situation, assessment of resources, planning, and co-ordinating and control. These four processes function within an awareness of goings-on in and around the sectors that the dispatchers operate in. This awareness is referred to as situation awareness and is being reported elsewhere. The decision making process resembles the decision making described by naturalistic decision making models and is an extension of the Integrated Decision Model. The study also suggested that a lot of effort was directed at understanding and assessing the situation and in maintaining a constant awareness of the situation. These observations have significant implications for the design of information systems for command and control purposes. These implications will be discussed separately in another paper.</p> <p>The paper will first introduce the domain of EMD at the LAS, then explain how the Critical Decision Method was used in the data collection and in the data anlaysis. It will then describe how decisions are made, particularly during major incidents, and then discuss the implications of those findings for the design of command and control systems.</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2001-11.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 262 KB)</p>

Ignore Space Show notes View

Website/dp2001-abstracts-contents.htm

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2001-01">2001/01: Evolving fuzzy neural networks for on-line knowledge discovery</a></h3>
<h4>N. Kasabov</h4>

<p>Fuzzy neural networks are connectionist systems that facilitate learning from data, reasoning over fuzzy rules, rule insertion, rule extraction, and rule adaptation. The concept evolving fuzzy neural networks (EFuNNs), with respective algorithms for learning, aggregation, rule insertion, rule extraction, is further developed here and applied for on-line knowledge discovery on both prediction and classification tasks. EFuNNs operate in an on-line mode and learn incrementally through locally tuned elements. They grow as data arrive, and regularly shrink through pruning of nodes, or through node aggregation. The aggregation procedure is functionally equivalent to knowledge abstraction. The features of EFuNNs are illustrated on two real-world application problems&mdash;one from macroeconomics and another from Bioinformatics. EFuNNs are suitable for fast learning of on-line incoming data (e.g., financial and economic time series, biological process control), adaptive learning of speech and video data, incremental learning and knowledge discovery from growing databases (e.g. in Bioinformatics), on-line tracing of processes over time, life-long learning. The paper includes also a short review of the most common types of rules used in the knowledge-based neural networks for knowledge discovery and data mining.</p>

<p><strong>Keywords: </strong>fuzzy rules
evolving fuzzy neural networks
on-line learning
macroeconomics
bioinformatics</p>

<p><a href="papers/dp2001-01.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 707 KB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2001-02">2001/02: The Styx agent methodology</a></h3>
<h4>G. Bush, S. Cranefield and M.K. Purvis</h4>

<p>Agent-oriented software engineering is a promising new approach to software engineering that uses the notion of an agent as the primary entity of abstraction. The development of methodologies for agent-oriented software engineering is an area that is currently receiving much attention, there have been several agent-oriented methodologies proposed recently and survey papers are starting to appear. However the authors feel that there is still much work necessary in this area; current methodologies can be improved upon. This paper presents a new methodology, the Styx Agent Methodology, which guides the development of collaborative agent systems from the analysis phase through to system implementation and maintenance. A distinguishing feature of Styx is that it covers a wider range of software development life-cycle activities than do other recently proposed agent-oriented methodologies. The key areas covered by this methodology are the specification of communication concepts, inter-agent communication and each agent&rsquo;s behaviour activation&mdash;but it does not address the development of application-specific parts of a system. It will be supported by a software tool which is currently in development.</p>

<p><strong>Keywords: </strong>agent-based software engineering
methodologies for agent-oriented software development</p>

<p><a href="papers/dp2001-02.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 153 KB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2001-03">2001/03: Implementing agent communication languages directly from UML specifications</a></h3>
<h4>S. Cranefield, M.K. Purvis and M. Nowostawski</h4>

<p>This paper proposes the use of the Unified Modelling Language (UML) as a formalism for defining an abstract syntax for Agent Communication Languages (ACLs) and their associated content languages. It describes an approach supporting an automatic mapping from high-level abstract specifications of language structures to specific computer language bindings that can be directly used by an agent platform. Some advantages of this approach are that it provides a framework for specifying and experimenting with alternative agent communication languages and reduces the error-prone manual process of generating compatible bindings and grammars for different syntaxes. A prototype implementation supporting an automatic conversion from an abstract communication language expressed in UML to a native Java API and a Resource Description Framework (RDF) serialisation format is described.</p>

<p><strong>Keywords: </strong>agent communication languages,
abstract syntax,
UML,
XMI,
Java binding,
marshalling,
RDF</p>

<p><a href="papers/dp2001-03.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 488 KB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2001-04">2001/04: UML and the Semantic Web</a></h3>
<h4>S. Cranefield</h4>

<p>This paper discusses technology to support the use of UML for representing ontologies and domain knowledge in the Semantic Web. Two mappings have been defined and implemented using XSLT to produce Java classes and an RDF schema from an ontology represented as a UML class diagram and encoded using XMI. A Java application can encode domain knowledge as an object diagram realised as a network of instances of the generated classes. Support is provided for marshalling and unmarshalling this object-oriented knowledge to and from an RDF/XML serialisation.</p>

<p><a href="papers/dp2001-04.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 482 KB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2001-05">2001/05: A layered approach for modelling agent conversations</a></h3>
<h4>M. Nowostawski, M.K. Purvis and S. Cranefield</h4>

<p>Although the notion of conversations has been discussed for some time as a way in which to provide an abstract representation of extended agent message exchange, there is still no consensus established concerning how to use these abstractions effectively. This paper describes a layered approach based on coloured Petri Nets that can be used for modelling complex, concurrent conversations among agents in a multi-agent system. The approach can be used both to define simple conversation protocols and to define more complex conversation protocols composed of a number of simpler conversations. With this method it is possible (a) to capture the concurrent characteristics of a conversation, (b) to capture the state of a conversation at runtime, and (c) to reuse conversation structures for the processing of multiple concurrent messages. A prototype implementation of such a system with some examples is described.</p>

<p><strong>Keywords: </strong>agent communication languages
conversations
conversation protocols
Petri Nets
conversation monitoring and visualising</p>

<p><a href="papers/dp2001-05.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 216 KB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2001-06">2001/06: A multi-level approach and infrastructure for agent-oriented software development</a></h3>
<h4>M. Nowostawski, G. Bush, M.K. Purvis and S. Cranefield</h4>

<p>An architecture, and the accompanying infrastructural support, for agent-based software developement is described which supports the use of agent-oriented ideas at multiple levels of abstraction. At the lowest level are micro-agents, which are robust and efficient implementations of streamlined agents that can be used for many conventional programming tasks. Agents with more sophisticated functionality can be constructed by combining these micro-agents into more complicated agents. Consequently the system supports the consistent use of agent-based ideas throughout the software engineering process, since higher level agents may be hierarchically refined into more detailed agent implementations. We outline how micro-agents are implemented in Java and how they have been used to construct the Opal framework for the construction of more complex agents that are based on the FIPA specifications.</p>

<p><strong>Keywords: </strong>agents
multi-agent system
multi-agent platform scalability</p>

<p><a href="papers/dp2001-06.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 293 KB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2001-07">2001/07: UML-based ontology modelling for software agents</a></h3>
<h4>S. Cranefield, S. Haustein and M.K. Purvis</h4>

<p>Ontologies play an important role in defining the terminology that agents use in the exchange of knowledge-level messages. As object-oriented modelling, and the Unified Modeling Language (UML) in particular, have built up a huge following in the field of software engineering and are widely supported by robust commercial tools, the use of UML for ontology representation in agent systems would help to hasten the uptake of agent-based systems concepts into industry. This paper examines the potential for UML to be used for ontology modelling, compares it to traditional description logic formalisms and discusses some further possibilities for applying UML-based technologies to agent communication systems.</p>

<p><a href="papers/dp2001-07.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 143 KB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2001-08">2001/08: Generating ontology-specific content languages</a></h3>
<h4>S. Cranefield and M.K. Purvis</h4>

<p>This paper examines a recent trend amongst software agent application and platform developers to desire the ability to send domain-specific objects within inter-agent messages. If this feature is to be supported without departing from the notion that agents communicate in terms of knowledge, it is important that the meaning of such objects be well understood. Using an object-oriented metamodelling approach, the relationships between ontologies and agent communication and content languages in FIPA-style agent systems are examined. It is shown how object structures in messages can be considered as expressions in ontology-specific extensions of standard content languages. It is also argued that ontologies must distingish between objects with and objects without identity. Traditionally ontologies are used in agent systems &ldquo;by reference&rdquo;. An agent is not required to explicitly reason with the ontology, or even to have an online copy available. The names of ontologies can simply be used as a contract between agents undertaking a dialogue: they each claim to be using an interpretation of the terms used in the conversation that conforms to the ontology. The content language uses a string-based syntax to represent sentences in the language which are constructed using constants and function and predicate symbols from the ontology as well as built-in language symbols such as &ldquo;and&rdquo; and &ldquo;or&rdquo;.</p>

<p><a href="papers/dp2001-08.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 171 KB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2001-09">2001/09: View-based consistency and its implementation</a></h3>
<h4>Z. Huang, C. Sun, M.K. Purvis and S. Cranefield</h4>

<p>This paper proposes a novel View-based Consistency model for Distributed Shared Memory. A view is a set of ordinary data objects that a processor has the right to access in a data-race-free program. The View-based Consistency model only requires that the data objects of a view are updated before a processor accesses them. Compared with other memory consistency models, the View-based Consistency model can achieve data selection without user annotation and can reduce much false-sharing effect. This model has been implemented based on TreadMarks. Performance results have shown that for all our applications the View-based Consistency model outperforms the Lazy Release Consistency model.</p>

<p><strong>Keywords: </strong>distributed shared memory,
sequential consistency,
false sharing</p>

<p><a href="papers/dp2001-09.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 139 KB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2001-10">2001/10: Distributed information access in New Zealand</a></h3>
<h4>H. Nicholls and R. Gibb</h4>

<p>The purpose of this document is to describe the key technology issues for distributed information access in New Zealand. It is written from an industrial and public sector perspective, representing the views and findings of a wide cross-section of institutions in public and private sectors. It is an output of Objective 2 of the Distributed Information Systems project funded under contract UO0621 by the New Zealand Foundation for Research, Science and Technology (FRST).</p>

<p>It complements other project material produced by the academic research team at the University of Otago and its collaborators.</p>

<p>It focuses on requirements and applications, and is intended to provide a real-world, New Zealand-oriented context for the research in distributed information technologies (DIST).</p>

<p>The report represents the culmination of a series of workshops, industrial consultations, a questionnaire, and the experiences of the authors&rsquo; institutions during the project, and therefore it supplements any previously produced material.</p>

<p><a href="papers/dp2001-10.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 1.3 MB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2001-11">2001/11: Naturalistic decision making in emergency ambulance command and control</a></h3>
<h4>W. Wong and A. Blandford</h4>

<p>This paper reports on a field study into the nature of decision making in the command and control of emergency ambulances at the London Ambulance Service (LAS). This paper will describe how real-time decisions are made by emergency medical dispatchers and the decision strategies they invoke as they assess the situation, plan and co-ordinate the dispatch of emergency ambulances.</p>

<p>A cognitive task analysis approach known as the Critical Decision Method (Hoffman et al., 1998; Klein et al., 1989) was used in the study. The study showed that decision making in emergency ambulance command and control involves four major processes&mdash;assessment of the situation, assessment of resources, planning, and co-ordinating and control. These four processes function within an awareness of goings-on in and around the sectors that the dispatchers operate in. This awareness is referred to as situation awareness and is being reported elsewhere (Wong &amp; Blandford, submitted). The decision making process resembles the decision making described by naturalistic decision making models (see (Zsambok &amp; Klein, 1997) for an extensive discussion on the topic) and is an extension of the Integrated Decision Model (Wong, 1999). The study also suggested that a lot of effort was directed at understanding and assessing the situation and in maintaining a constant awareness of the situation. These observations have significant implications for the design of information systems for command and control purposes. These implications will be discussed separately in another paper.</p>

<p>The paper will first introduce the domain of EMD at the LAS, then explain how the Critical Decision Method was used in the data collection and in the data anlaysis. It will then describe how decisions are made, particularly during major incidents, and then discuss the implications of those findings for the design of command and control systems.</p>

<p><a href="papers/dp2001-11.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 204 KB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2001-01">2001/01: Evolving fuzzy neural networks for on-line knowledge discovery</a></h3>
<h4>N. Kasabov</h4>

<p>Fuzzy neural networks are connectionist systems that facilitate learning from data, reasoning over fuzzy rules, rule insertion, rule extraction, and rule adaptation. The concept evolving fuzzy neural networks (EFuNNs), with respective algorithms for learning, aggregation, rule insertion, rule extraction, is further developed here and applied for on-line knowledge discovery on both prediction and classification tasks. EFuNNs operate in an on-line mode and learn incrementally through locally tuned elements. They grow as data arrive, and regularly shrink through pruning of nodes, or through node aggregation. The aggregation procedure is functionally equivalent to knowledge abstraction. The features of EFuNNs are illustrated on two real-world application problems&#8212;one from macroeconomics and another from Bioinformatics. EFuNNs are suitable for fast learning of on-line incoming data (e.g., financial and economic time series, biological process control), adaptive learning of speech and video data, incremental learning and knowledge discovery from growing databases (e.g. in Bioinformatics), on-line tracing of processes over time, life-long learning. The paper includes also a short review of the most common types of rules used in the knowledge-based neural networks for knowledge discovery and data mining.</p>

<p><strong>Keywords: </strong>fuzzy rules
evolving fuzzy neural networks
on-line learning
macroeconomics
bioinformatics</p>

<p><a href="papers/dp2001-01.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 321 KB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2001-02">2001/02: The Styx agent methodology</a></h3>
<h4>G. Bush, S. Cranefield and M.K. Purvis</h4>

<p>Agent-oriented software engineering is a promising new approach to software engineering that uses the notion of an agent as the primary entity of abstraction. The development of methodologies for agent-oriented software engineering is an area that is currently receiving much attention, there have been several agent-oriented methodologies proposed recently and survey papers are starting to appear. However the authors feel that there is still much work necessary in this area; current methodologies can be improved upon. This paper presents a new methodology, the Styx Agent Methodology, which guides the development of collaborative agent systems from the analysis phase through to system implementation and maintenance. A distinguishing feature of Styx is that it covers a wider range of software development life-cycle activities than do other recently proposed agent-oriented methodologies. The key areas covered by this methodology are the specification of communication concepts, inter-agent communication and each agent&#8217;s behaviour activation&#8212;but it does not address the development of application-specific parts of a system. It will be supported by a software tool which is currently in development.</p>

<p><strong>Keywords: </strong>agent-based software engineering
methodologies for agent-oriented software development</p>

<p><a href="papers/dp2001-02.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 103 KB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2001-03">2001/03: Implementing agent communication languages directly from UML specifications</a></h3>
<h4>S. Cranefield, M.K. Purvis and M. Nowostawski</h4>

<p><strong>Keywords: </strong>agent communication languages,
abstract syntax,
UML,
XMI,
Java binding,
marshalling,
RDF</p>

<p><a href="papers/dp2001-03.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 451 KB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2001-04">2001/04: UML and the Semantic Web</a></h3>
<h4>S. Cranefield</h4>

<p><a href="papers/dp2001-04.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 912 KB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2001-05">2001/05: A layered approach for modelling agent conversations</a></h3>
<h4>M. Nowostawski, M.K. Purvis and S. Cranefield</h4>

<p><strong>Keywords: </strong>agent communication languages
conversations
conversation protocols
Petri Nets
conversation monitoring and visualising</p>

<p><a href="papers/dp2001-05.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 131 KB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2001-06">2001/06: A multi-level approach and infrastructure for agent-oriented software development</a></h3>
<h4>M. Nowostawski, G. Bush, M.K. Purvis and S. Cranefield</h4>

<p><strong>Keywords: </strong>agents
multi-agent system
multi-agent platform scalability</p>

<p><a href="papers/dp2001-06.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 155 KB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2001-07">2001/07: UML-based ontology modelling for software agents</a></h3>
<h4>S. Cranefield, S. Haustein and M.K. Purvis</h4>

<p><a href="papers/dp2001-07.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 102 KB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2001-08">2001/08: Generating ontology-specific content languages</a></h3>
<h4>S. Cranefield and M.K. Purvis</h4>

<p>This paper examines a recent trend amongst software agent application and platform developers to desire the ability to send domain-specific objects within inter-agent messages. If this feature is to be supported without departing from the notion that agents communicate in terms of knowledge, it is important that the meaning of such objects be well understood. Using an object-oriented metamodelling approach, the relationships between ontologies and agent communication and content languages in FIPA-style agent systems are examined. It is shown how object structures in messages can be considered as expressions in ontology-specific extensions of standard content languages. It is also argued that ontologies must distingish between objects with and objects without identity. Traditionally ontologies are used in agent systems &#8220;by reference&#8221;. An agent is not required to explicitly reason with the ontology, or even to have an online copy available. The names of ontologies can simply be used as a contract between agents undertaking a dialogue: they each claim to be using an interpretation of the terms used in the conversation that conforms to the ontology. The content language uses a string-based syntax to represent sentences in the language which are constructed using constants and function and predicate symbols from the ontology as well as built-in language symbols such as &#8220;and&#8221; and &#8220;or&#8221;.</p>

<p><a href="papers/dp2001-08.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 131KB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2001-09">2001/09: View-based consistency and its implementation</a></h3>
<h4>Z. Huang, C. Sun, M.K. Purvis and S. Cranefield</h4>

<p><strong>Keywords: </strong>distributed shared memory,
sequential consistency,
false sharing</p>

<p><a href="papers/dp2001-09.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 207 KB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2001-10">2001/10: Distributed information access in New Zealand</a></h3>
<h4>H. Nicholls and R. Gibb</h4>

<p>It complements other project material produced by the academic research team at the University of Otago and its collaborators.</p>

<p>It focuses on requirements and applications, and is intended to provide a real-world, New Zealand-oriented context for the research in distributed information technologies (DIST).</p>

<p>The report represents the culmination of a series of workshops, industrial consultations, a questionnaire, and the experiences of the authors&#8217; institutions during the project, and therefore it supplements any previously produced material.</p>

<p><a href="papers/dp2001-10.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 1.8 MB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2001-11">2001/11: Naturalistic decision making in emergency ambulance command and control</a></h3>
<h4>W. Wong and A. Blandford</h4>

<p>A cognitive task analysis approach known as the Critical Decision Method was used in the study. The study showed that decision making in emergency ambulance command and control involves four major processes&#8212;assessment of the situation, assessment of resources, planning, and co-ordinating and control. These four processes function within an awareness of goings-on in and around the sectors that the dispatchers operate in. This awareness is referred to as situation awareness and is being reported elsewhere. The decision making process resembles the decision making described by naturalistic decision making models and is an extension of the Integrated Decision Model. The study also suggested that a lot of effort was directed at understanding and assessing the situation and in maintaining a constant awareness of the situation. These observations have significant implications for the design of information systems for command and control purposes. These implications will be discussed separately in another paper.</p>

<p><a href="papers/dp2001-11.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 262 KB)</p>

Ignore Space Show notes View Website/dp2002-abstracts-contents.htm
<link rel="Stylesheet" href="/infosci/styles.css" type="text/css"> <h2>Information Science Discussion Papers Series: 2002 Abstracts</h2> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2002-01">2002/01: Opal: A multi-level infrastructure for agent-oriented software development</a></h3> <h4>M. Purvis, S. Cranefield, M. Nowostawski and D. Carter</h4> <p>The Opal architecture for software development is described that supports the use of agent-oriented concepts at multiple levels of abstraction. At the lowest level are micro-agents, streamlined agents that can be used for conventional, system-level programming tasks. More sophisticated agents may be constructed by assembling combinations of micro-agents. The architecture consequently supports the systematic use of agent-based notions throughout the software development process. The paper describes (a) the implementation of micro-agents in Java, (b) how they have been used to fashion the Opal framework for the construction of more complex agents based on the Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents (FIPA) specifications, and (c) the Opal Conversation Manager that facilitates the capability of agents to conduct complex conversations with other agents.</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2002-01.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 537 KB)</p> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2002-02">2002/02: Interaction protocols for a network of environmental problem solvers</a></h3> <h4>M. Purvis, P. Hwang, M. Purvis, S. Cranefield and M. Schievink</h4> <p>Environmental management and emergency response often involves the joint cooperation of a network of distributed problem solvers, each of which may be specialised for a specific task or problem domain. Some of these problem solvers could be human, others could be ‘intelligent’ environmental monitoring and control systems. Environmental software systems are needed not only for the provision of basic environmental information but also to support the coordination of these problem solvers. An agent architecture can support the requirement associated with disparate problem solvers. The various stakeholders in the process are represented by software agents which can collaborate with each other toward achieving a particular goal. The communication between agents can be accomplished by using interaction protocols which are represented by coloured Petri nets (CPN). This paper describes an approach for providing this support by employing a software agent framework for the modelling and execution of environmental process tasks in a networked environment.</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2002-02.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 121 KB)</p> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2002-03">2002/03: Spatio-temporal and object visualization in rugby union</a></h3> <h4>A. Moore, P. Whigham, C. Aldridge, A. Holt and K. Hodge</h4> <p>The use of computer software as an aid to rugby, and sports coaching in general, is becoming increasingly utilized. Videoed sport is the most widely used form of raw data for sports analysis, though it is currently not being used to its full potential. Patterns of player movement and position, both for individuals and groupings of players, are important for understanding the complexities of professional team sports, and yet are not being adequately addressed.</p> <p>This paper outlines a project that aims to support coaching and/or commentary by visualizing and measuring the similarity of video-derived spatiotemporal information, and enabling timely access to relevant video clips. Specifically, methods by which a user of spatially-enabled sports software can visualize spatio-temporal and rugby object information will be discussed. Two issues are examined: (1) powerful spatio-temporal representation techniques for rugby constructs (such as the pitch, players and amalgamations of players: team, scrum, lineout, backline) and (2) user interface design and how it enables rugby object representation alongside the spatio-temporal visualization facility.</p> <p><strong>Keywords: </strong>spatial, temporal, video, representation, object, rugby</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2002-03.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 2.3 MB)</p> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2002-04">2002/04: Multi-agent system interaction protocols in a dynamically changing environment</a></h3> <h4>M. Purvis, S. Cranefield, M. Purvis and M. Nowostawski</h4> <p>An area where multi-agent systems can be put to effective use is for the case of an open collection of autonomous problem solvers in a dynamically changing environment. One example of such a situation is that of environmental management and emergency response, which can require the joint cooperation of a distributed set of components, each one of which may be specialised for a specific task or problem domain. The various stakeholders in the process can all be represented and interfaced by software agents which collaborate with each other toward achieving a particular goal. For such situations new agents that arrive on the scene must be apprised of the group interaction protocols so that they can cooperate effectively with the existing agents. In this paper we show how this can be done by using coloured Petri net representations for each role in an interaction protocol and passing these nets dynamically to new agents that wish to participate in a group interaction. We argue that multi-agent systems are particularly suited for such dynamically changing environments, but their effectiveness depends on the their ability to use adaptive interaction protocols.</p> <p><strong>Keywords: </strong>multi-agent systems, agent conversations, adaptive systems</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2002-04.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 150 KB)</p> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2002-05">2002/05: Hand-held computers in health care: What software programs are available?</a></h3> <h4>W. Gillingham, A. Holt and J. Gillies</h4> <p>The technology sector of healthcare is entering a new evolutionary phase. The medical community has an obligation to the public to provide the safest, most effective healthcare possible. This is more achievable with the use of computer technology at the point of care, and small, portable devices could fulfil this role. A Modern Physician/PricewaterhouseCoopers 2001 survey on information technology in Physician practices found that 60% of respondents say that physicians in their organisation use PDAs, compare this with 26% in the 2000 technology survey. This trend is expected to continue to the point where these devices will have their position on a physician’s desk next to their stethoscope. Once this electronic evolution occurs, the practice of medicine will change. Doctors will be able to practice medicine with greater ease and safety. In our opinion, the new generation of PDA mobile devices will be the tools to enable a transformation of healthcare to a paperless, wireless world.</p> <p>This article focuses on uses for PDAs in health care. Healthcare software is categorised into the following groups; reference/text book, calculators, patient management/logbook and personal clinical/study notebook. With a focus on the healthcare audience (the user), which can be registrar, consultant, nurse, student, teacher, patient, medical director and surgical.</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2002-05.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 864 KB)</p> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2002-07">2002/07: St John’s Ambulance Service, Southern Region: Control centre dispatch profile (1997–2001)</a></h3> <h4>J. Hayes</h4> <p>The St John’s Ambulance Service, Southern Region Control Centre (the control centre) is located in Dunedin City and controls 56 ambulances based in 26 regional stations. The Southern Region covers an area of approximately 54,000 square kilometres, which has a usually resident population of 272,541 (Census, 2001). This report focuses on the dispatch and workload profile of the control centre between the 1st January 1997 and the 31st December 2001. During this period the control centre dispatched ambulances on approximately 135,822 occasions to a total of 118,759 incidents (this includes both emergency incidents and patient transfers). Based on an analysis of these incidents several key findings are discussed in this report. These include:</p> <ul> <li>A 21.8% increase in the total number of incidents handled in the control centre between 1997 and 2001</li> <li>A 44 second increase in average activation times between 1997 and 2001</li> <li>A strong correlation between increased workload and increased activation times</li> <li>A large increase in activation times during low and medium workload periods</li> </ul> <p><a href="papers/dp2002-07.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 180 KB)</p> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2002-08">2002/08: Population density and spatially constrained selection in evolutionary computation</a></h3> <h4>G. Dick and P. Whigham</h4> <p>(No abstract.)</p> <p><strong>Keywords: </strong>evolutionary computation, selection, spatial patterns</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2002-08.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 255 KB)</p> <link rel="Stylesheet" href="/infosci/styles.css" type="text/css"> <h2>Information Science Discussion Papers Series: 2002 Abstracts</h2> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2002-01">2002/01: Opal: A multi-level infrastructure for agent-oriented software development</a></h3> <h4>M. Purvis, S. Cranefield, M. Nowostawski and D. Carter</h4> <p>The Opal architecture for software development is described that supports the use of agent-oriented concepts at multiple levels of abstraction. At the lowest level are micro-agents, streamlined agents that can be used for conventional, system-level programming tasks. More sophisticated agents may be constructed by assembling combinations of micro-agents. The architecture consequently supports the systematic use of agent-based notions throughout the software development process. The paper describes (a) the implementation of micro-agents in Java, (b) how they have been used to fashion the Opal framework for the construction of more complex agents based on the Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents (FIPA) specifications, and (c) the Opal Conversation Manager that facilitates the capability of agents to conduct complex conversations with other agents.</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2002-01.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 643 KB)</p> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2002-02">2002/02: Interaction protocols for a network of environmental problem solvers</a></h3> <h4>M. Purvis, P. Hwang, M. Purvis, S. Cranefield and M. Schievink</h4> <p>Environmental management and emergency response often involves the joint cooperation of a network of distributed problem solvers, each of which may be specialised for a specific task or problem domain. Some of these problem solvers could be human, others could be ‘intelligent’ environmental monitoring and control systems. Environmental software systems are needed not only for the provision of basic environmental information but also to support the coordination of these problem solvers. An agent architecture can support the requirement associated with disparate problem solvers. The various stakeholders in the process are represented by software agents which can collaborate with each other toward achieving a particular goal. The communication between agents can be accomplished by using interaction protocols which are represented by coloured Petri nets (CPN). This paper describes an approach for providing this support by employing a software agent framework for the modelling and execution of environmental process tasks in a networked environment.</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2002-02.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 114 KB)</p> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2002-03">2002/03: Spatio-temporal and object visualization in rugby union</a></h3> <h4>A. Moore, P. Whigham, C. Aldridge, A. Holt and K. Hodge</h4> <p>The use of computer software as an aid to rugby, and sports coaching in general, is becoming increasingly utilized. Videoed sport is the most widely used form of raw data for sports analysis, though it is currently not being used to its full potential. Patterns of player movement and position, both for individuals and groupings of players, are important for understanding the complexities of professional team sports, and yet are not being adequately addressed.</p> <p>This paper outlines a project that aims to support coaching and/or commentary by visualizing and measuring the similarity of video-derived spatiotemporal information, and enabling timely access to relevant video clips. Specifically, methods by which a user of spatially-enabled sports software can visualize spatio-temporal and rugby object information will be discussed. Two issues are examined: (1) powerful spatio-temporal representation techniques for rugby constructs (such as the pitch, players and amalgamations of players: team, scrum, lineout, backline) and (2) user interface design and how it enables rugby object representation alongside the spatio-temporal visualization facility.</p> <p><strong>Keywords: </strong>spatial, temporal, video, representation, object, rugby</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2002-03.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 2.4 MB)</p> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2002-04">2002/04: Multi-agent system interaction protocols in a dynamically changing environment</a></h3> <h4>M. Purvis, S. Cranefield, M. Purvis and M. Nowostawski</h4> <p>An area where multi-agent systems can be put to effective use is for the case of an open collection of autonomous problem solvers in a dynamically changing environment. One example of such a situation is that of environmental management and emergency response, which can require the joint cooperation of a distributed set of components, each one of which may be specialised for a specific task or problem domain. The various stakeholders in the process can all be represented and interfaced by software agents which collaborate with each other toward achieving a particular goal. For such situations new agents that arrive on the scene must be apprised of the group interaction protocols so that they can cooperate effectively with the existing agents. In this paper we show how this can be done by using coloured Petri net representations for each role in an interaction protocol and passing these nets dynamically to new agents that wish to participate in a group interaction. We argue that multi-agent systems are particularly suited for such dynamically changing environments, but their effectiveness depends on the their ability to use adaptive interaction protocols.</p> <p><strong>Keywords: </strong>multi-agent systems, agent conversations, adaptive systems</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2002-04.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 142 KB)</p> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2002-05">2002/05: Hand-held computers in health care: What software programs are available?</a></h3> <h4>W. Gillingham, A. Holt and J. Gillies</h4> <p>The technology sector of healthcare is entering a new evolutionary phase. The medical community has an obligation to the public to provide the safest, most effective healthcare possible. This is more achievable with the use of computer technology at the point of care, and small, portable devices could fulfil this role. A Modern Physician/PricewaterhouseCoopers 2001 survey on information technology in Physician practices found that 60% of respondents say that physicians in their organisation use PDAs, compare this with 26% in the 2000 technology survey. This trend is expected to continue to the point where these devices will have their position on a physician’s desk next to their stethoscope. Once this electronic evolution occurs, the practice of medicine will change. Doctors will be able to practice medicine with greater ease and safety. In our opinion, the new generation of PDA mobile devices will be the tools to enable a transformation of healthcare to a paperless, wireless world.</p> <p>This article focuses on uses for PDAs in health care. Healthcare software is categorised into the following groups; reference/text book, calculators, patient management/logbook and personal clinical/study notebook. With a focus on the healthcare audience (the user), which can be registrar, consultant, nurse, student, teacher, patient, medical director and surgical.</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2002-05.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 810 KB)</p> <hr> <h3 class="note">(Discussion paper 2002/06 does not exist.)</h3> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2002-07">2002/07: St John’s Ambulance Service, Southern Region: Control centre dispatch profile (1997–2001)</a></h3> <h4>J. Hayes</h4> <p>The St John’s Ambulance Service, Southern Region Control Centre (the control centre) is located in Dunedin City and controls 56 ambulances based in 26 regional stations. The Southern Region covers an area of approximately 54,000 square kilometres, which has a usually resident population of 272,541 (Census, 2001). This report focuses on the dispatch and workload profile of the control centre between the 1st January 1997 and the 31st December 2001. During this period the control centre dispatched ambulances on approximately 135,822 occasions to a total of 118,759 incidents (this includes both emergency incidents and patient transfers). Based on an analysis of these incidents several key findings are discussed in this report. These include:</p> <ul> <li>A 21.8% increase in the total number of incidents handled in the control centre between 1997 and 2001</li> <li>A 44 second increase in average activation times between 1997 and 2001</li> <li>A strong correlation between increased workload and increased activation times</li> <li>A large increase in activation times during low and medium workload periods</li> </ul> <p><a href="papers/dp2002-07.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 158 KB)</p> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2002-08">2002/08: Population density and spatially constrained selection in evolutionary computation</a></h3> <h4>G. Dick and P. Whigham</h4> <p>(No abstract.)</p> <p><strong>Keywords: </strong>evolutionary computation, selection, spatial patterns</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2002-08.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 272 KB)</p>

Ignore Space Show notes View

Website/dp2002-abstracts-contents.htm

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2002-01">2002/01: Opal: A multi-level infrastructure for agent-oriented software development</a></h3>
<h4>M. Purvis, S. Cranefield, M. Nowostawski and D. Carter</h4>

<p>The Opal architecture for software development is described that supports the use of agent-oriented concepts at multiple levels of abstraction. At the lowest level are micro-agents, streamlined agents that can be used for conventional, system-level programming tasks. More sophisticated agents may be constructed by assembling combinations of micro-agents. The architecture consequently supports the systematic use of agent-based notions throughout the software development process. The paper describes (a) the implementation of micro-agents in Java, (b) how they have been used to fashion the Opal framework for the construction of more complex agents based on the Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents (FIPA) specifications, and (c) the Opal Conversation Manager that facilitates the capability of agents to conduct complex conversations with other agents.</p>

<p><a href="papers/dp2002-01.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 537 KB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2002-02">2002/02: Interaction protocols for a network of environmental problem solvers</a></h3>
<h4>M. Purvis, P. Hwang, M. Purvis, S. Cranefield and M. Schievink</h4>

<p>Environmental management and emergency response often involves the joint cooperation of a network of distributed problem solvers, each of which may be specialised for a specific task or problem domain. Some of these problem solvers could be human, others could be &lsquo;intelligent&rsquo; environmental monitoring and control systems. Environmental software systems are needed not only for the provision of basic environmental information but also to support the coordination of these problem solvers. An agent architecture can support the requirement associated with disparate problem solvers. The various stakeholders in the process are represented by software agents which can collaborate with each other toward achieving a particular goal. The communication between agents can be accomplished by using interaction protocols which are represented by coloured Petri nets (CPN). This paper describes an approach for providing this support by employing a software agent framework for the modelling and execution of environmental process tasks in a networked environment.</p>

<p><a href="papers/dp2002-02.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 121 KB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2002-03">2002/03: Spatio-temporal and object visualization in rugby union</a></h3>
<h4>A. Moore, P. Whigham, C. Aldridge, A. Holt and K. Hodge</h4>

<p>The use of computer software as an aid to rugby, and sports coaching in general, is becoming increasingly utilized. Videoed sport is the most widely used form of raw data for sports analysis, though it is currently not being used to its full potential. Patterns of player movement and position, both for individuals and groupings of players, are important for understanding the complexities of professional team sports, and yet are not being adequately addressed.</p>

<p>This paper outlines a project that aims to support coaching and/or commentary by visualizing and measuring the similarity of video-derived spatiotemporal information, and enabling timely access to relevant video clips. Specifically, methods by which a user of spatially-enabled sports software can visualize spatio-temporal and rugby object information will be discussed. Two issues are examined: (1) powerful spatio-temporal representation techniques for rugby constructs (such as the pitch, players and amalgamations of players: team, scrum, lineout, backline) and (2) user interface design and how it enables rugby object representation alongside the spatio-temporal visualization facility.</p>

<p><strong>Keywords: </strong>spatial,
temporal,
video,
representation,
object,
rugby</p>

<p><a href="papers/dp2002-03.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 2.3 MB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2002-04">2002/04: Multi-agent system interaction protocols in a dynamically changing environment</a></h3>
<h4>M. Purvis, S. Cranefield, M. Purvis and M. Nowostawski</h4>

<p>An area where multi-agent systems can be put to effective use is for the case of an open collection of autonomous problem solvers in a dynamically changing environment. One example of such a situation is that of environmental management and emergency response, which can require the joint cooperation of a distributed set of components, each one of which may be specialised for a specific task or problem domain. The various stakeholders in the process can all be represented and interfaced by software agents which collaborate with each other toward achieving a particular goal. For such situations new agents that arrive on the scene must be apprised of the group interaction protocols so that they can cooperate effectively with the existing agents. In this paper we show how this can be done by using coloured Petri net representations for each role in an interaction protocol and passing these nets dynamically to new agents that wish to participate in a group interaction. We argue that multi-agent systems are particularly suited for such dynamically changing environments, but their effectiveness depends on the their ability to use adaptive interaction protocols.</p>

<p><strong>Keywords: </strong>multi-agent systems,
agent conversations,
adaptive systems</p>

<p><a href="papers/dp2002-04.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 150 KB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2002-05">2002/05: Hand-held computers in health care: What software programs are available?</a></h3>
<h4>W. Gillingham, A. Holt and J. Gillies</h4>

<p>The technology sector of healthcare is entering a new evolutionary phase. The medical community has an obligation to the public to provide the safest, most effective healthcare possible. This is more achievable with the use of computer technology at the point of care, and small, portable devices could fulfil this role. A Modern Physician/PricewaterhouseCoopers 2001 survey on information technology in Physician practices found that 60% of respondents say that physicians in their organisation use PDAs, compare this with 26% in the 2000 technology survey. This trend is expected to continue to the point where these devices will have their position on a physician&rsquo;s desk next to their stethoscope. Once this electronic evolution occurs, the practice of medicine will change. Doctors will be able to practice medicine with greater ease and safety. In our opinion, the new generation of PDA mobile devices will be the tools to enable a transformation of healthcare to a paperless, wireless world.</p>

<p>This article focuses on uses for PDAs in health care. Healthcare software is categorised into the following groups; reference/text book, calculators, patient management/logbook and personal clinical/study notebook. With a focus on the healthcare audience (the user), which can be registrar, consultant, nurse, student, teacher, patient, medical director and surgical.</p>

<p><a href="papers/dp2002-05.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 864 KB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2002-07">2002/07: St John&rsquo;s Ambulance Service, Southern Region: Control centre dispatch profile (1997&ndash;2001)</a></h3>
<h4>J. Hayes</h4>

<p>The St John&rsquo;s Ambulance Service, Southern Region Control Centre (the control centre) is located in Dunedin City and controls 56 ambulances based in 26 regional stations. The Southern Region covers an area of approximately 54,000 square kilometres, which has a usually resident population of 272,541 (Census, 2001). This report focuses on the dispatch and workload profile of the control centre between the 1st January 1997 and the 31st December 2001. During this period the control centre dispatched ambulances on approximately 135,822 occasions to a total of 118,759 incidents (this includes both emergency incidents and patient transfers). Based on an analysis of these incidents several key findings are discussed in this report. These include:</p>

<ul>
<li>A 21.8% increase in the total number of incidents handled in the control centre between 1997 and 2001</li>
<li>A 44 second increase in average activation times between 1997 and 2001</li>
<li>A strong correlation between increased workload and increased activation times</li>
<li>A large increase in activation times during low and medium workload periods</li>
</ul>

<p><a href="papers/dp2002-07.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 180 KB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2002-08">2002/08: Population density and spatially constrained selection in evolutionary computation</a></h3>
<h4>G. Dick and P. Whigham</h4>

<p>(No abstract.)</p>

<p><strong>Keywords: </strong>evolutionary computation,
selection,
spatial patterns</p>

<p><a href="papers/dp2002-08.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 255 KB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2002-01">2002/01: Opal: A multi-level infrastructure for agent-oriented software development</a></h3>
<h4>M. Purvis, S. Cranefield, M. Nowostawski and D. Carter</h4>

<p><a href="papers/dp2002-01.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 643 KB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2002-02">2002/02: Interaction protocols for a network of environmental problem solvers</a></h3>
<h4>M. Purvis, P. Hwang, M. Purvis, S. Cranefield and M. Schievink</h4>

<p>Environmental management and emergency response often involves the joint cooperation of a network of distributed problem solvers, each of which may be specialised for a specific task or problem domain. Some of these problem solvers could be human, others could be &#8216;intelligent&#8217; environmental monitoring and control systems. Environmental software systems are needed not only for the provision of basic environmental information but also to support the coordination of these problem solvers. An agent architecture can support the requirement associated with disparate problem solvers. The various stakeholders in the process are represented by software agents which can collaborate with each other toward achieving a particular goal. The communication between agents can be accomplished by using interaction protocols which are represented by coloured Petri nets (CPN). This paper describes an approach for providing this support by employing a software agent framework for the modelling and execution of environmental process tasks in a networked environment.</p>

<p><a href="papers/dp2002-02.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 114 KB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2002-03">2002/03: Spatio-temporal and object visualization in rugby union</a></h3>
<h4>A. Moore, P. Whigham, C. Aldridge, A. Holt and K. Hodge</h4>

<p><strong>Keywords: </strong>spatial,
temporal,
video,
representation,
object,
rugby</p>

<p><a href="papers/dp2002-03.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 2.4 MB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2002-04">2002/04: Multi-agent system interaction protocols in a dynamically changing environment</a></h3>
<h4>M. Purvis, S. Cranefield, M. Purvis and M. Nowostawski</h4>

<p><strong>Keywords: </strong>multi-agent systems,
agent conversations,
adaptive systems</p>

<p><a href="papers/dp2002-04.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 142 KB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2002-05">2002/05: Hand-held computers in health care: What software programs are available?</a></h3>
<h4>W. Gillingham, A. Holt and J. Gillies</h4>

<p>The technology sector of healthcare is entering a new evolutionary phase. The medical community has an obligation to the public to provide the safest, most effective healthcare possible. This is more achievable with the use of computer technology at the point of care, and small, portable devices could fulfil this role. A Modern Physician/PricewaterhouseCoopers 2001 survey on information technology in Physician practices found that 60% of respondents say that physicians in their organisation use PDAs, compare this with 26% in the 2000 technology survey. This trend is expected to continue to the point where these devices will have their position on a physician&#8217;s desk next to their stethoscope. Once this electronic evolution occurs, the practice of medicine will change. Doctors will be able to practice medicine with greater ease and safety. In our opinion, the new generation of PDA mobile devices will be the tools to enable a transformation of healthcare to a paperless, wireless world.</p>

<p><a href="papers/dp2002-05.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 810 KB)</p>

<hr>

<h3 class="note">(Discussion paper 2002/06 does not exist.)</h3>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2002-07">2002/07: St John&#8217;s Ambulance Service, Southern Region: Control centre dispatch profile (1997&#8211;2001)</a></h3>
<h4>J. Hayes</h4>

<p>The St John&#8217;s Ambulance Service, Southern Region Control Centre (the control centre) is located in Dunedin City and controls 56 ambulances based in 26 regional stations. The Southern Region covers an area of approximately 54,000 square kilometres, which has a usually resident population of 272,541 (Census, 2001). This report focuses on the dispatch and workload profile of the control centre between the 1st January 1997 and the 31st December 2001. During this period the control centre dispatched ambulances on approximately 135,822 occasions to a total of 118,759 incidents (this includes both emergency incidents and patient transfers). Based on an analysis of these incidents several key findings are discussed in this report. These include:</p>

<ul>
	<li>A 21.8% increase in the total number of incidents handled in the control centre between 1997 and 2001</li>
	<li>A 44 second increase in average activation times between 1997 and 2001</li>
	<li>A strong correlation between increased workload and increased activation times</li>
	<li>A large increase in activation times during low and medium workload periods</li>
</ul>

<p><a href="papers/dp2002-07.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 158 KB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2002-08">2002/08: Population density and spatially constrained selection in evolutionary computation</a></h3>
<h4>G. Dick and P. Whigham</h4>

<p>(No abstract.)</p>

<p><strong>Keywords: </strong>evolutionary computation,
selection,
spatial patterns</p>

<p><a href="papers/dp2002-08.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 272 KB)</p>

Ignore Space Show notes View Website/dp2003-abstracts-contents.htm
<link rel="Stylesheet" href="/infosci/styles.css" type="text/css"> <h2>Information Science Discussion Papers Series: 2003 Abstracts</h2> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2003-01">2003/01: Software cinema</a></h3> <h4>B. Bruegge, M. Purvis, O. Creighton and C. Sandor</h4> <p>The process for requirements elicitation has traditionally been based on textual descriptions or graphical models using UML. While these may have worked for the design of desktop-based systems, we argue, that these notations are not adequate for a dialog with mobile end users, in particular for end users in “blue collar” application domains. We propose an alternative modelling technique “Software Cinema” based on the use of digital videos. We discuss one particular example of using Software cinema in the design of a user interface for a navigation system of a mobile end user.</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2003-01.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 301 KB)</p> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2003-02">2003/02: Communicative acts and interaction protocols in a distributed information system</a></h3> <h4>M. Nowostawski, D. Carter, S. Cranefield and M. Purvis</h4> <p>In FIPA-style multi-agent systems, agents coordinate their activities by sending messages representing particular communicative acts (or performatives). Agent communication languages must strike a balance between simplicity and expressiveness by defining a limited set of communicative act types that fit the communication needs of a wide set of problems. More complex requirements for particular problems must then be handled by defining domain-specific predicates and actions within ontologies. This paper examines the communication needs of a multi-agent distributed information retrieval system and discusses how well these are met by the FIPA ACL.</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2003-02.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 340 KB)</p> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2003-03">2003/03: Time-line Hidden Markov Experts and its application in time series prediction</a></h3> <h4>X. Wang, P. Whigham and D. Deng</h4> <p>A modularised connectionist model, based on the Mixture of Experts (ME) algorithm for time series prediction, is introduced. A set of connectionist modules learn to be local experts over some commonly appearing states of a time series. The dynamics for mixing the experts is a Markov process, in which the states of a time series are regarded as states of a HMM. Hence, there is a Markov chain along the time series and each state associates to a local expert. The state transition on the Markov chain is the process of activating a different local expert or activating some of them simultaneously by different probabilities generated from the HMM. The state transition property in the HMM is designed to be time-variant and conditional on the first order dynamics of the time series. A modified Baum–Welch algorithm is introduced for the training of the time-variant HMM and it has been proved that by EM process the likelihood function will converge to a local minimum. Experiments, with two time series, show this approach achieves significant improvement in the generalisation performance over global models.</p> <p><strong>Keywords: </strong>series prediction, Mixture of Experts, HMM, connectionist model, expectation and maximization, Gauss probability density distribution</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2003-03.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 486 KB)</p> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2003-04">2003/04: An effort prediction model for data-centred fourth-generation-language software development</a></h3> <h4>C. van Koten</h4> <p>Accurate effort prediction is often an important factor for successful software development. However, the diversity of software development tools observed today has resulted in a situation where existing effort prediction models’ applicability appears to be limited. Data-centred fourth-generation-language (4GL) software development provides one such difficulty. This paper aims to construct an accurate effort prediction model for data-centred 4GL development where a specific tool suite is used. Using historical data collected from 17 systems developed in the target environment, several linear regression models are constructed and evaluated in terms of two commonly used prediction accuracy measures, namely the mean magnitude of relative error (MMRE) and pred measures. In addition, R2, the maximum value of MRE, and statistics of the absolute residuals are used for comparing the models. The results show that models consisting of specification-based software size metrics, which were derived from Entity Relationship Diagrams (ERDs) and Function Hierarchy Diagrams (FHDs), achieve good prediction accuracy in the target environment. The models’ good effort prediction ability is particularly beneficial because specification-based metrics usually become available at an early stage of development. This paper also investigates the effect of developers’ productivity on effort prediction and has found that inclusion of productivity improves the models’ prediction accuracy further. However, additional studies will be required in order to establish the best productivity inclusive effort prediction model.</p> <p><strong>Keywords: </strong>prediction systems, 4GL, effort, metrics, empirical analysis</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2003-04.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 398 KB)</p> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2003-05">2003/05: Colour and transparency on the Multi-Layer Display (MLD™)</a></h3> <h4>A. Nees, R. Villanueva and W. Wong</h4> <p>It is a standard aim to complete tasks efficiently and effectively. When technology is involved, the tools must be designed to facilitate optimal performance. The ActualDepth™ Multi-Layer Display (MLD™) is a ‘new generation’ display, consisting of two layered Liquid Crystal Displays (LCDs), with a region of space between them. The top LCD displays transparently, allowing both layers to be viewed simultaneously. This paper describes an experiment that investigated relative reading speeds, error detection, comprehension speeds and comprehension accuracy on the MLD™, including a comparison with standard single layered displays. A framework pertaining to colour and transparency usage on the MLD™ was then developed, which is intended to enhance the usability and effectiveness of the display. In general, it was found that overall readability was improved on the MLD™, compared to a standard display, and different transparency levels and colours should be employed, depending on the purpose of reading the text.</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2003-05.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 249 KB)</p> <link rel="Stylesheet" href="/infosci/styles.css" type="text/css"> <h2>Information Science Discussion Papers Series: 2003 Abstracts</h2> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2003-01">2003/01: Software cinema</a></h3> <h4>B. Bruegge, M. Purvis, O. Creighton and C. Sandor</h4> <p>The process for requirements elicitation has traditionally been based on textual descriptions or graphical models using UML. While these may have worked for the design of desktop-based systems, we argue, that these notations are not adequate for a dialog with mobile end users, in particular for end users in “blue collar” application domains. We propose an alternative modelling technique “Software Cinema” based on the use of digital videos. We discuss one particular example of using Software cinema in the design of a user interface for a navigation system of a mobile end user.</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2003-01.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 349 KB)</p> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2003-02">2003/02: Communicative acts and interaction protocols in a distributed information system</a></h3> <h4>M. Nowostawski, D. Carter, S. Cranefield and M. Purvis</h4> <p>In FIPA-style multi-agent systems, agents coordinate their activities by sending messages representing particular communicative acts (or performatives). Agent communication languages must strike a balance between simplicity and expressiveness by defining a limited set of communicative act types that fit the communication needs of a wide set of problems. More complex requirements for particular problems must then be handled by defining domain-specific predicates and actions within ontologies. This paper examines the communication needs of a multi-agent distributed information retrieval system and discusses how well these are met by the FIPA ACL.</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2003-02.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 377 KB)</p> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2003-03">2003/03: Time-line Hidden Markov Experts and its application in time series prediction</a></h3> <h4>X. Wang, P. Whigham and D. Deng</h4> <p>A modularised connectionist model, based on the Mixture of Experts (ME) algorithm for time series prediction, is introduced. A set of connectionist modules learn to be local experts over some commonly appearing states of a time series. The dynamics for mixing the experts is a Markov process, in which the states of a time series are regarded as states of a HMM. Hence, there is a Markov chain along the time series and each state associates to a local expert. The state transition on the Markov chain is the process of activating a different local expert or activating some of them simultaneously by different probabilities generated from the HMM. The state transition property in the HMM is designed to be time-variant and conditional on the first order dynamics of the time series. A modified Baum–Welch algorithm is introduced for the training of the time-variant HMM and it has been proved that by EM process the likelihood function will converge to a local minimum. Experiments, with two time series, show this approach achieves significant improvement in the generalisation performance over global models.</p> <p><strong>Keywords: </strong>series prediction, Mixture of Experts, HMM, connectionist model, expectation and maximization, Gauss probability density distribution</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2003-03.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 550 KB)</p> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2003-04">2003/04: An effort prediction model for data-centred fourth-generation-language software development</a></h3> <h4>C. van Koten</h4> <p>Accurate effort prediction is often an important factor for successful software development. However, the diversity of software development tools observed today has resulted in a situation where existing effort prediction models’ applicability appears to be limited. Data-centred fourth-generation-language (4GL) software development provides one such difficulty. This paper aims to construct an accurate effort prediction model for data-centred 4GL development where a specific tool suite is used. Using historical data collected from 17 systems developed in the target environment, several linear regression models are constructed and evaluated in terms of two commonly used prediction accuracy measures, namely the mean magnitude of relative error (MMRE) and pred measures. In addition, R2, the maximum value of MRE, and statistics of the absolute residuals are used for comparing the models. The results show that models consisting of specification-based software size metrics, which were derived from Entity Relationship Diagrams (ERDs) and Function Hierarchy Diagrams (FHDs), achieve good prediction accuracy in the target environment. The models’ good effort prediction ability is particularly beneficial because specification-based metrics usually become available at an early stage of development. This paper also investigates the effect of developers’ productivity on effort prediction and has found that inclusion of productivity improves the models’ prediction accuracy further. However, additional studies will be required in order to establish the best productivity inclusive effort prediction model.</p> <p><strong>Keywords: </strong>prediction systems, 4GL, effort, metrics, empirical analysis</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2003-04.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 397 KB)</p> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2003-05">2003/05: Colour and transparency on the Multi-Layer Display (MLD™)</a></h3> <h4>A. Nees, R. Villanueva and W. Wong</h4> <p>It is a standard aim to complete tasks efficiently and effectively. When technology is involved, the tools must be designed to facilitate optimal performance. The ActualDepth™ Multi-Layer Display (MLD™) is a ‘new generation’ display, consisting of two layered Liquid Crystal Displays (LCDs), with a region of space between them. The top LCD displays transparently, allowing both layers to be viewed simultaneously. This paper describes an experiment that investigated relative reading speeds, error detection, comprehension speeds and comprehension accuracy on the MLD™, including a comparison with standard single layered displays. A framework pertaining to colour and transparency usage on the MLD™ was then developed, which is intended to enhance the usability and effectiveness of the display. In general, it was found that overall readability was improved on the MLD™, compared to a standard display, and different transparency levels and colours should be employed, depending on the purpose of reading the text.</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2003-05.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 248 KB)</p>

Ignore Space Show notes View

Website/dp2003-abstracts-contents.htm

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2003-01">2003/01: Software cinema</a></h3>
<h4>B. Bruegge, M. Purvis, O. Creighton and C. Sandor</h4>

<p>The process for requirements elicitation has traditionally been based on textual descriptions or graphical models using UML. While these may have worked for the design of desktop-based systems, we argue, that these notations are not adequate for a dialog with mobile end users, in particular for end users in &ldquo;blue collar&rdquo; application domains. We propose an alternative modelling technique &ldquo;Software Cinema&rdquo; based on the use of digital videos. We discuss one particular example of using Software cinema in the design of a user interface for a navigation system of a mobile end user.</p>

<p><a href="papers/dp2003-01.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 301 KB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2003-02">2003/02: Communicative acts and interaction protocols in a distributed information system</a></h3>
<h4>M. Nowostawski, D. Carter, S. Cranefield and M. Purvis</h4>

<p>In FIPA-style multi-agent systems, agents coordinate their activities by sending messages representing particular communicative acts (or performatives). Agent communication languages must strike a balance between simplicity and expressiveness by defining a limited set of communicative act types that fit the communication needs of a wide set of problems. More complex requirements for particular problems must then be handled by defining domain-specific predicates and actions within ontologies. This paper examines the communication needs of a multi-agent distributed information retrieval system and discusses how well these are met by the FIPA ACL.</p>

<p><a href="papers/dp2003-02.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 340 KB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2003-03">2003/03: Time-line Hidden Markov Experts and its application in time series prediction</a></h3>
<h4>X. Wang, P. Whigham and D. Deng</h4>

<p>A modularised connectionist model, based on the Mixture of Experts (ME) algorithm for time series prediction, is introduced. A set of connectionist modules learn to be local experts over some commonly appearing states of a time series. The dynamics for mixing the experts is a Markov process, in which the states of a time series are regarded as states of a HMM. Hence, there is a Markov chain along the time series and each state associates to a local expert. The state transition on the Markov chain is the process of activating a different local expert or activating some of them simultaneously by different probabilities generated from the HMM. The state transition property in the HMM is designed to be time-variant and conditional on the first order dynamics of the time series. A modified Baum&ndash;Welch algorithm is introduced for the training of the time-variant HMM and it has been proved that by EM process the likelihood function will converge to a local minimum. Experiments, with two time series, show this approach achieves significant improvement in the generalisation performance over global models.</p>

<p><strong>Keywords: </strong>series prediction,
Mixture of Experts,
HMM,
connectionist model,
expectation and maximization,
Gauss probability density distribution</p>

<p><a href="papers/dp2003-03.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 486 KB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2003-04">2003/04: An effort prediction model for data-centred fourth-generation-language software development</a></h3>
<h4>C. van Koten</h4>

<p>Accurate effort prediction is often an important factor for successful software development. However, the diversity of software development tools observed today has resulted in a situation where existing effort prediction models&rsquo; applicability appears to be limited. Data-centred fourth-generation-language (4GL) software development provides one such difficulty. This paper aims to construct an accurate effort prediction model for data-centred 4GL development where a specific tool suite is used. Using historical data collected from 17 systems developed in the target environment, several linear regression models are constructed and evaluated in terms of two commonly used prediction accuracy measures, namely the mean magnitude of relative error (MMRE) and pred measures. In addition, R2, the maximum value of MRE, and statistics of the absolute residuals are used for comparing the models. The results show that models consisting of specification-based software size metrics, which were derived from Entity Relationship Diagrams (ERDs) and Function Hierarchy Diagrams (FHDs), achieve good prediction accuracy in the target environment. The models&rsquo; good effort prediction ability is particularly beneficial because specification-based metrics usually become available at an early stage of development. This paper also investigates the effect of developers&rsquo; productivity on effort prediction and has found that inclusion of productivity improves the models&rsquo; prediction accuracy further. However, additional studies will be required in order to establish the best productivity inclusive effort prediction model.</p>

<p><strong>Keywords: </strong>prediction systems,
4GL,
effort,
metrics,
empirical analysis</p>

<p><a href="papers/dp2003-04.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 398 KB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2003-05">2003/05: Colour and transparency on the Multi-Layer Display (MLD&trade;)</a></h3>
<h4>A. Nees, R. Villanueva and W. Wong</h4>

<p>It is a standard aim to complete tasks efficiently and effectively. When technology is involved, the tools must be designed to facilitate optimal performance. The ActualDepth&trade; Multi-Layer Display (MLD&trade;) is a &lsquo;new generation&rsquo; display, consisting of two layered Liquid Crystal Displays (LCDs), with a region of space between them. The top LCD displays transparently, allowing both layers to be viewed simultaneously. This paper describes an experiment that investigated relative reading speeds, error detection, comprehension speeds and comprehension accuracy on the MLD&trade;, including a comparison with standard single layered displays. A framework pertaining to colour and transparency usage on the MLD&trade; was then developed, which is intended to enhance the usability and effectiveness of the display. In general, it was found that overall readability was improved on the MLD&trade;, compared to a standard display, and different transparency levels and colours should be employed, depending on the purpose of reading the text.</p>

<p><a href="papers/dp2003-05.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 249 KB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2003-01">2003/01: Software cinema</a></h3>
<h4>B. Bruegge, M. Purvis, O. Creighton and C. Sandor</h4>

<p>The process for requirements elicitation has traditionally been based on textual descriptions or graphical models using UML. While these may have worked for the design of desktop-based systems, we argue, that these notations are not adequate for a dialog with mobile end users, in particular for end users in &#8220;blue collar&#8221; application domains. We propose an alternative modelling technique &#8220;Software Cinema&#8221; based on the use of digital videos. We discuss one particular example of using Software cinema in the design of a user interface for a navigation system of a mobile end user.</p>

<p><a href="papers/dp2003-01.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 349 KB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2003-02">2003/02: Communicative acts and interaction protocols in a distributed information system</a></h3>
<h4>M. Nowostawski, D. Carter, S. Cranefield and M. Purvis</h4>

<p><a href="papers/dp2003-02.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 377 KB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2003-03">2003/03: Time-line Hidden Markov Experts and its application in time series prediction</a></h3>
<h4>X. Wang, P. Whigham and D. Deng</h4>

<p>A modularised connectionist model, based on the Mixture of Experts (ME) algorithm for time series prediction, is introduced. A set of connectionist modules learn to be local experts over some commonly appearing states of a time series. The dynamics for mixing the experts is a Markov process, in which the states of a time series are regarded as states of a HMM. Hence, there is a Markov chain along the time series and each state associates to a local expert. The state transition on the Markov chain is the process of activating a different local expert or activating some of them simultaneously by different probabilities generated from the HMM. The state transition property in the HMM is designed to be time-variant and conditional on the first order dynamics of the time series. A modified Baum&#8211;Welch algorithm is introduced for the training of the time-variant HMM and it has been proved that by EM process the likelihood function will converge to a local minimum. Experiments, with two time series, show this approach achieves significant improvement in the generalisation performance over global models.</p>

<p><strong>Keywords: </strong>series prediction,
Mixture of Experts,
HMM,
connectionist model,
expectation and maximization,
Gauss probability density distribution</p>

<p><a href="papers/dp2003-03.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 550 KB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2003-04">2003/04: An effort prediction model for data-centred fourth-generation-language software development</a></h3>
<h4>C. van Koten</h4>

<p>Accurate effort prediction is often an important factor for successful software development. However, the diversity of software development tools observed today has resulted in a situation where existing effort prediction models&#8217; applicability appears to be limited. Data-centred fourth-generation-language (4GL) software development provides one such difficulty. This paper aims to construct an accurate effort prediction model for data-centred 4GL development where a specific tool suite is used. Using historical data collected from 17 systems developed in the target environment, several linear regression models are constructed and evaluated in terms of two commonly used prediction accuracy measures, namely the mean magnitude of relative error (MMRE) and pred measures. In addition, R2, the maximum value of MRE, and statistics of the absolute residuals are used for comparing the models. The results show that models consisting of specification-based software size metrics, which were derived from Entity Relationship Diagrams (ERDs) and Function Hierarchy Diagrams (FHDs), achieve good prediction accuracy in the target environment. The models&#8217; good effort prediction ability is particularly beneficial because specification-based metrics usually become available at an early stage of development. This paper also investigates the effect of developers&#8217; productivity on effort prediction and has found that inclusion of productivity improves the models&#8217; prediction accuracy further. However, additional studies will be required in order to establish the best productivity inclusive effort prediction model.</p>

<p><strong>Keywords: </strong>prediction systems,
4GL,
effort,
metrics,
empirical analysis</p>

<p><a href="papers/dp2003-04.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 397 KB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2003-05">2003/05: Colour and transparency on the Multi-Layer Display (MLD&#8482;)</a></h3>
<h4>A. Nees, R. Villanueva and W. Wong</h4>

<p>It is a standard aim to complete tasks efficiently and effectively. When technology is involved, the tools must be designed to facilitate optimal performance. The ActualDepth&#8482; Multi-Layer Display (MLD&#8482;) is a &#8216;new generation&#8217; display, consisting of two layered Liquid Crystal Displays (LCDs), with a region of space between them. The top LCD displays transparently, allowing both layers to be viewed simultaneously. This paper describes an experiment that investigated relative reading speeds, error detection, comprehension speeds and comprehension accuracy on the MLD&#8482;, including a comparison with standard single layered displays. A framework pertaining to colour and transparency usage on the MLD&#8482; was then developed, which is intended to enhance the usability and effectiveness of the display. In general, it was found that overall readability was improved on the MLD&#8482;, compared to a standard display, and different transparency levels and colours should be employed, depending on the purpose of reading the text.</p>

<p><a href="papers/dp2003-05.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 248 KB)</p>

Ignore Space Show notes View Website/dp2004-abstracts-contents.htm
<link rel="Stylesheet" href="/infosci/styles.css" type="text/css"> <h2>Information Science Discussion Papers Series: 2004 Abstracts</h2> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2004-01">2004/01: An architecture for self-organising evolvable virtual machines</a></h3> <h4>M. Nowostawski, M. Purvis and S. Cranefield</h4> <p>Contemporary software systems are exposed to demanding, dynamic, and unpredictable environments where the traditional adaptability mechanisms may not be sufficient. To imitate and fully benefit from life-like adaptability in software systems, that might come closer to the complexity levels of biological organisms, we seek a formal mathematical model of certain fundamental concepts such as: life, organism, evolvability and adaptation. In this work we will concentrate on the concept of software evolvability. Our work proposes an evolutionary computation model, based on the theory of hypercycles and autopoiesis. The intrinsic properties of hypercycles allow them to evolve into higher levels of complexity, analogous to multi-level, or hierarchical evolutionary processes. We aim to obtain structures of self-maintaining ensembles, that are hierarchically organised, and our primary focus is on such open-ended hierarchically organised evolution.</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2004-01.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 349 KB)</p> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2004-02">2004/02: Design strategies for GUI items with touch screen based information systems: Assessing the ability of a touch screen overlay as a selection device</a></h3> <h4>M. Gleeson, N. Stanger and E. Ferguson</h4> <p>Touch screens are a popular method of interaction with information systems embedded in public kiosks. Typical information systems are used on desktop PCs and therefore restricted to having a mouse as the selection device used to interact with the system. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how effective a touch screen overlay is in selecting typical graphical user interface (GUI) items used in information systems. A series of tests were completed involving multi-directional point and select tasks. A mouse, being the standard selection device, was also tested so the results of the touch screen could be compared. The GUI items tested were a button, check box, combo box and a text box. The results showed that the touch screen overlay was not suitable in terms of selecting small targets with a size of 4mm or less. The touch screen overlay was slower and had higher error rate compared to the mouse. There was no significant difference in throughput between a touch screen overlay and mouse. The mouse was rated easier to use and easier to make accurate selections with. The touch screen had higher arm, wrist and finger fatigue. This indicates that a touch screen overlay used only with a finger is not a practical selection device to use with interfaces containing small targets.</p> <p><strong>Keywords: </strong>touch screen overlay, mouse, pointing devices, Fitts’ Law, performance evaluation, GUI items</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2004-02.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 610 KB)</p> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2004-03">2004/03: Reliable group communication and institutional action in a multi-agent trading scenario</a></h3> <h4>S. Cranefield</h4> <p>The use of asynchronous communication is traditionally seen to be an important element of an agent’s autonomy. This paper argues that groups of agents within a society need the ability to choose forms of communication with stronger guarantees for particular interactions, and in particular, focuses on the use of reliable group communication. An example electronic trading scenario—the game of Pit—is presented, and it is shown how a formal institution for a particular critical phase of Pit can be built on top of the semantics for totally ordered and virtually synchronous multicasting.</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2004-03.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 183 KB)</p> <link rel="Stylesheet" href="/infosci/styles.css" type="text/css"> <h2>Information Science Discussion Papers Series: 2004 Abstracts</h2> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2004-01">2004/01: An architecture for self-organising evolvable virtual machines</a></h3> <h4>M. Nowostawski, M. Purvis and S. Cranefield</h4> <p>Contemporary software systems are exposed to demanding, dynamic, and unpredictable environments where the traditional adaptability mechanisms may not be sufficient. To imitate and fully benefit from life-like adaptability in software systems, that might come closer to the complexity levels of biological organisms, we seek a formal mathematical model of certain fundamental concepts such as: life, organism, evolvability and adaptation. In this work we will concentrate on the concept of software evolvability. Our work proposes an evolutionary computation model, based on the theory of hypercycles and autopoiesis. The intrinsic properties of hypercycles allow them to evolve into higher levels of complexity, analogous to multi-level, or hierarchical evolutionary processes. We aim to obtain structures of self-maintaining ensembles, that are hierarchically organised, and our primary focus is on such open-ended hierarchically organised evolution.</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2004-01.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 348KB)</p> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2004-02">2004/02: Design strategies for GUI items with touch screen based information systems: Assessing the ability of a touch screen overlay as a selection device</a></h3> <h4>M. Gleeson, N. Stanger and E. Ferguson</h4> <p>Touch screens are a popular method of interaction with information systems embedded in public kiosks. Typical information systems are used on desktop PCs and therefore restricted to having a mouse as the selection device used to interact with the system. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how effective a touch screen overlay is in selecting typical graphical user interface (GUI) items used in information systems. A series of tests were completed involving multi-directional point and select tasks. A mouse, being the standard selection device, was also tested so the results of the touch screen could be compared. The GUI items tested were a button, check box, combo box and a text box. The results showed that the touch screen overlay was not suitable in terms of selecting small targets with a size of 4mm or less. The touch screen overlay was slower and had higher error rate compared to the mouse. There was no significant difference in throughput between a touch screen overlay and mouse. The mouse was rated easier to use and easier to make accurate selections with. The touch screen had higher arm, wrist and finger fatigue. This indicates that a touch screen overlay used only with a finger is not a practical selection device to use with interfaces containing small targets.</p> <p><strong>Keywords: </strong>touch screen overlay, mouse, pointing devices, Fitts’ Law, performance evaluation, GUI items</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2004-02.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 608KB)</p> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2004-03">2004/03: Reliable group communication and institutional action in a multi-agent trading scenario</a></h3> <h4>S. Cranefield</h4> <p>The use of asynchronous communication is traditionally seen to be an important element of an agent’s autonomy. This paper argues that groups of agents within a society need the ability to choose forms of communication with stronger guarantees for particular interactions, and in particular, focuses on the use of reliable group communication. An example electronic trading scenario—the game of Pit—is presented, and it is shown how a formal institution for a particular critical phase of Pit can be built on top of the semantics for totally ordered and virtually synchronous multicasting.</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2004-03.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 185KB)</p>

Ignore Space Show notes View

Website/dp2004-abstracts-contents.htm

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2004-01">2004/01: An architecture for self-organising evolvable virtual machines</a></h3>
<h4>M. Nowostawski, M. Purvis and S. Cranefield</h4>

<p>Contemporary software systems are exposed to demanding, dynamic, and unpredictable environments where the traditional adaptability mechanisms may not be sufficient. To imitate and fully benefit from life-like adaptability in software systems, that might come closer to the complexity levels of biological organisms, we seek a formal mathematical model of certain fundamental concepts such as: life, organism, evolvability and adaptation. In this work we will concentrate on the concept of software evolvability. Our work proposes an evolutionary computation model, based on the theory of hypercycles and autopoiesis. The intrinsic properties of hypercycles allow them to evolve into higher levels of complexity, analogous to multi-level, or hierarchical evolutionary processes. We aim to obtain structures of self-maintaining ensembles, that are hierarchically organised, and our primary focus is on such open-ended hierarchically organised evolution.</p>

<p><a href="papers/dp2004-01.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 349 KB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2004-02">2004/02: Design strategies for GUI items with touch screen based information systems: Assessing the ability of a touch screen overlay as a selection device</a></h3>
<h4>M. Gleeson, N. Stanger and E. Ferguson</h4>

<p>Touch screens are a popular method of interaction with information systems embedded in public kiosks. Typical information systems are used on desktop PCs and therefore restricted to having a mouse as the selection device used to interact with the system. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how effective a touch screen overlay is in selecting typical graphical user interface (GUI) items used in information systems. A series of tests were completed involving multi-directional point and select tasks. A mouse, being the standard selection device, was also tested so the results of the touch screen could be compared. The GUI items tested were a button, check box, combo box and a text box. The results showed that the touch screen overlay was not suitable in terms of selecting small targets with a size of 4mm or less. The touch screen overlay was slower and had higher error rate compared to the mouse. There was no significant difference in throughput between a touch screen overlay and mouse. The mouse was rated easier to use and easier to make accurate selections with. The touch screen had higher arm, wrist and finger fatigue. This indicates that a touch screen overlay used only with a finger is not a practical selection device to use with interfaces containing small targets.</p>

<p><strong>Keywords: </strong>touch screen overlay,
mouse,
pointing devices,
Fitts&rsquo; Law,
performance evaluation,
GUI items</p>

<p><a href="papers/dp2004-02.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 610 KB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2004-03">2004/03: Reliable group communication and institutional action in a multi-agent trading scenario</a></h3>
<h4>S. Cranefield</h4>

<p>The use of asynchronous communication is traditionally seen to be an important element of an agent&rsquo;s autonomy. This paper argues that groups of agents within a society need the ability to choose forms of communication with stronger guarantees for particular interactions, and in particular, focuses on the use of reliable group communication. An example electronic trading scenario&mdash;the game of Pit&mdash;is presented, and it is shown how a formal institution for a particular critical phase of Pit can be built on top of the semantics for totally ordered and virtually synchronous multicasting.</p>

<p><a href="papers/dp2004-03.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 183 KB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2004-01">2004/01: An architecture for self-organising evolvable virtual machines</a></h3>
<h4>M. Nowostawski, M. Purvis and S. Cranefield</h4>

<p><a href="papers/dp2004-01.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 348KB)</p>

<hr>

<p><strong>Keywords: </strong>touch screen overlay,
mouse,
pointing devices,
Fitts&#8217; Law,
performance evaluation,
GUI items</p>

<p><a href="papers/dp2004-02.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 608KB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2004-03">2004/03: Reliable group communication and institutional action in a multi-agent trading scenario</a></h3>
<h4>S. Cranefield</h4>

<p>The use of asynchronous communication is traditionally seen to be an important element of an agent&#8217;s autonomy. This paper argues that groups of agents within a society need the ability to choose forms of communication with stronger guarantees for particular interactions, and in particular, focuses on the use of reliable group communication. An example electronic trading scenario&#8212;the game of Pit&#8212;is presented, and it is shown how a formal institution for a particular critical phase of Pit can be built on top of the semantics for totally ordered and virtually synchronous multicasting.</p>

<p><a href="papers/dp2004-03.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 185KB)</p>

Ignore Space Show notes View Website/dp2006-abstracts-contents.htm
<link rel="Stylesheet" href="/infosci/styles.css" type="text/css"> <h2>Information Science Discussion Papers Series: 2006 Abstracts</h2> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2006-01">2006/01: Consumers, security and electronic health records</a></h3> <h4>P. Chhanabhai, A. Holt and I. Hunter</h4> <p>Health care has entered the electronic domain. This domain has improved data collection and storage abilities while allowing almost instantaneous access and results to data queries. Furthermore it allows direct communication between healthcare providers and health consumers. The development of privacy, confidentiality and security principles are necessary to protect consumers’ interests against inappropriate access. The electronic health systems vendors have dominated the transition of media, claiming it will improve the quality and coherence of the care process. However, numerous studies show that the health consumer is the important stakeholder in this process, and their views are suggesting that the electronic medium is the way forward, but not just yet. With the international push towards Electronic Health Records (EHRs) by the Health and Human Services (United States of America), National Health Service (United Kingdom), Health Canada (Canada) and more recently the Ministry of Health (New Zealand), this paper presents the consumers’ role with a focus on their perceptions on the security of EHRs. A description of a study, looking at the New Zealand health consumer, is given.</p> <p><strong>Keywords: </strong>electronic health records, New Zealand health system, consumer, security</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2006-01.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 291 KB)</p> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2006-02">2006/02: Ubiquitous interactive art displays: Are they wanted, are they intuitive?</a></h3> <h4>G. Burrows</h4> <p>The purpose of this study was to create a ubiquitous proximity activated interactive digital display system providing adjusted artworks as content for evaluating viewer reactions and opinions to determine if similar interactive ubiquitous systems are a beneficial, enjoyable and even an appropriate way to display art. Multimedia used in galleries predominately provides content following set patterns and disregards the viewer. Interactive displays using viewer location usually require the viewer’s conscious participation through carrying some form of hardware or using expensive sensing equipment. We created an inexpensive, simple system that reacts to the user in a ubiquitous manner, allowing the evaluation of the usability and suitability of such systems in the context of viewing art. Results from testing show that interactive displays are generally enjoyed and wanted for displaying art, however even simple ubiquitous displays can cause user difficulty due to the transparency of their interaction.</p> <p><strong>Keywords: </strong>interactive, digital displays, art, proximity, ubiquitous, gallery, intuitive interfaces</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2006-02.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 496 KB)</p> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2006-03">2006/03: Positive and negative selection in a multilayer artificial immune system</a></h3> <h4>M. Middlemiss</h4> <p>The immune system is a complex and distributed system. It provides a multilayered form of defence, capable of identifying and responding to harmful pathogens that it does not recognise as “self”. The framework proposed in this paper incorporates a number of immunological concepts and principles, including the multilayered defence and the cooperation between cells in the adaptive immune system. An alternative model of positive selection is also presented. It is suggested that the framework discussed here could lead to reduced false positive responses in anomaly detection tasks, such as intrusion detection, as well being extended to a population of computational immune systems that are able to maintain population diversity of recognition and response.</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2006-03.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 444 KB)</p> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2006-04">2006/04: Agent based web service composition in the context of a supply-chain based workflow</a></h3> <h4>B.T.R. Savarimuthu, M. Purvis and M. Purvis</h4> <p>With the advent of Web Services, more and more business organizations make their services available on the Internet through Web Services and also use other services that are available on the corporate Intranet. From the viewpoint of workflow systems, these freely available Web Services and the proprietary intranet-based services should be integrated into individual businesses for their day-to-day workflows. Businesses that use Web Services not only provide the services to their customers but can also use Web Services to customize their internal processing, such as online order placement for raw materials. In this paper we describe the architecture of our agent-based workflow system that can be used for Web Service composition. In the context of an example from the apparel manufacturing industry, we demonstrate how Web Services can be composed and used.</p> <p><strong>Keywords: </strong>web services, multi-agent systems, workflow systems</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2006-04.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 565 KB)</p> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2006-05">2006/05: Facilitating collaboration in a distributed software development environment using P2P architecture</a></h3> <h4>M. Purvis, M. Purvis and B.T.R. Savarimuthu</h4> <p>This paper describes efforts to facilitate collaborative work in a distributed environment by providing infrastructure that facilitates the understanding of inter-connected processes involved and how they interact. In this work we describe how our agent-based framework supports these. This distributed work environment makes use of both P2P and client-server architectures. Using an example of developing an open source software system, we explain how a collaborative work environment can be achieved. In particular we address how the support for coordination, collaboration and communication are provided using our framework.</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2006-05.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 361 KB)</p> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2006-06">2006/06: Establishing dynamic trust in virtual organization by means of MAS</a></h3> <h4>N. Foukia and P.-E. Mallet</h4> <p>This paper presents an implementation of the first stage of a Virtual Organization (VO) life cycle, which is the VO’s creation. This implementation is based on previous work by one of the authors describing a framework which facilitates the establishment of VO agreements. In accordance with the framework, the implementation makes the VO’s creation fully automated, thereby reducing its duration considerably. This is beneficial for the VO, which should only exist for the limited period needed to satisfy its goal. The VO is implemented as a Multi-Agent System (MAS), where autonomous agents negotiate the agreement leading the the VO’s establishment. The Opal FIPA-compliant MAS platform was used to implement the VO agents. Different scenarios and evaluations provide a clear demonstration of the implementation, showing how agents dynamically negotiate the establishment of the agreement and how opportunistic agents’ behavior affect the trust level during the negotiation process.</p> <p><strong>Keywords: </strong>virtual organization, trust, autonomy, agent</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2006-06.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 336 KB)</p> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2006-07">2006/07: Hitting the ground running: Building New Zealand’s first publicly available institutional repository</a></h3> <h4>N. Stanger and G. McGregor</h4> <p>A fully functional and publicly available, digital institutional repository (IR) in the space of just ten days? The technology was available, the time was right, the team was right and technical assistance from colleagues in Australia was on hand a mere cyber call away. This paper reports on how we were able to “hit the ground running” in building an open access IR in such a short space of time. What has taken our breath away is not so much the speed of the process, but the scale of responsiveness from the Internet community. Consequently, we also consider the research impact of more than 18,000 downloads from eighty countries, less than three months into the project!</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2006-07.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 327 KB)</p> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2006-08">2006/08: The EVM’s universe and the Universe</a></h3> <h4>M. Nowostawski</h4> <p>The notion that all (or in weaker sense, some) natural phenomena can be modelled as a computable process, some kind of algorithm is recently gaining scientific recognition, and more research is dedicated to the rigorous explorations of the mapping between natural phenomena and the formalised computational systems. There is some debate and controversy as to how much of the natural can be expressed in the models of the artificial, although due to formalised nature of mathematics and physics itself, it is generally accepted that computation is viable way to model physical reality. Contemporary developments in computer science and in physics not only do no refute computationalism – they provide more data and evidence in support of the basic theses. In this article we discuss some of the aspects of contemporary computationalist efforts based on the traditional notions of Turning Machine computation. Then we present an extended notion of computation, that goes beyond the traditional Turing limit. We propose a new interactive computation model called Evolvable Virtual Machines (EVMs). The EVM model uses the notion of many independently asynchronously executing processes, that communicate between each other and with the outside environment. We present some of the pitfalls of traditional computationalism, and compare it to our new, extended computationalist model, based on the notion of massively concurrent interactive computation (hypercomputation). We argue, that hypercomputationalism based on the collection of asynchronously concurrently communicating computational machines is a more compact and more appropriate way of representing natural phenomena (or the Universe in general). It is theoretically sound, and does not violate any of the current state-of-the-art physical theories. We discuss the details of our computational architecture, and present some of the implications of the hypercomputationalism on contemporary physical, life sciences, and computer science.</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2006-08.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 477 KB)</p> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2006-09">2006/09: Combining multiple precision-boosted classifiers for indoor-outdoor scene classification</a></h3> <h4>D. Deng and J. Zhang</h4> <p>Along with the progress of the content-based image retrieval research and the development of the MPEG-7 XM feature descriptors, there has been an increasing research interest on object recognition and semantics extraction from images and videos. In this paper, we revisit an old problem of indoor versus outdoor scene classification. By introducing a precision-boosted combination scheme of multiple classifiers trained on several global and regional feature descriptors, our experiment has led to better results compared with conventional approaches.</p> <p><strong>Keywords: </strong>scene classification, classifier combination</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2006-09.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 843 KB)</p> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2006-10">2006/10: Feature analysis and classification of classical musical instruments: An empirical study</a></h3> <h4>C. Simmermacher, D. Deng and S. Cranefield</h4> <p>We present an empirical study on classical music instrument classification. A methodology with feature extraction and evaluation is proposed and assessed with a number of experiments, whose final stage is to detect instruments in solo passages. In feature selection it is found that similar but different rankings for individual tone classification and solo passage instrument recognition are reported. Based on the feature selection results, excerpts from concerto and sonata files are processed, so as to detect and distinguish four ma jor instruments in solo passages: trumpet, flute, violin, and piano. Nineteen features selected from the Mel-frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCC) and the MPEG-7 audio descriptors achieve a recognition rate of around 94% by the best classifier assessed by cross validation.</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2006-10.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 206 KB)</p> <link rel="Stylesheet" href="/infosci/styles.css" type="text/css"> <h2>Information Science Discussion Papers Series: 2006 Abstracts</h2> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2006-01">2006/01: Consumers, security and electronic health records</a></h3> <h4>P. Chhanabhai, A. Holt and I. Hunter</h4> <p>Health care has entered the electronic domain. This domain has improved data collection and storage abilities while allowing almost instantaneous access and results to data queries. Furthermore it allows direct communication between healthcare providers and health consumers. The development of privacy, confidentiality and security principles are necessary to protect consumers’ interests against inappropriate access. The electronic health systems vendors have dominated the transition of media, claiming it will improve the quality and coherence of the care process. However, numerous studies show that the health consumer is the important stakeholder in this process, and their views are suggesting that the electronic medium is the way forward, but not just yet. With the international push towards Electronic Health Records (EHRs) by the Health and Human Services (United States of America), National Health Service (United Kingdom), Health Canada (Canada) and more recently the Ministry of Health (New Zealand), this paper presents the consumers’ role with a focus on their perceptions on the security of EHRs. A description of a study, looking at the New Zealand health consumer, is given.</p> <p><strong>Keywords: </strong>electronic health records, New Zealand health system, consumer, security</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2006-01.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 291 KB)</p> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2006-02">2006/02: Ubiquitous interactive art displays: Are they wanted, are they intuitive?</a></h3> <h4>G. Burrows</h4> <p>The purpose of this study was to create a ubiquitous proximity activated interactive digital display system providing adjusted artworks as content for evaluating viewer reactions and opinions to determine if similar interactive ubiquitous systems are a beneficial, enjoyable and even an appropriate way to display art. Multimedia used in galleries predominately provides content following set patterns and disregards the viewer. Interactive displays using viewer location usually require the viewer’s conscious participation through carrying some form of hardware or using expensive sensing equipment. We created an inexpensive, simple system that reacts to the user in a ubiquitous manner, allowing the evaluation of the usability and suitability of such systems in the context of viewing art. Results from testing show that interactive displays are generally enjoyed and wanted for displaying art, however even simple ubiquitous displays can cause user difficulty due to the transparency of their interaction.</p> <p><strong>Keywords: </strong>interactive, digital displays, art, proximity, ubiquitous, gallery, intuitive interfaces</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2006-02.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 496 KB)</p> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2006-03">2006/03: Positive and negative selection in a multilayer artificial immune system</a></h3> <h4>M. Middlemiss</h4> <p>The immune system is a complex and distributed system. It provides a multilayered form of defence, capable of identifying and responding to harmful pathogens that it does not recognise as “self”. The framework proposed in this paper incorporates a number of immunological concepts and principles, including the multilayered defence and the cooperation between cells in the adaptive immune system. An alternative model of positive selection is also presented. It is suggested that the framework discussed here could lead to reduced false positive responses in anomaly detection tasks, such as intrusion detection, as well being extended to a population of computational immune systems that are able to maintain population diversity of recognition and response.</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2006-03.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 444 KB)</p> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2006-04">2006/04: Agent based web service composition in the context of a supply-chain based workflow</a></h3> <h4>B.T.R. Savarimuthu, M. Purvis and M. Purvis</h4> <p>With the advent of Web Services, more and more business organizations make their services available on the Internet through Web Services and also use other services that are available on the corporate Intranet. From the viewpoint of workflow systems, these freely available Web Services and the proprietary intranet-based services should be integrated into individual businesses for their day-to-day workflows. Businesses that use Web Services not only provide the services to their customers but can also use Web Services to customize their internal processing, such as online order placement for raw materials. In this paper we describe the architecture of our agent-based workflow system that can be used for Web Service composition. In the context of an example from the apparel manufacturing industry, we demonstrate how Web Services can be composed and used.</p> <p><strong>Keywords: </strong>web services, multi-agent systems, workflow systems</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2006-04.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 565 KB)</p> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2006-05">2006/05: Facilitating collaboration in a distributed software development environment using P2P architecture</a></h3> <h4>M. Purvis, M. Purvis and B.T.R. Savarimuthu</h4> <p>This paper describes efforts to facilitate collaborative work in a distributed environment by providing infrastructure that facilitates the understanding of inter-connected processes involved and how they interact. In this work we describe how our agent-based framework supports these. This distributed work environment makes use of both P2P and client-server architectures. Using an example of developing an open source software system, we explain how a collaborative work environment can be achieved. In particular we address how the support for coordination, collaboration and communication are provided using our framework.</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2006-05.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 361 KB)</p> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2006-06">2006/06: Establishing dynamic trust in virtual organization by means of MAS</a></h3> <h4>N. Foukia and P.-E. Mallet</h4> <p>This paper presents an implementation of the first stage of a Virtual Organization (VO) life cycle, which is the VO’s creation. This implementation is based on previous work by one of the authors describing a framework which facilitates the establishment of VO agreements. In accordance with the framework, the implementation makes the VO’s creation fully automated, thereby reducing its duration considerably. This is beneficial for the VO, which should only exist for the limited period needed to satisfy its goal. The VO is implemented as a Multi-Agent System (MAS), where autonomous agents negotiate the agreement leading the the VO’s establishment. The Opal FIPA-compliant MAS platform was used to implement the VO agents. Different scenarios and evaluations provide a clear demonstration of the implementation, showing how agents dynamically negotiate the establishment of the agreement and how opportunistic agents’ behavior affect the trust level during the negotiation process.</p> <p><strong>Keywords: </strong>virtual organization, trust, autonomy, agent</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2006-06.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 336 KB)</p> <hr> <h3><a name="dp2006-07">2006/07: Hitting the ground running: Building New Zealand’s first publicly available institutional repository</a></h3> <h4>N. Stanger and G. McGregor</h4> <p>A fully functional and publicly available, digital institutional repository (IR) in the space of just ten days? The technology was available, the time was right, the team was right and technical assistance from colleagues in Australia was on hand a mere cyber call away. This paper reports on how we were able to “hit the ground running” in building an open access IR in such a short space of time. What has taken our breath away is not so much the speed of the process, but the scale of responsiveness from the Internet community. Consequently, we also consider the research impact of more than 18,000 downloads from eighty countries, less than three months into the project!</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2006-07.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 327 KB)</p> <hr> <h3><a name="#dp2006-08">2006/08: The EVM’s universe and the Universe</a></h3> <h4>M. Nowostawski</h4> <p>The notion that all (or in weaker sense, some) natural phenomena can be modelled as a computable process, some kind of algorithm is recently gaining scientific recognition, and more research is dedicated to the rigorous explorations of the mapping between natural phenomena and the formalised computational systems. There is some debate and controversy as to how much of the natural can be expressed in the models of the artificial, although due to formalised nature of mathematics and physics itself, it is generally accepted that computation is viable way to model physical reality. Contemporary developments in computer science and in physics not only do no refute computationalism – they provide more data and evidence in support of the basic theses. In this article we discuss some of the aspects of contemporary computationalist efforts based on the traditional notions of Turning Machine computation. Then we present an extended notion of computation, that goes beyond the traditional Turing limit. We propose a new interactive computation model called Evolvable Virtual Machines (EVMs). The EVM model uses the notion of many independently asynchronously executing processes, that communicate between each other and with the outside environment. We present some of the pitfalls of traditional computationalism, and compare it to our new, extended computationalist model, based on the notion of massively concurrent interactive computation (hypercomputation). We argue, that hypercomputationalism based on the collection of asynchronously concurrently communicating computational machines is a more compact and more appropriate way of representing natural phenomena (or the Universe in general). It is theoretically sound, and does not violate any of the current state-of-the-art physical theories. We discuss the details of our computational architecture, and present some of the implications of the hypercomputationalism on contemporary physical, life sciences, and computer science.</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2006-08.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 477 KB)</p> <hr> <h3><a name="#dp2006-09">2006/09: Combining multiple precision-boosted classifiers for indoor-outdoor scene classification</a></h3> <h4>D. Deng and J. Zhang</h4> <p>Along with the progress of the content-based image retrieval research and the development of the MPEG-7 XM feature descriptors, there has been an increasing research interest on object recognition and semantics extraction from images and videos. In this paper, we revisit an old problem of indoor versus outdoor scene classification. By introducing a precision-boosted combination scheme of multiple classifiers trained on several global and regional feature descriptors, our experiment has led to better results compared with conventional approaches.</p> <p><strong>Keywords: </strong>scene classification, classifier combination</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2006-09.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 843 KB)</p> <hr> <h3><a name="#dp2006-10">2006/10: Feature analysis and classification of classical musical instruments: An empirical study</a></h3> <h4>C. Simmermacher, D. Deng and S. Cranefield</h4> <p>We present an empirical study on classical music instrument classification. A methodology with feature extraction and evaluation is proposed and assessed with a number of experiments, whose final stage is to detect instruments in solo passages. In feature selection it is found that similar but different rankings for individual tone classification and solo passage instrument recognition are reported. Based on the feature selection results, excerpts from concerto and sonata files are processed, so as to detect and distinguish four ma jor instruments in solo passages: trumpet, flute, violin, and piano. Nineteen features selected from the Mel-frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCC) and the MPEG-7 audio descriptors achieve a recognition rate of around 94% by the best classifier assessed by cross validation.</p> <p><a href="papers/dp2006-10.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 206 KB)</p>

Ignore Space Show notes View

Website/dp2006-abstracts-contents.htm

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2006-01">2006/01: Consumers, security and electronic health records</a></h3>
<h4>P. Chhanabhai, A. Holt and I. Hunter</h4>

<p>Health care has entered the electronic domain. This domain has improved data collection and storage abilities while allowing almost instantaneous access and results to data queries. Furthermore it allows direct communication between healthcare providers and health consumers. The development of privacy, confidentiality and security principles are necessary to protect consumers&rsquo; interests against inappropriate access. The electronic health systems vendors have dominated the transition of media, claiming it will improve the quality and coherence of the care process. However, numerous studies show that the health consumer is the important stakeholder in this process, and their views are suggesting that the electronic medium is the way forward, but not just yet. With the international push towards Electronic Health Records (EHRs) by the Health and Human Services (United States of America), National Health Service (United Kingdom), Health Canada (Canada) and more recently the Ministry of Health (New Zealand), this paper presents the consumers&rsquo; role with a focus on their perceptions on the security of EHRs. A description of a study, looking at the New Zealand health consumer, is given.</p>

<p><strong>Keywords: </strong>electronic health records,
New Zealand health system,
consumer,
security</p>

<p><a href="papers/dp2006-01.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 291 KB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2006-02">2006/02: Ubiquitous interactive art displays: Are they wanted, are they intuitive?</a></h3>
<h4>G. Burrows</h4>

<p>The purpose of this study was to create a ubiquitous proximity activated interactive digital display system providing adjusted artworks as content for evaluating viewer reactions and opinions to determine if similar interactive ubiquitous systems are a beneficial, enjoyable and even an appropriate way to display art. Multimedia used in galleries predominately provides content following set patterns and disregards the viewer. Interactive displays using viewer location usually require the viewer&rsquo;s conscious participation through carrying some form of hardware or using expensive sensing equipment. We created an inexpensive, simple system that reacts to the user in a ubiquitous manner, allowing the evaluation of the usability and suitability of such systems in the context of viewing art. Results from testing show that interactive displays are generally enjoyed and wanted for displaying art, however even simple ubiquitous displays can cause user difficulty due to the transparency of their interaction.</p>

<p><strong>Keywords: </strong>interactive,
digital displays,
art,
proximity,
ubiquitous,
gallery,
intuitive interfaces</p>

<p><a href="papers/dp2006-02.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 496 KB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2006-03">2006/03: Positive and negative selection in a multilayer artificial immune system</a></h3>
<h4>M. Middlemiss</h4>

<p>The immune system is a complex and distributed system. It provides a multilayered form of defence, capable of identifying and responding to harmful pathogens that it does not recognise as &ldquo;self&rdquo;. The framework proposed in this paper incorporates a number of immunological concepts and principles, including the multilayered defence and the cooperation between cells in the adaptive immune system. An alternative model of positive selection is also presented. It is suggested that the framework discussed here could lead to reduced false positive responses in anomaly detection tasks, such as intrusion detection, as well being extended to a population of computational immune systems that are able to maintain population diversity of recognition and response.</p>

<p><a href="papers/dp2006-03.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 444 KB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2006-04">2006/04: Agent based web service composition in the context of a supply-chain based workflow</a></h3>
<h4>B.T.R. Savarimuthu, M. Purvis and M. Purvis</h4>

<p>With the advent of Web Services, more and more business organizations make their services available on the Internet through Web Services and also use other services that are available on the corporate Intranet. From the viewpoint of workflow systems, these freely available Web Services and the proprietary intranet-based services should be integrated into individual businesses for their day-to-day workflows. Businesses that use Web Services not only provide the services to their customers but can also use Web Services to customize their internal processing, such as online order placement for raw materials.  In this paper we describe the architecture of our agent-based workflow system that can be used for Web Service composition. In the context of an example from the apparel manufacturing industry, we demonstrate how Web Services can be composed and used.</p>

<p><strong>Keywords: </strong>web services,
multi-agent systems,
workflow systems</p>

<p><a href="papers/dp2006-04.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 565 KB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2006-05">2006/05: Facilitating collaboration in a distributed software development environment using P2P architecture</a></h3>
<h4>M. Purvis, M. Purvis and B.T.R. Savarimuthu</h4>

<p>This paper describes efforts to facilitate collaborative work in a distributed environment by providing infrastructure that facilitates the understanding of inter-connected processes involved and how they interact. In this work we describe how our agent-based framework supports these. This distributed work environment makes use of both P2P and client-server architectures. Using an example of developing an open source software system, we explain how a collaborative work environment can be achieved. In particular we address how the support for coordination, collaboration and communication are provided using our framework.</p>

<p><a href="papers/dp2006-05.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 361 KB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2006-06">2006/06: Establishing dynamic trust in virtual organization by means of MAS</a></h3>
<h4>N. Foukia and P.-E. Mallet</h4>

<p>This paper presents an implementation of the first stage of a Virtual Organization (VO) life cycle, which is the VO&rsquo;s creation. This implementation is based on previous work by one of the authors describing a framework which facilitates the establishment of VO agreements. In accordance with the framework, the implementation makes the VO&rsquo;s creation fully automated, thereby reducing its duration considerably. This is beneficial for the VO, which should only exist for the limited period needed to satisfy its goal. The VO is implemented as a Multi-Agent System (MAS), where autonomous agents negotiate the agreement leading the the VO&rsquo;s establishment. The Opal FIPA-compliant MAS platform was used to implement the VO agents. Different scenarios and evaluations provide a clear demonstration of the implementation, showing how agents dynamically negotiate the establishment of the agreement and how opportunistic agents&rsquo; behavior affect the trust level during the negotiation process.</p>

<p><strong>Keywords: </strong>virtual organization,
trust,
autonomy,
agent</p>

<p><a href="papers/dp2006-06.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 336 KB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2006-07">2006/07: Hitting the ground running: Building New Zealand&rsquo;s first publicly available institutional repository</a></h3>
<h4>N. Stanger and G. McGregor</h4>

<p>A fully functional and publicly available, digital institutional repository (IR) in the space of just ten days? The technology was available, the time was right, the team was right and technical assistance from colleagues in Australia was on hand a mere cyber call away. This paper reports on how we were able to &ldquo;hit the ground running&rdquo; in building an open access IR in such a short space of time. What has taken our breath away is not so much the speed of the process, but the scale of responsiveness from the Internet community. Consequently, we also consider the research impact of more than 18,000 downloads from eighty countries, less than three months into the project!</p>

<p><a href="papers/dp2006-07.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 327 KB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2006-08">2006/08: The EVM&rsquo;s universe and the Universe</a></h3>
<h4>M. Nowostawski</h4>

<p>The notion that all (or in weaker sense, some) natural phenomena can be modelled as a computable process, some kind of algorithm is recently gaining scientific recognition, and more research is dedicated to the rigorous explorations of the mapping between natural phenomena and the formalised computational systems. There is some debate and controversy as to how much of the natural can be expressed in the models of the artificial, although due to formalised nature of mathematics and physics itself, it is generally accepted that computation is viable way to model physical reality. Contemporary developments in computer science and in physics not only do no refute computationalism &ndash; they provide more data and evidence in support of the basic theses. In this article we discuss some of the aspects of contemporary computationalist efforts based on the traditional notions of Turning Machine computation. Then we present an extended notion of computation, that goes beyond the traditional Turing limit. We propose a new interactive computation model called Evolvable Virtual Machines (EVMs). The EVM model uses the notion of many independently asynchronously executing processes, that communicate between each other and with the outside environment. We present some of the pitfalls of traditional computationalism, and compare it to our new, extended computationalist model, based on the notion of massively concurrent interactive computation (hypercomputation). We argue, that hypercomputationalism based on the collection of asynchronously concurrently communicating computational machines is a more compact and more appropriate way of representing natural phenomena (or the Universe in general). It is theoretically sound, and does not violate any of the current state-of-the-art physical theories. We discuss the details of our computational architecture, and present some of the implications of the hypercomputationalism on contemporary physical, life sciences, and computer science.</p>

<p><a href="papers/dp2006-08.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 477 KB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2006-09">2006/09: Combining multiple precision-boosted classifiers for 
indoor-outdoor scene classification</a></h3>
<h4>D. Deng and J. Zhang</h4>

<p>Along with the progress of the content-based image retrieval research and the development of the MPEG-7 XM feature descriptors, there has been an increasing research interest on object recognition and semantics extraction from images and videos. In this paper, we revisit an old problem of indoor versus outdoor scene classification. By introducing a precision-boosted combination scheme of multiple classifiers trained on several global and regional feature descriptors, our experiment has led to better results compared with conventional approaches.</p>

<p><strong>Keywords: </strong>scene classification,
classifier combination</p>

<p><a href="papers/dp2006-09.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 843 KB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2006-10">2006/10: Feature analysis and classification of classical musical instruments: An empirical study</a></h3>
<h4>C. Simmermacher, D. Deng and S. Cranefield</h4>

<p>We present an empirical study on classical music instrument classification. A methodology with feature extraction and evaluation is proposed and assessed with a number of experiments, whose final stage is to detect instruments in solo passages. In feature selection it is found that similar but different rankings for individual tone classification and solo passage instrument recognition are reported. Based on the feature selection results, excerpts from concerto and sonata files are processed, so as to detect and distinguish four ma jor instruments in solo passages: trumpet, flute, violin, and piano. Nineteen features selected from the Mel-frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCC) and the MPEG-7 audio descriptors achieve a recognition rate of around 94% by the best classifier assessed by cross validation.</p>

<p><a href="papers/dp2006-10.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 206 KB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2006-01">2006/01: Consumers, security and electronic health records</a></h3>
<h4>P. Chhanabhai, A. Holt and I. Hunter</h4>

<p><strong>Keywords: </strong>electronic health records,
New Zealand health system,
consumer,
security</p>

<p><a href="papers/dp2006-01.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 291 KB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2006-02">2006/02: Ubiquitous interactive art displays: Are they wanted, are they intuitive?</a></h3>
<h4>G. Burrows</h4>

<p><strong>Keywords: </strong>interactive,
digital displays,
art,
proximity,
ubiquitous,
gallery,
intuitive interfaces</p>

<p><a href="papers/dp2006-02.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 496 KB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2006-03">2006/03: Positive and negative selection in a multilayer artificial immune system</a></h3>
<h4>M. Middlemiss</h4>

<p><a href="papers/dp2006-03.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 444 KB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2006-04">2006/04: Agent based web service composition in the context of a supply-chain based workflow</a></h3>
<h4>B.T.R. Savarimuthu, M. Purvis and M. Purvis</h4>

<p><strong>Keywords: </strong>web services,
multi-agent systems,
workflow systems</p>

<p><a href="papers/dp2006-04.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 565 KB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2006-05">2006/05: Facilitating collaboration in a distributed software development environment using P2P architecture</a></h3>
<h4>M. Purvis, M. Purvis and B.T.R. Savarimuthu</h4>

<p><a href="papers/dp2006-05.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 361 KB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2006-06">2006/06: Establishing dynamic trust in virtual organization by means of MAS</a></h3>
<h4>N. Foukia and P.-E. Mallet</h4>

<p><strong>Keywords: </strong>virtual organization,
trust,
autonomy,
agent</p>

<p><a href="papers/dp2006-06.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 336 KB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="dp2006-07">2006/07: Hitting the ground running: Building New Zealand&rsquo;s first publicly available institutional repository</a></h3>
<h4>N. Stanger and G. McGregor</h4>

<p><a href="papers/dp2006-07.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 327 KB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="#dp2006-08">2006/08: The EVM&rsquo;s universe and the Universe</a></h3>
<h4>M. Nowostawski</h4>

<p><a href="papers/dp2006-08.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 477 KB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="#dp2006-09">2006/09: Combining multiple precision-boosted classifiers for 
indoor-outdoor scene classification</a></h3>
<h4>D. Deng and J. Zhang</h4>

<p><strong>Keywords: </strong>scene classification,
classifier combination</p>

<p><a href="papers/dp2006-09.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 843 KB)</p>

<hr>

<h3><a name="#dp2006-10">2006/10: Feature analysis and classification of classical musical instruments: An empirical study</a></h3>
<h4>C. Simmermacher, D. Deng and S. Cranefield</h4>

<p><a href="papers/dp2006-10.pdf">Download</a> (PDF, 206 KB)</p>

Ignore Space Show notes View Website/dps2001-include.htm
<p><strong>2001/01:</strong> N. Kasabov. <em>Evolving fuzzy neural networks for on-line knowledge discovery.</em> <a href="dp2001-abstracts.htm#dp2001-01">Abstract</a> \| <a href="papers/dp2001-01.pdf">Download</a> (707 KB)</p> <p><strong>2001/02:</strong> G. Bush, S. Cranefield and M.K. Purvis. <em>The Styx agent methodology.</em> <a href="dp2001-abstracts.htm#dp2001-02">Abstract</a> \| <a href="papers/dp2001-02.pdf">Download</a> (153 KB)</p> <p><strong>2001/03:</strong> S. Cranefield, M.K. Purvis and M. Nowostawski. <em>Implementing agent communication languages directly from UML specifications.</em> <a href="dp2001-abstracts.htm#dp2001-03">Abstract</a> \| <a href="papers/dp2001-03.pdf">Download</a> (488 KB)</p> <p><strong>2001/04:</strong> S. Cranefield. <em>UML and the Semantic Web.</em> <a href="dp2001-abstracts.htm#dp2001-04">Abstract</a> \| <a href="papers/dp2001-04.pdf">Download</a> (482 KB)</p> <p><strong>2001/05:</strong> M. Nowostawski, M.K. Purvis and S. Cranefield. <em>A layered approach for modelling agent conversations.</em> <a href="dp2001-abstracts.htm#dp2001-05">Abstract</a> \| <a href="papers/dp2001-05.pdf">Download</a> (216 KB)</p> <p><strong>2001/06:</strong> M. Nowostawski, G. Bush, M.K. Purvis and S. Cranefield. <em>A multi-level approach and infrastructure for agent-oriented software development.</em> <a href="dp2001-abstracts.htm#dp2001-06">Abstract</a> \| <a href="papers/dp2001-06.pdf">Download</a> (293 KB)</p> <p><strong>2001/07:</strong> S. Cranefield, S. Haustein and M.K. Purvis. <em>UML-based ontology modelling for software agents.</em> <a href="dp2001-abstracts.htm#dp2001-07">Abstract</a> \| <a href="papers/dp2001-07.pdf">Download</a> (143 KB)</p> <p><strong>2001/08:</strong> S. Cranefield and M.K. Purvis. <em>Generating ontology-specific content languages.</em> <a href="dp2001-abstracts.htm#dp2001-08">Abstract</a> \| <a href="papers/dp2001-08.pdf">Download</a> (171 KB)</p> <p><strong>2001/09:</strong> Z. Huang, C. Sun, M.K. Purvis and S. Cranefield. <em>View-based consistency and its implementation.</em> <a href="dp2001-abstracts.htm#dp2001-09">Abstract</a> \| <a href="papers/dp2001-09.pdf">Download</a> (139 KB)</p> <p><strong>2001/10:</strong> H. Nicholls and R. Gibb. <em>Distributed information access in New Zealand.</em> <a href="dp2001-abstracts.htm#dp2001-10">Abstract</a> \| <a href="papers/dp2001-10.pdf">Download</a> (1.3 MB)</p> <p><strong>2001/11:</strong> W. Wong and A. Blandford. <em>Naturalistic decision making in emergency ambulance command and control.</em> <a href="dp2001-abstracts.htm#dp2001-11">Abstract</a> \| <a href="papers/dp2001-11.pdf">Download</a> (204 KB)</p> <p><strong>2001/01:</strong> N. Kasabov. <em>Evolving fuzzy neural networks for on-line knowledge discovery.</em> <a href="dp2001-abstracts.htm#dp2001-01">Abstract</a> \| <a href="papers/dp2001-01.pdf">Download</a> (321 KB)</p> <p><strong>2001/02:</strong> G. Bush, S. Cranefield and M.K. Purvis. <em>The Styx agent methodology.</em> <a href="dp2001-abstracts.htm#dp2001-02">Abstract</a> \| <a href="papers/dp2001-02.pdf">Download</a> (103 KB)</p> <p><strong>2001/03:</strong> S. Cranefield, M.K. Purvis and M. Nowostawski. <em>Implementing agent communication languages directly from UML specifications.</em> <a href="dp2001-abstracts.htm#dp2001-03">Abstract</a> \| <a href="papers/dp2001-03.pdf">Download</a> (451 KB)</p> <p><strong>2001/04:</strong> S. Cranefield. <em>UML and the Semantic Web.</em> <a href="dp2001-abstracts.htm#dp2001-04">Abstract</a> \| <a href="papers/dp2001-04.pdf">Download</a> (912 KB)</p> <p><strong>2001/05:</strong> M. Nowostawski, M.K. Purvis and S. Cranefield. <em>A layered approach for modelling agent conversations.</em> <a href="dp2001-abstracts.htm#dp2001-05">Abstract</a> \| <a href="papers/dp2001-05.pdf">Download</a> (131 KB)</p> <p><strong>2001/06:</strong> M. Nowostawski, G. Bush, M.K. Purvis and S. Cranefield. <em>A multi-level approach and infrastructure for agent-oriented software development.</em> <a href="dp2001-abstracts.htm#dp2001-06">Abstract</a> \| <a href="papers/dp2001-06.pdf">Download</a> (155 KB)</p> <p><strong>2001/07:</strong> S. Cranefield, S. Haustein and M.K. Purvis. <em>UML-based ontology modelling for software agents.</em> <a href="dp2001-abstracts.htm#dp2001-07">Abstract</a> \| <a href="papers/dp2001-07.pdf">Download</a> (102 KB)</p> <p><strong>2001/08:</strong> S. Cranefield and M.K. Purvis. <em>Generating ontology-specific content languages.</em> <a href="dp2001-abstracts.htm#dp2001-08">Abstract</a> \| <a href="papers/dp2001-08.pdf">Download</a> (131KB)</p> <p><strong>2001/09:</strong> Z. Huang, C. Sun, M.K. Purvis and S. Cranefield. <em>View-based consistency and its implementation.</em> <a href="dp2001-abstracts.htm#dp2001-09">Abstract</a> \| <a href="papers/dp2001-09.pdf">Download</a> (207 KB)</p> <p><strong>2001/10:</strong> H. Nicholls and R. Gibb. <em>Distributed information access in New Zealand.</em> <a href="dp2001-abstracts.htm#dp2001-10">Abstract</a> \| <a href="papers/dp2001-10.pdf">Download</a> (1.8 MB)</p> <p><strong>2001/11:</strong> W. Wong and A. Blandford. <em>Naturalistic decision making in emergency ambulance command and control.</em> <a href="dp2001-abstracts.htm#dp2001-11">Abstract</a> \| <a href="papers/dp2001-11.pdf">Download</a> (262 KB)</p>

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<p><strong>2001/01:</strong> N. Kasabov. <em>Evolving fuzzy neural networks for on-line knowledge discovery.</em> <a href="dp2001-abstracts.htm#dp2001-01">Abstract</a> | <a href="papers/dp2001-01.pdf">Download</a> (707 KB)</p>

<p><strong>2001/02:</strong> G. Bush, S. Cranefield and M.K. Purvis. <em>The Styx agent methodology.</em> <a href="dp2001-abstracts.htm#dp2001-02">Abstract</a> | <a href="papers/dp2001-02.pdf">Download</a> (153 KB)</p>

<p><strong>2001/03:</strong> S. Cranefield, M.K. Purvis and M. Nowostawski. <em>Implementing agent communication languages directly from UML specifications.</em> <a href="dp2001-abstracts.htm#dp2001-03">Abstract</a> | <a href="papers/dp2001-03.pdf">Download</a> (488 KB)</p>

<p><strong>2001/04:</strong> S. Cranefield. <em>UML and the Semantic Web.</em> <a href="dp2001-abstracts.htm#dp2001-04">Abstract</a> | <a href="papers/dp2001-04.pdf">Download</a> (482 KB)</p>

<p><strong>2001/05:</strong> M. Nowostawski, M.K. Purvis and S. Cranefield. <em>A layered approach for modelling agent conversations.</em> <a href="dp2001-abstracts.htm#dp2001-05">Abstract</a> | <a href="papers/dp2001-05.pdf">Download</a> (216 KB)</p>

<p><strong>2001/06:</strong> M. Nowostawski, G. Bush, M.K. Purvis and S. Cranefield. <em>A multi-level approach and infrastructure for agent-oriented software development.</em> <a href="dp2001-abstracts.htm#dp2001-06">Abstract</a> | <a href="papers/dp2001-06.pdf">Download</a> (293 KB)</p>

<p><strong>2001/07:</strong> S. Cranefield, S. Haustein and M.K. Purvis. <em>UML-based ontology modelling for software agents.</em> <a href="dp2001-abstracts.htm#dp2001-07">Abstract</a> | <a href="papers/dp2001-07.pdf">Download</a> (143 KB)</p>

<p><strong>2001/08:</strong> S. Cranefield and M.K. Purvis. <em>Generating ontology-specific content languages.</em> <a href="dp2001-abstracts.htm#dp2001-08">Abstract</a> | <a href="papers/dp2001-08.pdf">Download</a> (171 KB)</p>

<p><strong>2001/09:</strong> Z. Huang, C. Sun, M.K. Purvis and S. Cranefield. <em>View-based consistency and its implementation.</em> <a href="dp2001-abstracts.htm#dp2001-09">Abstract</a> | <a href="papers/dp2001-09.pdf">Download</a> (139 KB)</p>

<p><strong>2001/10:</strong> H. Nicholls and R. Gibb. <em>Distributed information access in New Zealand.</em> <a href="dp2001-abstracts.htm#dp2001-10">Abstract</a> | <a href="papers/dp2001-10.pdf">Download</a> (1.3 MB)</p>

<p><strong>2001/11:</strong> W. Wong and A. Blandford. <em>Naturalistic decision making in emergency ambulance command and control.</em> <a href="dp2001-abstracts.htm#dp2001-11">Abstract</a> | <a href="papers/dp2001-11.pdf">Download</a> (204 KB)</p>

<p><strong>2001/04:</strong> S. Cranefield. <em>UML and the Semantic Web.</em> <a href="dp2001-abstracts.htm#dp2001-04">Abstract</a> | <a href="papers/dp2001-04.pdf">Download</a> (912 KB)</p>

Ignore Space Show notes View Website/dps2002-include.htm
<p><strong>2002/01:</strong> M. Purvis, S. Cranefield, M. Nowostawski and D. Carter. <em>Opal: A multi-level infrastructure for agent-oriented software development.</em> <a href="dp2002-abstracts.htm#dp2002-01">Abstract</a> \| <a href="papers/dp2002-01.pdf">Download</a> (537 KB)</p> <p><strong>2002/02:</strong> M. Purvis, P. Hwang, M. Purvis, S. Cranefield and M. Schievink. <em>Interaction protocols for a network of environmental problem solvers.</em> <a href="dp2002-abstracts.htm#dp2002-02">Abstract</a> \| <a href="papers/dp2002-02.pdf">Download</a> (121 KB)</p> <p><strong>2002/03:</strong> A. Moore, P. Whigham, C. Aldridge, A. Holt and K. Hodge. <em>Spatio-temporal and object visualization in rugby union.</em> <a href="dp2002-abstracts.htm#dp2002-03">Abstract</a> \| <a href="papers/dp2002-03.pdf">Download</a> (2.3 MB)</p> <p><strong>2002/04:</strong> M. Purvis, S. Cranefield, M. Purvis and M. Nowostawski. <em>Multi-agent system interaction protocols in a dynamically changing environment.</em> <a href="dp2002-abstracts.htm#dp2002-04">Abstract</a> \| <a href="papers/dp2002-04.pdf">Download</a> (150 KB)</p> <p><strong>2002/05:</strong> W. Gillingham, A. Holt and J. Gillies. <em>Hand-held computers in health care: What software programs are available?</em> <a href="dp2002-abstracts.htm#dp2002-05">Abstract</a> \| <a href="papers/dp2002-05.pdf">Download</a> (864 KB)</p> <p class="note">(Discussion paper 2002/06 does not exist.)</p> <p><strong>2002/07:</strong> J. Hayes. <em>St John’s Ambulance Service, Southern Region: Control centre dispatch profile (1997–2001).</em> <a href="dp2002-abstracts.htm#dp2002-07">Abstract</a> \| <a href="papers/dp2002-07.pdf">Download</a> (180 KB)</p> <p><strong>2002/08:</strong> G. Dick and P. Whigham. <em>Population density and spatially constrained selection in evolutionary computation.</em> <a href="dp2002-abstracts.htm#dp2002-08">Abstract</a> \| <a href="papers/dp2002-08.pdf">Download</a> (255 KB)</p> <p><strong>2002/01:</strong> M. Purvis, S. Cranefield, M. Nowostawski and D. Carter. <em>Opal: A multi-level infrastructure for agent-oriented software development.</em> <a href="dp2002-abstracts.htm#dp2002-01">Abstract</a> \| <a href="papers/dp2002-01.pdf">Download</a> (643 KB)</p> <p><strong>2002/02:</strong> M. Purvis, P. Hwang, M. Purvis, S. Cranefield and M. Schievink. <em>Interaction protocols for a network of environmental problem solvers.</em> <a href="dp2002-abstracts.htm#dp2002-02">Abstract</a> \| <a href="papers/dp2002-02.pdf">Download</a> (114 KB)</p> <p><strong>2002/03:</strong> A. Moore, P. Whigham, C. Aldridge, A. Holt and K. Hodge. <em>Spatio-temporal and object visualization in rugby union.</em> <a href="dp2002-abstracts.htm#dp2002-03">Abstract</a> \| <a href="papers/dp2002-03.pdf">Download</a> (2.4 MB)</p> <p><strong>2002/04:</strong> M. Purvis, S. Cranefield, M. Purvis and M. Nowostawski. <em>Multi-agent system interaction protocols in a dynamically changing environment.</em> <a href="dp2002-abstracts.htm#dp2002-04">Abstract</a> \| <a href="papers/dp2002-04.pdf">Download</a> (142 KB)</p> <p><strong>2002/05:</strong> W. Gillingham, A. Holt and J. Gillies. <em>Hand-held computers in health care: What software programs are available?</em> <a href="dp2002-abstracts.htm#dp2002-05">Abstract</a> \| <a href="papers/dp2002-05.pdf">Download</a> (810 KB)</p> <p class="note">(Discussion paper 2002/06 does not exist.)</p> <p><strong>2002/07:</strong> J. Hayes. <em>St John’s Ambulance Service, Southern Region: Control centre dispatch profile (1997–2001).</em> <a href="dp2002-abstracts.htm#dp2002-07">Abstract</a> \| <a href="papers/dp2002-07.pdf">Download</a> (158 KB)</p> <p><strong>2002/08:</strong> G. Dick and P. Whigham. <em>Population density and spatially constrained selection in evolutionary computation.</em> <a href="dp2002-abstracts.htm#dp2002-08">Abstract</a> \| <a href="papers/dp2002-08.pdf">Download</a> (272 KB)</p>

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<p><strong>2002/01:</strong> M. Purvis, S. Cranefield, M. Nowostawski and D. Carter. <em>Opal: A multi-level infrastructure for agent-oriented software development.</em> <a href="dp2002-abstracts.htm#dp2002-01">Abstract</a> | <a href="papers/dp2002-01.pdf">Download</a> (537 KB)</p>

<p><strong>2002/02:</strong> M. Purvis, P. Hwang, M. Purvis, S. Cranefield and M. Schievink. <em>Interaction protocols for a network of environmental problem solvers.</em> <a href="dp2002-abstracts.htm#dp2002-02">Abstract</a> | <a href="papers/dp2002-02.pdf">Download</a> (121 KB)</p>

<p><strong>2002/03:</strong> A. Moore, P. Whigham, C. Aldridge, A. Holt and K. Hodge. <em>Spatio-temporal and object visualization in rugby union.</em> <a href="dp2002-abstracts.htm#dp2002-03">Abstract</a> | <a href="papers/dp2002-03.pdf">Download</a> (2.3 MB)</p>

<p><strong>2002/04:</strong> M. Purvis, S. Cranefield, M. Purvis and M. Nowostawski. <em>Multi-agent system interaction protocols in a dynamically changing environment.</em> <a href="dp2002-abstracts.htm#dp2002-04">Abstract</a> | <a href="papers/dp2002-04.pdf">Download</a> (150 KB)</p>

<p><strong>2002/05:</strong> W. Gillingham, A. Holt and J. Gillies. <em>Hand-held computers in health care: What software programs are available?</em> <a href="dp2002-abstracts.htm#dp2002-05">Abstract</a> | <a href="papers/dp2002-05.pdf">Download</a> (864 KB)</p>

<p class="note">(Discussion paper 2002/06 does not exist.)</p>

<p><strong>2002/07:</strong> J. Hayes. <em>St John&rsquo;s Ambulance Service, Southern Region: Control centre dispatch profile (1997&ndash;2001).</em> <a href="dp2002-abstracts.htm#dp2002-07">Abstract</a> | <a href="papers/dp2002-07.pdf">Download</a> (180 KB)</p>

<p><strong>2002/08:</strong> G. Dick and P. Whigham. <em>Population density and spatially constrained selection in evolutionary computation.</em> <a href="dp2002-abstracts.htm#dp2002-08">Abstract</a> | <a href="papers/dp2002-08.pdf">Download</a> (255 KB)</p>

<p class="note">(Discussion paper 2002/06 does not exist.)</p>

<p><strong>2002/07:</strong> J. Hayes. <em>St John&#8217;s Ambulance Service, Southern Region: Control centre dispatch profile (1997&#8211;2001).</em> <a href="dp2002-abstracts.htm#dp2002-07">Abstract</a> | <a href="papers/dp2002-07.pdf">Download</a> (158 KB)</p>

Ignore Space Show notes View Website/dps2003-include.htm
<p><strong>2003/01:</strong> B. Bruegge, M. Purvis, O. Creighton and C. Sandor. <em>Software cinema.</em> <a href="dp2003-abstracts.htm#dp2003-01">Abstract</a> \| <a href="papers/dp2003-01.pdf">Download</a> (301 KB)</p> <p><strong>2003/02:</strong> M. Nowostawski, D. Carter, S. Cranefield and M. Purvis. <em>Communicative acts and interaction protocols in a distributed information system.</em> <a href="dp2003-abstracts.htm#dp2003-02">Abstract</a> \| <a href="papers/dp2003-02.pdf">Download</a> (340 KB)</p> <p><strong>2003/03:</strong> X. Wang, P. Whigham and D. Deng. <em>Time-line Hidden Markov Experts and its application in time series prediction.</em> <a href="dp2003-abstracts.htm#dp2003-03">Abstract</a> \| <a href="papers/dp2003-03.pdf">Download</a> (486 KB)</p> <p><strong>2003/04:</strong> C. van Koten. <em>An effort prediction model for data-centred fourth-generation-language software development.</em> <a href="dp2003-abstracts.htm#dp2003-04">Abstract</a> \| <a href="papers/dp2003-04.pdf">Download</a> (398 KB)</p> <p><strong>2003/05:</strong> A. Nees, R. Villanueva and W. Wong. <em>Colour and transparency on the Multi-Layer Display (MLD™).</em> <a href="dp2003-abstracts.htm#dp2003-05">Abstract</a> \| <a href="papers/dp2003-05.pdf">Download</a> (249 KB)</p> <p><strong>2003/01:</strong> B. Bruegge, M. Purvis, O. Creighton and C. Sandor. <em>Software cinema.</em> <a href="dp2003-abstracts.htm#dp2003-01">Abstract</a> \| <a href="papers/dp2003-01.pdf">Download</a> (349 KB)</p> <p><strong>2003/02:</strong> M. Nowostawski, D. Carter, S. Cranefield and M. Purvis. <em>Communicative acts and interaction protocols in a distributed information system.</em> <a href="dp2003-abstracts.htm#dp2003-02">Abstract</a> \| <a href="papers/dp2003-02.pdf">Download</a> (377 KB)</p> <p><strong>2003/03:</strong> X. Wang, P. Whigham and D. Deng. <em>Time-line Hidden Markov Experts and its application in time series prediction.</em> <a href="dp2003-abstracts.htm#dp2003-03">Abstract</a> \| <a href="papers/dp2003-03.pdf">Download</a> (550 KB)</p> <p><strong>2003/04:</strong> C. van Koten. <em>An effort prediction model for data-centred fourth-generation-language software development.</em> <a href="dp2003-abstracts.htm#dp2003-04">Abstract</a> \| <a href="papers/dp2003-04.pdf">Download</a> (397 KB)</p> <p><strong>2003/05:</strong> A. Nees, R. Villanueva and W. Wong. <em>Colour and transparency on the Multi-Layer Display (MLD™).</em> <a href="dp2003-abstracts.htm#dp2003-05">Abstract</a> \| <a href="papers/dp2003-05.pdf">Download</a> (248 KB)</p>

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<p><strong>2003/01:</strong> B. Bruegge, M. Purvis, O. Creighton and C. Sandor. <em>Software cinema.</em> <a href="dp2003-abstracts.htm#dp2003-01">Abstract</a> | <a href="papers/dp2003-01.pdf">Download</a> (301 KB)</p>

<p><strong>2003/02:</strong> M. Nowostawski, D. Carter, S. Cranefield and M. Purvis. <em>Communicative acts and interaction protocols in a distributed information system.</em> <a href="dp2003-abstracts.htm#dp2003-02">Abstract</a> | <a href="papers/dp2003-02.pdf">Download</a> (340 KB)</p>

<p><strong>2003/03:</strong> X. Wang, P. Whigham and D. Deng. <em>Time-line Hidden Markov Experts and its application in time series prediction.</em> <a href="dp2003-abstracts.htm#dp2003-03">Abstract</a> | <a href="papers/dp2003-03.pdf">Download</a> (486 KB)</p>

<p><strong>2003/04:</strong> C. van Koten. <em>An effort prediction model for data-centred fourth-generation-language software development.</em> <a href="dp2003-abstracts.htm#dp2003-04">Abstract</a> | <a href="papers/dp2003-04.pdf">Download</a> (398 KB)</p>

<p><strong>2003/05:</strong> A. Nees, R. Villanueva and W. Wong. <em>Colour and transparency on the Multi-Layer Display (MLD&trade;).</em> <a href="dp2003-abstracts.htm#dp2003-05">Abstract</a> | <a href="papers/dp2003-05.pdf">Download</a> (249 KB)</p>

<p><strong>2003/05:</strong> A. Nees, R. Villanueva and W. Wong. <em>Colour and transparency on the Multi-Layer Display (MLD&#8482;).</em> <a href="dp2003-abstracts.htm#dp2003-05">Abstract</a> | <a href="papers/dp2003-05.pdf">Download</a> (248 KB)</p>

Ignore Space Show notes View Website/dps2004-include.htm
<p><strong>2004/01:</strong> M. Nowostawski, M. Purvis and S. Cranefield. <em>An architecture for self-organising evolvable virtual machines.</em> <a href="dp2004-abstracts.htm#dp2004-01">Abstract</a> \| <a href="papers/dp2004-01.pdf">Download</a> (349 KB)</p> <p><strong>2004/02:</strong> M. Gleeson, N. Stanger and E. Ferguson. <em>Design strategies for GUI items with touch screen based information systems: Assessing the ability of a touch screen overlay as a selection device.</em> <a href="dp2004-abstracts.htm#dp2004-02">Abstract</a> \| <a href="papers/dp2004-02.pdf">Download</a> (610 KB)</p> <p><strong>2004/03:</strong> S. Cranefield. <em>Reliable group communication and institutional action in a multi-agent trading scenario.</em> <a href="dp2004-abstracts.htm#dp2004-03">Abstract</a> \| <a href="papers/dp2004-03.pdf">Download</a> (183 KB)</p> <p><strong>2004/01:</strong> M. Nowostawski, M. Purvis and S. Cranefield. <em>An architecture for self-organising evolvable virtual machines.</em> <a href="dp2004-abstracts.htm#dp2004-01">Abstract</a> \| <a href="papers/dp2004-01.pdf">Download</a> (348KB)</p> <p><strong>2004/02:</strong> M. Gleeson, N. Stanger and E. Ferguson. <em>Design strategies for GUI items with touch screen based information systems: Assessing the ability of a touch screen overlay as a selection device.</em> <a href="dp2004-abstracts.htm#dp2004-02">Abstract</a> \| <a href="papers/dp2004-02.pdf">Download</a> (608KB)</p> <p><strong>2004/03:</strong> S. Cranefield. <em>Reliable group communication and institutional action in a multi-agent trading scenario.</em> <a href="dp2004-abstracts.htm#dp2004-03">Abstract</a> \| <a href="papers/dp2004-03.pdf">Download</a> (185KB)</p>

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