International Journal of Intelligent Information and Database Systems (22 papers in press)

• Mining the Web with Hierarchical Crawlers - A Resource Sharing based Crawling Approach
  by Debajyoti Mukhopadhyay, Anirban Kundu, Ruma Dutta 
  Abstract: An important component of any Web Search Engine is its Crawler, which is also known as robot or spider. An efficient set of Crawlers make any Search Engine more powerful, apart from its other measures of performance, such as its ranking algorithm, storage mechanism, indexing techniques, etc.. In this paper, we have proposed an extended technique for crawling over the World Wide Web (WWW) on behalf of a Search Engine. This is an approach with multiple Crawlers working in parallel combined with the mechanism of focused crawling (Chakrabarti et al., 1999, 2002; Mukhopadhyay et al., 2006). In this approach, the total structure of any Web site is divided into several number of levels based on the hyper-link-structure for downloading Web-pages from that Web site (Chakrabarti et al., 1999; Mukhopadhyay and Singh, 2004). The number of Crawlers of each level is not fixed, rather dynamic in this context. It is determined at execution time on demand basis using threaded program based on the number of hyperlinks of a specific Web-page. This paper also proposes a focused hierarchical crawling technique, where Crawlers are created dynamically at runtime for different domains to crawl the Web-pages with the essence of resource sharing.
  Keywords: Seed Queue (SQ); Single Crawler (SCrw); Parallel Crawler(PCrw); Hierarchical Crawler (HCrw); Focused Hierarchical Crawler(FHCrw); Domain Specific Focused Hierarchical Crawler (DFHCrw).
   
• Compacting SQL Queries for Saving Resources in Mobile Ad-hoc and Sensor Networks
  by Haidar Safa, Hassan Artail 
  Abstract: Accessing data in mobile ad-hoc networks (MANETs) and wireless sensor networks (WSNs) can be very demanding on the constrained resources of such networks. Data caching in MANETs and data aggregation in WSNs are techniques which have been employed to alleviate some of the problems associated with accessing data and services in these ad hoc networks. This paper presents an SQL query compaction scheme that complements such techniques by decreasing the storage requirements of recently introduced caching methods that work by caching queries and using them as indexes to cached results, and reducing the size of transmitted queries which will lessen the contention in the radio channel and cuts down on battery power consumption. The proposed scheme exploits the SQL syntax and generates a light-weight binary representation that significantly shrinks the size of the queries. Its performance was evaluated after being implemented using the Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME) platform and deployed on a Sony Ericsson P800 mobile phone. The considered test queries were a representative sample applicable to the SQL syntax of the TinyDB sensor network database. Results show an achieved compaction ratio that is less than 1.6 bits per byte, or equivalently greater than 80%, which greatly outperforms the Huffman coding algorithm.
  Keywords: query compression, SQL, MANET, WSN, data compression.
   
• Tabu annealing: an efficient and scalable strategy for document retrieval
  by LATHA Kesavarao, Rajaram R 
  Abstract: This paper implements clustering algorithm for large sets of text document and applying retrieval methodologies for the convergence of solution space to find the information of interest.we propose tabu annealing ,a heuristic approach which is a combination of Tabu search and Simulated annealing with clustering approach .The results of the proposed approach are superior to Simulated annealing and tabu search.
  Keywords: Tabu search; Simulated annealing; heuristic approach; solution space; clustering approach.
   
• Dynamic Query Optimization: Towards Decentralized Methods
  by Franck Morvan, Abdelkader Hameurlain 
  Abstract: The execution plans generated by relational query optimizers can be sub-optimal because of: the inaccuracies of estimations, the unavailability of resources and the instability of the execution environment. To detect and correct this sub-optimality several dynamic optimization methods were proposed in the literature. In this paper, we present a synthesis of the main dynamic optimization methods. First, we describe the methods according to the type of decision making (i.e. centralized and decentralized). Next, we present a set of parameters allowing to characterize and compare dynamic optimization methods. The comparison reveals that a method must be decentralized in a large scale distributed environment. Finally, before concluding, we discuss the advantages and drawbacks of proposed decentralized methods.
  Keywords: Large scale data distribution, dynamic query optimization, decentralization, mobile agents.
   
• Background Sensing Control for Planning Agents Working in the Real World
  by Hisashi Hayashi 
  Abstract: Online planning agents can adapt to the dynamic environment by continuously modifying plans during the plan execution. This adaptability of the online planning agents is based on the assumption that they can recognize the events happening in the environment. However, robotic agents working in the real environment cannot obtain necessary information from the outer world by simply turning all sensors on while executing a plan. They have to actively sense the world by changing the direction of the sensor to the target, analyzing the raw sensor data, extracting important information, and recognizing the situation. Online planning is useless if they cannot obtain necessary information from the world. Therefore, it is crucial to decide what events the agent needs to recognize in the background while executing a plan. To solve this problem, this paper introduces a new background sensing control technique by which planning agents can effectively observe the real environment and obtain important information when necessary during the plan execution.
  Keywords: planning; agent; robotics; sensing; effective event observation.
   
• Effects of Resources and Costs on Diffusion Dynamics
  by Yu-Shiuan Tsai, Chung-Yuan Huang 
  Abstract: Tipping point is one of the most important assessment indicators of epidemic outbreaks. Due to what we perceive as a too-strong emphasis on ways that the power-law connectivity distribution features of networks affect diffusion dynamics, two important factors have been overlooked: resource and costs. In this paper we show that (a) at odds with current thinking, a significant tipping point does exist when resources and costs are taken into consideration; and (b) it is possible to control the spread of epidemics in scale-free networks as long as resources are restricted and the costs associated with an infection event are increased.
  Keywords: Tipping point, resources, transmission costs, scale-free networks, effective spreading rate.
   
• Fuzzy Methods and Eye Gaze for Cooperative Robot Communication
  by Dingyun Zhu, Tom Gedeon, B. Sumudu. U. Mendis 
  Abstract: We introduce our fuzzy signature and pattern matching with possibility calculation based approach for modeling the communication between human-control robot and a pair of assistant robots for completing cooperative tasks in a simulated environment. We show that a sophisticated extension using computerised recognition of eye gaze with fuzzy modeling based interpretation of possible intentions effectively eliminates the need of any physical control from the human’s side. The experiment results show a good improvement of time saved by the use of our eye gaze intention in the context.
  Keywords: Cooperative Robots; Fuzzy Signature; Possibility Calculation; Eye-gaze Inference; Human-robot Communication.
   
• Optimal root choice for parallel processing of tree decompositions
  by Li Yueping, Nie Zhe, Lu Yunting 
  Abstract: This paper deals with the root choice strategy for a tree decomposition when multiple agents(processors) are deployed. Tree decomposition is one of the most important decompositions in graph theory. It not only plays a role in theoretical investigations but also has widely practical applications. The reason is that many hard problems can be divided into sub-problems within the nodes in a tree decomposition. When solving problems in a tree decomposition, the precedence constraints graph takes the form of a tree. The first step is to choose a root since tree decomposition does not define any root. In addition, the root choice affects the time complexity when parallel processing is employed. The main findings of this paper are: (a) an algorithm for determining the root which makes the latest completion time minimum; (b) some results of the allocation of the optimal root, and (c) an improved version algorithm using branch-and-bound strategy based on the results. In addition, remarks and future works are presented.
  Keywords: tree decomposition; treewidth; parallel processing; algorithm; branch-and-bound strategy
   
• Multi Agent Community to Support Information Processing in Wireless Sensor Network Applications
  by Khin Haymar Saw Hla 
  Abstract: One of the key challenges of applications concerning with wireless sensor network is finding suitable and timely information in the distributed and dynamic environment energy efficiently. To address these issues, this paper proposes to employ multi agent community to the wireless sensor network applications. The system is realized by combined used of intelligent sensors and middle agent architecture. The idea is to use intelligent sensor as a service provider agent that announces for the active events as active service descriptions. Middle agent assists in locating the service providers with the information requesters in the dynamic wireless sensor network environment. Simulation results have shown that multi agent community enhances the information searching time reduces the service discovery cost, communication cost and highly suitable to access the distributed sensory data efficiently and timely manner.
  Keywords: autonomous agent, directory facilitator, middle agent, multi agent community
   
• Multi-Agent Based Customer Relationship Management System with SVMs Tool
  by Yan Xiao, Bo Liu, Dan Luo, Long Cao, Deng 
  Abstract: In this paper, we introduce multiple agents, knowledge discovery and data mining into customer relationship management (CRM) to set up the architecture of a multi-agent-based CRM system (MAB-CRM), and then use the SVMs-based approach to build up the decision support model which can classify the patterns obtained by the multiple agents into several decision levels, so that managers can pursue different decision-making activities according to the decision level of a pattern. Substantial experiments in the two-dimensional space show how the SVMs-based approach works. The practical problem from one Chinese company has been resolved by the SVMs-based approach. The results illustrate that this approach has an effective ability to learn the decision rules from the assessors' experience.
  Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; KDD; Support Vector Machine
   
• Enhancing Malaca Agents with Learning
  by Mercedes Amor, Lidia Fuentes, Juan A. Valenzuela 
  Abstract: Current OO frameworks provided with MAS development toolkits incorporate core abstractions to implement the agent behaviour, using typical OO specialisation mechanisms. However, these OO designs do not provide proper abstractions to modularize other extra-functional concerns (e.g. the learning property), which are normally intermingled with the agent functionality (tangled code problem), and spread over different classes or components (crosscutting concerns problem). This means that the reusability of the agent architectural components is drastically reduced, so agents are difficult to maintain, extend or adapt. Aspect-oriented technologies overcome these problems by modelling such concerns as aspects. This work proposes to separate and modularize the learning of software agents following the aspect-oriented solution of the Malaca model. By decoupling the agent functional behaviour from the protocol that carries out the learning activities; the development, adaptation and evolution of intelligent agents is substantially improved.
  Keywords: Engineering of Software Agent; Aspect-Oriented Software Development; Agent Learning
   
• Development of an Enterprise Decision Platform: Service Oriented Architecture Approach
  by Kevin Kam Fung Yuen 
  Abstract: Group decision making activities have been applied in many domains in the enterprises. As many decision algorithms can be used for various domains and one domain can use various decision algorithms, this paper proposes an Enterprise Decision Platform (EDP) for the development of the adaptive decision applications. Thus, the decision making process can be streamlined by including the benefits of dynamic collaboration and flexible extension. EDP is the intelligent multi-agent framework which embeds the decision algorithms as intelligent agents, and applies the architecture concept of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) which is implemented by web-services. An application development of Intelligent Supplier Evaluation System (ISES) demonstrates how this proposed model functions.
  Keywords: Agent-Oriented Software Engineering, Decision Making, Decision Support System, Intelligent Agent Technology, Web Services, Service Oriented Architecture
   
• SETNR/A: An Agent-based Secure Payment Protocol for Mobile Commerce
  by Chung-Ming Ou, C.R. Ou 
  Abstract: Non-repudiation of a mobile payment transaction ensures that when a buyer (B) sends some messages to a seller (S), neither B nor S can deny having participated in this transaction. An evidence of a transaction is generated by wireless PKI mechanism such that B and S cannot repudiate sending and receiving the purchase order respectively. SETNR/A protocol is proposed to improve the weakness of lacking non-repudiation mechanism from SET and SET/A for credit card-based transactions; on the other hand, agent-based protocol is ideal for complicated payment system. Broker generates a mobile agent for B which carries encrypted purchase order to S. A trusted third party (TTP) acts as a lightweight notary for evidence generations. One advantage of this agent-based payment protocol is to reduce inconvenience for mobile clients such as connection time and search for suitable merchant servers, etc.; it also provides necessary security mechanisms for mobile payment transactions.
  Keywords: mobile agent; non-repudiation; SET;
   
• An A-Team approach to learning classifiers from distributed data sources
  by Ireneusz Czarnowski, Piotr Jedrzejowicz, Izabela Wierzbowska 
  Abstract: Distributed data mining is an important research area. The task of distributed data mining is to analyze data from different sources. Solving such tasks requires special approaches and tools, different from those dedicated to analyzing data located in a single database. This paper presents an approach to learning classifiers from distributed data that is based on data reduction (the prototype selection) at the local level. In such case, the aim of data reduction is to obtain a compact representation of distributed data repositories, that include non-redundant information in the form of so-called prototypes. The approach has been implemented using the JABAT environment, which, in turn, is an implementation of the A-Team concept. The paper includes a general overview of JABAT, the problem formulation and a description of the proposed solution, in which the global classifier is induced from prototypes that are selected from distributed data sets in the process of data reduction at the local level. Finally, computational experiment results validating the approach are shown. The experiment results indicate that proposed classifier can produce very good classification results.
  Keywords: Multi-agent system; A-Team; learning classifiers; learning from distributed data; distributed data mining; data reduction; instance selection.
   
• AN AGENT-BASED SIMULATION SYSTEM FOR MODELING A DIABETIC PATIENT
  by Raman Paranjape 
  Abstract: This paper presents a new paradigm for modeling illness in the human population. In this work, we propose the development of a patient model using Software Agent technology. The Patient Agent is developed in accordance with the general parameters used in describing Diabetes Mellitus in terms of inputs, patient factors, and outputs. Wu’s mathematical model [10] has been adapted to transform input variables such as food, exercise, and medications, as well as other risk factors like age, ethnicity, and gender, into the primary output variable of Blood Glucose. Blood Pressure and Heart Rate signal are additionally generated using typical physical data and linear scaling. The time evolution of the Patient Agent’s output variables is represented through the day on a 24hr basis and on a long term basis (5-15yrs) through a form of extrapolation. In addition, patient/physician interaction and effectiveness of various lifestyle changes prescribed by the physician are evaluated to assess the effectiveness of the prescribed regime. The primary contribution of this work is in the demonstration of the ability of an agent mediated system to model the indicators of illness, specifically Diabetes Mellitus, in a short term interval with high accuracy, and in the interactions between a patient/physician in order to produce complex, dynamic system behaviours.
  Keywords: Agent-based modeling, simulation, patient agent, diabetes, health care system
   
• Enhancing Semantic Web and Ontologies for E-tourism
  by Waralak Siricharoen 
  Abstract: The Semantic Web provides improved information access founded on the development of machine processing. E-tourism is a good applicant for Semantic Web because it is base on information on the Internet, in sense of marketing and transaction portal. E-tourism/e-travel software personalized inclusive for creating instantly online reservation/booking. Therefore, the success of the Semantic Web depends strongly on the production of ontologies. Ontologies can assist organization, browsing, searching, and more intelligent access to information and services available online. The ideas proposed in this paper, are mainly interested in the new promises afforded by ontologies in the area of knowledge management convenient to the tourism industry. The examples of ontologies descripton in XML-based markup language are also presented with some clarifications. The summary of useful available tourism/travel related ontologies are presented also in this paper.
  Keywords: Ontologies, E-tourism, Semantic Web, XML, OWL, RDFS, DAML
   
• Using a Neural-fuzzy approach for improving the Perpendicular Magnetic Recording Head manufacturing process
  by Andy Ka Keung Fok, H.C.W. Lau, Y.K. Tse 
  Abstract: Magnetic write width targeting is a critical process in achieving high process yield and good quality in manufacturing perpendicular magnetic recording heads for hard disk drives. The current approach adopted in the magnetic write width targeting process is an experimentally based feedback process in which the quality of the targeting process is highly dependent on the testing accuracy and the sensitivity assumptions. It is necessary to develop a model for accurate MWW targeting to improve the process yield and product quality without the dependence on sensitivity assumption from experimental base. This study demonstrates a Neural Fuzzy approach for MWW targeting in the magnetic head manufacturing industry that provides better accuracy as compared with current methods by using a neural network for suggesting (i) changes in the lapping parameters, together with a fuzzy reasoning mechanism for (ii) obtaining fine-tuned lapping parameter values based on the parameters derived from the neural network.
  Keywords: Neural Fuzzy model, Areal Density, Product Quality, Inventory control, Process Control
   
• Atomic commit protocols, their integration, and their optimizations in distributed database systems
  by Yousef Al-Houmaily 
  Abstract: Advanced software application systems commonly execute atop multiple interconnected computing platforms. Regardless of whether the underlying platforms being homogeneous or heterogeneous, such systems require basic reliability guarantees to ensure deterministic outcomes in the presence of faults. Similar guarantees are provided by database systems through the “atomicity” property of transactions. In distributed database systems, this property is ensured, across different database sites, by means of “atomic commit protocols” (ACPs). An ACP guarantees, in spite of possible failures, that each transaction has a deterministic final outcome. This outcome represents either the execution of the transaction as a whole, across all participating sites, or none at all. Thus, it is imperative to trace the problem of atomic commitment in distributed database systems and to highlight its current dimensions as well as its proposed solutions. Such an effort establishes a foundational stage for investigating and developing more elaborate and novel solutions to the problem. These solutions are likely to satisfy the reliability needs of future generations’ application systems in a cost-effective manner.
  Keywords: Atomic Commit Protocols; ACP; Atomicity; Database Recovery; Distributed Transaction Management; Integrated Database Systems; Two-Phase Commit; 2PC
   
• Performance Improving of Join Queries through Algebraic Signatures
  by Riad Mokadem, Abdelkader Hameurlain, Franck Morvan 
  Abstract: Evaluation of distributed join queries in large scale environments often deals with large data volumes, low bandwidth and high number of data sources. Several techniques were proposed to improve join query performances. We propose to combine algebraic signatures with known hash join techniques. Algebraic signatures combined to a semi join based join technique are also very useful for reducing the volume of inter-site transmitted data. We discuss impacts of CPU, I/O and communication costs reductions on the total multi-join query performance improvements. The performance study of our technique shows the reduction of both memory requirements and processing costs especially when the join attribute is a long string. Performances of the semi join based join technique are also significantly improved. We experiment with simple, medium and complex queries in both centralized and distributed environments. Algebraic signatures provide improved performances to reduce significantly communication costs, often the dominant factor in distributed environments.
  Keywords: Hash Join Algorithms; Semi Join Based Join Technique; Algebraic Signatures; Multi-Join Query Processing; Performance Evaluation.
   
• Towards the Preservation of Functional Dependency in XML Data Transformation
  by Md. Sumon Shahriar, Jixue Liu 
  Abstract: With the advent of XML as a data representation and exchange format over the web, a massive amount of data is being stored in XML. As the use of XML grows rapidly, the task of data transformation for integration purposes in XML is getting much importance to the research community. In XML data transformation, a source schema and its conforming data are transformed to a target schema and its conforming data respectively. The source schema often has integrity constraints to enforce semantics. One type of constraints is XML functional dependency (XFD). When a source schema is transformed to a target schema, XFDs can also be transformed. Thus, the problem how schema and data transformation should cause XFD transformation becomes important. In this paper, we study the transformation of XFDs. Towards this problem, we first define the XFDs over the XML Document Type Definition(DTD) and the satisfactions of XFDs. We then show how XFDs are transformed and whether XFDs are valid when the DTDs are transformed. We further investigate whether the transformed XFDs are preserved by the transformed data.
  Keywords: XML; Data Transformation; Data Integration; Functional Dependency Preservation
   
• Dynamic Change Handling for Inter-Organizational Workflows in Open Virtual eMarketplaces
  by Habin Lee 
  Abstract: Electronic marketplaces (eMarketplaces) help companies react more flexibly to customer demands by automating various types of transactions online. However, despite this advantage eMarketplaces pose significant challenges in respect of change management for the participating companies, due to lack of central control, information opacity, and heterogeneity of information systems. In order to address these problems, this paper presents an agent-based framework for handling change in dynamic inter-organizational workflows (ADIOF) in virtual environments. The framework utilizes the unique strengths of agent technology such as autonomy, intelligence, and collaboration, which enables formation of virtual organizations and adaptive and dynamic coordination of inter-organizational workflows (IOWs). The framework also adopts software component technology to enable plug-and-play style interaction protocols among agent systems. The key ideas of the framework are illustrated using an example case. A proof-of-concept implementation of ADIOF is also presented.
  Keywords: adaptive inter-organisational workflow; multi-agent system; virtual organization; change propagation; emarketplaces
   
• An experimental analysis of biased parallel greedy approximation for combinatorial auctions
  by Naoki Fukuta, Takayuki Ito 
  Abstract: Considering emerging demands for auction based efficient resource allocations, the ability to complete an auction within a fine-grained time period without loss of allocation efficiency is in strong demand. Recently, an algorithm has been proposed to obtain near-optimal solutions for winner determination problem on combinatorial auctions within a very short computation time. However, it is demanded to analyze and clarify the main factor of such an excellent performance of the algorithm. Also, for practical use, there are demands to clarify the actual implementation-level performance of the algorithm compared to major commercial-level generic problem solvers. In this paper, we show an analysis about performance issues of biased parallel greedy updating approach in various experimental settings. Furthermore, we show that the algorithm has a certain advantage to solve a kind of large-size high- complexity problems when it is compared to a latest commercial-level implementation of generic LP solver through various experiments.
  Keywords: combinatorial auction; approximation algorithm; multi agent system