No / Understanding the cause of cost overruns in transportation infrastructure projects has been a topic that has received considerable attention from academics and the popular press. Despite studies providing the essential building blocks and frameworks for cost overrun mitigation and containment, the problem still remains a pervasive issue for Governments worldwide. The interdependency that exists between ‘causes’ that lead to cost overruns materialising have largely been ignored when considering the likelihood and impact of their occurrence. The vast majority of the cost overrun literature has tended to adopt a deterministic approach in examining the occurrence of the phenomenon; in this paper a shift towards the adoption of pluralistic probabilistic approach to cost overrun causation is proposed. The establishment of probabilistic theory incorporates the ability to consider the interdependencies of causes so to provide Governments with a holistic understanding of the uncertainties and risks that may derail the delivery and increase the cost of transportation infrastructure projects. This will further assist in the design of effective mitigation and containment strategies that will ensure future transportation infrastructure projects meet their expected costs as well as the need of taxpayers. / Australian Research Council (DP160102882)

No / This chapter describes an approach to modeling C2 and other types of networks as a series of nodes (people, groups, resources, locations, concepts, etc.). The nodes are linked by one or more weighted arcs describing the type and the strength of the dependency that one node has on another node. This model allows analysts to identify the most important nodes in a network in terms of their direct and indirect dependencies and to rank them accordingly. The same model also supports consequence analysis in which the direct, indirect, cascading, and cumulative effects of changes to node capabilities can be propagated across the networks. The chapter describes the basic modeling technique and two types of dependency propagation that it supports. These are illustrated with two examples involving the modeling and reasoning across insurgent networks and an Integrated Air Defense System. These show how aspects of the networks can be analyzed and targeted. Details are also provided on the mechanisms to link the analysis to a planning system through which plans can be developed to bring about desired effect(s) in the networks.

Languages occasionally have syntactic constructions that are difficult, if not impossible, to describe using a context-free grammar. One such construction is a crossing dependency. Crossing dependencies have been well studied for Dutch and Swiss German (Huybregts, 1976; Shieber, 1985), and recently for Tagalog (Maclachlan and Rambow, 2003). In this paper I propose that Persian exhibits crossing dependencies. In this SOV language, a light verb construction in the future tense becomes interrupted by a future auxiliary verb, which agrees with its subject in person and number. The future auxiliary also splits passive constructions in a similar manner. These forms present interesting challenges for computational models of language. I will discuss implications of this phenomenon within current formal and linguistic theories.

Personal information, especially certified personal information, can be very valuable to its subject, but it can also be abused by other parties for identify theft, blackmail, fraud, and more. One partial solution to the problem is credentials, whereby personal information is tied to identity, for example by a photo or signature on a physical credential. We present an efficient scheme for large, redactable, digital credentials that allow certified personal attributes to safely be used to provide identification. A novel method is provided for combining credentials, even when they were originally issued by different authorities. Compared to other redactable digital credential schemes, the proposed scheme is approximately two orders of magnitude faster, due to aiming for auditability over anonymity. In order to expand this scheme to hold other records, medical records for example, we present a method for efficient signatures on redactable data where there are dependencies between different pieces of data. Positive results are shown using both artificial datasets and a dataset derived from a Linux package manager. Electronic credentials must of course be held in a physical device with electronic memory. To hedge against the loss or compromise of the physical device holding a user's credentials, the credentials may be split up. An architecture is developed and prototyped for using split-up credentials, with part of the credentials held by a network attached agent. This architecture is generalized into a framework for running identity agents with various capabilities. Finally, a system for securely sharing medical records is built upon the generalized agent framework. The medical records are optionally stored using the redactable digital credentials, for source verifiability.

La qualité des données présente un grand enjeu au sein d'une organisation et influe énormément sur la qualité de ses services et sur sa rentabilité. La présence de données erronées engendre donc des préoccupations importantes autour de cette qualité. Ce rapport traite la problématique de l'amélioration de la qualité des données dans les grosses masses de données. Notre approche consiste à aider l'utilisateur afin de mieux comprendre les schémas des données manipulées, mais aussi définir les actions à réaliser sur celles-ci. Nous abordons plusieurs concepts tels que les anomalies des données au sein d'une même colonne, et les anomalies entre les colonnes relatives aux dépendances fonctionnelles. Nous proposons dans ce contexte plusieurs moyens de pallier ces défauts en nous intéressons à la performance des traitements ainsi opérés. / Data quality represents a major challenge because the cost of anomalies can be very high especially for large databases in enterprises that need to exchange information between systems and integrate large amounts of data. Decision making using erroneous data has a bad influence on the activities of organizations. Quantity of data continues to increase as well as the risks of anomalies. The automatic correction of these anomalies is a topic that is becoming more important both in business and in the academic world. In this report, we propose an approach to better understand the semantics and the structure of the data. Our approach helps to correct automatically the intra-column anomalies and the inter-columns ones. We aim to improve the quality of data by processing the null values and the semantic dependencies between columns.

Previous research on speakers' abilities to track non-adjacent dependencies (e.g., vowels or consonants that co-occur across syllables) in artificial grammar learning (AGL) tasks has shown that the acquisition of these patterns is extremely difficult (e.g. Newport&Aslin 2004; Gómez 2002; Bonatti, PenÞa, Nespor&Mehler 2005). One assumption made in this literature is that all speakers of all languages should be capable of tracking these patterns even when the native language of those speakers contains no such non-adjacent dependencies. This dissertation questions this assumption by testing whether native Khalkha Mongolian speakers attend to and track the frequency of vowel patterns and harmonic class size in their language. It also tests their ability to acquire non-adjacent vocalic dependencies in AGL tasks.Because Khalkha displays [ATR] vowel harmony (Svantesson, Tsendina, Karlsson&Franzén 2005) which restricts vowel co-occurrences, it was hypothesized that Khalkha speakers are biased towards attending to the frequency and form with which these vowel patterns occur. The results of three experiments indicated that Khalkha speakers both attend to and track the frequency with which vowel patterns occur. These results also indicate that Khalkha speakers build abstract categories based on the relative token numbers of [+ATR] and [-ATR]harmonic spans.Khalkha speakers were further tested in three experiments which focused on speakers' ability to acquire novel non-adjacent vocalic dependencies in AGL tasks. The results indicated that participants successfully acquired vocalic dependencies (both harmonic and disharmonic) in all three experiments. These results indicate that Khalkha speakers' attention is biased towards vowels, regardless of harmonic status of the item.Collectively, these results highlight the role of language-specific phonology in the ways that speakers abstract and utilize phonological information. The special status of harmonic vowel patterns and harmonic class size are new variables with which to conduct future research on vowel harmonic languages and with vowel harmonic language speakers. The effects of language-specific phonology on speech perception and lexical access must be considered a crucial aspect in future psycholinguistic research, particularly in regards to the aspects of language toward which speakers attend.

Many activities are comprised of temporally dependent events that must be executed in a specific chronological order. Supportive software applications must preserve these temporal dependencies. Whenever the processing of this type of an application includes transactions submitted to a database that is shared with other such applications, the transaction concurrency control mechanisms within the database must also preserve the temporal dependencies. A basis for preserving temporal dependencies is established by using (within the applications and databases) real-time timestamps to identify and order events and transactions. The use of optimistic approaches to transaction concurrency control can be undesirable in such situations, as they allow incorrect results for database read operations. Although the incorrectness is detected prior to transaction committal and the corresponding transaction(s) restarted, the impact on the application or entity that submitted the transaction can be too costly. Three transaction concurrency control algorithms are proposed in this dissertation. These algorithms are based on timestamp ordering, and are designed to preserve temporal dependencies existing among data-dependent transactions. The algorithms produce execution schedules that are equivalent to temporally ordered serial schedules, where the temporal order is established by the transactions' start times. The algorithms provide this equivalence while supporting currency to the extent out-of-order commits and reads. With respect to the stated concern with optimistic approaches, two of the proposed algorithms are risk-free and return to read operations only committed data-item values. Risk with the third algorithm is greatly reduced by its conservative bias. All three algorithms avoid deadlock while providing risk-free or reduced-risk operation. The performance of the algorithms is determined analytically and with experimentation. Experiments are performed using functional database management system models that implement the proposed algorithms and the well-known Conservative Multiversion Timestamp Ordering algorithm.

The process of mixing tracks for a live stage performance or studio session is both time consuming and expensive with assistance of professionals. It is also difficult for individuals to remain competitive against established companies, since multiple tracks must be properly mixed in order to achieve well-enhanced elements -- generally, a poor mix makes it difficult for the listener to distinguish the different elements of the mix. The developed method during this thesis work aims at facilitating the mixing work for live performances and studio sessions. The implemented system analyzes the energy spectrum of the tracks included in the mix. By unmasking spectral components, the spectral overlap of the tracks is minimized. The system filters non-characteristic frequencies, leaving significant frequencies undisturbed. Five tracks have been used from the final mix of a successful radio song. These tracks have been analyzed and used to illustrate and validate the developed method. The system was successfully implemented in MATLAB with promising results and conclusions. The processed mix unmasks frequency content and is perceived to sound clearer compared to the unprocessed mix by a number of test individuals. The method reminds of a multi-band compressor that analyzes the spectral information between tracks. Thus, by use of inter-spectral dependencies, the thesis investigates the possibility to control the amplitudes in time by filtration in frequency domain. The compression rate in time domain is reflected in regard to a trade-off between conservation of characteristic frequencies and reduction of spectral overlaps.

Title: Efficient Detection of XML Integrity Constraints Author: Michal Švirec Department: Department of Software Engineering Supervisor: RNDr. Irena Mlýnková, Ph.D. Abstract: Knowledge of integrity constraints covered in XML data is an impor- tant aspect of efficient data processing. However, although integrity constraints are defined for the given data, it is a common phenomenon that data violate the predefined set of constraints. Therefore detection of these inconsistencies and consecutive repair has emerged. This work extends and refines recent approaches to repairing XML documents violating defined set of integrity constraints, specif- ically so-called functional dependencies. The work proposes the repair algorithm incorporating the weight model and also involve a user into the process of de- tection and subsequent application of appropriate repair of inconsistent XML documents. Experimental results are part of the work. Keywords: XML, functional dependency, functional dependencies violations, vi- olations repair

O tratamento de Linguagens Naturais requer o emprego de formalismos mais complexos que aqueles normalmente empregados para Linguagens Livre de Contexto. A maioria de tais formalismos são difíceis de serem utilizados, não práticos e sobretudo, associados a um desempenho de elevado custo. Autômatos de pilha estruturados são excelentes para se representar linguagens regulares e aspectos livre de contexto encontrados em Linguagem Natural, uma vez que é possível decompo-los em uma camada reguar (implementada com máquina de estados finitos) e uma livre de contexto (representada por uma pilha). Tais dispositivos aceitam linguagens determinísticas e livre de contexto em tempo linear. Dessa forma, trata-se de um dispositivo adequado para ser empregado como mecanismo subjacente para os autômatos adaptativos, que permitem o tratamento - sem perda de simplicidade e eficiência - de linguagens mais complexas que aquelas livres de contexo Nesta tese, dependências de contexto são tratadas com tecnologia adaptativa. Este trabalho mostra como uma regra de Linguagem Natural descrita com uma metalinguagem pode ser convertida em um autômato de pilha adaptativo. Foi possível verificar que problemas complexos em análise de Linguagem Natural, tais como os não-determinismos e ambigüidades presentes em situações de concordância, subcategorização, coordenação podem ser resolvidos com eficiência. De fato, todos os mecanismos adaptativos para solucionar estes problemas apresentam desempenho O(n). Uma arquitetura para processamento em Linguagem Natural é apresentada. / Since low-complexity language formalisms are too weak to handle NL, stronger formalisms are required, most of them resource demanding, hard to use or unpractical. Structured pushdown automata are excellent to represent regular and context-free aspects on NLs by allowing them to be split into regular layer (implemented as finite-state machines) and a context-free one (represented by a pushdown store). Such devices accepts deterministic context-free languages in linear time, and is suitable as un underlying mechanism for adaptive automata, allowing handling - without loss of simplicity and efficiency - languages more complex than context-free ones. In this thesis context dependency is handled with adaptive technology. This work shows as a Natural Language rule described with a metalanguage can be converted into adaptive structured pushdown automata. It was possible to verify that complex problems in Natural Language parsing e.g., nondeterminisms and ambiguities present in agreement, subcategorization, coordination can be solved with efficiency. In fact, all adaptive mechanisms attached to these problems have O(n) performance. An adaptive architecture for NL Language processing is presented.