University of Macau / Faculty of Science and Technology / Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering

In this study, an online movie recommendation engine that serves on Facebook is developed in order to evaluate social circle eects on user preferences in a trust-based environment. Instead of using single-user profiles in the social environment identification process, virtual group profiles that present common tastes of the social environments, are formed to achieve a successful social circle analysis and innovative suggestions. Recommendations are generated based on similar social circles and based on social circles of similar users separately and their results are evaluated. Pure collaborative filtering is applied to emphasize the influence of social environment characteristics.

Numerical assessment of soil structure interaction problems require heavy computational efforts because of the dynamic and iterative (nonlinear) nature of the problems. Furthermore, modeling soil-structure interaction may require

Weight growth has been a significant factor in nearly every space and launch vehicle development program. In order to account for weight growth, program managers allocate a design margin. However, methods of estimating design margin are not well suited for the task of assigning a design margin for a novel concept. In order to address this problem, a hybrid method of estimating margin is developed. This hybrid method utilizes range estimating, a well-developed method for conducting a bottom-up weight analysis, and a new forecasting technique known as executable morphological analysis. Executable morphological analysis extends morphological analysis in order to extract quantitative information from the morphological field. Specifically, the morphological field is extended by adding attributes (probability and mass impact) to each condition. This extended morphological field is populated with alternate baseline options with corresponding probabilities of occurrence and impact. The overall impact of alternate baseline options can then be estimated by running a Monte Carlo analysis over the extended morphological field. This methodology was applied to two sample problems. First, the historical design changes of the Space Shuttle Orbiter were evaluated utilizing original mass estimates. Additionally, the FAST reference flight system F served as the basis for a complete sample problem; both range estimating and executable morphological analysis were performed utilizing the work breakdown structure created during the conceptual design of this vehicle.

We review the construction of three Smale spaces associated to a unimodular Pisot substitution on d letters: a subshift of finite type (SFT), a substitution tiling space, and a hyperbolic toral automorphism on the Euclidean d-torus. By considering an SFT whose elements are biinfinite, rather than infinite, paths in the graph associated to the substitution, we modify a well-known map to obtain a factor map between our SFT and the hyperbolic toral automorphism on the d-torus given by the incidence matrix of the substitution. We prove that if the tiling substitution forces its border, then this factor map is the composition of an s-resolving factor map from the SFT to a one-dimensional substitution tiling space and a u-resolving factor map from the tiling space to the d-torus.

Evidence for a human contribution to climatic changes during the past century is accumulating rapidly. Given the strength of the evidence, it seems natural to ask whether forcing projections can be used to forecast climate change. A Bayesian method for post-processing forced climate model simulations that produces probabilistic hindcasts of inter-decadal temperature changes on large spatial scales is proposed. Hindcasts produced for the last two decades of the 20th century are shown to be skillful. The suggestion that skillful decadal forecasts can be produced on large regional scales by exploiting the response to anthropogenic forcing provides additional evidence that anthropogenic change in the composition of the atmosphere has influenced our climate. In the absence of large negative volcanic forcing on the climate system (which cannot presently be forecast), the global mean temperature for the decade 2000-2009 is predicted to lie above the 1970-1999 normal with probability 0.94. The global mean temperature anomaly for this decade relative to 1970-1999 is predicted to be 0.35C (5-95% confidence range: 0.21C-0.48C). Reconstruction of temperature variability of the past centuries using climate proxy data can also provide important information on the role of anthropogenic forcing in the observed 20th century warming. A state-space model approach that allows incorporation of additional non-temperature information, such as the estimated response to external forcing, to reconstruct historical temperature is proposed. An advantage of this approach is that it permits simultaneous reconstruction and detection analysis as well as future projection. A difficulty in using this approach is that estimation of several unknown state-space model parameters is required. To take advantage of the data structure in the reconstruction problem, the existing parameter estimation approach is modified, resulting in two new estimation approaches. The competing estimation approaches are compared based on theoretical grounds and through simulation studies. The two new estimation approaches generally perform better than the existing approach. A number of studies have attempted to reconstruct hemispheric mean temperature for the past millennium from proxy climate indicators. Different statistical methods are used in these studies and it therefore seems natural to ask which method is more reliable. An empirical comparison between the different reconstruction methods is considered using both climate model data and real-world paleoclimate proxy data. The proposed state-space model approach and the RegEM method generally perform better than their competitors when reconstructing interannual variations in Northern Hemispheric mean surface air temperature. On the other hand, a variety of methods are seen to perform well when reconstructing decadal temperature variability. The similarity in performance provides evidence that the difference between many real-world reconstructions is more likely to be due to the choice of the proxy series, or the use of difference target seasons or latitudes, than to the choice of statistical method.

To understand the mechanisms of energy exchange between the tropics and the midlatitudes, it is necessary to develop simplified climate models. Motivated by linear wave theory, one such model is derived below. It captures the nonlinear interaction between barotropic and first baroclinic modes. In particular, it allows for the study of the barotropic response to a baroclinic forcing. Numerical methods for handling this nonlinear system are carefully developed and validated. The response generated by a physically realistic Kelvin wave forcing is studied and is found to consist mainly of one eastward propagating wave (phase-locked to the forcing) and two westward propagating (Rossby) waves. The Rossby waves are shown to be highly constrained by the initial parameters of the forcing and an explanation of this result is proposed.

The problem of defining cycles in infinite graphs has received much attention in the literature. Diestel and Kuhn have proposed viewing a graph as 1-complex, and defining a topology on the point set of the graph together with its ends. In this setting, a circle in the graph is a homeomorph of the unit circle S^1 in this topological space. For locally finite graphs this setting appears to be natural, as many classical theorems on cycles in finite graphs extend to the infinite setting. A Hamilton circle in a graph is a circle containing all the vertices of the graph. We exhibit a necessary and sufficient condition that a countable graph contain a Hamilton circle in terms of the existence of Hamilton cycles in an increasing sequence of finite graphs. As corollaries, we obtain extensions to locally finite graphs of Zhan's theorem that all 7-connected line graphs are hamiltonian (confirming a conjecture of Georgakopoulos), and Ryjacek's theorem that all 7-connected claw-free graphs are hamiltonian. A third corollary of our main result is Georgakopoulos' theorem that the square of every two-connected locally finite graph contains a Hamilton circle (an extension of Fleischner's theorem that the square of every two-connected finite graph is Hamiltonian).

We define a variation of injective oriented colouring as reflexive injective oriented colouring, or rio-colouring for short, which requires an oriented colouring to be injective on the neighbourhoods of the underlying graph, without requiring the colouring to be proper. An analysis of the complexity of the problem of deciding whether an oriented graph has a k-rio-colouring is considered, and we find a dichotomy for the values of k below 3 and above, being in P or NP-complete, respectively. Characterizations are given for the oriented graphs resulting from the polynomial-time solvable cases, and bounds are given for the rio-chromatic number in terms of maximum in-degree and out-degree, in general, and for oriented trees. Also, a polynomial-time algorithm is developed to aid in the rio-colouring of oriented trees.

New survey data indicate that injection drug users (IDU) in Victoria, BC who share syringes do so with a single person. These partnerships pose an obvious health risk to IDU, as blood borne illnesses are transmitted through the sharing of injection equipment. Here we formulate an ordinary di erential equation (ODE) model of pair formation and separation. Susceptible-infectious (SI) disease dynamics are built into this model so as to describe the syringe-mediated transmission of human immune de ciency virus (HIV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) among IDU. We utilize a novel parameter estimation approach, and t the distribution of partnership durations observed in Victoria. The basic reproduction number is derived, and its qualitative behavior explored with both analytical and numerical techniques.