This paper describes a method to estimate the implementation cost of the hardware part in a mixed hardware/software system, as well as the related performance. These estimations try to avoid the use of many implementation details in order to keep the complexity order of the process under control. The concepts of hardware sharing and parallelism are exploited to make a picture of the whole hardw...

The study examined task interdependence as a structural factor, which influences the emergence of collective-efficacy versus self-efficacy as a team level construct. It tested for the differential effects of selfand collective-efficacy on team performance, and the effects of initial perceptions of selfand collective-efficacy and record of past performance on the development of their subsequent ...

Most existing works on multi-task learning (MTL) assume the same input space for different tasks. In this paper, we address a general setting where different tasks have heterogeneous input spaces. This setting has a lot of potential applications, yet it poses new algorithmic challenges how can we link seemingly uncorrelated tasks to mutually boost their learning performance? Our key observation...

It is widely believed, that the expressivity of STRIPS and STRIPS-like planning based on actions is generally lower than the expressivity of Hierarchical Task Network (HTN) and HTN-like planning, based on hierarchical decomposition. This would mean that a HTN-like planner can generally solve more domains than a STRIPS-like planner with the same extensions. In this paper, we show that both appro...

Course generation automatically assembles courseware adapted to the learner’s competencies and learning goals. Previous course generators offered only a limited representation a pedagogical knowledge and did not take full advantage of service-oriented architectures. This dissertation proposes a course generation framework (called Paigos) that enables the formalization and application of complex...

In this paper we describe work in progress that aims to develop a domain-independent tool set which supports the creation and analysis of domain descriptions and plans containing continuously changing processes, instantaneous events, and actions. The tools described are (i) a life history editor that enables a designer to create a domain description diagrammatically, automatically generating mu...

OBJECTIVES To show that a Local Research Ethics Committee (LREC) can carry out an audit of ethical standards in research. To find out if a researcher met certain ethical standards in recruiting subjects for clinical trials and in obtaining their consent. DESIGN Postal questionnaire. SETTING Clinical research by one doctor during one year. SUBJECTS Eleven patients entered in clinical trial...

Metrical task systems (MTS), introduced by Borodin, Linial, and Saks [5], is a cost minimization problem defined on a metric space (X, dX) and informally described as follows: A given system has a set of internal states X . The aim of the system is to perform a given sequence of tasks. The performance of each task has a certain cost that depends on the task and the state of the system. The syst...

Thoroughly auditing voting machine software has proved to be difficult, and even efforts to reduce its complexity have relied on significant amounts of external code. We design and implement a device that allows a voter to confirm and cast her vote while trusting only 1,034 lines of ARM assembly. The system, which we develop from scratch, supports visually (and hearing) impaired voters and ensu...

In this paper, we present the modelling of a domain of argumentation-based negotiation with scarce resources so that Hierarchical Task Network planning can be used for finding appropriate strategies for the negotiating agents. In our modelling, the agents justify their positions on interactions throughout the course of a negotiation episode, and such justifications are taken into account in fut...