Integrating GIS-Technology for ModellingOrigin-Destination Trip in Multimodal Transportation Networks

Hicham Mouncif, Azedine Boulmakoul, and Mohamed Chala

Department of Computer and Sciences, University Hassan II-Mohammadia, Morocco 

Abstract: This paper presents a system proposing a solution to the problem of Origin-Destination (OD) trip modelling for Multimodal Transportation Networks (MTN) using GIS tools. An efficient method for the handling of travel information within the MTN consists of dealing with an optimal multimodal routing of travellers from a point of origin to point of destination. Furthermore, the multimodal travelling alternative offers the promise of efficiency, safety and flexibility. It allows taking advantage of all modalities by using each transportation mode for the part of the journey to which it is best suited. Our aim is to propose an effective design for the multimodal path computation within the MTN. The goal is to provide a travel model that can aid to improve the user’s path decision, where travelling might involve different combination of rail, and route. Travellers can access information about all modes of public transportation and ridesharing available in their area, learn more about emissionless forms of transportation and find the fastest, safest routes to their destinations. GIS was invaluable in the cost-effective construction and maintenance of this work and the subsequent validation of mode sequences and paths selections. 

Keywords: GIS, multimodal transportation networks, multimodal graph, spatial networks. 

Designing a Generic Marketplace Architecture Using Multi-Agent Based Technology

Youcef Aklouf¹ and Habiba Drias²

¹Research Laboratory in Artificial Intelligence, USTHB, Algeria

²National Institute of Computer Science, INI, Algeria

Abstract: Several architectures were proposed in the literature for modeling the interactions between agents. This paper deals with the integration of the multi-agent system in the electronic commerce architecture. Within the framework of this work, we describe three architectures based on the Multi-Agents design. In these systems, buyer and seller agents interact in an environment, which is similar to an electronic market in order to sell and buy goods. We propose then, an electronic architecture based on intelligent and mobile agents named Virtual Electronic Marketplace based on Mobile Agents (VEMMA). We present the generic model of this architecture as well as an implementation using the Java language and the distributed object philosophy based on Remote Method Invocation (RMI) technology. The originality of our developed architecture is that it allow users to create several kinds of agents within a set of the most required parameters for product description on one hand, and supports a complete set of methods and functions used in communication between agents on the other hand. In addition, the system is scalable and allows any updating task without major modification of the initial system.  

Keywords: Marketplace architecture, mobile agents, multi-agents systems, Java, RMI, electronic business.

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A Fingerprint Minutiae Recognition System Based on Genetic Algorithms

Jihad Jaam¹, Mohamed Rebaiaia², and Ahmad Hasnah¹

¹Computer Science and Engineering Department, University of Qatar, Qatar

 ²Computer Science Department, University of Batna, Algeria  

Abstract: In this paper, we propose a fingerprint verification system using two different modules: the automatic classification of fingerprints which is based on the minutiae-matching algorithms and the verification-search technique which is based on genetic algorithms. Our experiments on a large set of fingerprint images show that our approach is highly promising. Its performance shows a great flexibility in recognizing a person very quickly with an error-prone of at most 1%.

 Keywords: Image processing, pattern recognition, fingerprint’s minutiae detection, genetic algorithms. 

Cuneiform Symbols Recognition Using Intensity Urves

Hilal Yousif¹, Abdul Munim Rahma², and Haithem Alani³

¹Al-Rafidian University College, Iraq

²Computer Science Department, University of Technology, Iraq

³College of Science, University of Alnahrain, Iraq

Abstract: The cuneiform symbol recognition is a vital step in automated reading and understanding the contents of tens of thousands cuneiform tablets available all over the world. Reading cuneiform records depends largely on hand written copies of cuneiform tablets for their data. A suggested method for cuneiform symbol recognition from a hand written images of cuneiform text. The method make use of the fact that there are a finite number of images for the symbols and trying to differentiate between them making use of the intensity profile curves which represent the intensities of selected pixels in the images. 

Keywords: Cuneiform, intensity, recognition, image, symbol.

 Received January 12, 2004; accepted May 16, 2005  

An Optimizing Query Processor with an Efficient Caching Mechanism for Distributed Databases

Selvaraj Prabha¹, Arputharaj Kannan², and Palaniappan Anandha Kumar²

¹Department of Information, RMK Engineering College, India

²Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Anna University, India

Abstract: This paper provides an efficient way of querying among many distributed and heterogeneous data sources. We describe a database optimization framework that supports data and computation reuse, query scheduling and caching mechanism to speed up the evaluation of multiquery workload. The Caching query result is stored as an eXtensible Markup Language (XML) document. An XML oriented common data model and an XML Parser (XP)  accept the SQL statement, which consists of selection constructs to impose constraints, project construct and also to update the database distributed. It also maintains the historical database to store the historical data. Using this optimized query processor and XML cache could simply fasten the query processing. The experimental results show that execution time is optimized and query cost is reduced. 

Keywords: Temporal, caching, Xparser, query optimizer. 

Received May 24, 2005; accepted December 20, 2005  

A Rule-Based Extensible Stemmer for Information Retrieval with Application to Arabic

Haidar Harmanani¹, Walid Keirouz², and Saeed Raheel¹

¹Computer Science and Mathematics Division, Lebanese American University, Lebanon

²Department of Computer Science, American University of Beirut, Lebanon

Abstract: This paper presents a new and extensible method for information retrieval and content analysis in Natural Languages (NL).  The proposed method is stem-based; stems are extracted based on a set of language dependent rules that are interpreted by a rule engine. The rule engine allows the system to be adapted to any natural language by modifying the NL semantic rules and grammar. The system has been fully tested using Arabic, and partially using English, Hebrew, and Persian.  We have validated our approach using a database-based prototype. 

Keywords: Natural language processing, information retrieval, stemming.

Received February 21, 2005; accepted July 13, 2005 

A Novel Transistor Level Implementation of a High Speed Packet Switch

Shanmugam Arumugam¹, Shanthi Govindaswamy², and Praveen Kumar Boya²

¹Bannari Amman Institute of Technology and Science, India

²PSG College of Technology, India

Abstract: High speed packet switches are inevitable for ultra high data rate networking systems. The throughput of these switches has to be ideally 100% for effective utilization of the network. While Output Queued (OQ) switches have the optimal delay-throughput performance for all traffic distributions, they require N-times speed up in the fabric that limits the scalability of this architecture. An Input Queued (IQ) switch is desirable for high speed switching, since the internal operation speed is only slightly higher than the speed of the input lines. However, the input queued switch has the critical drawback that the overall throughput is limited to 58.6% due to the Head-of-Line (HOL) blocking phenomenon. In this paper, we present a novel transistor level implementation of an IQ packet switch, using TSPICE. Our circuit has a regular structure and low transistor count. Our simulation results indicate that the circuit may be used to implement switches working well beyond 1 GHz.

Keywords: High speed packet switches, packet switch schedulers, IQ architecture. 

Hierarchical AED Scheduling Algorithm for Real-Time Networks

Saleh Moutaz and Subramaniam Shamala

Department of Communication Technology and Networks, University Putra Malaysia, Malaysia

Abstract: Earlier studies have observed that in moderately-loaded real-time systems, using an earliest deadline policy to schedule tasks results in the fewest missed deadlines. However, when the real-time system is overloaded an earliest deadline schedule performs worse than most other policies. This is due to the earliest deadline giving the highest priority to the tasks that are close to missing their deadlines, thus delaying other transactions that might still be able to meet their deadline. In this research, an enhanced priority assignment algorithm is presented, called the Adaptive Earliest Deadline (AED), which features a feedback control mechanism that detects overload conditions and modifies packet priority assignments accordingly. Using a detailed simulation model, the performance of AED is compared and analyzed with Earliest Deadline First (EDF). Furthermore, an enhanced AED algorithm called the Hierarchical AED is proposed in a manner in which it obtains a better packet-serving performance by using the concept of priority based on Quality of Service (QoS) of network traffic rather than using a random priority assignment when doing the packet group assignment. Finally, the performance of Hierarchical AED scheduling algorithm is compared with both EDF and the AED scheduling algorithms under the same operating environment.

Keywords: Hierarchical, QoS, AED, scheduling, real-time network.

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An Approach to Strengthen Expert System Shell with Knowledge Illustration Established on Peak of the Fuzzy Logic

Alauddin Alomary¹ and Mohammad Jamil²

¹Department of Computer Engineering, University of Bahrain, Bahrain

²Department of Math and Computer, Qatar University, Qatar

Abstract: Several tools are used to develop expert systems with the help of either programming or developing a special shell. A good expert system shell is projected to hold uncertainty properly for use in attractive domains of applications that deal with imprecise information. In this paper, we have implemented and tested a shell using new inference methods with the support of fuzzy logic to achieve our goal. 

Keywords:  Fuzzy expert system, uncertainty factor, possibility theory, fuzzy operators.

Obstacles Towards the Use of ICT Tools in Teaching and Learning of Information Systems in Malaysian Universities

Mee Chin Wee and Zaitun Abu Bakar  

Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology, University of Malaya, Malaysia 

Abstract: This paper examines the obstacles towards the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools in teaching Information System (IS) at Malaysian universities. The findings of a survey identify that the most significant obstacles are: ICT tools are changing too fast to keep current, extra time and effort needed after integrating ICT tools in teaching, the management did not provide any incentive for lecturers to integrate ICT tools in their teaching, the network connectivity was poor, the management did not have any evaluation in integration of ICT tools in teaching. Factor analysis was performed to determine if there were any underlying factors within the data. Six factors were emerged from the data. 

Keywords: ICT tools, higher education, e-learning, information systems, obstacles. 

Linear Time Recognition of Bipartite Star123-Free Graphs

Ruzayn Quaddoura

Faculty of Science and Information Technology, Zarqa Private University, Jordan

 Abstract: In this paper, we present a linear time recognition algorithm for recognizing bipartite graphs without induced subgraphs isomorph to star123. Bipartite star123-free graphs are a natural generalization of both weak bisplit and Star123, Sun4-free bipartite graphs, both further generalizing bicographs. 

Keywords: Bipartite graph, decomposition of graphs, complexity.

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 Adaptive Instructional Planning Using Neural Networks in Intelligent Learning Systems

Hassina Seridi, Toufik Sari, and Mokhtar Sellami

Laboratory of Research on Informatics (LRI), Badji Mokhtar University, Algeria 

Abstract: This paper investigates the use of computational intelligence for adaptive lesson sequencing in a distance-learning environment. A connectionist method for adaptive pedagogical hypermedia document generation is proposed and implemented in a prototype called AppSys. The proposed methodology based on the use of ontologies and learning object metadata. The generated didactic plan is adapted to the learner’s goals, abilities and preferences. Several experiments have shown the effectiveness of the proposed method.  

Keywords: Intelligent learning environment, web-based course, adaptive and automatic course sequencing, learner model, domain ontology, neural networks. 

Received July 13, 2004; accepted April 18, 2005