Architectural Assumptions Research Articles

Meta-learning goes hand-in-hand with metacognition

Abstract Binz et al. propose a general framework for meta-learning and contrast it with built-by-hand Bayesian models. We comment on some architectural assumptions of the approach, its relation to the active inference framework, its potential applicability to living systems in general, and the advantages of the latter in addressing the explanation problem.

Description of the church and monastery of the Order of the Discalced Carmelite brothers in Berdyczów during the general inspection by Michał Pałucki, general inspector of the Kyiv Diocese in 1786. Source edition

The construction of the monastery of Immaculate Conception of BVM in Berdyczów was completed in 1642, but the warfare and conflicts with the founder’s heirs led to the destruction of convent buildings, and forced the Carmelites to leave Berdyczów several times. They permanently returned to the convent in the early 18th century, and rebuilt both the church and the monastery according to new architectural assumptions. The convent became an important religious, scientific, and cultural centre, while also holding a military function. In 1866, the monastery was dissolved pursuant to the dissolution decree issued two years earlier. Buildings from the time have not been preserved in their original shape, and there is no trace of the furniture. After the dissolution, the archives were scattered, and have been preserved in a small part only. Nevertheless, these few preserved archive documents allow us today to, at least partly, reconstruct the appearance, location, and furniture of both the church and the monastery of the Discalced Carmelites in Berdyczów. Description of the church and monastery of the Order of the Discalced Carmelite brothers in Berdyczów during the general inspection by Michał Pałucki, general inspector of the Kyiv Diocese in 1786 is one of the preserved sources presenting such information (about the foundation, furniture, and architecture of the monastery and the church, its relics, epitaphs, and tombstones at the church, as well as the printing shop). It also provides lots of other information referring to material and religious matters of the convent, as well as religious brotherhoods operating there, including the list of monks residing at the convent in 1786. This publication is limited to editing of just the part of the source providing information about the appearance and furniture of the church and the monastery, thus wishing to recall what has, unfortunately, been irreversibly lot from our material cultural heritage.

On the VP Structure in Arabic

In this paper, I argue in favor of the view that a generative lexicon, as advanced in lexicalist theories, might not be needed to derive verbal’s argument structure. I instead support the hypothesis that a verb’s meaning emerges as a result of the syntactic structure in which it is merged and that the role of lexical items/roots reduces to their idiosyncratic encyclopedic content. These two assumptions are executed via adopting the proposal that splits the traditional VP structure into two main functional heads, namely VoiceP and vP, and via endorsing the architectural assumptions advanced in the framework of Distributed Morphology. The main empirical support for this claim comes from verbs that appear in syntactic structures that are not in consonance with their semantic-conceptual content, Arabic varieties that lost their vocalic melodies that would otherwise encode thematic roles, and spray-load alternation. This paper concludes by exploring language-particular processes whose non-applicability goes beyond morphology, the analysis of which supports the role of the Encyclopedia.

The Role of Long-Term Dependency in Synthetic Speech Detection

Although much progress has been made in synthetic speech detection, there lacks comprehensive analysis of the essential differences between spoofed and genuine speech. We here utilize supervised contrastive loss originated from contrastive learning as an analytical tool to characterize the class similarity structure of ASVspoof 2019 logical access (LA) dataset, which shows that an ideal back-end classifier for synthetic speech detection should have the ability to capture long-term dependencies. Recently, Transformer has been found to have an excellent ability in learning long-term dependencies of input data. We hence propose a back-end classifier based on Transformer Encoder for synthetic speech detection. Convolution blocks are added before the Transformer Encoder, which leverages inductive biases to improve the generalization ability. Compared to two-dimensional convolution, one-dimensional convolution makes better architectural assumptions about the input speech features, which helps with modeling long-term dependencies and decreases the risk of overfitting. The proposed Transformer combined with one-dimensional convolution has fewer parameters than most existing back-end classifiers, and achieves an equal error rate of 1.06% and a minimum tandem detection cost function metric of 0.0345 when evaluated on ASVspoof 2019 LA dataset, which is one of the best models reported in the literature.

Wymiar funkcjonalny, estetyczny i etyczny architektury współczesnych hospicjów

Functional, aesthetic and ethical dimension of contemporary hospice architecture The subject of refl ection is the architecture of a contemporary hospice, which is an expression of social needs, tendencies in palliative medicine, and economic conditions. From the analysis of these objects, a model of a medical unit performing a therapeutic and care function emerges, taking into account the needs of belonging, respect and self-fulfillment of patients. Its program includes personalized hospital rooms, rooms for integrating patients with medical and nursing staff and volunteers, and for meeting the spiritual needs of this community. The special character of this function is emphasized by aesthetic dispositions on a rural and urban, architectural and landscape scale. Often, hospice projects also contain a symbolic message of religious or para-religious content contained in the forms of buildings and their interiors. Considerations on the architectural assumptions of hospices – those special objects in which the act of “transition” crowning human life take place, lead to the conclusion that thanks to the dispositions of a functional, aesthetic and semantic nature, the act of architectural creation acquires an ethical dimension, introducing solutions through logic, aesthetics and symbolism emotional, social, mental and spiritual order.

Optimal Offloading for Streaming Applications in Mobile Edge Computing

With the rapid development of smart mobile devices, mobile applications are becoming more and more popular. Since mobile devices usually have constrained computing capacity, computation offloading to mobile edge computing (MEC) to achieve a lower latency is a promising paradigm. In this paper, we focus on the optimal offloading problem for streaming applications in MEC. We present solutions to find offloading policies of streaming applications to achieve an optimal latency. Streaming applications are modeled with synchronous data flow graphs. Two architecture assumptions are considered — with sufficient processors on both the local device and the MEC server, and with a limited number of processors on both sides. The problem is generally NP-complete. We present an exact algorithm and a heuristic algorithm for the former architecture assumption and a heuristic method for the latter. We carry out our experiments on a practical application and thousands of synthetic graphs to comprehensively evaluate our methods. The experimental results show that our methods are effective and computationally efficient.

Documenting the geometry of large architectural monuments using 3D scanning – the case of the dome of the Golden Mosque of the Tillya-Kori Madrasah in Samarkand

The Tillya-Kori Madrasah is one of three Muslim schools surrounding Registan Square, a jewel of Central Asia's and the Silk Road's material cultural heritage. In the Tillya-Kori madrassa, built according to the architectural assumptions of the Timurids, as in every religious university, there is a mosque. It is built on a square plan and covered with a double-shell dome on a circular plan.During the preparations for the reconstruction of the outer layer of the dome, documentation work was carried out on the inner layer of the dome, consisting of 3D scanning with a terrestrial laser scanner. The developed 3D models of the internal geometry of the dome, being an example of digital documentation of architectural objects, allowed for its accurate measurements. The main result of the works was proving the thesis that the building subsides unevenly under the excessive weight of the outer dome. This confirmed the necessity to reconstruct the outer layer of the dome in order to reduce its weight. The building subsidence parameters were measured by measuring the geometry of the lower layer of the internal dome – the highest horizontal layer in the discontinuous double-shell dome accessible from inside the building.The article presents the process of 3D scanning of the interior of the Golden Mosque and processing its results, the tools and software used, as well as the final results. An additional outcome of the work on digital documentation of the object was the development of a digital 3D model of the interior of the Golden Mosque for the purpose of disseminating information about the monument and making it available digitally in the form of a digital 3D model.

Human microservices: A framework for turning humans into service providers

SummaryDuring the last decade, the mobile application market has grown steadily thanks to the massive use of smartphones and the emergence of cloud computing for offloading computation tasks and improving the quality of experience. With the more recent deployment of Internet of Things (IoT) devices, this cloud‐based architectural design and the corresponding communication flow has been maintained. Nevertheless, the increasing amount of information exchanged, the stringent requirements of many IoT applications, and the need for these applications to adapt their behavior in real time to the user's context set these architectural assumptions a challenge. Paradigms such as mobile, mist, and edge computing have recently been proposed to exploit the computational and storage capabilities of current smartphones and IoT devices in order to onload some tasks onto them, reducing the overhead on both the cloud and the network. Currently, the application of these paradigms requires much attention from skilled developers to create ad hoc systems, as there lack standards and tools facilitating their use. This communication introduces Human Microservices as a framework facilitating the deployment of APIs on companion devices in order to provide personal and updated information that can be consumed by other entities. The framework improves the integration of humans in the IoT loop and facilitates the deployment of computation units in devices closer to end users, enhancing system response time by reducing the stress on cloud and network infrastructure. The proposed framework is based on existing standards in order to improve software quality and shorten the learning curve.

Latency and energy-aware provisioning of network slices in cloud networks

Modern network services are constantly increasing their requirements in terms of bandwidth, latency and cost efficiency. To satisfy these requirements, the concept of network slicing has been introduced in the context of next-generation 5G networks. However, to successfully provision resources to slices, a complex optimization problem must be addressed to allocate resources over a cloud network, i.e., a distributed computing infrastructure interconnected through high-capacity network links. In this study, we propose two new latency and energy-aware optimization models for provisioning 5G slices in cloud networks comprising both distributed computing and network resources. The proposed approaches differ from other existing solutions since we conduct our studies with respect to the end-to-end latency. Relevant models of latency and energy consumption are proposed based on a comprehensive review of the state-of-the-art. To effectively solve those optimization problems, a configurable heuristic is also proposed and investigated over different network topologies. Performance of the proposed heuristic is compared against near-optimal solutions. Moreover, we assess the importance of matching between resource provisioning algorithms and architectural assumptions related to 5G network slices and a proper problem modeling.

ORGANIZATION DESIGN FOR ALGORITHMIC AND HEURISTIC WORK

Abstract PurposePurpose of this research is to propose the organization design parameters and coordination mechanisms that match the algorithmic and heuristic work characteristics. MethodologyMethodology used bases on the analysis of the literature. The study is conceptual in nature and draws upon other research findings. Firstly, it takes into consideration a literature review on organization architecture, design, and two types of work (algorithmic and heuristic). Then organization architecture assumptions are presented as a basis for analysis of matching organization design with algorithmic and heuristic work. Subsequently, a considered framework for analysis is Mintzberg model of organization design that is applied as a framework to be checked for fit with heuristic work characteristics. FindingsResearch leads to conclusion that out of five organization design configurations there is one that fits the heuristic work - adhocracy. The design parameters and coordination mechanisms described in this configuration are following the architectural assumption of autonomy-process-relations materials use, which in turn match the heuristic work characteristics: continuous learning, limited access to information and unpredictability of results. OriginalityThe originality of work is based on researching match between heuristic work and organization design. Literature has not covered this link before. Moreover, the use of architectural assumptions for organization design is differentiating the study from the already performed researches. ImplicationsStudy suggests that following with empirical research requires establishing a number of measures for: heuristic work, organization architecture and organization design. Keywords: heuristic work, algorithmic work, organization design.Classification: Conceptual paper.

Shakey Ever After? Questioning Tacit Assumptions in Robotics and Artificial Intelligence

Shakey the robot was a milestone of autonomous robots and artificial intelligence. Its design principles have dominated research until now. Tacit philosophical and architectural assumptions have impoverished the space of research topics and methods. I point out ways to overcome this impasse with sideglances to other scientific fields.

Evaluation of a process for architectural assumption management in software development

• An architectural assumption management process with guidelines is developed. • Two case studies were conducted to validate the process. • The process can help to make architectural assumptions explicit. • The process can help to identify and reduce invalid architectural assumptions. Architectural assumption management is critical to the success of software development projects. In this paper, we propose an Architectural Assumption Management (AAM) process, comprised of four AAM activities: Architectural Assumption Making, Description, Evaluation, and Maintenance. Evaluating the AAM process in architectural assumption management, regarding the ease of understanding and the effort of conducting the AAM process, as well as the effectiveness of using the AAM process to make architectural assumptions explicit and to identify and reduce invalid architectural assumptions. An explanatory study with 88 first-year master students in software engineering, and an exploratory study with five practitioners from five companies. (1) the ease of understanding the AAM process is moderate for first-year master students but easy for practitioners; (2) the effort of conducting the AAM process is moderate for first-year master students; (3) Making and Evaluation took the students more time than Description and Maintenance; (4) the practitioners considered Evaluation as the most time consuming activity; (5) the AAM process can help to make architectural assumptions explicit and to identify and reduce invalid architectural assumptions in projects. The majority of the students and practitioners agreed that Architectural Assumption Evaluation is the most helpful activity for all these three aspects. For other activities, there are different opinions about their helpfulness; and (6) there are various factors identified that can impact the aforementioned results. Being aware of and properly adjusting these factors can facilitate the application of the AAM process in projects. The AAM process aims at systematically managing architectural assumptions in software development. The results of the case studies provide preliminary empirical evidence for the evaluation of the AAM process.

On Not Writing a Review about Mirador: Mirador, IIIF, and the Epistemological Gains of Distributed Digital Scholarly Resources

This piece mushroomed from a simple enough looking suggestion to write a review about Mirador, a viewer component for web based image resources. While playing around and testing Mirador however, a lot of questions started to emerge–questions that in a scholarly sense were more significant than just the functional requirements of textual scholars and researchers of medieval sources for an image viewer. These questions are forced upon us because of the way Mirador is built, and by the assumptions it thereby makes–or that its developers make–about its role and about the larger infrastructure for scholarly resources that it is supposed to be a part of. This again led to a number of epistemological issues in the realm of digital textual scholarship. And so, what was intended as a simple review resulted in a long read about Mirador, about its technological context, and about digital scholarly editions as distributed resources. The first part of my story gives a straightforward review-like overview of Mirador. I then delve into the reasons that I think exist for the architectural nature of the majority of current digital scholarly editions, which are still mostly monolithic data silos. This in turn leads to some epistemological questions about digital scholarly editions. Subsequently I return to Mirador to investigate whether its architectural assumptions provide an answer to these epistemological issues. To estimate whether the epistemological “promise” that Mirador’s architecture holds may be easily attained, I gauge what (technical) effort is associated with building a digital edition that actually utilizes Mirador. Integrating Mirador also implies adopting the emerging standard IIIF (international image interoperability framework); a discussion of this “standard-to-be” is therefore in order. Finally the article considers the prospects of aligning the IIIF and TEI “standards” to further the creation of distributed digital scholarly editions.

The Common Model of Cognition and humanlike language comprehension

The Cognitive Model of Cognition (CMC) describes a consensus among many researchers about architectural assumptions that define aspects of humanlike minds, whether natural or artificial. This consensus combines ideas from several existing cognitive architectures. Our research group has been developing a theory and an implemented system to do humanlike language comprehension within an embodied autonomous agent. This paper analyzes how this theory of humanlike language comprehension maps onto the CMC, what extensions to the CMC it might suggest, and what major challenges for the CMC come from applying it to language processing.

An industrial case study on an architectural assumption documentation framework

As an important type of architectural knowledge, documenting architectural assumptions (AAs) is critical to the success of projects. In this work, we proposed and validated an Architectural Assumption Documentation Framework (AADF), which is composed of four viewpoints (i.e., the Detail, Relationship, Tracing, and Evolution viewpoint), to document AAs in projects. One case study with two cases was conducted at two companies from different domains and countries. The main findings are: (1) AADF can be understood by architects in a short time (i.e., a half day workshop); (2) the AA Evolution view requires the least time to create, followed by the AA Detail view and the AA Relationship view; (3) AADF can help stakeholders to identify risks and understand AAs documented by other stakeholders; and (4) understanding and applying AADF is related to various factors, including factors regarding the framework per se (e.g., tutorial, examples, concepts, and terms), personal experience, resources (e.g., time), tool support, and project context (e.g., project size and number of AAs). Adjusting these factors in an appropriate way can facilitate the usage of AADF and further benefit the projects.

A survey on software architectural assumptions

ContextManaging architectural assumptions (AA) during the software lifecycle, as an important type of architecture knowledge, is critical to the success of projects. However, little empirical evidence exists on the understanding, identification, and recording of AA from the practitioners’ perspective. ObjectiveWe investigated the current situation on (1) how practitioners understand AA and its importance, and (2) whether and how practitioners identify and record AA in software development. MethodA web-based survey was conducted with 112 practitioners, who use Chinese as native language and are engaged in software development in China. ResultsThe main findings are: (1) AA are important in both software architecting and development. However, practitioners understand AA in different ways; (2) only a few respondents identified and recorded AA in their projects, and very few approaches and tools were used for identifying and recording AA; (3) the lack of specific approaches and tools is the major challenge (reason) of (not) identifying and recording AA. ConclusionsThe results emphasize the need for a widely accepted understanding of the AA concept in software development, and specific approaches, tools, and guidelines to support AA identification and recording.

Active Learning-Based Pedagogical Rule Extraction.

Many of the state-of-the-art data mining techniques introduce nonlinearities in their models to cope with complex data relationships effectively. Although such techniques are consistently included among the top classification techniques in terms of predictive power, their lack of transparency renders them useless in any domain where comprehensibility is of importance. Rule-extraction algorithms remedy this by distilling comprehensible rule sets from complex models that explain how the classifications are made. This paper considers a new rule extraction technique, based on active learning. The technique generates artificial data points around training data with low confidence in the output score, after which these are labeled by the black-box model. The main novelty of the proposed method is that it uses a pedagogical approach without making any architectural assumptions of the underlying model. It can therefore be applied to any black-box technique. Furthermore, it can generate any rule format, depending on the chosen underlying rule induction technique. In a large-scale empirical study, we demonstrate the validity of our technique to extract trees and rules from artificial neural networks, support vector machines, and random forests, on 25 data sets of varying size and dimensionality. Our results show that not only do the generated rules explain the black-box models well (thereby facilitating the acceptance of such models), the proposed algorithm also performs significantly better than traditional rule induction techniques in terms of accuracy as well as fidelity.

Extended Capabilities for a Privacy-Enhanced Participatory Sensing Infrastructure (PEPSI)

Participatory sensing is emerging as an innovative computing paradigm that targets the ubiquity of always-connected mobile phones and their sensing capabilities. In this paper, a multitude of pioneering applications increasingly carry out pervasive collection and dissemination of information and environmental data, such as traffic conditions, pollution, temperature, and so on. Participants collect and report measurements from their mobile devices and entrust them to the cloud to be made available to applications and users. Naturally, due to the personal information associated to the reports (e.g., location, movements, etc.), a number of privacy concerns need to be considered prior to a large-scale deployment of these applications. Motivated by the need for privacy protection in participatory sensing, this paper presents a privacy-enhanced participatory sensing infrastructure. We explore realistic architectural assumptions and a minimal set of formal requirements aiming at protecting privacy of both data producers and consumers. We propose two instantiations that attain privacy guarantees with provable security at very low additional computational cost and almost no extra communication overhead.

Open Parallel Cooperative and Competitive Decision Processes: A Potential Provenance for Quantum Probability Decision Models

In recent years quantum probability models have been used to explain many aspects of human decision making, and as such quantum models have been considered a viable alternative to Bayesian models based on classical probability. One criticism that is often leveled at both kinds of models is that they lack a clear interpretation in terms of psychological mechanisms. In this paper we discuss the mechanistic underpinnings of a quantum walk model of human decision making and response time. The quantum walk model is compared to standard sequential sampling models, and the architectural assumptions of both are considered. In particular, we show that the quantum model has a natural interpretation in terms of a cognitive architecture that is both massively parallel and involves both co-operative (excitatory) and competitive (inhibitory) interactions between units. Additionally, we introduce a family of models that includes aspects of the classical and quantum walk models.

Teaching and Learning Guide for: Optimality Theory and Morphology

Teaching and Learning Guide for: Optimality Theory and Morphology