46601989
Analysis of Lotka's law: The Simon-Yule approach
Abstract A major difficulty in using the well-known Lotka's law in information science is in the estimation of parameters. In this paper, we argue that the difficulty arises from the misuse of goodness-of-fit tests. As an alternative, we adopt Simon's five-step modeling process for the study of Lotka's law. Three significant contributions can be identified. First, an index approach is used to identify a general formulation of Lotka's law. Second, a time series approach is used to identify two influential variables associated with the empirical data. Third, the constructive mechanism proposed by Simon is used to derive a distribution resembling the general formulation of Lotka's law. Further research on refining the constructive mechanism is suggested.
14708618
Enhancing UML Conceptual Modeling through the Use of Virtual Reality
UML is one of the major conceptual modeling tools in Object-Oriented software engineering. However, recently more and more concerns arise from the modeling quality of UML. Among them, limitation of the two-dimensional presentation of its notations is reported to be significant. By bringing in the concepts of Steoropsis (3-D appearance), animation, interaction and immersion, Virtual Reality may improve the UML modeling quality. Specifically, in this paper we analyze the modeling quality of UML by using recent published literature in conceptual modeling. We then recommend the use of Virtual Reality to enhance the modeling quality of UML. Some examples of how Virtual Reality can be used to improve UML modeling quality are given. Finally, we propose a research framework for enhancing the quality of UML conceptual modeling through the use of Virtual Reality.
32843088
Analysis of Zipf's law: An index approach
Abstract A rigorous analysis of Zipf's law is made using an index for the sequence of observed values of the variables in a Zipf-type relationship. Three important properties relating rank, count, and frequency are identified. Using this approach, the shape of Zipf-type curves can be described in terms of three distinct regions and two parameters of the Mandelbrot-Zipf law. This result has considerable practical significance, since it provides rigorous foundations for the application of Zipf's law.
16469592
IT businesses and franchising: a research proposal
Franchising has been popular as a growth strategy for small businesses; it is even more so in today's global and information-based economy. In early 2001, Entrepreneur magazine-well known for its Franchise 500 listing-added a tech businesses category to its franchise zone with three subcategories: Internet businesses, tech training, and miscellaneous tech businesses. This study applies Herbert Simon's model for business firm growth as a theory-grounded solution to help managers understand the growth dynamics of IT-based franchising businesses. We present a research proposal with a pilot study of the growth of 27 IT-based franchise businesses, and explain how to relate the parameters of Simon's model to strategic variables that can give managers a valuable strategic tool to understand the context of their industrial competition in IT-based franchising.
7851375
The Simon-Yule Approach to Bibliometric Modeling
Abstract Using an index approach to take into account the scattering pattern of the observed values, Chen and Leimkuhler showed that the three well-known bibliometric distributions (i.e., Lotka's law of scientific productivity, Bradford's law of bibliographic scattering, and Zipf's law of word frequency) are equivalent. Furthermore, Chen showed that Lotka's law can be derived from a generating mechanism (the Simon-Yule Model) proposed by Herbert A. Simon. In this paper, we use a simulation algorithm based on the Simon-Yule model to conduct computational experimentation on these three laws. The results indicate that the probability of a new entry (α), be it constant or decreasing, determines the characteristics of all three distributions.
10353520
Finding Self-Similarities in Opportunistic People Networks
Opportunistic network is a type of delay tolerant networks (DTN) where network communication opportunities appear opportunistic. In this study, we investigate opportunistic network scenarios based on public network traces, and our contributions are the following: First, we identify the censorship issue in network traces that usually leads to strongly skewed distribution of the measurements. Based on this knowledge, we then apply the Kaplan-Meier Estimator to calculate the survivorship of network measurements, which is used in designing our proposed censorship removal algorithm (CRA) that is used to recover censored data. Second, we perform a rich set of analysis illustrating that UCSD and Dartmouth network traces show strong self-similarity, and can be modeled as such. Third, we pointed out the importance of these newly revealed characteristics in future development and evaluation of opportunistic networks.
8484723
Effective test metrics for test strategy evolution
How to measure a test process is a required competence for an effective software test manager. Effective test process measurement is essential for designing, evaluating and managing a cost-effective test strategy. Although some existing research has proposed many metrics for these purposes, most of those metrics are ignored or used individually. This paper summarizes a test process measurement pilot project of the IBM Electronic Commerce Development (ECD) test teams, and analyzes the effectiveness of using a "metric set" of complementary metrics for cost, time, and quality to measure the quality of test process based on the results of our project. Details are given for a "fictitious" project in order to explain the detailed considerations that go into adopting a cost-effective metric strategy. Further discussions about implementation problems, test wisdom learned in the project, and cost-effectiveness of the measurement activities and metrics are also presented. We conclude with suggestions for extensions of the work into the area of real-time, in-phase, in-process metrics.
44397360
Reducing Time Complexities of Semigroup Computations on Mesh-Connected Computers with Multiple Broadcasting
14028105
Scalability of heterogeneous computing
Scalability is a key factor of the design of distributed systems and parallel algorithms and machines. However, conventional scalabilities are designed for homogeneous parallel processing. There is no suitable and commonly accepted definition of scalability metric for heterogeneous systems. Isospeed scalability is a well-defined metric for homogeneous computing. This study extends the isospeed scalability metric to general heterogeneous computing systems. The proposed isospeed-efficiency metric is suitable for both homogeneous and heterogeneous computing. Through theoretical analysis, we derive methodologies of scalability measurement and prediction for heterogeneous systems. Experimental results verify the analytical results and confirm that the proposed isospeed-efficiency scalability works well in both homogeneous and heterogeneous environments.
365943
Modeling and Storing Scientific Protocols
We propose an abstract model for scientific protocols, where several atomic operators are proposed for protocol composition We distinguish two different layers associated with scientific protocols: design and implementation, and discuss the mapping between them We illustrate our approach with a representative example and describe ProtocolDB, a scientific protocol repository currently in development Our approach benefits scientists by allowing the archiving of scientific protocols with the collected data sets to constitute a scientific portfolio for the laboratory to query, compare and revise protocols.