Yan Zhang

Context-Sensitive Task (CST) is a complex task type in crowdsourcing, such as handwriting recognition, route plan, and audio transcription. The current result inference algorithms can perform well in simple crowdsourcing tasks, but cannot obtain high-quality inference results for CSTs. The conventional method to solve CSTs is to divide a CST into multiple independent simple subtasks for crowdsourcing, but this method ignores the context correlation among subtasks and reduces the quality of result inference. To solve this problem, we propose a result inference algorithm based on the Partially ordered set and Tree augmented naive Bayes Infer (P&T-Inf) for CSTs. Firstly, we screen the candidate results of context-sensitive tasks based on the partially ordered set. If there are parallel candidate sets, the conditional mutual information among subtasks containing context information in external knowledge (such as Google n-gram corpus, American Contemporary English corpus, etc.) will be calculated. Combined with the tree augmented naive (TAN) Bayes model, the maximum weighted spanning tree is used to model the dependencies among subtasks in each CST. We collect two crowdsourcing datasets of handwriting recognition tasks and audio transcription tasks from the real crowdsourcing platform. The experimental results show that our approach improves the quality of result inference in CSTs and reduces the time cost compared with the latest methods.

Although the accuracy of load forecasting has been studied by many works, the actual deployability of a model is rarely considered. In this work, we consider the actual deployability of a model from four aspects: the prediction performance of the model, the robustness of the model, the dependence of the model on external data and the storage size of the model. From these four aspects, we propose a multiple wavelet convolutional neural network (MWCNN) for load forecasting. On two public datasets, we verified the performance and robustness of the MWCNN. The MWCNN only uses load data, and the storage size of the model is only 497 KB, which shows that MWCNN has good deployability. In addition, our MWCNN prediction results are interpretable. The experimental results show that the MWCNN can effectively capture the periodic characteristics of load data.

With the rapid development of social networks, it has become extremely important to evaluate the propagation capabilities of the nodes in a network. Related research has wide applications, such as in network monitoring and rumor control. However, the current research on the propagation ability of network nodes is mostly based on the analysis of the degree of nodes. The method is simple, but the effectiveness needs to be improved. Based on this problem, this paper proposes a method that is based on Tsallis entropy to detect the propagation ability of network nodes. This method comprehensively considers the relationship between a node’s Tsallis entropy and its neighbors, employs the Tsallis entropy method to construct the TsallisRank algorithm, and uses the SIR (Susceptible, Infectious, Recovered) model for verifying the correctness of the algorithm. The experimental results show that, in a real network, this method can effectively and accurately evaluate the propagation ability of network nodes.

It has been shown that identifying the structural holes in social networks may help people analyze complex networks, which is crucial in community detection, diffusion control, viral marketing, and academic activities. Structural holes bridge different communities and gain access to multiple sources of information flow. In this paper, we devised a structural hole detection algorithm, known as the Conductance–Degree structural hole detection algorithm (CD-SHA), which computes the conductance and degree score of a vertex to identify the structural hole spanners in social networks. Next, we proposed an improved label propagation algorithm based on conductance (C-LPA) to filter the jamming nodes, which have a high conductance and degree score but are not structural holes. Finally, we evaluated the performance of the algorithm on different real-world networks, and we calculated several metrics for both structural holes and communities. The experimental results show that the algorithm can detect the structural holes and communities accurately and efficiently.

Crowdsourcing has the advantages of being cost-effective and saving time, which is a typical embodiment of collective wisdom and community workers’ collaborative development. However, this development paradigm of software crowdsourcing has not been used widely. A very important reason is that requesters have limited knowledge about crowd workers’ professional skills and qualities. Another reason is that the crowd workers in the competition cannot get the appropriate reward, which affects their motivation. To solve this problem, this paper proposes a method of maximizing reward based on the crowdsourcing ability of workers, they can choose tasks according to their own abilities to obtain appropriate bonuses. Our method includes two steps: Firstly, it puts forward a method to evaluate the crowd workers’ ability, then it analyzes the intensity of competition for tasks at Topcoder.com—an open community crowdsourcing platform—on the basis of the workers’ crowdsourcing ability; secondly, it follows dynamic programming ideas and builds game models under complete information in different cases, offering a strategy of reward maximization for workers by solving a mixed-strategy Nash equilibrium. This paper employs crowdsourcing data from Topcoder.com to carry out experiments. The experimental results show that the distribution of workers’ crowdsourcing ability is uneven, and to some extent it can show the activity degree of crowdsourcing tasks. Meanwhile, according to the strategy of reward maximization, a crowd worker can get the theoretically maximum reward.

In recent years, open-source software (OSS) development has grown, with many developers around the world working on different OSS projects. A variety of open-source software ecosystems have emerged, for instance, GitHub, StackOverflow, and SourceForge. One of the most typical social-programming and code-hosting sites, GitHub, has amassed numerous open-source-software projects and developers in the same virtual collaboration platform. Since GitHub itself is a large open-source community, it hosts a collection of software projects that are developed together and coevolve. The great challenge here is how to identify the relationship between these projects, i.e., project relevance. Software-ecosystem identification is the basis of other studies in the ecosystem. Therefore, how to extract useful information in GitHub and identify software ecosystems is particularly important, and it is also a research area in symmetry. In this paper, a Topic-based Project Knowledge Metrics Framework (TPKMF) is proposed. By collecting the multisource dataset of an open-source ecosystem, project-relevance analysis of the open-source software is carried out on the basis of software-ecosystem identification. Then, we used our Spectral Clustering algorithm based on Core Project (CP-SC) to identify software-ecosystem projects and further identify software ecosystems. We verified that most software ecosystems usually contain a core software project, and most other projects are associated with it. Furthermore, we analyzed the characteristics of the ecosystem, and we also found that interactive information has greater impact on project relevance. Finally, we summarize the Topic-based Project Knowledge Metrics Framework.

With the development of open source community, through the interaction of developers, the collaborative development of software, and the sharing of software tools, the formation of open source software ecosystem has matured. Natural ecosystems provide ecological services on which human beings depend. Maintaining a healthy natural ecosystem is a necessity for the sustainable development of mankind. Similarly, maintaining a healthy ecosystem of open source software is also a prerequisite for the sustainable development of open source communities, such as GitHub. This paper takes GitHub as an example to analyze the health condition of open source ecosystem and, also, it is a research area in Symmetry. Firstly, the paper presents the healthy definition of GitHub open source ecosystem health and, then, according to the main components of natural ecosystem health, the paper proposes the health indicators and health indicators evaluation method. Based on the above, the GitHub ecosystem health prediction method is proposed. By analyzing the projects and data collected in GitHub, it is found that, using the proposed evaluation indicators and method, we can analyze the healthy development trend of the GitHub ecosystem and contribute to the stability of ecosystem development.

The development of open source brings new thinking and production modes to software engineering and computer science, and establishes a software development method and ecological environment in which groups participate. Regardless of investors, developers, participants, and managers, they are most concerned about whether the Open Source Ecosystem can be sustainable to ensure that the ecosystem they choose will serve users for a long time. Moreover, the most important quality of the software ecosystem is sustainability, and it is also a research area in Symmetry. Therefore, it is significant to assess the sustainability of the Open Source Ecosystem. However, the current measurement of the sustainability of the Open Source Ecosystem lacks universal measurement indicators, as well as a method and a model. Therefore, this paper constructs an Evaluation Indicators System, which consists of three levels: The target level, the guideline level and the evaluation level, and takes openness, stability, activity, and extensibility as measurement indicators. On this basis, a weight calculation method, based on information contribution values and a Sustainability Assessment Model, is proposed. The models and methods are used to analyze the factors affecting the sustainability of Stack Overflow (SO) ecosystem. Through the analysis, we find that every indicator in the SO ecosystem is partaking in different development trends. The development trend of a single indicator does not represent the sustainable development trend of the whole ecosystem. It is necessary to consider all of the indicators to judge that ecosystem’s sustainability. The research on the sustainability of the Open Source Ecosystem is helpful for judging software health, measuring development efficiency and adjusting organizational structure. It also provides a reference for researchers who study the sustainability of software engineering.