OpenRaiser/Intern-Atlas huggingface dataset:
Knowware: the third star after Hardware and Software
Venue: arXiv cs.SE 2007
Year: 2007

This book proposes to separate knowledge from software and to make it a commodity that is called knowware. The architecture, representation and function of Knowware are discussed. The principles of knowware engineering and its three life cycle models: furnace model, crystallization model and spiral model are proposed and analyzed. Techniques of software/knowware co-engineering are introduced. A software component whose knowledge is replaced by knowware is called mixware. An object and component oriented development schema of mixware is introduced. In particular, the tower model and ladder model for mixware development are proposed and discussed. Finally, knowledge service and knowware based Web service are introduced and compared with Web service. In summary, knowware, software and hardware should be considered as three equally important underpinnings of IT industry. Ruqian Lu is a professor of computer science of the Institute of Mathematics, Academy of Mathematics and System Sciences. He is a fellow of Chinese Academy of Sciences. His research interests include artificial intelligence, knowledge engineering and knowledge based software engineering. He has published more than 100 papers and 10 books. He has won two first class awards from the Academia Sinica and a National second class prize from the Ministry of Science and Technology. He has also won the sixth Hua Loo-keng Mathematics Prize.
Optimization of Information Rate Upper and Lower Bounds for Channels with Memory
Venue: arXiv cs.IT 2007
Year: 2007

We consider the problem of minimizing upper bounds and maximizing lower bounds on information rates of stationary and ergodic discrete-time channels with memory. The channels we consider can have a finite number of states, such as partial response channels, or they can have an infinite state-space, such as time-varying fading channels. We optimize recently-proposed information rate bounds for such channels, which make use of auxiliary finite-state machine channels (FSMCs). Our main contribution in this paper is to provide iterative expectation-maximization (EM) type algorithms to optimize the parameters of the auxiliary FSMC to tighten these bounds. We provide an explicit, iterative algorithm that improves the upper bound at each iteration. We also provide an effective method for iteratively optimizing the lower bound. To demonstrate the effectiveness of our algorithms, we provide several examples of partial response and fading channels, where the proposed optimization techniques significantly tighten the initial upper and lower bounds. Finally, we compare our results with an improved variation of the \emph{simplex} local optimization algorithm, called \emph{Soblex}. This comparison shows that our proposed algorithms are superior to the Soblex method, both in terms of robustness in finding the tightest bounds and in computational efficiency. Interestingly, from a channel coding/decoding perspective, optimizing the lower bound is related to increasing the achievable mismatched information rate, i.e., the information rate of a communication system where the decoder at the receiver is matched to the auxiliary channel, and not to the original channel.
Building the Tangent and Adjoint codes of the Ocean General Circulation Model OPA with the Automatic Differentiation tool TAPENADE
Venue: arXiv cs.MS 2007
Year: 2007

The ocean general circulation model OPA is developed by the LODYC team at Paris VI university. OPA has recently undergone a major rewriting, migrating to FORTRAN95, and its adjoint code needs to be rebuilt. For earlier versions, the adjoint of OPA was written by hand at a high development cost. We use the Automatic Differentiation tool TAPENADE to build mechanicaly the tangent and adjoint codes of OPA. We validate the differentiated codes by comparison with divided differences, and also with an identical twin experiment. We apply state-of-the-art methods to improve the performance of the adjoint code. In particular we implement the Griewank and Walther's binomial checkpointing algorithm which gives us an optimal trade-off between time and memory consumption. We apply a specific strategy to differentiate the iterative linear solver that comes from the implicit time stepping scheme
Robot-based tele-echography: clinical evaluation of the TER system in abdominal aortic exploration
Venue: arXiv cs.OH 2007
Year: 2007

OBJECTIVE: The TER system is a robot-based tele-echography system allowing remote ultrasound examination. The specialist moves a mock-up of the ultrasound probe at the master site, and the robot reproduces the movements of the real probe, which sends back ultrasound images and force feedback. This tool could be used to perform ultrasound examinations in small health care centers or from isolated sites. The objective of this study was to prove, under real conditions, the feasibility and reliability of the TER system in detecting abdominal aortic and iliac aneurysms. METHODS: Fifty-eight patients were included in 2 centers in Brest and Grenoble, France. The remote examination was compared with the reference standard, the bedside examination, for aorta and iliac artery diameter measurement, detection and description of aneurysms, detection of atheromatosis, the duration of the examination, and acceptability. RESULTS: All aneurysms (8) were detected by both techniques as intramural thrombosis and extension to the iliac arteries. The interobserver correlation coefficient was 0.982 (P < .0001) for aortic diameters. The rate of concordance between 2 operators in evaluating atheromatosis was 84% +/- 11% (95% confidence interval). CONCLUSIONS: Our study on 58 patients suggests that the TER system could be a reliable, acceptable, and effective robot-based system for performing remote abdominal aortic ultrasound examinations. Research is continuing to improve the equipment for general abdominal use.
Near-Deterministic Inference of AS Relationships
Venue: arXiv cs.NI 2007
Year: 2007

The discovery of Autonomous Systems (ASes) interconnections and the inference of their commercial Type-of-Relationships (ToR) has been extensively studied during the last few years. The main motivation is to accurately calculate AS-level paths and to provide better topological view of the Internet. An inherent problem in current algorithms is their extensive use of heuristics. Such heuristics incur unbounded errors which are spread over all inferred relationships. We propose a near-deterministic algorithm for solving the ToR inference problem. Our algorithm uses as input the Internet core, which is a dense sub-graph of top-level ASes. We test several methods for creating such a core and demonstrate the robustness of the algorithm to the core's size and density, the inference period, and errors in the core. We evaluate our algorithm using AS-level paths collected from RouteViews BGP paths and DIMES traceroute measurements. Our proposed algorithm deterministically infers over 95% of the approximately 58,000 AS topology links. The inference becomes stable when using a week worth of data and as little as 20 ASes in the core. The algorithm infers 2-3 times more peer-to-peer relationships in edges discovered only by DIMES than in RouteViews edges, validating the DIMES promise to discover periphery AS edges.
Development of miniaturized light endoscope-holder robot for laparoscopic surgery
Venue: arXiv cs.OH 2007
Year: 2007

PURPOSE: We have conducted experiments with an innovatively designed robot endoscope holder for laparoscopic surgery that is small and low cost. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A compact light endoscope robot (LER) that is placed on the patient's skin and can be used with the patient in the lateral or dorsal supine position was tested on cadavers and laboratory pigs in order to allow successive modifications. The current control system is based on voice recognition. The range of vision is 360 degrees with an angle of 160 degrees . Twenty-three procedures were performed. RESULTS: The tests made it possible to advance the prototype on a variety of aspects, including reliability, steadiness, ergonomics, and dimensions. The ease of installation of the robot, which takes only 5 minutes, and the easy handling made it possible for 21 of the 23 procedures to be performed without an assistant. CONCLUSION: The LER is a camera holder guided by the surgeon's voice that can eliminate the need for an assistant during laparoscopic surgery. The ease of installation and manufacture should make it an effective and inexpensive system for use on patients in the lateral and dorsal supine positions. Randomized clinical trials will soon validate a new version of this robot prior to marketing.
View Based Methods can achieve Bayes-Optimal 3D Recognition
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2007
Year: 2007

This paper proves that visual object recognition systems using only 2D Euclidean similarity measurements to compare object views against previously seen views can achieve the same recognition performance as observers having access to all coordinate information and able of using arbitrary 3D models internally. Furthermore, it demonstrates that such systems do not require more training views than Bayes-optimal 3D model-based systems. For building computer vision systems, these results imply that using view-based or appearance-based techniques with carefully constructed combination of evidence mechanisms may not be at a disadvantage relative to 3D model-based systems. For computational approaches to human vision, they show that it is impossible to distinguish view-based and 3D model-based techniques for 3D object recognition solely by comparing the performance achievable by human and 3D model-based systems.}
Direct definition of a ternary infinite square-free sequence
Venue: arXiv cs.DM 2007
Year: 2007

We propose a new ternary infinite (even full-infinite) square-free sequence. The sequence is defined both by an iterative method and by a direct definition. Both definitions are analogous to those of the Thue-Morse sequence. The direct definition is given by a deterministic finite automaton with output. In short, the sequence is automatic.
The analytic computability of the Shannon transform for a large class of random matrix channels
Venue: arXiv cs.IT 2007
Year: 2007

We define a class of "algebraic" random matrix channels for which one can generically compute the limiting Shannon transform using numerical techniques and often enumerate the low SNR series expansion coefficients in closed form. We describe this class, the coefficient enumeration techniques and compare theory with simulations.
Cryptanalysis of an image encryption scheme based on the Hill cipher
Venue: arXiv cs.CR 2007
Year: 2007

This paper studies the security of an image encryption scheme based on the Hill cipher and reports its following problems: 1) there is a simple necessary and sufficient condition that makes a number of secret keys invalid; 2) it is insensitive to the change of the secret key; 3) it is insensitive to the change of the plain-image; 4) it can be broken with only one known/chosen-plaintext; 5) it has some other minor defects.
Dimensionality Reduction and Reconstruction using Mirroring Neural Networks and Object Recognition based on Reduced Dimension Characteristic Vector
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2007
Year: 2007

In this paper, we present a Mirroring Neural Network architecture to perform non-linear dimensionality reduction and Object Recognition using a reduced lowdimensional characteristic vector. In addition to dimensionality reduction, the network also reconstructs (mirrors) the original high-dimensional input vector from the reduced low-dimensional data. The Mirroring Neural Network architecture has more number of processing elements (adalines) in the outer layers and the least number of elements in the central layer to form a converging-diverging shape in its configuration. Since this network is able to reconstruct the original image from the output of the innermost layer (which contains all the information about the input pattern), these outputs can be used as object signature to classify patterns. The network is trained to minimize the discrepancy between actual output and the input by back propagating the mean squared error from the output layer to the input layer. After successfully training the network, it can reduce the dimension of input vectors and mirror the patterns fed to it. The Mirroring Neural Network architecture gave very good results on various test patterns.
Implementation, Compilation, Optimization of Object-Oriented Languages, Programs and Systems - Report on the Workshop ICOOOLPS'2007 at ECOOP'07
Venue: arXiv cs.PL 2007
Year: 2007

ICOOOLPS'2007 was the second edition of the ECOOP-ICOOOLPS workshop. ICOOOLPS intends to bring researchers and practitioners both from academia and industry together, with a spirit of openness, to try and identify and begin to address the numerous and very varied issues of optimization. After a first successful edition, this second one put a stronger emphasis on exchanges and discussions amongst the participants, progressing on the bases set last year in Nantes. The workshop attendance was a success, since the 30-people limit we had set was reached about 2 weeks before the workshop itself. Some of the discussions (e.g. annotations) were so successful that they would required even more time than we were able to dedicate to them. That's one area we plan to further improve for the next edition.
On Computation of Error Locations and Values in Hermitian Codes
Venue: arXiv cs.IT 2007
Year: 2007

We obtain a technique to reduce the computational complexity associated with decoding of Hermitian codes. In particular, we propose a method to compute the error locations and values using an uni-variate error locator and an uni-variate error evaluator polynomial. To achieve this, we introduce the notion of Semi-Erasure Decoding of Hermitian codes and prove that decoding of Hermitian codes can always be performed using semi-erasure decoding. The central results are: * Searching for error locations require evaluating an univariate error locator polynomial over $q^2$ points as in Chien search for Reed-Solomon codes. * Forney's formula for error value computation in Reed-Solomon codes can directly be applied to compute the error values in Hermitian codes. The approach develops from the idea that transmitting a modified form of the information may be more efficient that the information itself.
Apports des démarches d'inspection et des tests d'usage dans l'évaluation de l'accessibilité de E-services
Venue: arXiv cs.HC 2007
Year: 2007

This article proposes to describe and compare the contributions of various techniques of evaluation of the accessibility of E-services carried out starting from (i) methods of inspection (on the basis of traditional ergonomic criteria and accessibility) and (ii) of tests of use. It show that these are the latter which show the best rate of identification of the problems of uses for the poeple with disabilities
The Earth System Grid: Supporting the Next Generation of Climate Modeling Research
Venue: arXiv cs.CE 2007
Year: 2007

Understanding the earth's climate system and how it might be changing is a preeminent scientific challenge. Global climate models are used to simulate past, present, and future climates, and experiments are executed continuously on an array of distributed supercomputers. The resulting data archive, spread over several sites, currently contains upwards of 100 TB of simulation data and is growing rapidly. Looking toward mid-decade and beyond, we must anticipate and prepare for distributed climate research data holdings of many petabytes. The Earth System Grid (ESG) is a collaborative interdisciplinary project aimed at addressing the challenge of enabling management, discovery, access, and analysis of these critically important datasets in a distributed and heterogeneous computational environment. The problem is fundamentally a Grid problem. Building upon the Globus toolkit and a variety of other technologies, ESG is developing an environment that addresses authentication, authorization for data access, large-scale data transport and management, services and abstractions for high-performance remote data access, mechanisms for scalable data replication, cataloging with rich semantic and syntactic information, data discovery, distributed monitoring, and Web-based portals for using the system.
Distributed MAC Strategy for Exploiting Multi-user Diversity in Multi-rate IEEE 802.11 Wireless LANs
Venue: arXiv cs.NI 2007
Year: 2007

Fast rate adaptation has been established as an effective way to improve the PHY-layer raw date rate of wireless networks. However, within the current IEEE 802.11 legacy, MAC-layer throughput is dominated by users with the lowest data rates, resulting in underutilization of bandwidth. In this paper, we propose and analyze a novel distributed MAC strategy, referred to as Rate-aware DCF (R-DCF), to leverage the potential of rate adaptation in IEEE 802.11 WLANs. The key feature of R-DCF is that by introducing different mini slots according to the instantaneous channel conditions, only contending stations with the highest data rate can access the channel. In this way, the R-DCF protocol not only exploits multi-user diversity in a fully distributed manner but also reduces the loss of throughput due to collisions. Through analysis, we develop an analytical model to derive the throughput of R-DCF in general multi-rate WLANs. Using the analytical model we investigate the performance of R-DCF protocol in various network settings with different rate adaptation strategies and channel variations. Based on the analysis, we further derive the maximal throughput achievable by R-DCF. For practical implementation, an offline adaptive backoff method is developed to achieve a close-to-optimal performance at low runtime complexity. The superiority of R-DCF is proven via extensive analyses and simulations.
A Typical Model Audit Approach: Spreadsheet Audit Methodologies in the City of London
Venue: arXiv cs.SE 2007
Year: 2007

Spreadsheet audit and review procedures are an essential part of almost all City of London financial transactions. Structured processes are used to discover errors in large financial spreadsheets underpinning major transactions of all types. Serious errors are routinely found and are fed back to model development teams generally under conditions of extreme time urgency. Corrected models form the essence of the completed transaction and firms undertaking model audit and review expose themselves to significant financial liability in the event of any remaining significant error. It is noteworthy that in the United Kingdom, the management of spreadsheet error is almost unheard of outside of the City of London despite the commercial ubiquity of the spreadsheet.
Comments on "Improved Efficient Remote User Authentication Schemes"
Venue: arXiv cs.CR 2007
Year: 2007

Recently, Tian et al presented an article, in which they discussed some security weaknesses of Yoon et al's scheme and subsequently proposed two ``improved'' schemes. In this paper, we show that the Tian et al's schemes are insecure and vulnerable than the Yoon et al's scheme.
Software (Re-)Engineering with PSF III: an IDE for PSF
Venue: arXiv cs.SE 2007
Year: 2007

We describe the design of an integrated development environment (IDE) for PSF. In the software engineering process we used process algebra in the form of PSF for the specification of the architecture of the IDE. This specification is refined to a PSF specification of the IDE system as a ToolBus application, by applying vertical and horizontal implementation techniques. We implemented the various tools as specified and connected them with a ToolBus script extracted from the system specification.
What is Community Informatics (and Why Does It Matter)?
Venue: arXiv cs.CY 2007
Year: 2007

Community Informatics (CI) is the application of information and communications technologies (ICTs) to enable community processes and the achievement of community objectives. CI goes beyond the "Digital Divide" to making ICT access usable and useful to excluded populations and communities for local economic development, social justice, and political empowerment. CI approaches ICTs from a "community" perspective and develops strategies and techniques for managing their use by communities both virtual and physical including the variety of Community Networking applications. CI assumes that both communities have characteristics, requirements, and opportunities that require different strategies for ICT intervention and development from individual access and use. Also, CI addresses ICT use in Developing Countries as well as among the poor, the marginalized, the elderly, or those living in remote locations in Developed Countries. CI is of interest both to ICT practitioners and academic researchers and addresses the connections between the policy and pragmatic issues arising from the tens of thousands of Community Networks, Community Technology Centres, Telecentres, Community Communications Centres, and Telecottages globally along with the rapidly emerging field of electronically based virtual "communities". Michael Gurstein, Ph.D. is Executive Director of the Centre for Community Informatics Research, Development and Training (Vancouver BC), a Director of The Information Society Institute, Cape Peninsula University of Technology, Cape Town South Africa; and Research Professor in the School of Computer and Information Systems at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark.
RZBENCH: Performance evaluation of current HPC architectures using low-level and application benchmarks
Venue: arXiv cs.DC 2007
Year: 2007

RZBENCH is a benchmark suite that was specifically developed to reflect the requirements of scientific supercomputer users at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg (FAU). It comprises a number of application and low-level codes under a common build infrastructure that fosters maintainability and expandability. This paper reviews the structure of the suite and briefly introduces the most relevant benchmarks. In addition, some widely known standard benchmark codes are reviewed in order to emphasize the need for a critical review of often-cited performance results. Benchmark data is presented for the HLRB-II at LRZ Munich and a local InfiniBand Woodcrest cluster as well as two uncommon system architectures: A bandwidth-optimized InfiniBand cluster based on single socket nodes ("Port Townsend") and an early version of Sun's highly threaded T2 architecture ("Niagara 2").
AccelKey Selection Method for Mobile Devices
Venue: arXiv cs.HC 2007
Year: 2007

Portable Electronic Devices usually utilize a small screen with limited viewing area and a keyboard with a limited number of keys. This makes it difficult to perform quick searches in data arrays containing more than dozen items such an address book or song list. In this article we present a new data selection method which allows the user to quickly select an entry from a list using 4-way navigation device such as joystick, trackball or 4-way key pad. This method allows for quick navigation using just one hand, without looking at the screen.
Protocols For Half-Duplex Multiple Relay Networks
Venue: arXiv cs.IT 2007
Year: 2007

In this paper we present several strategies for multiple relay networks which are constrained by a half-duplex operation, i. e., each node either transmits or receives on a particular resource. Using the discrete memoryless multiple relay channel we present achievable rates for a multilevel partial decode-and-forward approach which generalizes previous results presented by Kramer and Khojastepour et al.. Furthermore, we derive a compress-and-forward approach using a regular encoding scheme which simplifies the encoding and decoding scheme and improves the achievable rates in general. Finally, we give achievable rates for a mixed strategy used in a four-terminal network with alternately transmitting relay nodes.