bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Ultrastructure of penetration of Phaseolus spp. by Sclerotinia sclerotiorum
Authors: Tariq V. N. , Jeffries P.
Published: December 2009

The infection of leaf and stem tissues of Phaseolus by Sclerotinia sclerotiorum was studied using electron microscopy. Direct entry of the intact plant surface was achieved by hyphae from simple or compound appressoria. A closely appressed hyphal tip developed an electron-lucent region at the apex, in which a plasmalemmal invagination formed. This invagination surrounded a region of extracytoplasmic vesicular material which penetrated the cuticle during invasion. Penetration occurred by a narrow infection peg which passed through the cuticle via a narrow pore and caused little change in cuticle integrity. Once the cuticle was breached, a walled subcuticular vesicle developed from which infection hyphae spread laterally. Destruction of the epidermal cell walls was both rapid and extensive. Leaf and stem colonization occurred by intercellular growth of undifferentiated hyphae accompanied by cellular necrosis in advance of the mycelial front.
The identification and taxonomic significance of lophate pollen in the Compositae
Authors: Blackmore Stephen
Published: December 2009

Lophate pollen occurs in many members of tribes Arctoteae, Lactuceae, Mutisieae, and Vernonieae of the Compositae. Fifteen distinct patterns of echinolophate pollen and eight of psilolophate pollen are described and illustrated by scanning electron microscopy. A key is provided that enables the 23 patterns to be recognised. The full potential of lophate pollen as a source of taxonomic characters can only be achieved when the pattern of lophae present has been determined. The simple distinction between lophate and nonlophate pollen is rarely informative. The widespread occurrence of lophate pollen is attributed to convergent evolution and related to functional aspects of the pollen.
Taxonomic implications and evolutionary trends in pollen of Canadian Ericales
Authors: Warner Barry G. , Chinnappa C. C.
Published: December 2009

The pollen of 61 of about 80 taxa of Ericales that occur in Canada are described through the use of light and scanning electron microscopy. Five main pollen types are recognized: (I) compact tetrads in which the individual grains are not clearly delimited when rolled and viewed in all positions, and possessing costae endopori or costae endocolpi, (II) tetrads in which the individual grains are clearly and consistently delimited, occasionally possessing costae endopori or costae endocolpi, (III) a category in which grains within the tetrad are not consistently delimited, and lack costae endopori or costae endocolpi, (IV) loose tetrads in which individual grains are poorly fused, and (V) monads. A key identifies general morphological distinctions among the pollen groups or species. This survey of the pollen morphology of the Ericales supports conventional taxonomic treatments. We favour treatment of Monotropaceae and Pyrolaceae as separate families and suggest the elevation of Orthila secunda to its own monotypic family. The Clethraceae and Orthila secunda may be better treated outside the Ericales. We propose that the tetrad pollen of most Ericales is a derived condition from the more primitive trizonocolporate monad of the Cyrillaceae, Clethraceae, and Orthila secunda. Subfamily Vaccinioideae (Ericaceae) and Empetraceae, through subfamily Rhododendroideae (Ericaceae), to Pyrola and Moneses (Pyrolaceae), and finally to Chimaphila (Pyrolaceae) represent the evolutionary progression based on a trend from compact tetrads to loose individual grains within the tetrad. Finally the most advanced group is represented by the zonoaperturate monads of the Monotropaceae. This evolutionary progression based on pollen morphology is in accord with general principles of tetrad formation during microsporogenesis and with evolutionary relationships suggested by the macromorphology, phytochemistry, embryology, and degree of dependence on a fungal symbiont.
Convergence in some interesting pollen types of Phyllanthus (Euphorbiaceae)
Authors: Punt W.
Published: December 2009

Convergence in two groups of resembling pollen types (I, the "areolate" group; II, the group without ectoapertures and an inordinate ornamentation) was discussed. Both groups represent advanced pollen types with taxa in both the Old World and the New World. It is suggested that the resemblance between Old World pollen types and those of the New World has arisen in different ways.
Evolution of Menispermaceae
Authors: Thanikaimoni G.
Published: December 2009

The polarity of character states of pollen, leaf, endocarp, seed, perianth, androecium, and gynoecium within the Menispermaceae is established on the basis of maximum correlation of characters. Instances of parallel evolution are explained. The origin and spread of the different genera, which manifest the various combinations of character states, are analysed in the light of the position of the continents during the Cretaceous and Tertiary periods. Menispermaceae seem to have originated in the lowlands of Africa during the Cretaceous when South America, Africa, Madagascar, and India were close to one another. Consequent to the continental drift each land mass might have carried with it some elements of the primitive Menispermaceae which must have eventually given rise to the neoendemics. The Sino–Japanese spread of this family seems to have been post-Himalayan. "Malesia" appears to be a secondary centre of diversification of taxa derived from India. Cissampelos, Cocculus, and Stephania seem to have originated in India and entered Africa during the Miocene. The Eocene endocarps of North America show affinity with those of the London Clay, which in turn were probably derived from the African stock. Among the extant species of North America only Calycocarpum lyonii seems to be the relic of the North American Tertiary flora and the rest appear to have been derived from east Asia.
Inheritance of exine ornamentation and pollen shape in the interspecific tetraploid hybrids of Gloriosa
Authors: kumar C. Ravi , Nair P. K. K.
Published: December 2009

Scanning electron microscopy and light microscopy of the pollen of three tetraploid (2n = 44) species, Gloriosa virescens Lindle, G. carsonii Baker, and G. richmondensis Hort., and three of their hybrids showed that the pollen in Gloriosa L. fundamentally consists of three pollen shape types, spheroidal, ellipsoidal, and spindle shaped, having monocolpate aperture and a striate exine ornamentation pattern. The three parental species can be differentiated from each other on the basis of pollen shape and their characteristic striate exine ornamentation. However, in all three hybrids the composition of pollen shape suggests maternal inheritance of the character. Furthermore, in each of the three hybrids, new exine ornamentation features have appeared which differ from those of the other hybrids and from their respective parents. All the pollen grains in each of the hybrids are uniform with the same characteristic exine ornamentation. They show no segregation of exine features into the parental categories, which would be expected if exine ornamentation was under sporophytic control. The potential of exine features as genetic markers in hybrids is discussed.
FUNDAMENTAL MATRIX OF TRANSIENT QBD GENERATOR WITH FINITE STATES AND LEVEL DEPENDENT TRANSITIONS
Authors: SHIN YANG WOO
Published: December 2009

Fundamental matrix plays an important role in a finite-state Markov chain to find many characteristic values such as stationary distribution, expected amount of time spent in the transient state, absorption probabilities. In this paper, the fundamental matrix of the finite-state quasi-birth-and-death (QBD) process with absorbing state and level dependent transitions is considered. We show that each block component of the fundamental matrix can be expressed as a matrix product form and present an algorithm for computing the fundamental matrix. Some applications with numerical results are also presented.
DEPENDENCE OF CHARACTERISTIC DIODE PARAMETERS IN Ni/n-GaAs CONTACTS ON THERMAL ANNEALING AND SAMPLE TEMPERATURE
Authors: YILDIRIM N. , DOGAN H. , KORKUT H. , TURUT A.
Published: December 2009

We have prepared the sputtered Ni /n- GaAs Schottky diodes which consist of as-deposited, and diodes annealed at 200 and 400°C for 2 min. The effect of thermal annealing on the temperature-dependent current–voltage (I–V) characteristics of the diodes has been experimentally investigated. Their I–V characteristics have been measured in the temperature range of 60–320 K with steps of 20 K. It has been seen that the barrier height (BH) slightly increased from 0.84 (as-deposited sample) to 0.88 eV at 300 K when the contact has been annealed at 400°C. The SBH increased whereas the ideality factor decreased with increasing annealing temperature for each sample temperature. The I–V measurements showed a dependence of ideality factor n and BH on the measuring temperature that cannot be explained by the classical thermionic emission theory. The experimental data are consistent with the presence of an inhomogeneity of the SBHs. Therefore, the temperature dependent I–V characteristics of the diodes have been discussed in terms of the multi-Gaussian distribution model. The experimental data good have agree with the fitting curves over whole measurement temperature range indicating that the SBH inhomogeneity of our as-deposited and annealed Ni /n- GaAs SBDs can be well-described by a double-Gaussian distribution. The slope of the nT versus T plot for the samples has approached to unity with increasing annealing temperature and becomes parallel to that of the ideal Schottky contact behavior for the 400°C annealed diode. Thus, it has been concluded that the thermal annealing process translates the metal-semiconductor contacts into thermally stable Schottky contacts.
BÄCKLUND TRANSFORMATION OF A NON-ISOSPECTRAL KPESCS AND ITS NONLINEAR COUPLED SYSTEM
Authors: SUN YE-PENG , YU GUO-FU
Published: December 2009

A non-isospectral Kadomtsev–Petviashvili equation with self-consistent sources (KPESCS) is first derived by using the source generation procedure. Moreover, its bilinear Bäcklund transformation is obtained. Furthermore, a new nonlinear coupled system of the non-isospectral KPESCS and its exact solutions are established. The new coupled system cannot only be reduced to the non-isospectral KPESCS but can also be reduced to the coupled non-isospectral KP equation.
TWO (2+1)-DIMENSIONAL INTEGRABLE COUPLINGS OF THE KN HIERARCHY AND CORRESPONDING HAMILTONIAN STRUCTURES
Authors: YUE CHAO , LIU ZHAOJUN , YU JIADONG
Published: December 2009

A (2+1) zero curvature equation is generated from one of the reduced equations of the self-dual Yang–Mills equations. As its applications, two (2+1)-dimensional integrable couplings of the famous KN hierarchy are obtained with the help of a subalgebra of the Lie subalgebra R9, which can be reduced to the Burgers equation. Furthermore, their Hamiltonian structures are worked out by taking use of the quadratic-form identity and the variational identity, respectively.
FIRST INTEGRALS OF FIN EQUATIONS FOR STRAIGHT FINS
Authors: MOMONIAT E. , HARLEY C. , HAYAT T.
Published: December 2009

First integrals admitted by second-order nonlinear ordinary differential equations modeling the temperature distribution in a straight fin are obtained. After imposing the boundary conditions these first integrals give a relationship between temperature at the fin tip and the temperature gradient at the base of the fin in terms of the fin parameters. These first integrals are plotted and analyzed. The results obtained show how the temperature at the fin tip can be controlled by the temperature gradient at the base for fixed fin parameters.
EXACT SOLITARY-WAVE SOLUTIONS FOR THE NONLINEAR DISPERSIVE K(2,2,1) and K(3,3,1) EQUATIONS BY THE HOMOTOPY PERTURBATION METHOD
Authors: YILDIRIM AHMET
Published: December 2009

We implemented homotopy perturbation method for approximating the solution to the nonlinear dispersive K(m,n,1) type equations. By using this scheme, the explicit exact solution is calculated in the form of a quickly convergent series with easily computable components. To illustrate the application of this method, numerical results are derived by using the calculated components of the homotopy perturbation series.
TESTING FOR FEATURES IN THE PRIMORDIAL POWER SPECTRUM
Authors: HOI LOISON , CLINE JAMES M.
Published: December 2009

Well-known causality arguments show that events occurring during or at the end of inflation, associated with reheating or preheating, could contribute a blue component to the spectrum of primordial curvature perturbations, with the dependence k3. We explore the possibility that they could be observably large in CMB, LSS, and Lyman-α data. We find that a k3 component with a cutoff at some maximum k can modestly improve the fits (Δχ2 = 2.0, 5.4) of the low multipoles (ℓ ~ 10–50) or the second peak (ℓ ~ 540) of the CMB angular spectrum when the three-year WMAP data are used. Moreover, the results from WMAP are consistent with the CBI, ACBAR, 2dFGRS, and SDSS data when they are included in the analysis. Including the SDSS galaxy clustering power spectrum, we find weak positive evidence for the k3 component at the level of Δχ2′ = 2.4, with the caveat that the nonlinear evolution of the power spectrum may not be properly treated in the presence of the k3 distortion. To investigate the high-k regime, we use the Lyman-α forest data (LUQAS, Croft et al., and SDSS Lyman-α); here we find evidence at the level Δχ2′ = 3.8. Considering that there are two additional free parameters in the model, the above results do not give a strong evidence for features; however, they show that surprisingly large bumps are not ruled out. We give constraints on the ratio between the k3 component and the nearly scale-invariant component, r3 < 1.5, over the range of wave numbers 2.3 × 10-3 Mpc -1 < k < 8.2 Mpc -1. We also discuss theoretical models which could lead to the k3 effect, including ordinary hybrid inflation and double D-term inflation models. We show that the well-motivated k3 component is also a good representative of the generic spikelike feature in the primordial perturbation power spectrum.
THE RESEARCH PROGRESS OF BNU GROUP ON RELATIVE WIDTHS
Authors: LIU YONG-PING , XIAO WEI-WEI , YANG WEI
Published: December 2009

In this paper, we consider the relative n-widths of two kinds of periodic convolution classes, [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text], whose convolution kernels K and G are NCVD-kernel and B-kernel. The asymptotic estimations of [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] are obtained for p = 1 and ∞, 1 ≤ q ≤ ∞. We also defined a new concept of the average relative widths and obtained the exact results of the average relative widths of the classes of some smooth functions in L2(Rd).
LEARNING RATES OF REGULARIZED REGRESSION FOR FUNCTIONAL DATA
Authors: XU YONG-LI , CHEN DI-RONG
Published: December 2009

The study of regularized learning algorithms is a very important issue and functional data analysis extends classical methods. We establish the learning rates of the least square regularized regression algorithm in reproducing kernel Hilbert space for functional data. With the iteration method, we obtain fast learning rate for functional data. Our result is a natural extension for least square regularized regression algorithm when the dimension of input data is finite.
ANALYSIS OF MESENCHYMAL STEM CELL DIFFERENTIATION IN VITRO USING CLASSIFICATION ASSOCIATION RULE MINING
Authors: WANG WEIQI , WANG YANBO JUSTIN , BAÑARES-ALCÁNTARA RENÉ , COENEN FRANS , CUI ZHANFENG
Published: December 2009

In this paper, data mining is used to analyze the data on the differentiation of mammalian Mesenchymal Stem Cells (MSCs), aiming at discovering known and hidden rules governing MSC differentiation, following the establishment of a web-based public database containing experimental data on the MSC proliferation and differentiation. To this effect, a web-based public interactive database comprising the key parameters which influence the fate and destiny of mammalian MSCs has been constructed and analyzed using Classification Association Rule Mining (CARM) as a data-mining technique. The results show that the proposed approach is technically feasible and performs well with respect to the accuracy of (classification) prediction. Key rules mined from the constructed MSC database are consistent with experimental observations, indicating the validity of the method developed and the first step in the application of data mining to the study of MSCs.
Symmetric architecture modeling with a single image
Authors: Jiang Nianjuan , Tan Ping , Cheong Loong-Fah
Published: December 2009

We present a method to recover a 3D texture-mapped architecture model from a single image. Both single image based modeling and architecture modeling are challenging problems. We handle these difficulties by employing constraints derived from shape symmetries, which are prevalent in architecture. We first present a novel algorithm to calibrate the camera from a single image by exploiting symmetry. Then a set of 3D points is recovered according to the calibration and the underlying symmetry. With these reconstructed points, the user interactively marks out components of the architecture structure, whose shapes and positions are automatically determined according to the 3D points. Lastly, we texture the 3D model according to the input image, and we enhance the texture quality at those foreshortened and occluded regions according to their symmetric counterparts. The modeling process requires only a few minutes interaction. Multiple examples are provided to demonstrate the presented method.
Patch-based image vectorization with automatic curvilinear feature alignment
Authors: Xia Tian , Liao Binbin , Yu Yizhou
Published: December 2009

Raster image vectorization is increasingly important since vector-based graphical contents have been adopted in personal computers and on the Internet. In this paper, we introduce an effective vector-based representation and its associated vectorization algorithm for full-color raster images. There are two important characteristics of our representation. First, the image plane is decomposed into nonoverlapping parametric triangular patches with curved boundaries. Such a simplicial layout supports a flexible topology and facilitates adaptive patch distribution. Second, a subset of the curved patch boundaries are dedicated to faithfully representing curvilinear features. They are automatically aligned with the features. Because of this, patches are expected to have moderate internal variations that can be well approximated using smooth functions. We have developed effective techniques for patch boundary optimization and patch color fitting to accurately and compactly approximate raster images with both smooth variations and curvilinear features. A real-time GPU-accelerated parallel algorithm based on recursive patch subdivision has also been developed for rasterizing a vectorized image. Experiments and comparisons indicate our image vectorization algorithm achieves a more accurate and compact vector-based representation than existing ones do.
Optimized image resizing using seam carving and scaling
Authors: Dong Weiming , Zhou Ning , Paul Jean-Claude , Zhang Xiaopeng
Published: December 2009

We present a novel method for content-aware image resizing based on optimization of a well-defined image distance function, which preserves both the important regions and the global visual effect (the background or other decorative objects) of an image. The method operates by joint use of seam carving and image scaling. The principle behind our method is the use of a bidirectional similarity function of image Euclidean distance (IMED), while cooperating with a dominant color descriptor (DCD) similarity and seam energy variation. The function is suitable for the quantitative evaluation of the resizing result and the determination of the best seam carving number. Different from the previous simplex-mode approaches, our method takes the advantages of both discrete and continuous methods. The technique is useful in image resizing for both reduction/retargeting and enlarging. We also show that this approach can be extended to indirect image resizing.
A system for retargeting of streaming video
Authors: Krähenbühl Philipp , Lang Manuel , Hornung Alexander , Gross Markus
Published: December 2009

We present a novel, integrated system for content-aware video retargeting. A simple and interactive framework combines key frame based constraint editing with numerous automatic algorithms for video analysis. This combination gives content producers high level control of the retargeting process. The central component of our framework is a non-uniform, pixel-accurate warp to the target resolution which considers automatic as well as interactively defined features. Automatic features comprise video saliency, edge preservation at the pixel resolution, and scene cut detection to enforce bilateral temporal coherence. Additional high level constraints can be added by the producer to guarantee a consistent scene composition across arbitrary output formats. For high quality video display we adopted a 2D version of EWA splatting eliminating aliasing artifacts known from previous work. Our method seamlessly integrates into postproduction and computes the reformatting in real-time. This allows us to retarget annotated video streams at a high quality to arbitary aspect ratios while retaining the intended cinematographic scene composition. For evaluation we conducted a user study which revealed a strong viewer preference for our method.
Webcam clip art
Authors: Lalonde Jean-François , Efros Alexei A. , Narasimhan Srinivasa G.
Published: December 2009

Webcams placed all over the world observe and record the visual appearance of a variety of outdoor scenes over long periods of time. The recorded time-lapse image sequences cover a wide range of illumination and weather conditions -- a vast untapped resource for creating visual realism. In this work, we propose to use a large repository of webcams as a "clip art" library from which users may transfer scene appearance (objects, scene backdrops, outdoor illumination) into their own time-lapse sequences or even single photographs. The goal is to combine the recent ideas from data-driven appearance transfer techniques with a general and theoretically-grounded physically-based illumination model. To accomplish this, the paper presents three main research contributions: 1) a new, high-quality outdoor webcam database that has been calibrated radiometrically and geometrically; 2) a novel approach for matching illuminations across different scenes based on the estimation of the properties of natural illuminants (sun, sky, weather and clouds), the camera geometry, and illumination-dependent scene features; 3) a new algorithm for generating physically plausible high dynamic range environment maps for each frame in a webcam sequence.
Micro-rendering for scalable, parallel final gathering
Authors: Ritschel T. , Engelhardt T. , Grosch T. , Seidel H.-P. , Kautz J. , Dachsbacher C.
Published: December 2009

Recent approaches to global illumination for dynamic scenes achieve interactive frame rates by using coarse approximations to geometry, lighting, or both, which limits scene complexity and rendering quality. High-quality global illumination renderings of complex scenes are still limited to methods based on ray tracing. While conceptually simple, these techniques are computationally expensive. We present an efficient and scalable method to compute global illumination solutions at interactive rates for complex and dynamic scenes. Our method is based on parallel final gathering running entirely on the GPU. At each final gathering location we perform
micro-rendering:
we traverse and rasterize a hierarchical point-based scene representation into an importance-warped
micro-buffer
, which allows for BRDF importance sampling. The final reflected radiance is computed at each gathering location using the micro-buffers and is then stored in image-space. We can trade quality for speed by reducing the sampling rate of the gathering locations in conjunction with bilateral upsampling. We demonstrate the applicability of our method to interactive global illumination, the simulation of multiple indirect bounces, and to final gathering from photon maps.
Stochastic progressive photon mapping
Authors: Hachisuka Toshiya , Jensen Henrik Wann
Published: December 2009

This paper presents a simple extension of progressive photon mapping for simulating global illumination with effects such as depth-of-field, motion blur, and glossy reflections. Progressive photon mapping is a robust global illumination algorithm that can handle complex illumination settings including specular-diffuse-specular paths. The algorithm can compute the correct radiance value at a point in the limit. However, progressive photon mapping is not effective at rendering distributed ray tracing effects, such as depth-of-field, that requires multiple pixel samples in order to compute the correct average radiance value over a region. In this paper, we introduce a new formulation of progressive photon mapping, called stochastic progressive photon mapping, which makes it possible to compute the correct average radiance value for a region. The key idea is to use shared photon statistics within the region rather than isolated photon statistics at a point. The algorithm is easy to implement, and our results demonstrate how it efficiently handles scenes with distributed ray tracing effects, while maintaining the robustness of progressive photon mapping in scenes with complex lighting.
Fast motion deblurring
Authors: Cho Sunghyun , Lee Seungyong
Published: December 2009

This paper presents a fast deblurring method that produces a deblurring result from a single image of moderate size in a few seconds. We accelerate both latent image estimation and kernel estimation in an iterative deblurring process by introducing a novel prediction step and working with image derivatives rather than pixel values. In the prediction step, we use simple image processing techniques to predict strong edges from an estimated latent image, which will be solely used for kernel estimation. With this approach, a computationally efficient Gaussian prior becomes sufficient for deconvolution to estimate the latent image, as small deconvolution artifacts can be suppressed in the prediction. For kernel estimation, we formulate the optimization function using image derivatives, and accelerate the numerical process by reducing the number of Fourier transforms needed for a conjugate gradient method. We also show that the formulation results in a smaller condition number of the numerical system than the use of pixel values, which gives faster convergence. Experimental results demonstrate that our method runs an order of magnitude faster than previous work, while the deblurring quality is comparable. GPU implementation facilitates further speed-up, making our method fast enough for practical use.
RenderAnts
Authors: Zhou Kun , Hou Qiming , Ren Zhong , Gong Minmin , Sun Xin , Guo Baining
Published: December 2009

We present RenderAnts, the first system that enables interactive Reyes rendering on GPUs. Taking RenderMan scenes and shaders as input, our system first compiles RenderMan shaders to GPU shaders. Then all stages of the basic Reyes pipeline, including bounding/splitting, dicing, shading, sampling, compositing and filtering, are executed on GPUs using carefully designed data-parallel algorithms. Advanced effects such as shadows, motion blur and depth-of-field can also be rendered. In order to avoid exhausting GPU memory, we introduce a novel dynamic scheduling algorithm to bound the memory consumption during rendering. The algorithm automatically adjusts the amount of data being processed in parallel at each stage so that all data can be maintained in the available GPU memory. This allows our system to maximize the parallelism in all individual stages of the pipeline and achieve superior performance. We also propose a multi-GPU scheduling technique based on work stealing so that the system can support scalable rendering on multiple GPUs. The scheduler is designed to minimize inter-GPU communication and balance workloads among GPUs.

We demonstrate the potential of RenderAnts using several complex RenderMan scenes and an open source movie entitled Elephants Dream. Compared to Pixar's PRMan, our system can generate images of comparably high quality, but is over one order of magnitude faster. For moderately complex scenes, the system allows the user to change the viewpoint, lights and materials while producing photorealistic results at interactive speed.
Emerging images
Authors: Mitra Niloy J. , Chu Hung-Kuo , Lee Tong-Yee , Wolf Lior , Yeshurun Hezy , Cohen-Or Daniel
Published: December 2009

Emergence refers to the unique human ability to aggregate information from seemingly meaningless pieces, and to perceive a whole that is meaningful. This special skill of humans can constitute an effective scheme to tell humans and machines apart. This paper presents a synthesis technique to generate images of 3D objects that are detectable by humans, but difficult for an automatic algorithm to recognize. The technique allows generating an infinite number of images with emerging figures. Our algorithm is designed so that locally the synthesized images divulge little useful information or cues to assist any segmentation or recognition procedure. Therefore, as we demonstrate, computer vision algorithms are incapable of effectively processing such images. However, when a human observer is presented with an emergence image, synthesized using an object she is familiar with, the figure emerges when observed as a whole. We can control the difficulty level of perceiving the emergence effect through a limited set of parameters. A procedure that synthesizes emergence images can be an effective tool for exploring and understanding the factors affecting computer vision techniques.
Consolidation of unorganized point clouds for surface reconstruction
Authors: Huang Hui , Li Dan , Zhang Hao , Ascher Uri , Cohen-Or Daniel
Published: December 2009

We consolidate an unorganized point cloud with noise, outliers, non-uniformities, and in particular interference between close-by surface sheets as a preprocess to surface generation, focusing on reliable normal estimation. Our algorithm includes two new developments. First, a
weighted locally optimal projection
operator produces a set of denoised, outlier-free and evenly distributed particles over the original dense point cloud, so as to improve the reliability of local PCA for initial estimate of normals. Next, an iterative framework for robust normal estimation is introduced, where a priority-driven normal propagation scheme based on a new priority measure and an orientation-aware PCA work complementarily and iteratively to consolidate particle normals. The priority setting is reinforced with front stopping at thin surface features and normal flipping to enable robust handling of the close-by surface sheet problem. We demonstrate how a point cloud that is well-consolidated by our method steers conventional surface generation schemes towards a proper interpretation of the input data.
The recovery of a schema mapping
Authors: Arenas Marcelo , Pérez Jorge , Riveros Cristian
Published: December 2009

A schema mapping is a specification that describes how data from a source schema is to be mapped to a target schema. Once the data has been transferred from the source to the target, a natural question is whether one can undo the process and recover the initial data, or at least part of it. In fact, it would be desirable to find a
reverse
schema mapping from target to source that specifies how to bring the exchanged data back.

In this article, we introduce the notion of a recovery of a schema mapping: it is a reverse mapping, M′ for a mapping M, that recovers sound data with respect to M. We further introduce an order relation on recoveries. This allows us to choose mappings that recover the maximum amount of sound information. We call such mappings maximum recoveries. We study maximum recoveries in detail, providing a necessary and sufficient condition for their existence. In particular, we prove that maximum recoveries exist for the class of mappings specified by FO-to-CQ source-to-target dependencies. This class subsumes the class of source-to-target tuple-generating dependencies used in previous work on data exchange. For the class of mappings specified by FO-to-CQ dependencies, we provide an exponential-time algorithm for computing maximum recoveries, and a simplified version for full dependencies that works in quadratic time. We also characterize the language needed to express maximum recoveries, and we include a detailed comparison with the notion of inverse (and quasi-inverse) mapping previously proposed in the data exchange literature. In particular, we show that maximum recoveries strictly generalize inverses. We finally study the complexity of some decision problems related to the notions of recovery and maximum recovery.
Efficient algorithms for genome-wide association study
Authors: Zhang Xiang , Zou Fei , Wang Wei
Published: December 2009

Studying the association between quantitative phenotype (such as height or weight) and single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) is an important problem in biology. To understand underlying mechanisms of complex phenotypes, it is often necessary to consider joint genetic effects across multiple SNPs. ANOVA (analysis of variance) test is routinely used in association study. Important findings from studying gene-gene (SNP-pair) interactions are appearing in the literature. However, the number of SNPs can be up to millions. Evaluating joint effects of SNPs is a challenging task even for SNP-pairs. Moreover, with large number of SNPs correlated, permutation procedure is preferred over simple Bonferroni correction for properly controlling family-wise error rate and retaining mapping power, which dramatically increases the computational cost of association study.

In this article, we study the problem of finding SNP-pairs that have significant associations with a given quantitative phenotype. We propose an efficient algorithm, FastANOVA, for performing ANOVA tests on SNP-pairs in a batch mode, which also supports large permutation test. We derive an upper bound of SNP-pair ANOVA test, which can be expressed as the sum of two terms. The first term is based on single-SNP ANOVA test. The second term is based on the SNPs and independent of any phenotype permutation. Furthermore, SNP-pairs can be organized into groups, each of which shares a common upper bound. This allows for maximum reuse of intermediate computation, efficient upper bound estimation, and effective SNP-pair pruning. Consequently, FastANOVA only needs to perform the ANOVA test on a small number of candidate SNP-pairs without the risk of missing any significant ones. Extensive experiments demonstrate that FastANOVA is orders of magnitude faster than the brute-force implementation of ANOVA tests on all SNP pairs. The principles used in FastANOVA can be applied to categorical phenotypes and other statistics such as Chi-square test.
A layered structure for uniform version management in component based systems
Authors: Kaur Parminder , Singh Hardeep
Published: December 2009

The prerequisite of component-based systems is to manage the life-cycle evolution of software components. As there are multiple versions of constituent components, a need exists to keep track of them. Various version control systems, either in the form of open-source or commercial, are available in the market to maintain the evolution history of multiple versions of constituent components with respect to component-based applications. This paper dis-cusses the requirements of a version control framework and then presents a generic framework that can handle multiple versions of different types of components. The prototype framework named as Visual Version Control Tool (VVCT), for the management of life-cycle evolution of heterogeneous component systems, is developed and tested using .NET environment. The developed tool satisfies all the conditions required for uniform version management and also becomes the basis for version model, which can be used to control the different revisions or variants of the same component in the evolving system.
An efficient asynchronous mobile web service framework
Authors: Singh Ranjit , Mishra Shakti , Kushwaha D. S.
Published: December 2009

The popularity of web services within the IT industry continuous to grow. Accessing web services from a small device is very com-mon these days. There are number of challenges to access a web services on mobile device due to its limited resources and the lack of bandwidth in its communication network. In Mobile devices, Synchronous web services are not feasible. It makes the user wait while each Web service processes requests and returns results. Asynchronous Web services invocation solves this performance issue and enhances the end user experience by increasing server efficiency. The architecture of asynchronous web services is con-trollable and monitor able. In order to enhance the efficiency of a mobile web services, we have created a bridge between telephony application and web application. We integrate the telecommunica-tion facility and asynchronous invocation of web services. It ex-poses telephony services as web services, so that web application can easily access telecommunication facilities through SMS messaging.
Research on software design level security vulnerabilities
Authors: Rehman S. , Mustafa K.
Published: December 2009

One of the major problems in software security is the lack of knowledge about security among software developers. Even if a developer has good knowledge about current software vulnerabilities, they generally have little or no idea about the causes and measures that can avoid those vulnerabilities. Now it is established fact that most of the vulnerabilities arise in design phase of the software development lifecycle. Keeping in view the importance of software design level security, a study of current software design level vulnerabilities and their cause is conducted. In this paper, we discuss current practices in specific software design tasks, vulnerabilities and mitigation mechanism. On the basis of the critical review, areas of research are identified that warrant further investigation.
Slicing-based test case generation from UML activity diagrams
Authors: Samuel Philip , Mall Rajib
Published: December 2009

UML diagrams are important design and modeling artifacts. These diagrams can also be used to generate test cases. We present a novel test case generation method that is based on dynamic slicing of UML activity diagrams. We use flow dependence graph (FDG) of an activity diagram to generate dynamic slices. Dynamic slices are created using an edge marking method. Slices are constructed corresponding to each conditional predicate on activity edges and test cases are automatically generated with respect to each slice. Our generated test cases satisfy path coverage criterion. Our test data generation scheme is automatic and the test data is generated considering the slice condition. We have implemented our approach to realize a prototype tool.
Do Serious Games Work? Results from Three Studies
Authors: Blunt Richard
Published: December 2009

Three studies in higher education look at whether serious games (or video games whose primary purpose is something other than entertainment, such as military training, education, physical therapy) really do change learning outcomes.
Towards a biologically-inspired framework for multimedia service management
Authors: Hossain M. Shamim , El Saddik Abdulmotaleb
Published: December 2009

The advent of service-oriented architecture (SOA), internet and ubiquitous delivery tech-nology has resulted in multimedia services (e.g. repurposing, streaming and conferencing services) being accessible at any time, from any device, through any network. However, there are still some problems related to heterogeneity, scalability and QoS demand of the management of such multimedia services. Some of the existing solutions are centralized, which evolve scalability problems in terms of the number of concurrent requests for the target service composition. Other solutions are distributed, which depend on the use of traditional algorithms (e.g. Dijkstra, Bellman Ford). Such distributed solutions also use replicated services, which can also result in scalability problems for large networks. In order to mitigate the above problems, this dissertation proposes a framework for multimedia service management that is based on a biologically-inspired approach. It utilizes an ant-colony-based selection algorithm for collecting the QoS requirements from the individual repurposing service in order to select the most suitable one for the desired composition process, which ensures higher scalability and efficient load balancing. It also develops a QoS-aware service selection algorithm for a multimedia repurposing service. The proposed framework's performance is validated through both simulation and proto-type implementation.
Social learning and technical capital on the social web
Authors: Yardi Sarita
Published: December 2009

The social Web is a set of ties that enable people to socialize online, a phenomenon that has existed since the early days of the Internet in environments like IRC, MUDs, and Usenet (e.g. 4, 12). People used these media in much the same way they do now: to communicate with existing friends and to meet new ones. The fundamental difference was the scale, scope, and diversity of participation.
Functional Organization of the Porosome Complex and Associated Structures Facilitating Cellular Secretion
Authors: Jena Bhanu P.
Published: December 2009

Porosomes, the universal secretory machinery at the cell plasma membrane, are cup-shaped supramolecular lipoprotein structures, where membrane-bound vesicles transiently dock and fuse to release intravesicular contents during cell secretion. In this review, the discovery of the porosome and its structure, dynamics, composition, and functional reconstitution are outlined. Furthermore, the architecture of porosome-like structures such as the “canaliculi system” in human platelets and various associated structures such as the T-bars at the Drosophila synapse or the “beams,” “ribs,” and “pegs” at the frog neuromuscular junction, each organized to facilitate a certain specialized secretory activity, are briefly discussed.
Islet Inflammation Impairs the Pancreatic β-Cell in Type 2 Diabetes
Authors: Donath Marc Y. , Böni-Schnetzler Marianne , Ellingsgaard Helga , Ehses Jan A.
Published: December 2009

Onset of Type 2 diabetes occurs when the pancreatic β-cell fails to adapt to the increased insulin demand caused by insulin resistance. Morphological and therapeutic intervention studies have uncovered an inflammatory process in islets of patients with Type 2 diabetes characterized by the presence of cytokines, immune cells, β-cell apoptosis, amyloid deposits, and fibrosis. This insulitis is due to a pathological activation of the innate immune system by metabolic stress and governed by IL-1 signaling. We propose that this insulitis contributes to the decrease in β-cell mass and the impaired insulin secretion observed in patients with Type 2 diabetes.
A Survey of Flow Cytometry Data Analysis Methods
Authors: Bashashati Ali , Brinkman Ryan R.
Published: December 2009

Flow cytometry (FCM) is widely used in health research and in treatment for a variety of tasks, such as in the diagnosis and monitoring of leukemia and lymphoma patients, providing the counts of helper-T lymphocytes needed to monitor the course and treatment of HIV infection, the evaluation of peripheral blood hematopoietic stem cell grafts, and many other diseases. In practice, FCM data analysis is performed manually, a process that requires an inordinate amount of time and is error-prone, nonreproducible, nonstandardized, and not open for re-evaluation, making it the most limiting aspect of this technology. This paper reviews state-of-the-art FCM data analysis approaches using a framework introduced to report each of the components in a data analysis pipeline. Current challenges and possible future directions in developing fully automated FCM data analysis tools are also outlined.
Calculation and Comparison of Energy Interaction and Intensity Parameters for the Interaction of Nd(III) with DL-Valine, DL-Alanine and β-Alanine in Presence and Absence of Ca2+/Zn2+ in Aqueous and Different Aquated Organic Solvents Using 4f-4f Transition Spectra as Probe
Authors: Debecca Devi H. , Sumitra Ch. , David Singh Th. , Yaiphaba N. , Mohondas Singh N. , Rajmuhon Singh N.
Published: December 2009

Absorption difference and comparative absorption spectrophotometric studies involving 4f-4f transitions of Nd(III) and different amino acids: DL-valine, DL-alanine, and β-alanine in presence and absence of Ca(II) and Zn(II) in aqueous and different aquated organic solvents have been carried out. Variations in the spectral energy parameters: Slater-Condon (FK) factor, Racah (EK), Lande factor (ξ4f), nephelauxetic ratio (β), bonding (b1/2), percentage covalency (δ) are calculated to explore the mode of interaction of Nd(III) with different amino acids: DL-valine, DL-alanine, and β-alanine. The values of experimentally calculated oscillator strength (P) and computed values of Judd-Ofelt electric dipole intensity parameters, Tλ (λ = 2,4,6), are also determined for different 4f-4f transitions. The variation in the values of P and Tλ parameters explicitly shows the relative sensitivities of the 4f-4f transitions as well as the specific correlation between relative intensities, ligand structures, and nature of Nd(III)-ligand interaction.
Bounds for Certain Nonlinear Dynamic Inequalities on Time Scales
Authors: Li Wei Nian , Han Maoan
Published: December 2009

We investigate some new nonlinear dynamic inequalities on time scales. Our results unify and extend some integral inequalities and their corresponding discrete analogues. The inequalities given here can be used to investigate the properties of
certain dynamic equations on time scales.
Challenges for Biomarker Discovery in Body Fluids Using SELDI-TOF-MS
Authors: De Bock Muriel , de Seny Dominique , Meuwis Marie-Alice , Chapelle Jean-Paul , Louis Edouard , Malaise Michel , Merville Marie-Paule , Fillet Marianne
Published: December 2009

Protein profiling using SELDI-TOF-MS has gained over the past few years an increasing interest in the field of biomarker discovery. The technology presents great potential if some parameters, such as sample handling, SELDI settings, and data analysis, are strictly controlled. Practical considerations to set up a robust and sensitive strategy for biomarker discovery are presented. This paper also reviews biological fluids generally available including a description of their peculiar properties and the preanalytical challenges inherent to sample collection and storage. Finally, some new insights for biomarker identification and validation challenges are provided.