bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Ordering
circuit establishment in multiplane NoCs
Authors: Abousamra Ahmed , Jones Alex K. , Melhem Rami
Published: November 2013

Segregating networks-on-chips (NoCs) into data and control planes yields several opportunities for improving power and performance in chip-multiprocessor systems (CMPs). This article describes a hybrid packet/circuit switched multiplane network optimized to reduce latency in order to improve system performance and/or reduce system energy. Unlike traditional circuit preallocation techniques which require timestamps to reserve circuit resources, this article proposes an
order-based preallocation scheme
. By enforcing the order in which resources are scheduled and utilized rather than a fixed time, the NoC can take advantage of messages that arrive early while naturally tolerating message delays due to contention. Ordered circuit establishment is presented using two techniques. First,
Déjà Vu switching
preestablishes circuits for data messages once a cache hit is detected and prior to the requested data becoming available. Second, using
Red Carpet Routing
, circuits are proactively reserved for a return data message as a request message traverses the NoC. The reduced communication latency over configured circuits enable system performance improvement or saving NoC energy by reducing voltage and frequency without sacrificing performance. In simulations of 16 and 64 core CMPs,
Déjà Vu switching
enabled average NoC energy savings of 43% and 53% respectively. On the other hand, simulations of communication sensitive benchmarks using
Red Carpet Routing
show speedup in execution time of up to 16%, with an average of 10% over a purely packet switched NoC and an average of 8% over preconfiguring circuits using
Déjà Vu switching
.
Listening in the moment
Authors: Brennan Patti , Swanberg Wendy
Published: November 2013

This forum is dedicated to personal health in all its many facets: decision-making, goal setting, celebration, discovery, reflection, and coordination, among others. We'll look at innovations in interactive technologies and how they help address current critical healthcare challenges.

Gillian R. Hayes, Editor
Dynamic power management for multidomain system-on-chip platforms
Authors: Bogdan Paul , Marculescu Radu , Jain Siddharth
Published: November 2013

Reducing energy consumption in multiprocessor systems-on-chip (MPSoCs) where communication happens via the network-on-chip (NoC) approach calls for multiple voltage/frequency island (VFI)-based designs. In turn, such multi-VFI architectures need efficient, robust, and accurate runtime control mechanisms that can exploit the workload characteristics in order to save power. Despite being tractable, the linear control models for power management cannot capture some important workload characteristics (e.g., fractality, nonstationarity) observed in heterogeneous NoCs; if ignored, such characteristics lead to inefficient communication and resources allocation, as well as high power dissipation in MPSoCs. To mitigate such limitations, we propose a new paradigm shift from power optimization based on linear models to control approaches based on fractal-state equations. As such, our approach is the first to propose a controller for fractal workloads with precise constraints on state and control variables and specific time bounds. Our results show that significant power savings can be achieved at runtime while running a variety of benchmark applications.
In-network monitoring and control policy for DVFS of CMP networks-on-chip and last level caches
Authors: Chen Xi , Xu Zheng , Kim Hyungjun , Gratz Paul , Hu Jiang , Kishinevsky Michael , Ogras Umit
Published: November 2013

In chip design today and for a foreseeable future, the last-level cache and on-chip interconnect is not only performance critical but also a substantial power consumer. This work focuses on employing dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (DVFS) policies for networks-on-chip (NoC) and shared, distributed last-level caches (LLC). In particular, we consider a practical system architecture where the distributed LLC and the NoC share a voltage/frequency domain that is separate from the core domain. This architecture enables the control of the relative speed between the cores and memory hierarchy without introducing synchronization delays within the NoC. DVFS for this architecture is more complex than individual link/core-based DVFS since it involves spatially distributed monitoring and control. We propose an average memory access time (AMAT)-based monitoring technique and integrate it with DVFS based on PID control theory. Simulations on PARSEC benchmarks yield a 27% energy savings with a negligible impact on system performance.
Enabling energy efficient reliability in embedded systems through smart cache cleaning
Authors: Jeyapaul Reiley , Shrivastava Aviral
Published: November 2013

Incessant and rapid technology scaling has brought us to a point where today's, and future transistors are susceptible to transient errors induced by energy carrying particles, called
soft errors
. Within a processor, the sheer size and nature of data in the caches render it most vulnerable to electrical interference on data stored in the cache. Data in the cache is
vulnerable
to corruption by soft errors, for the time it remains actively unused in the cache. Write-through and early-write-back [Li et al. 2004] cache configurations reduce the time for vulnerable data in the cache, at the cost of increased memory writes and thereby energy. We propose a
smart
cache cleaning methodology, that enables copying of only specific vulnerable cache blocks into the memory at chosen times, thereby ensuring data cache protection with minimal memory writes. In this work, we first propose a hybrid (software-hardware) methodology. We then propose an improved software solution that utilizes cache write-back functionality available in commodity processors; thereby reducing the hardware overhead required to implement smart cache cleaning for such systems. The parameters involved in the implementation of our Smart Cache Cleaning (SCC) technique enable a means to provide for customizable energy-efficient soft error reduction in the L1 data cache. Given the system requirements of reliability, power-budget and runtime priority of the application, appropriate parameters of the SCC can be customized to trade-off power consumption and L1 data cache reliability. Our experiments over LINPACK and Livermore benchmarks demonstrate 26% reduced energy-vulnerability product (energy-efficient vulnerability reduction) compared to that of hardware based cache reliability techniques. Our software-only solution achieves same levels of reliability with an additional 28% performance improvement.
A novel differential scan attack on advanced DFT structures
Authors: Rolt Jean Da , Natale Giorgio Di , Flottes Marie-Lise , Rouzeyre Bruno
Published: November 2013

Scan chains insertion is the most common technique to ensure the testability of digital cores, providing high fault coverage. However, for ICs dealing with secret information, scan chains can be used as back doors for accessing secret data thus becoming a threat to system security. So far, advanced test structures used to reduce test costs (e.g., response compaction) and achieve high fault coverage (e.g., X's masking decoder) have been considered as intrinsic countermeasures against these threats. This work proposes a new generic scan-based attack demonstrating that these test structures are not sufficiently effective to prevent leakage through the test infrastructure. This generic attack can be easily adapted to several cryptographic implementations for both symmetric and public key algorithms. The proposed attack is demonstrated on several ciphers.
A parallel dual-scanline algorithm for partitioning parameterized 45-degree polygons
Authors: Chang Yao-Lin , Tseng I-Lun
Published: November 2013

In order to use rectangular corner stitching data structures in storing parameterized orthogonal layouts, parameterized polygons in the layouts must be partitioned into rectangles. Likewise, in order to use trapezoidal corner stitching data structures in storing parameterized 45-degree layouts, parameterized polygons in the layouts have to be partitioned into trapezoids. In this article, a parallel polygon partitioning algorithm is proposed; the algorithm is capable of partitioning parameterized orthogonal polygons into parameterized rectangles as well as partitioning parameterized 45-degree polygons into parameterized trapezoids. Additionally, the algorithm can be used to partition fixed-coordinate polygons. By adopting the dual-scanline technique, which involves using two scanlines to concurrently sweep an input polygon, the parallel partitioning algorithm can process vertices and edges of the input polygon efficiently. The parallel polygon partitioning algorithm has been implemented in C++ with the use of OpenMP. Compared with a sequential partitioning program which uses a single scanline, our parallel partitioning program can achieve 20% to 30% speedup while partitioning large parameterized polygons or partitioning parameterized polygons with complex constraints.
A routing algorithm for graphene nanoribbon circuit
Authors: Yan Tan , Ma Qiang , Chilstedt Scott , Wong Martin D. F. , Chen Deming
Published: November 2013

Conventional CMOS devices are facing an increasing number of challenges as their feature sizes scale down. Graphene nanoribbon (GNR) based devices are shown to be a promising replacement of traditional CMOS at future technology nodes. However, all previous works on GNRs focus at the device level. In order to integrate these devices into electronic systems, routing becomes a key issue. In this article, the GNR routing problem is studied for the first time. We formulate the GNR routing problem as a minimum hybrid-cost shortest path problem on triangular mesh (“hybrid” means that we need to consider both the length and the bending of the routing path). We show that by graph expansion, this minimum hybrid-cost shortest path problem can be solved by applying the conventional shortest path algorithm on the expanded graph. Experimental results show that our GNR routing algorithm effectively handles the hybrid cost.
Making instructions for others
Authors: Phillips Robert , Lockton Dan , Baurley Sharon , Silve Sarah
Published: November 2013

Models help bridge the gap between observing and making---especially when systems are involved (as in designing for interaction, service, and evolution). This forum introduces new models, links them to existing models, and describes their histories and why they matter.

Hugh Dubberly, Editor
Fine-grained semi-supervised labeling of large shape collections
Authors: Huang Qi-Xing , Su Hao , Guibas Leonidas
Published: November 2013

In this paper we consider the problem of classifying shapes within a given category (e.g., chairs) into finer-grained classes (e.g., chairs with arms, rocking chairs, swivel chairs). We introduce a multi-label (i.e., shapes can belong to multiple classes) semi-supervised approach that takes as input a large shape collection of a given category with associated sparse and noisy labels, and outputs cleaned and complete labels for each shape. The key idea of the proposed approach is to jointly learn a distance metric for each class which captures the underlying geometric similarity within that class, e.g., the distance metric for swivel chairs evaluates the global geometric resemblance of chair bases. We show how to achieve this objective by first geometrically aligning the input shapes, and then learning the class-specific distance metrics by exploiting the feature consistency provided by this alignment. The learning objectives consider both labeled data and the mutual relations between the distance metrics. Given the learned metrics, we apply a graph-based semi-supervised classification technique to generate the final classification results.

In order to evaluate the performance of our approach, we have created a benchmark data set where each shape is provided with a set of ground truth labels generated by Amazon's Mechanical Turk users. The benchmark contains a rich variety of shapes in a number of categories. Experimental results show that despite this variety, given very sparse and noisy initial labels, the new method yields results that are superior to state-of-the-art semi-supervised learning techniques.
Inverse image editing
Authors: Hu Shi-Min , Xu Kun , Ma Li-Qian , Liu Bin , Jiang Bi-Ye , Wang Jue
Published: November 2013

We study the problem of
inverse image editing
, which recovers a semantically-meaningful editing history from a source image and an edited copy. Our approach supports a wide range of commonly-used editing operations such as cropping, object insertion and removal, linear and non-linear color transformations, and spatially-varying adjustment brushes. Given an input image pair, we first apply a dense correspondence method between them to match edited image regions with their sources. For each edited region, we determine geometric and semantic appearance operations that have been applied. Finally, we compute an optimal editing path from the region-level editing operations, based on predefined semantic constraints. The recovered history can be used in various applications such as image re-editing, edit transfer, and image revision control. A user study suggests that the editing histories generated from our system are semantically comparable to the ones generated by artists.
QEx
Authors: Ebke Hans-Christian , Bommes David , Campen Marcel , Kobbelt Leif
Published: November 2013

The most popular and actively researched class of quad remeshing techniques is the family of
parametrization based quad meshing methods
. They all strive to generate an
integer-grid map
, i.e. a parametrization of the input surface into R
2
such that the canonical grid of integer iso-lines forms a quad mesh when mapped back onto the surface in R
3
. An essential, albeit broadly neglected aspect of these methods is the
quad extraction
step, i.e. the materialization of an actual quad mesh from the mere "quad texture". Quad (mesh) extraction is often believed to be a trivial matter but quite the opposite is true: numerous special cases, ambiguities induced by numerical inaccuracies and limited solver precision, as well as imperfections in the maps produced by most methods (unless costly countermeasures are taken) pose significant challenges to the quad extractor. We present a method to sanitize a provided parametrization such that it becomes numerically consistent even in a limited precision floating point representation. Based on this we are able to provide a comprehensive and sound description of how to perform quad extraction robustly and without the need for any complex tolerance thresholds or disambiguation rules. On top of that we develop a novel strategy to cope with common local fold-overs in the parametrization. This allows our method, dubbed
QEx
, to generate all-quadrilateral meshes where otherwise holes, non-quad polygons or no output at all would have been produced. We thus enable the practical use of an entire class of maps that was previously considered defective. Since state of the art quad meshing methods spend a significant share of their run time solely to prevent local fold-overs, using our method it is now possible to obtain quad meshes significantly quicker than before. We also provide libQEx, an open source C++ reference implementation of our method and thus significantly lower the bar to enter the field of quad meshing.
A no-reference metric for evaluating the quality of motion deblurring
Authors: Liu Yiming , Wang Jue , Cho Sunghyun , Finkelstein Adam , Rusinkiewicz Szymon
Published: November 2013

Methods to undo the effects of motion blur are the subject of intense research, but evaluating and tuning these algorithms has traditionally required either user input or the availability of ground-truth images. We instead develop a metric for automatically predicting the perceptual quality of images produced by state-of-the-art deblurring algorithms. The metric is learned based on a massive user study, incorporates features that capture common deblurring artifacts, and does not require access to the original images (i.e., is "noreference"). We show that it better matches user-supplied rankings than previous approaches to measuring quality, and that in most cases it outperforms conventional full-reference image-similarity measures. We demonstrate applications of this metric to automatic selection of optimal algorithms and parameters, and to generation of fused images that combine multiple deblurring results.
The line of action
Authors: Guay Martin , Cani Marie-Paule , Ronfard Rémi
Published: November 2013

The line of action is a conceptual tool often used by cartoonists and illustrators to help make their figures more consistent and more dramatic. We often see the
expression
of characters---may it be the dynamism of a super hero, or the elegance of a fashion model---well captured and amplified by a single
aesthetic
line. Usually this line is laid down in early stages of the drawing and used to describe the body's
principal
shape. By focusing on this simple abstraction, the person drawing can quickly adjust and refine the overall pose of his or her character from a given viewpoint. In this paper, we propose a mathematical definition of the line of action (LOA), which allows us to automatically align a 3D virtual character to a user-specified LOA by solving an optimization problem. We generalize this framework to other types of lines found in the drawing literature, such as secondary lines used to place arms. Finally, we show a wide range of poses and animations that were rapidly created using our system.
GPU-based out-of-core many-lights rendering
Authors: Wang Rui , Huo Yuchi , Yuan Yazhen , Zhou Kun , Hua Wei , Bao Hujun
Published: November 2013

In this paper, we present a GPU-based out-of-core rendering approach under the many-lights rendering framework. Many-lights rendering is an efficient and scalable rendering framework for a large number of lights. But when the data sizes of lights and geometry are both beyond the in-core memory storage size, the data management of these two out-of-core data becomes critical and challenging. In our approach, we formulate such a data management as a graph traversal optimization problem that first builds out-of-core lights and geometry data into a graph, and then guides shading computations by finding a shortest path to visit all vertices in the graph. Based on the proposed data management, we develop a GPU-based out-of-GPU-core rendering algorithm that manages data between the CPU host memory and the GPU device memory. Two main steps are taken in the algorithm: the out-of-core data preparation to pack data into optimal data layouts for the many-lights rendering, and the out-of-core shading using graph-based data management. We demonstrate our algorithm on scenes with out-of-core detailed geometry and out-of-core lights. Results show that our approach generates complex global illumination effects with increased data access coherence and has one order of magnitude performance gain over the CPU-based approach.
Wave-ray coupling for interactive sound propagation in large complex scenes
Authors: Yeh Hengchin , Mehra Ravish , Ren Zhimin , Antani Lakulish , Manocha Dinesh , Lin Ming
Published: November 2013

We present a novel hybrid approach that couples geometric and numerical acoustic techniques for interactive sound propagation in complex environments. Our formulation is based on a combination of spatial and frequency decomposition of the sound field. We use numerical wave-based techniques to precompute the pressure field in the near-object regions and geometric propagation techniques in the far-field regions to model sound propagation. We present a novel two-way pressure coupling technique at the interface of near-object and far-field regions. At runtime, the impulse response at the listener position is computed at interactive rates based on the stored pressure field and interpolation techniques. Our system is able to simulate high-fidelity acoustic effects such as diffraction, scattering, low-pass filtering behind obstruction, reverberation, and high-order reflections in large, complex indoor and outdoor environments and Half-Life 2 game engine. The pressure computation requires orders of magnitude lower memory than standard wave-based numerical techniques.
WYSIWYG computational photography via viewfinder editing
Authors: Baek Jongmin , Pająk Dawid , Kim Kihwan , Pulli Kari , Levoy Marc
Published: November 2013

Digital cameras with electronic viewfinders provide a relatively faithful depiction of the final image, providing a WYSIWYG experience. If, however, the image is created from a burst of differently captured images, or non-linear interactive edits significantly alter the final outcome, then the photographer cannot directly see the results, but instead must imagine the post-processing effects. This paper explores the notion of
viewfinder editing
, which makes the viewfinder more accurately reflect the final image the user intends to create. We allow the user to alter the local or global appearance (tone, color, saturation, or focus) via stroke-based input, and propagate the edits spatiotemporally. The system then delivers a real-time visualization of these modifications to the user, and drives the camera control routines to select better capture parameters.
Physics-based animation of large-scale splashing liquids
Authors: Gerszewski Dan , Bargteil Adam W.
Published: November 2013

Fluid simulation has been one of the greatest successes of physics-based animation, generating hundreds of research papers and a great many special effects over the last fifteen years. However, the animation of large-scale, splashing liquids remains challenging. In this paper, we show that a novel combination of unilateral incompressibility, mass-full FLIP, and blurred boundaries is extremely well-suited to the animation of large-scale, violent, splashing liquids.
An English-Language Argumentation Interface for Explanation Generation with Markov Decision Processes in the Domain of Academic Advising
Authors: Dodson Thomas , Mattei Nicholas , Guerin Joshua T. , Goldsmith Judy
Published: November 2013

A Markov Decision Process (MDP) policy presents, for each state, an action, which preferably maximizes the expected utility accrual over time. In this article, we present a novel explanation system for MDP policies. The system interactively generates conversational English-language explanations of the actions suggested by an optimal policy, and does so in real time. We rely on natural language explanations in order to build trust between the user and the explanation system, leveraging existing research in psychology in order to generate salient explanations. Our explanation system is designed for portability between domains and uses a combination of domain-specific and domain-independent techniques. The system automatically extracts implicit knowledge from an MDP model and accompanying policy. This MDP-based explanation system can be ported between applications without additional effort by knowledge engineers or model builders. Our system separates domain-specific data from the explanation logic, allowing for a robust system capable of incremental upgrades. Domain-specific explanations are generated through case-based explanation techniques specific to the domain and a knowledge base of concept mappings used to generate English-language explanations.
Anatomy of a design session
Authors: Walsh Greg
Published: November 2013

In this forum we celebrate research that helps to successfully bring the benefits of computing technologies to children, older adults, people with disabilities, and other populations that are often ignored in the design of mass-marketed products.

Juan Pablo Hourcade, Editor
Organizational social structures for software engineering
Authors: Tamburri Damian A. , Lago Patricia , Vliet Hans van
Published: November 2013

Software engineering evolved from a rigid process to a dynamic interplay of people (e.g., stakeholders or developers). Organizational and social literature call this interplay an Organizational Social Structure (OSS). Software practitioners still lack a systematic way to select, analyze, and support OSSs best fitting their problems (e.g., software development). We provide the state-of-the-art in OSSs, and discuss mechanisms to support OSS-related decisions in software engineering (e.g., choosing the OSS best fitting development scenarios). Our data supports two conclusions. First, software engineering focused on building software using project teams alone, yet these are one of thirteen OSS flavors from literature. Second, an emerging OSS should be further explored for software development: social networks. This article represents a first glimpse at OSS-aware software engineering, that is, to engineer software using OSSs best fit for the problem.
A uniform definition of stochastic process calculi
Authors: Nicola Rocco de , Latella Diego , Loreti Michele , Massink Mieke
Published: November 2013

We introduce a unifying framework to provide the semantics of process algebras, including their quantitative variants useful for modeling quantitative aspects of behaviors. The unifying framework is then used to describe some of the most representative stochastic process algebras. This provides a general and clear support for an understanding of their similarities and differences. The framework is based on
State to Function Labeled Transition Systems
, F
u
TS
s
for short, that are state transition structures where each transition is a triple of the form (
s
,α,𝒫). The first and the second components are the source state,
s
, and the label, α, of the transition, while the third component is the
continuation function
, 𝒫, associating a value of a suitable type to each state
s
'. For example, in the case of stochastic process algebras the value of the
continuation function
on
s
' represents the rate of the negative exponential distribution characterizing the duration/delay of the action performed to reach state
s
' from
s
. We first provide the semantics of a simple formalism used to describe continuous-time Markov chains, then we model a number of process algebras that permit parallel composition of models according to the two main interaction paradigms (multiparty and one-to-one synchronization). Finally, we deal with formalisms where actions and rates are kept separate and address the issues related to the coexistence of stochastic, probabilistic, and nondeterministic behaviors. For each formalism, we establish the formal correspondence between the F
u
TS
s
semantics and its original semantics.
Plan Recognition and Visualization in Exploratory Learning Environments
Authors: Amir Ofra , Gal Ya’akov (Kobi)
Published: November 2013

Modern pedagogical software is open-ended and flexible, allowing students to solve problems through exploration and trial-and-error. Such exploratory settings provide for a rich educational environment for students, but they challenge teachers to keep track of students’ progress and to assess their performance. This article presents techniques for recognizing students’ activities in such pedagogical software and visualizing these activities to teachers. It describes a new plan recognition algorithm that uses a recursive grammar that takes into account repetition and interleaving of activities. This algorithm was evaluated empirically using an exploratory environment for teaching chemistry used by thousands of students in several countries. It was always able to correctly infer students’ plans when the appropriate grammar was available. We designed two methods for visualizing students’ activities for teachers: one that visualizes students’ inferred plans, and one that visualizes students’ interactions over a timeline. Both of these visualization methods were preferred to and found more helpful than a baseline method which showed a movie of students’ interactions. These results demonstrate the benefit of combining novel AI techniques and visualization methods for the purpose of designing collaborative systems that support students in their problem solving and teachers in their understanding of students’ performance.
Human Decision Making and Recommender Systems
Authors: Chen Li , de Gemmis Marco , Felfernig Alexander , Lops Pasquale , Ricci Francesco , Semeraro Giovanni
Published: November 2013

Recommender systems have already proved to be valuable for coping with the information overload problem in several application domains. They provide people with suggestions for items which are likely to be of interest for them; hence, a primary function of recommender systems is to help people make good choices and decisions. However, most previous research has focused on recommendation techniques and algorithms, and less attention has been devoted to the decision making processes adopted by the users and possibly supported by the system. There is still a gap between the importance that the community gives to the assessment of recommendation algorithms and the current range of ongoing research activities concerning human decision making. Different decision-psychological phenomena can influence the decision making of users of recommender systems, and research along these lines is becoming increasingly important and popular. This special issue highlights how the coupling of recommendation algorithms with the understanding of human choice and decision making theory has the potential to benefit research and practice on recommender systems and to enable users to achieve a good balance between decision accuracy and decision effort.
Credit Rating Agencies: An Overview
Authors: White Lawrence J.
Published: November 2013

Credit rating agencies (CRAs) play a central role in the debt (bond) markets of many countries. CRAs have also attracted a considerable amount of public and policy attention during the past decade, especially with respect to their role in the financial crisis of 2008–2009 and their role in the more recent Eurozone difficulties. This article provides an overview of the CRAs: who they are, what they do, how their centrality to the financial markets came about, what their role in the financial crisis was, and the important aspects of the policy measures that have affected the CRAs.
Interest Rates and the Bank Risk-Taking Channel
Authors: Dell’Ariccia Giovanni , Marquez Robert
Published: November 2013

The recent global financial crisis has brought the debate on how interest rates affect bank risk-taking to center stage. Proponents of this new risk-taking channel of monetary policy have argued that the low interest–rate environment in the run-up to the crisis may have created incentives for banks to take on excessive leverage and lower their lending standard, thus weakening bank portfolios. There is growing empirical evidence supporting this view. In contrast, this link has been little studied from a theoretical standpoint, leaving somewhat of a hole in our understanding of why (and how) banks’ decisions concerning the overall risk of their portfolios, and their capital structures, may be influenced by changes in the interest rate environment and, by extension, policy choices (e.g., monetary policy) that affect it. We summarize some of the emerging literature on this topic (both empirical and theoretical), as well as some of the more classical work on related topics. We also present a simple model that illustrates various channels through which bank risk-taking is affected by the interest rate environment in which banks operate. We use that model to analyze the likely effect of various other forces. Given the wealth of evidence that interest rates may have a real effect through banks’ portfolio decisions, it is important for policymakers to better understand the channel through which real interest rates operate on banks’ decision-making.
The neural basis of temporal individuation and its capacity limits in the human brain
Authors: Naughtin Claire K. , Tamber-Rosenau Benjamin J. , Dux Paul E.
Published: November 2013

Individuation refers to individuals' use of spatial and temporal properties to register an object as a distinct perceptual event relative to other stimuli. Although behavioral studies have examined both spatial and temporal individuation, neuroimaging investigations of individuation have been restricted to the spatial domain and at relatively late stages of information processing. In this study we used univariate and multivoxel pattern analyses of functional magnetic resonance imaging data to identify brain regions involved in individuating temporally distinct visual items and the neural consequences that arise when this process reaches its capacity limit (repetition blindness, RB). First, we found that regional patterns of blood oxygen level-dependent activity in a large group of brain regions involved in “lower-level” perceptual and “higher-level” attentional/executive processing discriminated between instances where repeated and nonrepeated stimuli were successfully individuated, conditions that placed differential demands on temporal individuation. These results could not be attributed to repetition suppression, stimulus or response factors, task difficulty, regional activation differences, other capacity-limited processes, or artifacts in the data or analyses. Consistent with the global workplace model of consciousness, this finding suggests that temporal individuation is supported by a distributed set of brain regions, rather than a single neural correlate. Second, conditions that reflect the capacity limit of individuation (instances of RB) modulated the amplitude, rather than spatial pattern, of activity in the left hemisphere premotor cortex. This finding could not be attributed to response conflict/ambiguity and likely reflects a candidate brain region underlying the capacity-limited process that gives rise to RB.
The Potential of Hybrid Pixel Detectors in the Search for the Neutrinoless Double-Beta Decay of116Cd
Authors: Michel Thilo , Gleixner Thomas , Durst Jürgen , Filipenko Mykhaylo , Geißelsöder Stefan
Published: November 2013

We investigated the potential of the energy resolving hybrid pixel detector Timepix contacted to a CdTe sensor layer for the search for the neutrinoless double-beta decay ofCd. We found that a CdTe sensor layer with 3 mm thickness and 165 μm pixel pitch is optimal with respect to the effective Majorana neutrino mass (mββ) sensitivity. In simulations, we were able to demonstrate a possible reduction of the background level caused by single electrons by approximately 75% at a specific background rate of 10−3counts/(kg×keV×yr) at a detection efficiency reduction of about 23% with track analysis employing random decision forests. Exploitation of the imaging properties with track analysis leads to an improvement in sensitivity tomββby about 22%. After 5 years of measuring time, the sensitivity tomββof a 420 kg CdTe experiment (90%Cdenrichment) would be 59 meV on a 90% confidence level for a specific single-electron background rate of 10−3counts/(kg×keV×yr). Theα-particle background can be suppressed by at least about six orders of magnitude. The benefit of the hybrid pixel detector technology might be increased significantly if drift-time difference measurements would allow reconstruction of tracks in three dimensions.
Adrenal Lymphangioma Mimicking Renal Cyst: A Case Report and Review of the Literature
Authors: Akand Murat , Kucur Mustafa , Karabagli Pınar , Kilic Ozcan , Seckin Bedreddin , Goktas Serdar
Published: November 2013

We present a case of a 44-year-old female who was evaluated for left recurrent flank and abdominal pain. Abdominal ultrasonography demonstrated a large cystic mass on the upper pole of the left kidney. Magnetic resonance imaging showed a large, homogenous cystic mass measuring  cm with well-defined contours, being hypointense on T1-weighted images and hyperintense on T2-weighted images on the upper pole of the left kidney without a distinct plan between adrenal gland. According to clinical and radiological findings, surgical excision was carried out with a subcostal flank incision. Histologic and immunohistochemical examination demonstrates that the definite diagnosis is cystic lymphangioma of the left adrenal gland. Adrenal lymphangioma is a very rare lesion. This is the unique case of an adrenal lymphangioma considered as a renal cyst because of its radiological appearance.
S100A12 and hBD2 Correlate with the Composition of the Fecal Microflora in ELBW Infants and Expansion ofE. coliIs Associated with NEC
Authors: Jenke A. C. , Postberg J. , Mariel B. , Hensel K. , Foell D. , Däbritz J. , Wirth S.
Published: November 2013

Objective. To describe the development of the gut microbiota in extremely low birth weight (ELBW) infants with and without necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) between April 2008 and December 2009, fecal microflora was prospectively analyzed in fecal samples of all ELBW infants using real-time PCR assays. In addition, fecal inflammatory were measured.Results. Fecal microflora established early in ELBW infants and microbiota composition remained stable over the first 28 days of life except for the prevalence ofC. difficilewhich decreased with decreasing antibiotic use. Infants who subsequently developed NEC had an increase of total bacterial count (9.8-fold) 24 h prior to clinical symptoms mainly due to the expansion ofE. colispecies (21.6-fold), whereas microbiota composition did not differ from healthy ELBW infants five days before onset of NEC. Importantly, S100A12 and hBD2 positively correlated with the total andE. colibacterial CFU/g feces (r20.4 and 0.64, resp.).Conclusions. In summary, we found evidence for a disturbed homeostasis between the intestinal microbiome and host immunity in ELBW infants with NEC. Moreover, S100A12 and hBD2 correlate with the fecal microbiota thus linking the intestinal innate immune response to the bacterial colonization thus possibly providing a diagnostic tool in the future.
Convolution Theorems for Quaternion Fourier Transform: Properties and Applications
Authors: Bahri Mawardi , Ashino Ryuichi , Vaillancourt Rémi
Published: November 2013

General convolution theorems for two-dimensional quaternion Fourier transforms (QFTs) are presented. It is shown that these theorems are valid not only for real-valued functions but also for quaternion-valued functions. We describe some useful properties of generalized convolutions and compare them with the convolution theorems of the classical Fourier transform. We finally apply the obtained results to study hypoellipticity and to solve the heat equation in quaternion algebra framework.
Using CVIS to Improve Bus Schedule Adherence: A Predictive Control Strategy and Its Hardware-in-the-Loop Field Tests
Authors: Yin Wei , Teng Jing , Yang Xiaoguang , Zhang H. Michael
Published: November 2013

The ability of buses to adhere to their advertised schedule is vital to the bus operations. In this paper, an adaptive control strategy is proposed to dynamically adjust bus speed and traffic signal timings along the path of a running bus to improve its schedule adherence. The strategy relies on real-time location and speed information of buses provided by cooperative vehicle infrastructure system (CVIS) and uses key-time nodes calculated by back-stepping of planned arrival times to dynamically update signal timing plans to keep the bus running on time. A hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) field test was conducted to evaluate the developed strategy and the results are encouraging.
Approximate Solutions of Fisher's Type Equations with Variable Coefficients
Authors: Bhrawy A. H. , Alghamdi M. A.
Published: November 2013

The spectral collocation approximations based on Legendre polynomials are used to compute the numerical solution of time-dependent Fisher’s type problems. The spatial derivatives are collocated at a Legendre-Gauss-Lobatto interpolation nodes. The proposed method has the advantage of reducing the problem to a system of ordinary differential equations in time. The four-stage A-stable implicit Runge-Kutta scheme is applied to solve the resulted system of first order in time. Numerical results show that the Legendre-Gauss-Lobatto collocation method is of high accuracy and is efficient for solving the Fisher’s type equations. Also the results demonstrate that the proposed method is powerful algorithm for solving the nonlinear partial differential equations.
Gene Therapy and Cell-Based Therapies for Therapeutic Angiogenesis in Peripheral Artery Disease
Authors: Shimamura Munehisa , Nakagami Hironori , Koriyama Hiroshi , Morishita Ryuichi
Published: November 2013

Gene therapy and cell-based therapy have emerged as novel therapies to promote therapeutic angiogenesis in critical limb ischemia (CLI) caused by peripheral artery disease (PAD). Although researchers initially focused on gene therapy using proangiogenic factors, such as vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), fibroblast growth factor (FGF), and hepatocyte growth factors (HGF), cell therapy using bone marrow mononuclear cells (BMMNCs), mesenchymal stem cells (BMMSCs), G-CSF-mobilized peripheral blood mononuclear cells (M-PBMNCs), and endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) have also been extensively studied. Based on the elaborate studies and favorable results of basic research, some clinical phase I/II trials have been performed, and the results demonstrate the safety of these approaches and their potential for symptomatic improvement in CLI. However, the phase 3 clinical trials have thus far been limited to gene therapy using the HGF gene. Further studies using well-designed larger placebo-controlled and long-term randomized control trials (RCTs) will clarify the effectiveness of gene therapy and cell-based therapy for the treatment of CLI. Furthermore, the development of efficient gene transfer systems and effective methods for keeping transplanted cells healthy will make these novel therapies more effective and ease the symptoms of CLI.
Stability and Hopf Bifurcation Analysis for a Stage-Structured Predator-Prey Model with Discrete and Distributed Delays
Authors: Shi Ruiqing , Qi Junmei , Tang Sanyi
Published: November 2013

We propose a three-dimensional stage-structured predatory-prey model with discrete and distributed delays. By use of a new variable, the original three-dimensional system transforms into an equivalent four-dimensional system. Firstly, we study the existence and local stability of positive equilibrium of the new system. And, by choosing the time delayτas a bifurcation parameter, we show that Hopf bifurcation may occur as the time delayτpasses through some critical values. Secondly, by use of normal form theory and central manifold argument, we establish the direction and stability of Hopf bifurcation. At last, some simple discussion is presented.
RP‐HPLC Method for Simultaneous Estimation of Cefepime Hydrochloride and Tazobactam Sodium in Bulk and Pharmaceuticals
Authors: Tamboli Sagar R. , Patil Dipak D.
Published: November 2013

A precise, accurate, sensitive and robust RP‐HPLC method was developed for cefepime hydrochloride and tazobactam sodium in bulk and pharmaceutical formulation. Chromatographic separation was achieved on PrincetonSPHER‐100 C‐18 column (250 mm × 4.6 mm i.d., 5 µm) at ambient temperature. A binary mobile phase consisting of 25 mM potassium dihydrogen phosphate buffer, pH 6.2 and acetonitrile (94 : 6, v/v) was delivered through a column at a flow rate of 1 mL/min. Measurement was performed at a wavelength 210 nm. The method was linear over the concentration range of 4–24 µg/mL (r2 = 0.9977) for cefepime and 0.5–3.0 µg/mL (r2 = 0.9974) for tazobactam. The percentage content found for cefepime was 101.12 ± 0.49 and for tazobactam was 101.33 ± 1.17 in the pharmaceutical formulation. The method was validated for linearity, precision, accuracy, sensitivity and robustness as per ICH Q2 (R1) guideline.
Unbounded Solutions of Asymmetric Oscillator
Authors: Ji Tieguo , Zhang Zhenhui
Published: November 2013

We obtain sufficient conditions for the existence of unbounded solutions of the following nonlinear differential equation(φp(x′))+(p−1)[αφp(x+)−βφp(x−)]=(p−1)f(t,x,x′), whereφp(u)=|u|p−2u,  p>1,  x+=max{x,0},  x−=max{−x,0},α,βare positive constants, andfis continuous, bounded, andT-periodic intfor someT>0.
Handling Data Uncertainty and Inconsistency Using Multisensor Data Fusion
Authors: Abdulhafiz Waleed A. , Khamis Alaa
Published: November 2013

Data provided by sensors is always subjected to some level of uncertainty and inconsistency. Multisensor data fusion algorithms reduce the uncertainty by combining data from several sources. However, if these several sources provide inconsistent data, catastrophic fusion may occur where the performance of multisensor data fusion is significantly lower than the performance of each of the individual sensor. This
paper presents an approach to multisensor data fusion in order to decrease data uncertainty with ability to identify and handle inconsistency. The proposed approach relies on combining a modified Bayesian fusion algorithm with Kalman filtering. Three different approaches, namely, prefiltering, postfiltering and pre-postfiltering are described based on how filtering is applied to the sensor data, to the fused data or both. A case study to find the position of a mobile robot by estimating its x and y coordinates using four sensors is presented. The simulations show that combining fusion with filtering helps in handling the problem of uncertainty and inconsistency of the data.
Asthma Control and Its Relationship with Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) in Older Adults
Authors: Teodorescu Mihaela , Polomis David A. , Gangnon Ronald E. , Fedie Jessica E. , Consens Flavia B. , Chervin Ronald D. , Teodorescu Mihai C.
Published: November 2013

Background/Objectives. Asthma in older individuals is poorly understood. We aimed to characterize the older asthma phenotype and test its association with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA).Design. Cross-sectional.Setting. Pulmonary and Asthma/Allergy clinics.Participants. 659 asthma subjects aged 18–59 years (younger) and 154 aged 60–75 (older).Measurements. Sleep Apnea scale of Sleep Disorders Questionnaire (SA-SDQ), asthma severity step (1–4, severe if step 3 or 4), established OSA diagnosis, continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) use, and comorbidities.Results. Older versus younger had worse control, as assessed by asthma step, lung function, and inhaled corticosteroid use. Among older subjects, after controlling for known asthma aggravators, OSA diagnosis was the only factor robustly associated with severe asthma: on average, OSA was associated with nearly 7 times greater likelihood of severe asthma in an older individual (OR=6.67). This relationship was of greater magnitude than in younger subjects (OR=2.16). CPAP use attenuated the likelihood of severe asthma in older subjects by 91% (P=0.005), much more than in the younger asthmatics.Conclusion. Diagnosed OSA increases the risk for worse asthma control in older patients, while CPAP therapy may have greater impact on asthma outcomes. Unrecognized OSA may be a reason for poor asthma control, particularly among older patients.
Soft Computing Techniques for Mutual Coupling Reduction in Metamaterial Antenna Array
Authors: Choudhury Balamati , Manickam Sangeetha , Jha R. M.
Published: November 2013

Application of soft computing techniques for various metamaterial designs and optimizations is an emerging field in the microwave regime. In this paper, a global optimization technique, namely, particle swarm optimization (PSO), is used for the design and optimization of a square split ring resonator (SSRR) having a resonant frequency of 2.4 GHz. The PSO optimizer yields the structural parameters, which is further simulated and validated with the optimized value. This optimized structure results in the mutual coupling reduction in a microstrip antenna array designed for wireless application.