bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Implement Virtual Programming Lab with Cloud Computing for Web-Based Distance Education
Authors: Wang Harris , Philips Dusty
Published: April 2012

In Web-based distance education, the authors’ experience has shown that some courses are more challenging than others for both students and instructors when offered at a distance. Among those challenges, providing students with access to laboratories is a big one for some science and engineering courses. Over the years, researchers and practitioners have devised and tried different ideas to solve this problem, and virtual labs are the newest and most promising solution. In computer science, such virtual labs are often called virtual computing labs or virtual programming labs. In this chapter, the authors discuss cloud computing based solutions to the development of virtual computing and programming labs. In particular, they present the design and implementation of A-VPL, a virtual programming lab designed and implemented at Athabasca University. The chapter discusses the technologies used in detail, and the unique features they have.
Harnessing the Potential of Cloud Computing to Transform Higher Education
Authors: Thomas P.
Published: April 2012

While the adoption of new technology is being increasingly recognised as a catalyst for transformation in higher education, the high cost of technology infrastructure and other related resources is a financial burden, and hence, a barrier to many higher education institutions, especially in the context of the recent economic recession. Indications are that the adoption of the low-cost and even free (in some cases) cloud computing solutions could bring about large scale adoption of new technology by higher education institutions. This chapter provides an overview of cloud computing, explores the challenges around cloud computing, details the significant benefits that it can bring to higher education, and discusses how organizations could harness cloud services to significantly reduce capital and maintenance costs on educational technology and to enhance its scalability, accessibility, and flexibility. The chapter further recommends the use of hybrid cloud deployment to achieve a balance between risks and benefits of this new computing paradigm.
Cloud Computing Solution for Internet based Teaching and Learning
Authors: Chao Lee
Published: April 2012

This chapter reviews a five-phase solution development process. It points out that a well developed cloud based IT infrastructure should be constructed on a solid requirement analysis and thoughtful design. The selection of cloud technology should meet the needs of educational institutions. The successful implementation of a cloud based IT infrastructure relies on adequate training and tutoring services. The evaluation of a cloud based IT infrastructure gives direction on further improvement. This chapter provides strategies and guidelines for creating a cloud based IT infrastructure for educational institutions.
Data Partitioning for Highly Scalable Cloud Applications
Authors: Neumann Robert , Baumann Matthias , Dumke Reiner , Schmietendorf Andreas
Published: April 2012

Cloud computing has brought new challenges, but also exciting chances to developers. With the illusion of an infinite expanse of computing resources, even individual developers have been put into a position from which they can create applications that scale out all over the world, thus affecting millions of people. One difficulty with developing such mega-scale Cloud applications is to keep the storage backend scalable. In this chapter, we detail ways of partitioning non-relational data among thousands of physical storage nodes, thereby emphasizing the peculiarities of tabular Cloud storage. The authors give recommendations of how to establish a sustainable and scaling data management architecture that – while growing in terms of data volume – still provides the same high throughput. Finally, they underline their theoretical elaborations by featuring insights won from a real-world cloud project with which the authors have been involved.
Cross-Layer Framework for Power Conservation in Wireless Ad Hoc Networks
Authors: Viswanath N. Kasi
Published: April 2012

Most of the wireless ad hoc networks have battery-powered nodes, so the life of the network depends on the power of the nodes. Power conservation is one of the main issues of wireless ad hoc networks. Power conservation can be achieved in two different ways: power control algorithms and power management algorithms. Transmission power control is one example of a cross-layer design problem. The purpose of this chapter is to discuss transmission power control problems and one possible solution by using cross layer framework through a case study. This chapter describes two cross-layer power control protocols developed at two different layers and also presents the effect of applying the combination of these protocols through a simulation study using Glomosim.
Cross-Layer Design for Packet Data Transmission in Maximum Ratio Transmission Systems with Imperfect CSI and Co-Channel Interference
Authors: Duong Trung Q. , Zepernick Hans-Jürgen
Published: April 2012

This chapter will therefore present some new results for the cross-layer design for packet data transmission applied to co-located MIMO with maximum ratio transmission. In this context, closed-form expressions for the average packet error rate, average achievable spectral efficiency, and outage probability are derived. This enables one to evaluate the performance of the cross-layer design under predetermined delay and packet loss constraints. Some important results in the high Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) regime are also provided, revealing insights on how system and channel parameters affect system performance. More importantly, a mathematical analysis is proved to be a powerful tool to investigate the impact of practical issues such as channel estimation error, feedback delay, antenna correlation, and rank-deficient MIMO channel matrix, on the performance of cross-layer design.
Cross-Layer Design in Wireless Sensor Networks
Authors: Yi Weidong , Chen Yongrui
Published: April 2012

New and diverse applications for Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have led to new challenges. Cross-layer approaches have proven to be the most efficient optimization techniques for these problems, since they are able to take the behavior of the protocols at each layer into consideration to overcome the constraints for WSNs. Thus, this chapter focuses on identifying the core problems of WSNs and collects available cross layer solutions for them that have been proposed. The literature on cross-layer protocols, protocol improvements, and design methodologies for WSNs are reviewed, and a taxonomy is proposed in order to provide insights on the identification of cross-layer design in WSNs. The open issues are discussed in detail for future research, and precautionary guidelines for cross layer design to WSNs are indicated.
A Pragmatic Approach to Intrusion Response Metrics
Authors: Strasburg Chris , Wong Johnny
Published: April 2012

The arms race between cyber attackers and defenders has evolved to the point where an effective counter-measure strategy requires the use of an automated, distributed, and coordinated response. A key difficulty in achieving this goal lies in providing reliable measures by which to select appropriate responses to a wide variety of potential intrusions in a diverse population of network environments. In this chapter, the authors provide an analysis of the current state of automated intrusion response metrics from a pragmatic perspective. This analysis includes a review of the current state of the art as well as descriptions of the steps required to implement current work in production environments. The authors also discuss the research gaps that must be filled to improve security professionals’ ability to implement an automated intrusion response capability.
Feature Extraction Methods for Intrusion Detection Systems
Authors: Nguyen Hai Thanh , Franke Katrin , Petrovic Slobodan
Published: April 2012

Intrusion Detection Systems (IDSs) have become an important security tool for managing risk and an indispensable part of overall security architecture. An IDS is considered as a pattern recognition system, in which feature extraction is an important pre-processing step. The feature extraction process consists of feature construction and feature selection . The quality of the feature construction and feature selection algorithms is one of the most important factors that affects the effectiveness of an IDS. Achieving reduction of the number of relevant traffic features without negative effect on classification accuracy is a goal that largely improves the overall effectiveness of the IDS. Most of the feature construction as well as feature selection works in intrusion detection practice is still carried through manually by utilizing domain knowledge. For automatic feature construction and feature selection, the filter, wrapper, and embedded methods from machine learning are frequently applied. This chapter provides an overview of various existing feature construction and feature selection methods for intrusion detection systems. A comparison between those feature selection methods is performed in the experimental part.
Security Enhancement of Peer-to-Peer Session Initiation
Authors: Zheng Xianghan , Oleshchuk Vladimir
Published: April 2012

Today, Peer-to-Peer SIP based communication systems have attracted much attention from both the academia and industry. The decentralized nature of P2P might provide the distributed peer-to-peer communication system without help of the traditional SIP server. However, the decentralization features come to the cost of the reduced manageability and create new concerns. Until now, the main focus of research was on the availability of the network and systems, while few attempts are put on protecting privacy. In this chapter, we investigate on P2PSIP security issues and introduce two enhancement solutions: central based security and distributed trust security, both of which have their own advantages and disadvantages. After that, we study appropriate combination of these two approaches to get optimized protection. Our design is independent of the DHT (Distributed Hash Table) overlay technology. We take the Chord overlay as the example, and then, analyze the system in several aspects: security & privacy, number-of the hops, message flows, etc.
Grid of Security
Authors: Flauzac Olivier , Nolot Florent , Rabat Cyril , Steffenel Luiz-Angelo
Published: April 2012

Network security is in a daily evolving domain. Every day, new attacks, viruses, and intrusion techniques are released. Hence, network devices, enterprise servers, or personal computers are potential targets of these attacks. Current security solutions like firewalls, intrusion detection systems (IDS), and virtual private networks (VPN) are centralized solutions, which rely mostly on the analysis of inbound network connections. This approach notably forgets the effects of a rogue station, whose communications cannot be easily controlled unless the administrators establish a global authentication policy using methods like 802.1x to control all network communications among each device. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, a distributed and easily manageable solution for the global security of an enterprise network does not exist. In this chapter, they present a new approach to deploy a distributed security solution where communication between each device can be control in a collaborative manner. Indeed, each device has its own security rules, which can be shared and improved through exchanges with others devices. With this new approach, called grid of security, a community of devices ensures that a device is trustworthy and that communications between devices progress in respect of the control of the system policies. To support this approach, the authors present a new communication model that helps structuring the distribution of security services among the devices. This can secure both ad-hoc, local-area or enterprise networks in a decentralized manner, preventing the risk of a security breach in the case of a failure.
Enhancing E-Service Collaboration with Enforcement and Relationship Management
Authors: Chiu Dickson K.W. , Cheung Shing-Chi , Till Sven , Narupiyakul Lalita , Hung Patrick
Published: April 2012

In a business-to-business (B2B) e-service environment, cross-organizational collaboration is important for attaining the interoperability of business processes and their proper enactment. The authors find that B2B collaboration can be divided into multiple layers and perspectives, which has not been adequately addressed in the literature. Besides regular e-service process enactment, robust collaboration requires enforcement, while quality collaboration involves relationship management. These problems are challenging, as they require the enactment of business processes and their monitoring in counter parties outside an organization’s boundary. This paper presents a framework for B2B process collaboration with three layers, namely, collaboration requirements layer, business rule layer, and system implementation layer. The collaboration requirements layer specifies the cross-organizational requirements of e-service processes. In the business rule layer, detailed knowledge of these three types of process collaboration requirements is defined as business rules in a unified Event-Condition-Action (ECA) form. In the system implementation layer, event collaboration interfaces are supported by contemporary Enterprise JavaBeans and Web Services. Based on this architecture, a methodology is presented for the engineering of e-service process collaboration from high-level business requirements down to system implementation details. As a result, B2B process collaboration can be seamlessly defined, enacted, and enforced. Conceptual models of various layers are given in the Unified Modeling Language (UML). We illustrate the applicability of our framework with a running example based on a supply-chain process and evaluate our approach from the perspective of three main stakeholders of e-collaboration, namely users, management, and systems developers.
Improving Memory Management Security for C and C++
Authors: Younan Yves , Joosen Wouter , Piessens Frank , Van den Eynden Hans
Published: April 2012

Memory managers are an important part of modern language and are used to dynamically allocate memory. Many managers exist; however, two major types can be identified: manual memory allocators and garbage collectors. In the case of manual memory allocators, the programmer must manually release memory back to the system when it is no longer needed. Problems can occur when a programmer forgets to release it, releases it twice or uses freed memory. These problems are solved in garbage collectors. However, both manual memory allocators and garbage collectors store management information. This paper describes several vulnerabilities for C and C++ and how these could be remedied by modifying the management information of a representative manual memory allocator and garbage collector. Additionally, the authors present an approach that, when applied to memory managers, will protect against these attack vectors.
Development of a Master of Software Assurance Reference Curriculum
Authors: Mead Nancy R. , Allen Julia H. , Ardis Mark , Hilburn Thomas B. , Kornecki Andrew J. , Linger Rick , McDonald James
Published: April 2012

Modern society is deeply and irreversibly dependent on software systems of remarkable scope and complexity in areas that are essential for preserving this way of life. The security and correct functioning of these systems are vital. Recognizing these realities, the U. S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) National Cyber Security Division (NCSD) enlisted the resources of the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University to develop a curriculum for a Master of Software Assurance degree program and define transition strategies for implementation. In this article, the authors present an overview of the Master of Software Assurance curriculum project, including its history, student prerequisites and outcomes, a core body of knowledge, and curriculum architecture from which to create such a degree program. The authors also provide suggestions for implementing a Master of Software Assurance program.
Chatterbox Challenge as a Test-Bed for Synthetic Emotions
Authors: Vallverdú Jordi , Shah Huma , Casacuberta David
Published: April 2012

Chatterbox Challenge is an annual web-based contest for artificial conversational systems, ACE. The 2010 instantiation was the tenth consecutive contest held between March and June in the 60th year following the publication of Alan Turing’s influential disquisition ‘computing machinery and intelligence’. Loosely based on Turing’s viva voca interrogator-hidden witness imitation game, a thought experiment to ascertain a machine’s capacity to respond satisfactorily to unrestricted questions, the contest provides a platform for technology comparison and evaluation. This paper provides an insight into emotion content in the entries since the 2005 Chatterbox Challenge. The authors find that synthetic textual systems, none of which are backed by academic or industry funding, are, on the whole and more than half a century since Weizenbaum’s natural language understanding experiment, little further than Eliza in terms of expressing emotion in dialogue. This may be a failure on the part of the academic AI community for ignoring the Turing test as an engineering challenge.
Digital Storytelling and Oral Fluency in an English Reading Class at a Japanese University
Authors: Kimura Midori
Published: April 2012

The purpose of this study is to examine the effectiveness of digital storytelling (DST) in improving oral reading fluency by using the preview function of the software Photo Story 3. This application easily handles the recording and revising of a narration, which is an essential part of oral reading. DST is the art of telling stories through the use of various multimedia, such as text, still images, audio, and video. DST combines the functions of visualizing and verbalizing, which are essential for language comprehension and thinking from the perspective of cognitive neuroscience. The participants were 35 Japanese nursing students in Japan, who carried out DST utilizing nursing episodes from a textbook. Undertaking DST enabled the participants to learn to read deeply, visualize the story, and enjoy verbalizing their interpretation of the context, which is a skill lacking in most Japanese students due to the reading/translation teaching method.
Image Compression Technique for Low Bit Rate Transmission
Authors: El-said Shaimaa A. , Hussein Khalid F. A. , Fouad Mohamed M.
Published: April 2012

A novel Adaptive Lossy Image Compression (ALIC) technique is proposed to achieve high compression ratio by reducing the number of source symbols through the application of an efficient technique. The proposed algorithm is based on processing the discrete cosine transform (DCT) of the image to extract the highest energy coefficients in addition to applying one of the novel quantization schemes proposed in the present work. This method is straightforward and simple. It does not need complicated calculation; therefore the hardware implementation is easy to attach. Experimental comparisons are carried out to compare the performance of the proposed technique with those of other standard techniques such as the JPEG. The experimental results show that the proposed compression technique achieves high compression ratio with higher peak signal to noise ratio than that of JPEG at low bit rate without the visual degradation that appears in case of JPEG.
Towards the Human Information Security Firewall
Authors: von Solms Rossouw , Warren Matthew
Published: April 2012

Human security is often forgotten as a major information security factor. This paper explores the security issues that relate to human security and in particular the relationship to risk. The paper also uses case studies of real life security incidents to show the problems and issues that relate to a younger workforce and their lack of security awareness due to their own background and the use of social systems, such as Facebook. The paper also proposes a risk framework that can be used to understand human security issues.
Data Graphs for Linking Clinical Phenotype and Molecular Feature Space
Authors: Heinzel Andreas , Fechete Raul , Söllner Johannes , Perco Paul , Heinze Georg , Oberbauer Rainer , Mayer Gert , Lukas Arno , Mayer Bernd
Published: April 2012

Omics profiling in translational clinical research has provided detailed molecular characterization of disease phenotypes. Integrating this molecular data space with clinical phenotype descriptors has triggered advancements regarding a systems view on disease, resulting in the concept of stratified medicine. The authors present a methodology for patient stratification by analyzing clinical and molecular information on a per-patient level represented as a data graph. This approach rests on linking patient specific clinical data and biomarker profiles with molecular functional units being derived by segmenting a human proteome interaction network. As a result patient strata are built holding sets of affected functional molecular units as common denominator. Annotation of such functional units on the level of associated diseases, biomarkers and drug targets allows reconciliation with respective clinical data for further improving the assignment of patients to specific strata. The authors finally discuss this approach in the light of adaptive clinical trials design and analysis.
Mapping Short Reads to a Genomic Sequence with Circular Structure
Authors: Flouri Tomas , Iliopoulos Costas S. , Pissis Solon P. , Tischler German
Published: April 2012

Constant advances in DNA sequencing technologies are turning whole-genome sequencing into a routine procedure, resulting in massive amounts of data that need to be processed. Tens of gigabytes of data, in the form of short sequences (reads), need to be mapped back onto reference sequences, a few gigabases long. A first generation of short-read alignment algorithms successfully employed hash tables, and the current second generation uses the Burrows-Wheeler transform, further improving speed and memory footprint. These next-generation sequencing technologies allow researchers to characterise a bacterial genome, during a single experiment, at a moderate cost. In this article, as most of the bacterial chromosomes contain a circular DNA molecule, the authors present a new simple, yet efficient, sensitive and accurate algorithm, specifically designed for mapping millions of short reads to a genomic sequence with circular structure.
The Management System of Enterprises’ Intellectual Property Rights
Authors: Xiaohui Tao , Yaohui Zhang , Yi Zhou
Published: April 2012

Strengthening the management of IPRs (intellectual property rights) is one of the most important ways to improve an enterprise’s innovative capability. NST (NineStar Technology Co., Ltd, in Zhuhai, China) wins the recognition of both the domestic and the foreign markets through building an advanced IPRs management system to promote their products and institutional innovation, and to respond positively to foreign patents litigations. Based on the case of NST, combined with related literatures, this paper introduced the six components of an enterprise’s IPRs management system: information system, strategic system, establishing system, development system, protection system, and operation system.
Cell Motility Viewed as Softness
Authors: Sawa Koji , Balaž Igor , Shirakawa Tomohiro
Published: April 2012

In this paper, the authors propose a simple model of cell motility inspired by the plasmodium of Physarum polycephalum. The model focuses on the “softness” of aggregations of protoplasm. The model has only two parameters, yet generates a variety of final states, as well as the morphological changes of Physarum according to the condition of the culture medium.
Allometric Scaling Laws in the Exploratory Behavior of the Physarum Plasmodium
Authors: Shirakawa Tomohiro
Published: April 2012

The plasmodium of Physarum polycephalum is a unicellular and multinuclear giant amoeba. In this paper, the authors investigate four allometric laws in the exploratory behavior of the plasmodium, and integrate them into one schema based on the dynamics of cytoplasmic streaming. This study reveals a novel function of the tubular structure of the plasmodium, shedding new light on the adaptive behavior of the organism.
Probabilistic Harmony Search
Authors: Omran Mahamed G. H. , Salman Ayed , al-Sharhan Salah , Deeb Fadi
Published: April 2012

Harmony Search (HS) is a new meta-heuristic algorithm imitating the music improvisation process where musicians search for a better state of harmony. In this paper, a new improvisation scheme is proposed that explicitly uses a probabilistic model of candidate solutions stored in the harmony memory. Pitch adjustment uses a probability distribution to mutate a decision variable while random selection has been replaced by generating samples from the probability distribution. The proposed scheme favors diversification in the early stages and intensification during the final stages of the search process. The performance of the proposed method is investigated and compared with a state-of-the-art HS variant and other recent methods when applied to 18 benchmark functions. The experiments conducted show that the proposed method generally outperforms the other methods when applied to the benchmark problems.
A Generalized Graph Strict Strong Coloring Algorithm
Authors: Bouzenada Mourad , Bensouyad Meriem , Guidoum Nousseiba , Reghioua Ahmed , Saïdouni Djamel-eddine
Published: April 2012

This paper examines the graph coloring problem. A graph strict strong coloring algorithm has been proposed for trees in Haddad and Kheddouci (2009). In this paper, the authors propose a new heuristic based algorithm for general graphs named GGSSCA (for Generalized Graph Strict Strong Coloring Algorithm). The authors show that the complexity of this algorithm is polynomial with considering the number of vertices.
OntoHealth
Authors: Librelotto Giovani , Augustin Iara , Gassen Jonas , Kurtz Guilherme , Freitas Leandro , Martini Ricardo , Azevedo Renato
Published: April 2012

In the last years ontologies are being used in the development of pervasive computing applications. It is habitual their use for facilitating the interoperability among context-aware applications and the entities that may enter in the context at any time. This chapter presents OntoHealth: an ontology applied to health pervasive environment and a tool to its processing. The main idea is that a hospital could be seen as this pervasive environment, where someone, through ubiquitous computing, engages a range of computational devices and systems simultaneously, in the course of ordinary activities, and may not necessarily even be aware that they are doing so. With the proposed ontology and the tool for its processing, the medical tasks can be shared by all components of this pervasive environment.
Heterogeneous vs. Homogeneous Groups
Authors: Davis Theodore E.
Published: April 2012

The primary purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of racial and gender diversity on group process and problem solving in an academic setting. The importance of this dynamic is its value in preparing students for the workplace. The supposition is if a group is homogeneous, commitment and performance is improved. Data for the study was collected from upper-level undergraduate male and female students, registered in two sixteen week business courses taught by one instructor, at a large university in a metropolitan city in the northeastern United States. There were five racially mixed groups of seven members in each of the four sections of the two courses. During this period, group members met frequently for class projects, including a series of case analyses. Only balanced heterogeneous groups significantly enhanced their groups’ performance on complicated problem-solving tasks over time. They exceeded the performance of all homogeneous groups, except that of the black American female homogeneous groups. Ultimately, the academic grades of the balanced heterogeneous groups as well as their individual members were in the upper half of all grades issued.
Implant Deformation on Digital Preoperative Planning of Lower Extremities Fractures
Authors: Ramírez Esmitt , Coto Ernesto
Published: April 2012

Preoperative planning is an essential step before performing any surgical procedure. Computer Aided Orthopedic Surgery (CAOS) systems are extensively used for the planning of surgeries for fractures of lower extremities. These systems are input an X-Ray image of the fracture and the planning can be digitally overlaid onto the image. In many cases, when an implant is added to the planning, it does not fit perfectly in the patient’s anatomy and therefore it is bended to be adjusted to the bone. This paper presents a new method for the deformation of implants in CAOS systems, based on the Moving Least Squares (MLS) method. Several improvements over the original MLS are introduced to achieve results visually similar to the real procedure and make the deformation process easier and simpler for the surgeon. Over 100 clinical surgeries have been already planned successfully using a CAOS system that employs the proposed technique.
Network Security and Firewall Technology
Authors: Obiniyi Afolayan A. , Absalom Ezugwu E. , Dikko Mohammed
Published: April 2012

With the explosion of the public Internet, corporate networks connected to the Internet, if not adequately secured, are vulnerable to damaging attacks. Hackers, viruses, worms, Trojan horses, and spyware try to invade privacy. This research examines how these threats affect the corporate network and ways to reduce them. MikroTik routerOS was configured as the router to examine these threats. Network Address Translation and packet filtering where the key features configured to make the network hidden for unauthorized users and filter unwanted traffics that might reflect malicious acts. The configuration and test were carried out at Iya Abubakar Computer Center, Ahamdu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria. At the onset, the targeted network was full of virus, worms, Trojan horses, spyware, and vulnerable to unauthorized users. The signal strength of the network was usually very poor due to the effect from the threats affecting the bandwidth. The firewall was configured to filter out inherently dangerous services, exposing the network to fewer risks. After the research, the performance and efficiency of the network was improved tremendously.
Development of a Novel Compressed Index-Query Web Search Engine Model
Authors: Al-Bahadili Hussein , Al-Saab Saif
Published: April 2012

In this paper, the authors present a description of a new Web search engine model, the compressed index-query (CIQ) Web search engine model. This model incorporates two bit-level compression layers implemented at the back-end processor (server) side, one layer resides after the indexer acting as a second compression layer to generate a double compressed index (index compressor), and the second layer resides after the query parser for query compression (query compressor) to enable bit-level compressed index-query search. The data compression algorithm used in this model is the Hamming codes-based data compression (HCDC) algorithm, which is an asymmetric, lossless, bit-level algorithm permits CIQ search. The different components of the new Web model are implemented in a prototype CIQ test tool (CIQTT), which is used as a test bench to validate the accuracy and integrity of the retrieved data and evaluate the performance of the proposed model. The test results demonstrate that the proposed CIQ model reduces disk space requirements and searching time by more than 24%, and attains a 100% agreement when compared with an uncompressed model.
Medical Survival Analysis Through Transduction of Semi-Supervised Regression Targets
Authors: Khan Faisal M. , Liu Qiuhua
Published: April 2012

A crucial challenge in predictive modeling for survival analysis applications such as medical prognosis is the accounting of censored observations in the data. While these time-to-event predictions inherently represent a regression problem, traditional regression approaches are challenged by the censored characteristics of the data. In such problems the true target times of a majority of instances are unknown; what is known is a censored target representing some indeterminate time before the true target time. While censored samples can be considered as semi-supervised targets, the current limited efforts in semi-supervised regression do not take into account the partial nature of unsupervised information; samples are treated as either fully labeled or unlabelled. This paper presents a novel semi-supervised learning approach where the true target times are approximated from the censored times through transduction. The method can be employed to transform traditional regression methods for survival analysis, or can be employed to enhance existing state-of-the-art survival analysis methods for improved predictive performance. The proposed approach represents one of the first applications of semi-supervised regression to survival analysis and yields a significant improvement in performance over the state-of-the-art in prostate and breast cancer prognosis applications.
Performance Evaluation of Relevance Feedback for Image Retrieval by “Real-World” Multi-Tagged Image Datasets
Authors: Tronci Roberto , Piras Luca , Giacinto Giorgio
Published: April 2012

Anyone who has ever tried to describe a picture in words is aware that it is not an easy task to find a word, a concept, or a category that characterizes it completely. Most images in real life represent more than a concept; therefore, it is natural that images available to users over the Internet (e.g., FLICKR) are associated with multiple tags. By the term ‘tag’, the authors refer to a concept represented in the image. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the performances of relevance feedback techniques in content-based image retrieval scenarios with multi-tag datasets, as typically performances are assessed on single-tag dataset. Thus, the authors show how relevance feedback mechanisms are able to adapt the search to user’s needs either in the case an image is used as an example for retrieving images each bearing different concepts, or the sample image is used to retrieve images containing the same set of concepts. In this paper, the authors also propose two novel performance measures aimed at comparing the accuracy of retrieval results when an image is used as a prototype for a number of different concepts.
Video Face Tracking and Recognition with Skin Region Extraction and Deformable Template Matching
Authors: Clippingdale Simon , Fujii Mahito
Published: April 2012

The authors describe a face tracking and recognition system for video indexing that handles variable face poses (left-right and up-down) and deformations due to speech and facial expressions. The system is based on deformable template matching, and employs person-specific templates at near-frontal poses for recognition, and novel person-independent templates at multiple poses on the view-sphere for tracking. Relative to an earlier version that used multiple person-specific templates at multiple (left-right) poses, the new system speeds up processing by (i) restricting attention to skin-color regions; (ii) performing recognition using the person-specific templates at near-frontal poses only; and (iii) tracking at non-frontal poses using the novel person-independent templates. Registration is also simplified since multiple views of each target individual are no longer required, but at the cost of a loss of recognition functionality at poses far from frontal (the system instead “remembers” the identity of each individual from near-frontal matches and tracks between them).
Electronic Payment Systems Evaluation
Authors: Peterson Derek , Howard Caroline
Published: April 2012

As e-commerce is increasingly critical to organizational survival in the 21st century global marketplace, business organizations are challenged with selecting the best payment alternatives to meet both their requirements and the needs of their customers. This paper develops and validates a performance-based tool, the Electronic Payment Efficacy Quotient (EPEQ), designed to assist merchants in selecting the appropriate EPS and measuring effectiveness. The research aims at addressing the need for EPS research to aid merchant selection and use of EPS. The paper presents the case study of a single source Internet Service Provider (ISP), which was analyzed to determine merchant’s needs regarding EPS and develop measures. Historical data was then used to determine and test the validity of the most effective alternative measures. The paper concludes with recommendations for future research to assist in optimizing merchant use of EPS.
Intelligent Fault Recognition and Diagnosis for Rotating Machines using Neural Networks
Authors: Ngolah Cyprian F. , Morden Ed , Wang Yingxu
Published: April 2012

Monitoring industrial machine health in real-time is not only in high demand, it is also complicated and difficult. Possible reasons for this include: (a) access to the machines on site is sometimes impracticable, and (b) the environment in which they operate is usually not human-friendly due to pollution, noise, hazardous wastes, etc. Despite theoretically sound findings on developing intelligent solutions for machine condition-based monitoring, few commercial tools exist in the market that can be readily used. This paper examines the development of an intelligent fault recognition and monitoring system (Melvin I), which detects and diagnoses rotating machine conditions according to changes in fault frequency indicators. The signals and data are remotely collected from designated sections of machines via data acquisition cards. They are processed by a signal processor to extract characteristic vibration signals of ten key performance indicators (KPIs). A 3-layer neural network is designed to recognize and classify faults based on a pre-determined set of KPIs. The system implemented in the laboratory and applied in the field can also incorporate new experiences into the knowledge base without overwriting previous training. Results show that Melvin I is a smart tool for both system vibration analysts and industrial machine operators.
The Formal Design Models of Tree Architectures and Behaviors
Authors: Wang Yingxu , Tan Xinming
Published: April 2012

Trees are one of the most fundamental and widely used non-linear hierarchical structures of linked nodes. A binary tree (B-Tree) is a typical balanced tree where the fan-out of each node is at most two known as the left and right children. This paper develops a comprehensive design pattern of formal trees using the B-Tree architecture. A rigorous denotational mathematics, Real-Time Process Algebra (RTPA), is adopted, which allows both architectural and behavioral models of B-Trees to be rigorously designed and implemented in a top-down approach. The architectural models of B-Trees are created using RTPA architectural modeling methodologies known as the Unified Data Models (UDMs). The physical model of B-Trees is implemented using the left and right child nodes dynamically created in memory. The behavioral models of B-Trees are specified and refined by a set of Unified Process Models (UPMs) in three categories namely the management operations, traversal operations, and node I/O operations. This work has been applied in a number of real-time and nonreal-time system designs such as a real-time operating system (RTOS+), a general system organization model, and the ADT library for an RTPA-based automatic code generator.
Formative User-Centered Evaluation of Security Modeling
Authors: Trösterer Sandra , Beck Elke , Dalpiaz Fabiano , Paja Elda , Giorgini Paolo , Tscheligi Manfred
Published: April 2012

Developing a security modeling language is a complex activity. Particularly, it becomes very challenging for Security Requirements Engineering (SRE) languages where social/organizational concepts are used to represent high-level business aspects, while security aspects are typically expressed in a technical jargon at a lower level of abstraction. In order to reduce this socio-technical mismatch and reach a high quality outcome, appropriate evaluation techniques need to be chosen and carried out throughout the development process of the modeling language. In this article, the authors present and discuss the formative user-centered evaluation approach, namely an evaluation technique that starts since the early design stages and actively involves end-users. The authors demonstrate the approach in a real case study presenting the results of the evaluation. From the gained empirical evidence, we may conclude that formative user-centered evaluation is highly recommended to investigate any security modeling language.
The Dual Effects of B Cell Depletion on Antigen-Specific T Cells in BDC2.5NOD Mice
Authors: Xiang Yufei , Peng Jian , Tai Ningwen , Hu Changyun , Zhou Zhiguang , Wong F. Susan , Wen Li
Published: April 2012

B cells play a critical role in the pathogenesis of autoimmune diabetes. To investigate the mechanisms by which B cell depletion therapy attenuates islet β cell loss and particularly to examine the effect of B cells on both diabetogenic and regulatory Ag-specific T cells, we generated a transgenic BDC2.5NOD mouse expressing human CD20 on B cells. This allowed us to deplete B cells for defined time periods and investigate the effect of B cell depletion on Ag-specific BDC2.5 T cells. We depleted B cells with anti-human CD20 Ab using a multiple injection protocol. We studied two time points, before and after B cell regeneration, to examine the effect on BDC2.5 T cell phenotype and functions that included antigenic response, cytokine profile, diabetogenicity, and suppressive function of regulatory T (Treg) cells. We found unexpectedly that B cell depletion induced transient aggressive behavior in BDC2.5 diabetogenic T cells and reduction in Treg cell number and function during the depletion period. However, after B cell reconstitution, we found that more regenerated B cells, particularly in the CD1d− fraction, expressed immune regulatory function. Our results suggest that the regenerated B cells are likely to be responsible for the therapeutic effect after B cell depletion. Our preclinical study also provides direct evidence that B cells regulate both pathogenic and Treg cell function, and this knowledge could explain the increased T cell responses to islet Ag after rituximab therapy in diabetic patients in a recent report and will be useful in design of future clinical protocols.
Introduction : Développement manuel précoce et enjeux théoriques
Authors: Fagard Jacqueline
Published: April 2012

Résumé Ce numéro thématique de la revue Enfance a pour vocation de montrer l’état des couplages sensorimanuels à partir desquels le nouveau-né commence à interagir avec son environnement ainsi que les mécanismes sous-jacents aux changements au cours du développement.
Trade Policy versus Trade Facilitation: An Application Using ‘Good Old’ OLS
Authors: Márquez-Ramos Laura , Martínez-Zarzoso Inmaculada , Suárez-Burguet Celestino
Published: April 2012

Trade policy barriers are only one element of overall trade costs. Among these, and due to the decrease in the influence of tariff barriers on trade over time, institutional barriers might increase in relative importance and become a key obstacle to the movements of goods across countries. This paper quantifies and compares the impact that a number of trade facilitation and trade policy barriers have on bilateral trade flows. A theoretically justified gravity model of trade is estimated by using the methodology proposed in Baier and Bergstrand (Bonus vetus OLS: A simple method for approximating international trade-cost effects using the gravity equation, 2009) for a cross-section of countries in the year 2000. Results indicate that institutional trade barriers have a greater impact on trade flows than tariff barriers. According to these findings, trade policy negotiation efforts should focus on facilitating trade processes and should be at the forefront of multilateral negotiations.
Toward a more physical representation of precipitation scavenging in global chemistry models: cloud overlap and ice physics and their impact on tropospheric ozone
Authors: Neu J. L. , Prather M. J.
Published: April 2012

Abstract. Uptake and removal of soluble trace gases and aerosols by precipitation represents a major uncertainty in the processes that control the vertical distribution of atmospheric trace species. Model representations of precipitation scavenging vary greatly in their complexity, and most are divorced from the physics of precipitation formation and transformation. Here, we describe a new large-scale precipitation scavenging algorithm, developed for the UCI chemistry-transport model (UCI-CTM), that represents a step toward a more physical treatment of scavenging through improvements in the formulation of the removal in sub-gridscale cloudy and ambient environments and their overlap within the column as well as ice phase uptake of soluble species. The UCI algorithm doubles the lifetime of HNO3 in the upper troposphere relative to a scheme with commonly used fractional cloud cover assumptions and ice uptake determined by Henry's Law and provides better agreement with HNO3 observations. We find that the process of ice phase scavenging of HNO3 is a critical component of the tropospheric O3 budget, but that NOx and O3 mixing ratios are relatively insensitive to large differences in the removal rate. Ozone abundances are much more sensitive to the lifetime of HNO4, highlighting the need for better understanding of its interactions with ice and for additional observational constraints.
Observed temporal evolution of global mean age of stratospheric air for the 2002 to 2010 period
Authors: Stiller G. P. , von Clarmann T. , Haenel F. , Funke B. , Glatthor N. , Grabowski U. , Kellmann S. , Kiefer M. , Linden A. , Lossow S. , López-Puertas M.
Published: April 2012

Abstract. An extensive observational data set, consisting of more than 106 SF6 vertical profiles from MIPAS measurements distributed over the whole globe has been condensed into monthly zonal means of mean age of air for the period September 2002 to January 2010, binned at 10° latitude and 1–2 km altitude. The data were analysed with respect to their temporal variation by fitting a regression model consisting of a constant and a linear increase term, 2 proxies for the QBO variation, sinusoidal terms for the seasonal and semi-annual variation and overtones for the correction of the shapes to the observed data set. The impact of subsidence of mesospheric SF6-depleted air and in-mixing into non-polar latitudes on mid-latitudinal absolute age of air and its linear increase was assessed and found to be small. The linear increase of mean age of stratospheric air was found to be positive and partly larger than the trend derived by Engel et al. (2009) for most of the Northern mid-latitudes, the middle stratosphere in the tropics, and parts of the Southern mid-latitudes, as well as for the Southern polar upper stratosphere. Multi-year decrease of age of air was found for the lowermost and the upper stratospheric tropics, for parts of Southern mid-latitudes, and for the Northern polar regions. Analysis of the amplitudes and phases of the seasonal variation shed light on the coupling of stratospheric regions to each other. In particular, the Northern mid-latitude stratosphere is well coupled to the tropics, while the Northern lowermost mid-latitudinal stratosphere is decoupled, confirming the separation of the shallow branch of the Brewer-Dobson circulation from the deep branch. We suggest an overall increased tropical upwelling, together with weakening of mixing barriers, especially in the Northern Hemisphere, as a hypothetical model to explain the observed pattern of linear multi-year increase/decrease, and amplitudes and phase shifts of the seasonal variation.