bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Photovoltaic Single-Ply Roofing Membranes
Authors: Laaly HO 
Published: March 2009

The past twenty years is considered to be a landmark and revolutionary advancement period for the progress and recognition of various classes of Single-Ply Roofing Membranes in Canada and the United States. During the same two decades, parallel and independently tremendous efforts and billions of dollars were allocated to generate electricity from solar radiation by advancing the level of understanding and implementation of photovoltaic science and technology. Prohibitively expensive, in 1969, the dream of landing on the moon and returning to Earth became a reality by combined efforts of the U.S. scientific community. The use of photovoltaic semiconductors on glass panels was a key factor for the success of this monumental project.
Seventeen years later in 1986, the author succeeded in bringing these two technologies together. The photovoltaic single-ply roofing membrane is a product which combines the usefulness and universal utilization of both science and technologies. This patented procedure, the basic research and development of its components, and the self sufficiency of the electrical energy generated is discussed. The testing and application standards proposed for this class of revolutionary, flexible and bi-functional roofing membranes, examples of their potentials for mass production and applications are also provided.
Sealant Stresses in Tension and Shear
Authors: Shisler FW , Klosowski JM 
Published: March 2009

This paper addresses the question, “Are the stress vs strain or modulus characteristics of various generic sealants the same in shear as they are in tension?”
The ASTM tests and Federal Specifications for sealants address the joint movement ability of sealants when they are stressed in tension and compression. Nowhere does a test or specification relate to the movement ability in shear directions. Many joints are made of dissimilar materials so that with temperature changes these materials change dimension by differing amounts. Also, some joints are stressed as one substrate moves in or out of the plane of the wall or floor. The above mentioned cases are examples of shear movement. The authors stressed a variety of different generic sealants in the tension mode as well as the two shear modes (longitudinal and transverse). They show the relationship of the tension movement to the shear movements for sealants from each of the generic types.
Criteria for Design and Testing of Sealants Used in Single-Ply Roofing and Waterproofing Systems
Authors: Gish LE 
Published: March 2009

Roofing membranes are subjected to large temperature gradients, ultraviolet radiation from the sun, building movement, constant and intermittent water immersion, and microbial attack. Waterproofing membranes are subjected to many of the same stresses. In both cases sealants are generally used as the first line of defense for the seams in the membrane system. Each of the single ply roofing and waterproofing systems in use today utilizes at least one if not several sealants whose application is unique to that system.
Sealants used with each of the generic single ply types are described in terms of their function and required performance.
Criteria for testing such sealant products are discussed with emphasis on the design and interpretation of meaningful laboratory test methods, those that will rapidly predict the performance of a candidate sealant in conditions of actual use.
Systems discussed include EPDM, Neoprene, Butyl, and Hypalon elastomers, CPE and PVC thermoplastics, and modified bitumen.
Sealant Back-up Material and New Developments
Authors: Schroeder MJ , Hovis EE 
Published: March 2009

During polyolefin extrusion trials in the first quarter of 1988, we were experimenting with polyolefin blends trying to develop a high resilient backing material which was suitable for use in a joint with slow curing, low modulus, self-leveling sealants. One of the requirements for this new backing material was better compression recovery than traditional closed cell polyethylene foams.
While working with polyolefin blends to increase recovery, it was discovered that a dimensionally stable, open cell/closed cell structure could be extruded with the added benefit of non-outgassing when ruptured.
European Experiences of Sealants in Service, Correlation to Results from Laboratory Tests
Authors: Burström PG 
Published: March 2009

Various examinations of sealant joints show that there are many problems with leakage, even in fairly new buildings. Two main reasons have been that the sealant properties are overrated and that the joint design or workmanship is poor due to lack of knowledge about the basic requirements and the material properties.
The failure mechanism of an elastic sealant is described. This serves as a basis for a suggested engineering approach for designing sealant joints. A methodology is described by which aging and durability properties of a sealant can be evaluated. Examples of test results for various sealants are given.
Today there are sealants on the European market with excellent durability and high movement capability. The conditions are therefore good for a service life of at least 25 years for many selants. The problem is to get these sealants designed and used in the proper way.
Derivation of a Damage Function for Galvanized Steel Structures: Corrosion Kinetics and Thermodynamic Considerations
Authors: Spence JW , Haynie FH 
Published: March 2009

A damage function for predicting the corrosion of galvanized steel structures by wet and dry deposition has been developed from the thermodynamics and kinetics of atmospheric corrosion chemistry. The function mathematically expresses the competing reactions for the buildup and dissolution of the basic zinc-carbonate corrosion film with exposure time. Major findings as expressed by the theoretical function are as follows: 1. During periods of surface wetness, SO2 reaching the surface reacts stoichiometrically with the zinc. 2. Rain acidity reacts stoichiometrically with the zinc. 3. The corrosion film of basic zinc carbonate is soluble in clean rain. The dissolution depends on the residence time of rain on the galvanized steel surface. 4. Deposition velocity controls the rate of corrosion of galvanized steel structures by gaseous SO2 during periods of wetness.
This paper recommends testing the applicability of the proposed damage function with field corrosion data that is being acquired by the Bureau of Mines and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and with corrosion data from prior field exposure studies. In this manner a validated damage function should be developed for conducting an assessment of acid deposition to galvanized steel structures.
Finding Homologs in Amino Acid Sequences Using Network BLAST Searches
Authors: Ladunga Istvan (Steve) 
Published: March 2009

AbstractThe Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (BLAST) is the most fundamental (and most misused) algorithm and software in bioinformatics/computational biology for functional assessment of unknown proteins or discovery of similar proteins with potentially common evolutionary origins. We show how to balance sensitivity with selectivity (without generating massive output) by selecting and demonstrating proper database, algorithm, and alignment display options of the user‐friendly Web sites of the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI). We discuss protein query searches against protein databases and submission of all combinations of translated searches. Careful biological and statistical inferences are drawn to possible functions, taking into account the highly nonrandom nature of proteins. Guidelines for such inferences, using real‐life biological examples (e.g., protein kinases with widely distributed structural and functional domains), are provided. We show how to avoid incorrect functional inference from misleading similarities, using the divergent evolution of a serine protease domain that erodes the protease function in haptoglobins. Curr. Protoc. Bioinform. 25:3.4.1‐3.4.34. © 2009 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Using RepeatMasker to Identify Repetitive Elements in Genomic Sequences
Authors: Tarailo‐Graovac Maja , Chen Nansheng 
Published: March 2009

AbstractRepeatMasker is a popular software tool widely used in computational genomics to identify, classify, and mask repetitive elements, including low‐complexity sequences and interspersed repeats. RepeatMasker searches for repetitive sequence by aligning the input genome sequence against a library of known repeats, such as Repbase. Here, we describe two Basic Protocols that provide detailed guidelines on how to use RepeatMasker, either via the Web interface or command‐line Unix/Linux system, to analyze repetitive elements in genomic sequences. Sequence comparisons in RepeatMasker are usually performed by the alignment program cross_match, which requires significant processing time for larger sequences. An Alternate Protocol describes how to reduce the processing time using an alternative alignment program, such as WU‐BLAST. Further, the advantages, limitations, and known bugs of the software are discussed. Finally, guidelines for understanding the results are provided. Curr. Protoc. Bioinform. 25:4.10.1‐4.10.14. © 2009 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Artificial Neural Networks
Authors: Wang Lipo , Fu Kiuju 
Published: March 2009

AbstractArtificial neural networks (ANNs) are computational models inspired from the thinking pattern of human brain. ANNs can learn and generalize from experiences, and they can abstract essential information from data. ANNs are trained to “think” like humans by strengthening or weakening interconnected weights that connect processing elements of ANNs. In the literature, the terms “neuron,” “cell,” and “unit” are usually used interchangeably for representing processing elements of neural networks.
Authentication, Access Control, and Information Flow
Authors: Ray Arnab 
Published: March 2009

AbstractWith the enormous quantity of sensitive information (financial and personal data, medical records) that is being stored inside computer‐based systems on a daily basis, the survival of our modern economy depends critically on the storage of these data and the intergrity of the transactions that operate on it. When trying to analyze whether a certain computer‐based system is “secure,” engineers typically question the authentication, message authentication, intergrity, and access control, In this article, we discuss each concept in detail with special attention paid to their actual implementation in real‐world software systems.
Clusters and Grids
Authors: Prodan Rodu 
Published: March 2009

AbstractOver the past 10–15 years,cluster computinghas emerged as a viable alternative to MPPs by offering a significantly superior price/performance ratio. Normally, a cluster consists of hundreds or thousands of personal computers (PCs) or workstations interconnected through commodity network cards. One can recognize the difference between a cluster and an MPP similar to that between a mainframe computer and a Personal Computer (PC). Both possess a Central Processing Unit (CPU), random access memory, disks, one operating system, and so on. On the mainframe, everything works a lot faster than on the PC, but it lags behind in terms of quality and requires additional effort and cost for maintenance and administration. The same holds true between MPPs and clusters. Originally, MPPs excelled mostly because of the proprietary high‐performance interconnections between standard processors, such as Intel Pentium, Sun UltraSPARC, or PowerPC. Following the analogy with mainframes being replaced by PCs, cluster architectures are nowadays a viable replacement for MPPs, the driving force that enabled this transition being the rapid improvement in the availability of commodity high‐performance components for PCs/workstations and networks. These technologies are making a network/cluster of computers an appealing vehicle for cost‐effective parallel processing, and it is consequently leading to low‐cost commodity supercomputing.
Data Mining
Authors: Wu Xindong , Zhang Yan , Zhu Xingquan 
Published: March 2009

AbstractData mining, or knowledge discovery in databases (KDD), is an interdisciplinary field that integrates techniques from several research areas, which include machine learning, statistics, database systems, and pattern recognition, for the analysis of large volumes of possibly complex, highly distributed and poorly organized data. The increasing volumes of data collections in all fields of human endeavors as well as the imminent need of discovering useful knowledge are two factors that promote the popularity of this field. In this article, we discuss the major steps in a data‐mining process and the main topics in data‐mining research and development, and we review the challenging problems and influential algorithms.
Algorithm‐Based Fault‐Tolerant Cryptography
Authors: Zhang C. N. , Liu Xiao Wei 
Published: March 2009

AbstractThe algorithm‐based fault‐tolerant (ABFT) scheme has been applied to computation‐intensive tasks for couple of years. This technique mainly deals with matrix operations that are capable of using the ready‐made ALUs in certain protocol architectures. Besides, the ABFT‐based fault‐tolerant scheme can be performed concurrently with the cryptographic processes. In that case, overhead associated with the additional redundancy can be reduced. Because of the advantages compared with other fault‐tolerant methods, we adjust and integrate the ABFT technique into error detection and correction schemes for symmetric key encryption/decryption and hash function cryptosystem. RC4, AES, and SHA‐512 are specified examples set for conventional stream ciphers, block ciphers, and hash functions, respectively, to show our claim. These proposed approaches can provide simple computation, robust fault tolerance, reasonable overhead, and fast error detection/correction also, which make ABFT‐based schemes practical and useful.
Financial Applications: Stock Markets
Authors: Chen Shu‐Heng 
Published: March 2009

AbstractThe integration of computer science, computer technology, and finance has given rise to the field known as computational finance. Depending on its involvement in economic theory and its contribution to economic theory, computational finance can be divided into financial engineering and agent‐based computational finance. Financial engineering can be defined as the application of computational tools or algorithms to tackle some already existing financial optimization problems, such as forecasting, investment, portfolios, trading, and pricing. These applications usually do not challenge the fundamental principles (assumptions or axioms) from which the optimization problems are derived. They simply take advantage of the increasing computational power to address great technical difficulties inherent in financial optimization, such as nonlinearities and high dimensionality. Compared to financial engineering, agent‐based computational finance has a more general goal. It questions the foundations up on which mainstream economics and finance are built, and it reexamines some missing elements, which were absent mainly due to the limited computational resources. Then, by bringing back these elements, agent‐based computational finance attempts to provide us with a better understanding of the financial market dynamics.
Input Devices
Authors: LaViola Joseph J. 
Published: March 2009

AbstractInput devices are fundamental to interaction with computer systems. They provide users with the ability to communicate effectively with machines by sensing information about the real world. In this article, we examine several types of input devices in use today, which include pointing devices, joysticks, and motion trackers. We also explore input device characteristics, how they can be classified and categorized, their internal workings, and their strengths and weaknesses.
Intelligent Power System
Authors: Vale Zita A. 
Published: March 2009

AbstractArtificial intelligence has been used to address a wide range of problems in power systems. A large set of artificial intelligence techniques has been used for addressing several problems in power systems. Knowledge‐based systems and decision‐support systems have been applied in the power and energy industry. A wide range of technologies is used, like expert systems, machine learning and data mining, computational intelligence, and bio‐inspired computing, planning, and multi agent systems.Currently Al‐based applications are used daily in power system planning and operation, as well as in electrigity market‐related activities. With secure steps, these applications are contributing towards the future implementation of the concept of an intelligent power system.This article is intended to offer an undated overview of the application of artificial intelligence in power systems. It is organized in a way so that readers can easily understand the problems and the adequacy of the proposed solutions. Because of space constraints, this approach can be neither complete nor sufficiently deep to satisfy all readers' needs. As this is a multidisciplinary area able to attract both software and computer engineering and power system people, this article to give an insight in to most important concepts involved in these applications. Complementary material can be found in the reference list, providing deeper and more specific approaches.
Model Checking
Authors: Peled Doron , Pelliccione Patrizio , Spoletini Paola 
Published: March 2009

AbstractModel checking is an automatic technique for verifying models of software or hardware systems against their specification. This analysis is based on an exploration of the checked system's state space, hence, it is in general affected by the state explosion problem. In this article, we present the classic model checking approaches and different techniques to deal with the complexity problem. We also describe some popular model checking systems.
Object‐Oriented Analysis and Design
Authors: Cooper Kendra M. L. 
Published: March 2009

AbstractSoftware engineering has established activities used in developing systems, which include requirements engineering, analyzing and designing the software, implementing, testing, and so on. Object‐oriented design has been evolving as a discipline for over 25 years and is now a set of established activities in software engineering. The object‐oriented design activities transform the requirements into multiple levels of design (architecture, analysis, and detailed). The detailed design is then realized in code. This article provides an overview of two design activities: analysis and detailed design.
Parallel Programming Tools
Authors: Evans Jeffrey J. 
Published: March 2009

AbstractHigh performance computing (HPC) hardware has evolved from (but not eliminated) vector supercomputer platforms to PC cluster and other scalable parallel systems. This architectural change is exciting because large‐scale parallelism can be more easily realized and expanded as hardware component performance evolves and component costs decrease. Moreover, the notion of large scale has grown from describing hundreds to now meaning up to hundreds of thousands of processors. This evolution also implies that hardware and software interactions have grown in number and complexity, which dramatically increased debugging and performance tuning problems for parallel application developers.Today's HPC systems are also exposing natural tensions between the operations and user domains. Complex hardware and systems software interactions are often dependent on subtle timing conditions that can be difficult and time consuming to reproduce. Add to this one or more parallel applications that simultaneously execute on a HPC system it becomes clear that locating and eliminating undesired interactions or software bugs can be extraordinarily tedious, and it may also require expertise from across domains that have different interests and objectives. In these situations, system administrators may tend to suspect the parallel application, whereas the application developer often suspects some performance degradation of the underlying system.This article discusses key perspectives for parallel programming tools:basics, which includes a classification of tool types,challenges and opportunitiesfor parallel programming tools,libraries, like NetLib, PetSc, and PAPI, andperformance analysis environments, including Jumpshot, Pablo, Tau, and Paradyn. Because the trend over the past 5 years has been toward clusters the discussion and examples will primarily focus on the single‐program–multiple‐data (SPMD) parallel programming model using message passing to exchange data and provide program synchronization.
Program Interpreters
Authors: Alfonseca Manuel 
Published: March 2009

Abstract
This article summarizes the characteristics, structure, advantages, disadvantages, and applications of program interpreters. Interpreters may be used, in preference to compilers, for portability or security reasons, for the ability to use powerful dynamic constructs, or for fast building of easy‐to‐debug prototypes. It must be taken into account, however, that interpreters and compilers have converged: Current interpreters use many optimization techniques originally developed for compilers, whereas some compilers reach typical advantages of interpreters through the use of sophisticated techniques.
Hardware Based Rapid Prototyping
Authors: Glesner Manfred , Murgan Tudor , Hollstein Thomas 
Published: March 2009

AbstractThe development of complex microelectronic systems confronts the design teams with a large variety of problems. Looking at the overall design time, validation requires in general significantly more than 50% of the resources. Furthermore, the composition of the design teams have noticeably changed: Although at the beginning of the 1990s, about one third of the design team was involved in validation issues, one decade later already over two thirds of the team was dealing with these issues. Two fundamental trends are observed in the VLSI community that contribute to the continuous increase of this effect in the future. On one hand, increasing system complexity because of tremendous advances in integration technology, and on the other hand, tighter time‐to‐market constraints.
Real‐Time Systems: An Introduction and the State‐of‐the‐Art
Authors: Kavi Krishna , Akl Robert , Hurson Ali 
Published: March 2009

AbstractReal‐time systemscover a broad spectrum of automated platforms in which the correctness of the system not only requires functionally (or logical) correct operation but also produces results within prespecified “real‐time constraints.” By contrast, anon–real‐time systemis one for which there is no deadline, even if fast response or high performance is desired or even preferred. Real‐time systems are usually “situated” in an environment and involve in sensing apparatus to detect, control, and adapt to the environmental conditions. Real‐time systems can be networked and distributed (e.g., sensor networks) or embedded (e.g., automotive control systems, cell phones).
Side Effects
Authors: Sabry Amr 
Published: March 2009

AbstractSide effects occur when a computation performs some actions “behind the scene.” Such actions complicate programming activities and the process of maintaining and reasoning about program components. To address these complications, it is first beneficial to expose the side effects as explicit actions whose propagation then can be checked explicitly and enforced by programs and program analysis tools. Additionally, side effects could be confined to specialized sublanguages, which have been designed to deal generically, and in a modular way, with a heterogeneous collection of side effects. Such specialized languages simplify—but do not completely solve—the tricky problems that occur when different side effects interact.