Specificity: A Graph-Based Estimator of Divergence In statistical modeling, there are various techniques used to build models from training data. Quantitative comparison of modeling techniques requires a method for evaluating the quality of the fit between the model probability density function (pdf) and the training data. One graph-based measure that has been used for this purpose is the specificity. We consider the large-numbers limit of the specificity, and derive expressions which show that it can be considered as an estimator of the divergence between the unknown pdf from which the training data was drawn and the model pdf built from the training data. Experiments using artificial data enable us to show that these limiting large-number relations enable us to obtain good quantitative and qualitative predictions of the behavior of the measured specificity, even for small numbers of training examples and in some extreme cases. We demonstrate that specificity can provide a more sensitive measure of difference between various modeling methods than some previous graph-based techniques. Key points are illustrated using real data sets. We thus establish a proper theoretical basis for the previously ad hoc concept of specificity, and obtain useful insights into the application of specificity in the analysis of real data.

B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O

generalization
assessment of modeling
graph-based estimators
entropy estimation
estimation of statistical distance
estimation of divergence
nearest-neighbor estimators
cross entropy
kullback-leibler divergence


Frustration effects on small-world networks We investigate the frustration effects on small-world networks by studying antiferromagnetic Ising model in two dimensions. When the rewiring is constrained to those sites such that the interaction still occurs between spins in distinct sublattices and frustration does not take place, we observe that the system behaves as in previous investigations of ferromagnetic Ising model. However, when the rewiring procedure does not only produce interactions between spins in distinct sublattices, small-world configurations can effectively produce geometrical frustration and we attain a different critical behavior. In the frustrated case, the critical temperature decreases with the augment of the rewiring probability and the magnetic ordering presents two different regimes for low and high p.

B O O O O O O O B O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

small-world networks
monte carlo simulations


Structural, ferroelectric, electronic and transport properties of BaTiO3/Pt heterostructures grown on MgO(001) Heteroepitaxial BTO(001)/Pt(001) films are grown on MgO(001) by PLD. As grown BTO films are in a single-domain state and polarized downward. The band gap of ultrathin heteroepitaxial BTO layer strongly depends on thickness. Cr/BTO(3nm)/Pt based FTJ: tunneling electroresistance Rup/Rdown up to 30.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

batio3
ferroelectric tunnel junction
pulsed laser deposition


The use of mathematics in software quality assurance The use of mathematics for documenting, inspecting, and testing software is explained and illustrated. Three measures of software quality are described and discussed. Then three distinct complementary approaches to software quality assurance are presented. A case study, the testing and inspection of a safety-critical system, is discussed in detail.

O O O O O B I I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

documentation based inspection
documentation based testing


Robust speech recognition method based on discriminative environment feature extraction It is an effective approach to learn the influence of environmental parameters, such as additive noise and channel distortions, from training data for robust speech recognition. Most of the previous methods are based on maximum likelihood estimation criterion. However, these methods do not lead to a minimum error rate result. In this paper, a novel discriminative learning method of environmental parameters, which is based on Minimum Classification Error (MCE) criterion, is proposed. In the method, a simple classifier and the Generalized Probabilistic Descent (GPD) algorithm are adopted to iteratively learn the environmental parameters. Consequently, the clean speech features are estimated from the noisy speech features with the estimated environmental parameters, and then the estimations of clean speech features are utilized in the back-end HMM classifier. Experiments show that the best error rate reduction of 32.1% is obtained, tested on a task of 18 isolated confusion Korean words, relative to a conventional HMM system.

B I I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O B I I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

robust speech recognition
minimum classification error
discriminative learning


Claudins and alveolar epithelial barrier function in the lung The alveolar epithelium of the lung constitutes a unique interface with the outside environment. This thin barrier must maintain a surface for gas transfer while being continuously exposed to potentially hazardous environmental stimuli. Small differences in alveolar epithelial barrier properties could therefore have a large impact on disease susceptibility or outcome. Moreover, recent work has focused attention on the alveolar epithelium as central to several lung diseases, including acute lung injury and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. Although relatively little is known about the function and regulation of claudin tight junction proteins in the lung, new evidence suggests that environmental stimuli can influence claudin expression and alveolar barrier function in human disease. This review considers recent advances in the understanding of the role of claudins in the breakdown of the alveolar epithelial barrier in disease and in epithelial repair.

O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O B I I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B B I O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

alveolar epithelium
tight junction
claudin
acute lung injury


Unsupervised images segmentation via incremental dictionary learning based sparse representation In this paper we propose a novel Dictionary Learning and Sparse Representation-based Classifier (DLSRC) for image segmentation. In DLSRC, instances-based learning is adopted to find representative dictionaries that can sparsely code various classes of prototype samples in images. Then an incremental version of DLSRC, IDLSRC, is advanced for incremental learning of accumulating knowledge obtained from labeled data. The unsupervised clustering algorithm provides initial labeled samples, and then the labels of candidate samples are incrementally predicted by defining a consistency-enhanced evaluation function. Some experiments are taken on both the artificial texture images and real Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images, to investigate the performance of DLSRC and IDLSRC. Some aspects including (1) the comparison of DLSRC with the Sparse Representation based Classifier (SRC) and some unsupervised clustering approaches, (2) the comparison of IDLSRC with DLSRC, are tested, and the results prove the superiority of our proposed method to its counterparts.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

image segmentation
incremental learning
synthetic aperture radar

dictionary learning and sparse representation based classifier


A Dual-Bound Algorithm for Very Fast and Exact Template Matching Recently proposed fast template matching techniques employ rejection schemes derived from lower bounds on the match measure. This paper generalizes that idea and shows that in addition to lower bounds, upper bounds on the match measure can be used to accelerate the search. An algorithm is proposed that utilizes both lower and upper bounds to detect the k best matches in an image. The performance of this dual-bound algorithm is guaranteed; it always detects the k best matches. Theoretical analysis and experimental results show that its runtime compares favorably with previously proposed real-time exact template-matching schemes.

O O O O O O O O B I O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

walsh transform
pattern matching
real-time matching
priority queues


Fusing bio-inspired vision data for simplified high level scene interpretation: Application to face motion analysis This paper proposes to demonstrate the advantages of using certain properties of the human visual system in order to develop a set of fusion algorithms for automatic analysis and interpretation of global and local facial motions. The proposed fusion algorithms rely on information coming from human vision models such as human retina and primary visual cortex previously developed at Gipsa-lab. Starting from a set of low level bio-inspired modules (static and moving contour detector, motion event detector and spectrum analyser) which are very efficient for video data pre-processing, it is shown how to organize them together in order to achieve reliable face motion interpretation. In particular, algorithms for global head motion analysis such as head nods, for local eye motion analysis such as blinking, for local mouth motion analysis such as speech lip motion and yawning and for open/close mouth/eye state detection are proposed and their performances are assessed. Thanks to the use of human vision model pre-processing which decorrelates visual information in a reliable manner, fusion algorithms are simplified and remain robust against traditional video acquisition problems (light changes, object detection failure, etc.).

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

bio-inspired approach
retina modelling
v1 cortex model
motion detection
spectrum analysis
yawn detection
blinks detection
non-speech periods detection
head approval and denial detection


culturally adaptive mobile agent dialogue to communicate with people in crisis recovery We present ongoing research concerning the interaction between users and environmental agencies through autonomous mobile agents in the environmental monitoring domain. The overarching EU FP7 project DIADEM, concerns the development of a system that detects potentially hazardous situations in populated areas using input from both a distributed sensor network and humans through their mobile devices. We propose a model of interaction with a system where concerned citizens communicate with a social virtual agent through their mobile phone to inform the environmental monitoring agency about unusual smells. In case of an emergency, people will receive instructions or directions for evacuation from the agent. In this paper, we review relevant literature and describe the development of a dynamic dialogue agent that supports international collaboration by adapting its social interaction to the cultural background of the humans it interacts with.

O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O

human-agent dialogue
user interruption
cross-cultural design
persuasive technology


toward efficient flow-sensitive induction variable analysis and dependence testing for loop optimization This paper presents a new approach to improve flow-sensitive induction variable analysis and data dependence testing on intermediate program representations, such as control-flow graphs with low-level operations representations in single static assignment forms. Current compiler techniques have difficulties optimizing loops that exhibit irregular control flow patterns. The inaccuracy of loop analysis results in conservative estimations of array-based data dependences in loops, which negatively affects the speedup of the loop via parallelization and vectorization. Our approach is based on a novel CR# (CR-sharp) algebra that effectively represents the value progressions of (conditionally) updated variables in loops. The CR# forms of induction variables are constructed with a new flow-sensitive induction variable recognition algorithm. We also developed a new CR#-based nonlinear data dependence test that enables loops to be more effectively optimized.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

loop parallelization
recurrences
compiler algorithms


the integration of simulation modeling system for student experiment and modeling ability evaluation This research aims at developing and evaluating the computer simulation software of pendulum, and exploring junior high students' scientific modeling ability. Firstly, the researcher analyzed pendulum modeling software development. Secondly, after considering the validity of the software, and the assessments of the whole system by the experts in the field, this researcher revised the software to make it more suitable for the purposes of junior high students' pendulum modeling with computer simulation. Finally, purposes of this research are to contend the suggestions of application of the software for junior high science teacher, to synthetic development relevant software of pendulum modeling in this research, and to obtain the following conclusions: 1. There are six kinds of variables of simulation pendulum: mass, length, angle, force, air-force, and width of string. Based on the modeling software systematic, the researcher needed to develop relevant software tools to help students' modeling, such as Time-recorder, grid chart and the film of Galileo's history of science. 2. The fuzzy synthetic evaluation was implemented for assessing modeling ability. Five aspects, with totally 19 sub items together, are contained in the evaluation system, which can be regarded as the evaluation for student's modeling ability. 3. Via the evaluation in discipline content, media interface and the user attitude, etc., this simulation software is suitable for the stage of junior high student pendulum modeling under the movement law, f = m a.

O O O B B O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O B O O B O O O O O O B O O O O O B B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B B O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B B O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O B B O O O O O O O O


On the combinatorics of leftist trees Let ?n be the number of leftist trees with n nodes. The corresponding (ordinary) generating function ?(x) is shown to satisfy an explicit functional equation, from which a specific recurrence for the ?n is obtained. Some basic analytic properties of ?(x) are uncovered. Then the problem of determining average quantities (expected additive weights, in the notation of Kemp (Acta Inform. 26 (1989) 711740)) related to the distribution of nodes is re-analysed. Finally, the average height of leftist trees is shown to be asymptotic to n1/2, apart from a multiplicative constant that can be evaluated with high accuracy.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O


optimal bounds for decision problems on the crcw pram We prove optimal &OHgr;(log n /log log n ) lower bounds on the time for CRCW PRAM's with polynomially bounded numbers of processors or memory cells to compute parity and a number of related problems. We also exhibit a strict time hierarchy of explicit Boolean functions of n bits on such machines which holds up to &Ogr; (log n /log log n ) time. Furthermore, we show that almost all Boolean functions of n bits require log n - log log n + &OHgr;(1) time when the number of processors is at most polynomial in n . Our bounds do not place restrictions on the uniformity of the algorithms nor on the instruction sets of the machines.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O B B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O B B O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O

processor
lower bound
optimality
computation
functional
memorialized
proven
timing
hierarchies
algorithm
resource


A semi-structured document model for text mining A semi-structured document has more structured information compared to an ordinary document, and the relation among semi-structured documents can be fully utilized. In order to take advantage of the structure and link information in a semi-structured document for better mining, a structured link vector model (SLVM) is presented in this paper, where a vector represents a document, and vectors' elements are determined by terms, document structure and neighboring documents. Text mining based on SLVM is described in the procedure of K-means for briefness and clarity: calculating document similarity and calculating cluster center. The clustering based on SLVM performs significantly better than that based on a conventional vector space model in the experiments, and its F value increases from 0.65-0.73 to 0.82-0.86.

O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I I I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I I O O O O O O O O O O O O

text mining
vector space model
structured link vector model


A structured methodology for implementing engineering data management One of the most significant positive effects on product and process development in recent years has been the application of data management techniques. Engineering data management or product data management is the most promising one. The implementation of engineering data management is heavily dependent on the engineering process and involves the technologies of management, engineering, and information. However, as there is no commonly acceptable approach and methodologies for implementing engineering data management, its implementation becomes a bottleneck. This paper presents a structured methodology for the implementation of engineering data management. The approach consists of a series of steps, from business and engineering process analysis, modeling and reengineering, through system design and modeling, to system realization. This research will facilitate engineering process improvement and the planning, design and implementation of engineering data management. Consequently, it will help increase product development capability and quality, reduce development cycle time and cost, and hence increase product marketability.

O O O O O B I I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I I O B I I O O O O O O O O B I I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

engineering data management
product data management

concurrent engineering
enterprise modeling


Artificial motives: a review of motivation in artificial creatures The significance of the motivational determinants of animal and human behaviour has been recognized for some time by psychologists, ethologists and other students of behaviour. The diversity of mechanisms and processes which have been proposed as explanations of motivated behaviour reflects the depth and complexity of this issue. In recent years, researchers interested in designing artificial creatures and similar robotic devices have turned to these theories of motivation as a means of making their creations more adaptive to real-world situations. This paper outlines some of the pertinent strands of motivation research in animal psychology and animal behaviour; topics considered include ethological models of motivation and psychological accounts such as drive theory and incentive motivation. These theories provide the framework for a review of artefactual models which include a motivational dimension in artificial neural and other parallel distributed animat control mechanisms. The paper goes on to explore the potential of an interactive view of motivation, adopted by theorists such as F. Toates (1986, Motivational Systems, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), as the basis for identifying the problems of including a motivational dimension in the design of artificial creatures, e.g. the issue of 'emergent motivation'.

O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O B O O B B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B


Consequence of one-electron oxidation and one-electron reduction for aniline Quantum-chemical calculations were performed for all possible isomers of neutral aniline and its redox forms, and intramolecular proton-transfer (prototropy) accompanied by pi-electron delocalization was analyzed. One-electron oxidation (PhNH(2) - e -> aEuro parts per thousand[PhNH(2)](+aEuro cent)) has no important effect on tautomeric preferences. The enamine tautomer is preferred for oxidized aniline similarly as for the neutral molecule. Dramatical changes take place when proceeding from neutral to reduced aniline. One-electron reduction (PhNH(2) + e -> aEuro parts per thousand[PhNH(2)](-aEuro cent)) favors the imine tautomer. Independently on the state of oxidation, pi- and n-electrons are more delocalized for the enamine than imine tautomers. The change of the tautomeric preferences for reduced aniline may partially explain the origin of the CH tautomers for reduced nucleobases (cytosine, adenine, and guanine).

O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

charged radicals
dft
pi-electron delocalization
one-electron oxidation
one-electron reduction


An efficient and robust integration technique for applied random vibration analysis The mode-based finite element formulation of the equations of motion is usually adopted for linear random vibration analysis (RVA). In general, the RVA of large systems requires a large number of numerical integrations which is very time-consuming for a reasonable level of desired accuracy. Moreover, conventional numerical integration methods may fail to converge when the integrands are highly oscillatory due to slow propagation velocities. In this paper, a robust general-purpose RVA integration technique which can overcome these drawbacks is presented. Multi-point base and nodal excitations including wave passage effect and frequency-independent spatial correlation can be taken into account in the analysis. The proposed technique is based on the closed-form solutions for polynomial-type power spectral density functions and has been verified to be efficient and accurate for many engineering problems. This paper describes the implementation details, presents two examples taken from engineering applications and demonstrates the dramatic time-saving in the computation compared to numerical integration solutions. Response statistics, such as standard deviation of structural responses, are computed and displayed over the entire structures for these examples.

O O O O O O O O B I I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

random vibration analysis
power spectral density

closed-form solutions
finite element analysis
spectral moments
ansys


Sequential Monte Carlo EM for multivariate probit models Multivariate probit models have the appealing feature of capturing some of the dependence structure between the components of multidimensional binary responses. The key for the dependence modelling is the covariance matrix of an underlying latent multivariate Gaussian. Most approaches to maximum likelihood estimation in multivariate probit regression rely on Monte Carlo EM algorithms to avoid computationally intensive evaluations of multivariate normal orthant probabilities. As an alternative to the much used Gibbs sampler a new sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) sampler for truncated multivariate normals is proposed. The algorithm proceeds in two stages where samples are first drawn from truncated multivariate Student t distributions and then further evolved towards a Gaussian. The sampler is then embedded in a Monte Carlo EM algorithm. The sequential nature of SMC methods can be exploited to design a fully sequential version of the EM, where the samples are simply updated from one iteration to the next rather than resampled from scratch. Recycling the samples in this manner significantly reduces the computational cost. An alternative view of the standard conditional maximisation step provides the basis for an iterative procedure to fully perform the maximisation needed in the EM algorithm. The identifiability of multivariate probit models is also thoroughly discussed. In particular, the likelihood invariance can be embedded in the EM algorithm to ensure that constrained and unconstrairied maximisations are equivalent. A simple iterative procedure is then derived for either maximisation which takes effectively no computational time. The method is validated by applying it to the widely analysed Six Cities dataset and on a higher dimensional simulated example. Previous approaches to the Six Cities dataset overly restrict the parameter space but, by considering the correct invariance, the maximum likelihood is quite naturally improved when treating the full unrestricted model. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

O B I I O B I O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O B I O O O B I I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

maximum likelihood
multivariate probit
monte carlo em


Polygons Drawn from Permutations n this paper we consider the class of column-convex permutominoes, i.e. column-convex polyominoes defined by a pair of permutations (pi(1), pi(2)). First, using a geometric construction, we prove that for every permutation pi there is at least one column-convex permutomino P such that pi(1) (P) = pi or pi(2) (P) = pi. In the second part of the paper, we show how, for any given permutation p, it is possible to define a set of logical implications F (pi) on the points of pi, and prove that there exists a column-convex permutomino P such that pi(1) (P) = pi if and only if F (pi) is satisfiable. This property can be then used to give a characterization of the set of column-convex permutominoes P such that pi(1) (P) = pi.

O O O B O O O O O O O O O B O O B O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O


Reliable Rateless Wireless Broadcasting With Near-Zero Feedback We examine the problem of minimizing feedback in reliable wireless broadcasting by pairing rateless coding with extreme value theory. Our key observation is that, in a broadcast environment, this problem resolves into estimating the maximum number of packets dropped among many receivers rather than for each individual receiver. With rateless codes, this estimation relates to the number of redundant transmissions needed at the source in order for all receivers to correctly decode a message with high probability. We develop and analyze two new data dissemination protocols, called Random Sampling (RS) and Full Sampling with Limited Feedback (FSLF), based on the moment and maximum likelihood estimators in extreme value theory. Both protocols rely on a single-round learning phase, requiring the transmission of a few feedback packets from a small subset of receivers. With fixed overhead, we show that FSLF has the desirable property of becoming more accurate as the receivers' population gets larger. Our protocols are channel-agnostic, in that they do not require a priori knowledge of (i.i.d.) packet loss probabilities, which may vary among receivers. We provide simulations and an improved full-scale implementation of the Rateless Deluge over-the-air programming protocol on sensor motes as a demonstration of the practical benefits of our protocols, which translate into about 30% latency and energy consumption savings. Furthermore, we apply our protocols to real-time (RT) oblivious rateless codes in broadcast settings. Through simulations, we demonstrate a 100-fold reduction in the amount of feedback packets while incurring an increase of only 10%-20% in the number of encoded packets transmissions.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O B I I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

forward error correction (fec)
over-the-air programming (oap)


On-line emotion recognition in a 3-D activation-valence-time continuum using acoustic and linguistic cues For many applications of emotion recognition, such as virtual agents, the system must select responses while the user is speaking. This requires reliable on-line recognition of the user's affect. However most emotion recognition systems are based on turnwise processing. We present a novel approach to on-line emotion recognition from speech using Long Short-Term Memory Recurrent Neural Networks. Emotion is recognised frame-wise in a two-dimensional valence-activation continuum. In contrast to current state-of-the-art approaches, recognition is performed on low-level signal frames, similar to those used for speech recognition. No statistical functionals are applied to low-level feature contours. Framing at a higher level is therefore unnecessary and regression outputs can be produced in real-time for every low-level input frame. We also investigate the benefits of including linguistic features on the signal frame level obtained by a keyword spotter.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

continuous emotion recognition
recurrent neural nets
long short-term memory
affective databases


Sun, wind and water flow as energy supply for small stationary data acquisition platforms The deployment of large mesh-type wireless networks is a challenge due to the multitude of arising issues. Perpetual operation of a network node is undoubtedly one of the major goals of any energy-aware protocol or power-efficient hardware platform. Energy harvesting has emerged as the natural way to keep small stationary hardware platforms running, even when operating continuously as network routing devices. This paper analyses solar radiation, wind and water flow as feasible energy sources that can be explored to meet the energy needs of a wireless sensor network router within the context of precision agriculture, and presents a multi-powered platform solution for wireless devices. Experimental results prove that our prototype, the MPWiNodeX, can manage simultaneously the three energy sources for charging a NiMH battery pack, resulting in an almost perpetual operation of the evaluated ZigBee network router. In addition to this, the energy scavenging techniques double up as sensors, yielding data on the amount of solar radiation, water flow and wind speed, a capability that avoids the use of specific sensors.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

energy harvesting
energy sources
precision agriculture


Stability and performance of overlay multicast systems employing forward error correction The two main sources of impairment in overlay multicast systems are packet losses and node churn. Yet, little is known about their effects on the data distribution performance. In this paper we develop an analytical model of a large class of peer-to-peer streaming architectures based on decomposition and non-linear recurrence relations. We analyze the stability properties of these systems using fixed-point analysis. We derive bounds on the probability that nodes in the overlay receive an arbitrary packet of the stream. Based on the model, we explain the effects of the overlays size, node heterogeneity, loss correlations and node churn on the overlays performance. Our findings lead us to the definition of an overlay structure with improved stability properties. We show how and under what conditions overlays can benefit from the use of error control solutions, prioritization and taxation schemes. Based on our results, we identify the components that are needed to achieve good data distribution performance in multi-tree-based overlay multicast.

B O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I I O O B I

overlay multicast
data distribution performance
stability


Algebraically constrained extended edge element method (eXFEM-AC) for resolution of multi-material cells Surface effects are critical to the predictive simulation of electromagnetics as current tends to concentrate near material interfaces. There are two principal difficulties in the accurate representation of these effects in discrete models. First, many applications of interest operate at large deformations, where body-fitted meshes are impractical. Second, physics-compatible discretizations of the governing equations require curl-conforming edge elements, for which no practical alternatives to body-fitted meshes exist. The main purpose of this paper is to develop such an alternative that avoids remeshing the problem. Our approach uses the existing edge element basis to dynamically construct an interface-conforming basis. We show that in the case of triangular grids in two dimensions, our approach generates a basis that spans the same space as edge elements on an interface-fitted mesh. We also demonstrate the efficacy of the approach computationally.

eddy current equations
transverse electric mode
material interface
algebraic constraints


Iteration-free fractal image coding based on efficient domain pool design The domain pool design is one of the dominant issues which affect the coding performance of fractal image compression. In this paper, we employ the LEG algorithm and propose a block-averaging method to design the efficient domain pools based on a proposed iteration-free fractal image codec. The redundancies between the generated domain blocks are reduced by the proposed methods, Therefore, we can obtain the domain pools that are more efficient than those in the conventional fractal coding schemes and thus the coding performance is improved. On the other hand, the iteration process in the conventional fractal coding scheme not only requires a large size of memory and a high computation complexity but also prolongs the decoding process. The proposed iteration-free fractal codec can overcome the problems above. In computer simulation, both the LEG-based and block-averaging methods for the domain pool design in the proposed iteration-free scheme achieve excellent performances. For example, based on the proposed block-averaging method, the decoded Lena image has at least a 0.5 dB higher PSNR (under the same bit rate) and an eight-time faster decoding speed than the conventional fractal coding schemes that require iterations.

O O O O O O O B I O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

block average
iteration free
lbg algorithm


The effect of a new syringe design on the ability of rheumatoid arthritis patients to inject a biological medication Self-administration of new biological medications can be difficult for Rheumatoid Arthritis patients with functional impairment and hand and dexterity limitation. Twenty-three Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) patients participated in this study to compare preferences and injection forces using a conventional syringe and a new ergonomically designed syringe. Injection force measurements were collected in two ways: a) isometric forces, with the syringes plungers in fixed positions (depressed halfway and fully depressed), and b) forces exerted during injection of the medication. Subjects grip and pinch strengths were measured. A perception questionnaire gauged subjects impressions and preferences. Subjects were capable of exerting significantly higher isometric forces using the new syringe with the plunger fixed both halfway and fully depressed. During injection of the medication, peak and mean injection forces were significantly higher, and duration was shorter, when using the new syringe. Subjects rated the new syringe higher on all twenty attributes on preference and performance. Therefore, it is expected that the new syringe will benefit self-administration of medication injection for RA patients.

O O O O O B O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O


Stability and irreducibility of queueing systems with finite capacity In this paper, we obtain a readily verifiable condition of stability for GI/G/1 queueing systems with finite capacity. A necessary and sufficient condition of irreducibility of the queueing size process is involved. Under this assumption, we derive general conditions of recurrence (positive recurrence) for the general process describing the state of the system. The conditions of irreducibility and recurrence are based on restrictions over the supports of the interarrival and the service distributions, which are easy to check in practice. The positive recurrence is also connected to the first moments of both distributions.

O O B O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O

irreducibility
recurrence
finite capacity


Graph structure analysis based on complex network In this paper, we propose a novel method to characterize graph structures based on complex network model. First, we show that a structural graph can be modeled as a small-world complex network, and, then, Complex Network Characteristics (including topological and dynamic characteristics) Representation of a Graph (CNCRG) is obtained. Based on these characteristics, graph classification/clustering for objects viewed from different directions and characteristic views identification for single objects are investigated on one synthetic image dataset and two real image datasets. Our experimental results showed that CNCRG achieves better object classification/clustering performance and also provides well-structured view spaces based on multi-dimensional scaling (MDS) and principal component analysis (PCA) embedding methods for graphs extracted from 2D views of 3D objects.

O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

dynamic evolution
multi-dimensional scaling


Refinements of Gurlands formula for pi The aim of this paper is to refine Gurlands formula for approximating pi. We prove the complete monotonicity of a class of functions related to Gurlands formula, and then we state some sharp inequalities.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

gamma function
wallis ratio
ratio of gamma functions
digamma function
polygamma functions
completely monotonic functions


Multiple-attribute decision support system based on fuzzy logic for performance assessment This paper deals with the problem of assessing the performance of a set of production units, simultaneously considering different kinds of information, yielded by a Data Envelopment Analysis, a qualitative data analysis and an expert assessment. The tool for integrating heterogeneous data is a model that applies fuzzy logic to decision support systems. The results obtained are a holistic performance assessment of each unit of the set and a ranking order of the units.

O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O B I I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

multi-attribute decision aiding systems
dea
expert evaluation


on the quasi-newton training method for feed-forward neural networks The quasi-Newton training method is the most effective method for feed-forward neural networks with respect to the training precision. This method is well-known and popularly described in the neural networks literature. Nevertheless its implementation contains some difficulties because of the specific shape of the cost function and the large amount of variables. Here we give in sufficient details an example of a program implementation of the quasi-Newton method. This implementation (as a Borland Delphi application) seems to work well with various examples.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

training methods
quasi-newton method
feed forward neural networks


A PRACTICAL IMPLEMENTATION OF A DISTRIBUTED CONTROL APPROACH FOR MICROGRIDS Public low voltage feeders containing a mixture of several micro-sources, distributed energy storage units (ESUs) and controllable loads, which appear to the upstream distribution network as controllable entities, are known as MicroGrids. Through intelligent co-ordination of micro-generators and ESUs, coupled with demand side management techniques, MicroGrids have the potential to offer significant improvements in the commercial value and environmental impact of installed micro-generators. Furthermore, using appropriate active control techniques, MicroGrids could potentially overcome the low voltage distribution network constraints associated with high levels of micro-generation. The research described in this paper builds upon previous research carried out at Durham University, which proposed a preliminary distributed control approach for MicroGrids. The first steps in this approach have now been implemented using agent technology on the laboratory based Experimental MicroGrid at Durham University. Results from this practical implementation of first-stage agent-based control are presented and discussed. Finally, the agent-based controllers are evaluated based on their suitability to satisfy the specific control requirements of MicroGrids.

O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B

distributed generation
micro-generation
multi agent systems


Data augmentation strategies for the Bayesian spatial probit regression model The well known latent variable representation of the Bayesian probit regression model due to Albert and Chib (1993) allows model fitting to be performed using a simple Gibbs sampler. In addition, various types of dependence among categorical outcomes not explained by covariate information can be accommodated in a straightforward manner as a result of this latent variable representation of the model. One example of this is the spatial probit regression model for spatially-referenced categorical outcomes. In this setting, commonly used covariance structures for describing residual spatial dependence in the normal linear model setting can be imbedded into the probit regression model. Capturing spatial dependence in this way, however, can negatively impact the performance of MCMC model-fitting algorithms, particularly in terms of mixing and sensitivity to starting values. To address these computational issues, we demonstrate how the non-identifiable spatial variance parameter can be used to create data augmentation MCMC algorithms. We compare the performance of several non-collapsed and partially collapsed data augmentation MCMC algorithms through a simulation study and an analysis of land cover data.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O

conditional and marginal data augmentation


Robust high-order spacetime conservative schemes for solving conservation laws on hybrid meshes In this paper, the second-order spacetime conservation element and solution element (CE/SE) method proposed by Chang (1995) [3] is implemented on hybrid meshes for solving conservation laws. In addition, the present scheme has been extended to high-order versions including third and fourth order. Most methodologies of proposed schemes are consistent with that of the original CE/SE method, including: (i) a unified treatment of space and time (thereby ensuring good conservation in both space and time); (ii) a highly compact node stencil (the solution node is calculated using only the neighboring mesh nodes) regardless of the order of accuracy at the cost of storing all derivatives. A staggered time marching strategy is adopted and the solutions are updated alternatively between cell centers and vertexes. To construct explicit high-order schemes, second- and third-order derivatives are calculated by a modified finite-difference/weighted-average procedure which is different from that used to calculate the first-order derivatives. The present schemes can be implemented on a wide variety of meshes, including triangular, quadrilateral and hybrid (consisting of both triangular and quadrilateral elements). Beyond that, it can be easily extended to arbitrary-order schemes and arbitrary shape of polygonal elements by using the present methodologies. A series of common benchmark examples are used to confirm the accuracy and robustness of the proposed schemes.

O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

spacetime conservation element and solution element (ce/se) method


A distributed device diagnostics system utilizing augmented reality and 3D audio ? Augmented reality (AR), combining virtual environments with the perception of the real world, can be used to provide instructions for routine maintenance and error diagnostics of technical devices. The Rockwell Science Center (RSC) is developing a system that utilizes AR techniques to provide X-ray vision into real objects. The system can overlay 3D rendered objects, animations, and text annotations onto the video image of a known object. An automated speech recognition system allows the user to query the status of device components. The response is given as an animated rendition of a CAD model and/or as auditory cues using 3D audio. This diagnostics system also allows the user to leave spoken annotations attached to device modules as ASCII text. The position of the user/camera relative to the device is tracked by a computer-vision-based tracking system using fiducial markers. The system is implemented on a distributed network of PCs, utilizing standard commercial off-the-shelf components (COTS).

O O B I O O B I O B I O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

augmented reality
device diagnostics
3d audio


Discretization of the multiscale semiconductor Boltzmann equation by diffusive relaxation schemes In this paper we derive diffusive relaxation schemes for the linear semiconductor Boltzmann equation that work in both the kinetic and diffusive regimes. Similar to our earlier approach for multiscale transport equations, we use the even- and odd-parity formulation of the kinetic equation, and then reformulate it into the diffusive relaxation system (DRS). In order to handle the implicit anisotropic collision term efficiently, we utilize a suitable power series expansion based on the Wild sum, which yields a time discretization uniformly stable with any desired order of accuracy, yet is explicitly solvable with the correct drift-diffusion limit. The velocity discretization is done with the Gauss-Hermite quadrature rule equivalent to a moment expansion method. Asymptotic analysis and numerical experiments show that the schemes have the usual advantages of a diffusive relaxation scheme for multiscale transport equations and are asymptotic-preserving. (C) 2000 Academic Press.

O O O O B I I O B I I O O O O O B I I O O O B I I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

semiconductor boltzmann equation
diffusive relaxation schemes


Bandwidth allocation algorithms for weighted maximum rate constrained link sharing policy This paper addresses the problem of bandwidth allocation under the weighted maximum rate constrained link sharing policy and proves a key theory in the condition of allocation termination. We propose several algorithms with various worst-case and average-case time complexities, and evaluate their computation elapse times. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

scheduling
weighted scheduling
maximum rate constraint
network management


A neural mechanism of adaptive suppression of background signals arising from tail movements in the Gymnotid electrosensory system To clarify the neuronal mechanism for adaptive suppression of background signals arising from a fish's own motion, we proposed a neural network model of electrosensory lateral-line lobe (ELL) including two types of descending pathways from the higher brain regions. The response properties of the model relating to the adaptive suppression of reafferent signals reproduced systematically the relevant results observed by Bastian under various conditions. The response properties are generated mainly by the dynamical variation in the strength of the synapse of apical dendrite receiving the descending signals, which depends quite sensitively on the relative timing of arrival of descending signals and depolarization of apical dendrite.

O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

weakly electric fish
reafferent signal
electrosensory lateral-line lobe
a neural model


The Complexity of GARCH Option Pricing Models When using trees to price options, the standard practice is to increase the number of partitions per day, n, to improve accuracy. But increasing n incurs computational overhead. In fact, raising n makes the popular Ritchken-Trevor tree under non-linear GARCH (NGARCH) grow exponentially when n exceeds a typically small threshold. Worse, when this happens, the tree cannot grow beyond a certain maturity because of the impossibility of finding valid probabilities. Lyuu and Wu prove the results under NGARCH. They also prove that, by making the tree track the mean value, valid probabilities can always be found if n does not exceed some threshold; furthermore, the growth rate of the tree's size is only quadratic in n. This paper completes that line of research by proving that LGARCH, AGARCH, GJR-GARCH, TS-GARCH and TGARCH share the same properties as NGARCH. The theoretical results are verified by numerical experiments.

O O O B B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

path dependency
trinomial tree
explosion threshold
non-explosion threshold


Modelling disruptions and resolving conflicts optimally in a railway schedule Resolving disruptions, by dispatching and rescheduling conflicting trains is an NP-complete problem. Earlier literature classify railway operations as: (i) tactical scheduling, (ii) operational scheduling, and (iii) rescheduling. We distinguish the three based on operational criticality. Existing optimisation models do not distinguish precisely between scheduling and rescheduling based on constraints modelling; the only difference is in their objective function. Our model is the first of its kind to incorporate disruptions in an MILP model and to include conflicts-resolving constraints in the model itself. The major advantage of such a formulation is that only those trains which are disrupted are rescheduled and other nonconflicting trains retain their original schedules. Our model reschedules disrupted train movements on both directions of a single track layout with an objective to minimise total delay of all trains at their destinations. Using a small sized data it is proved that all possible conflicts out of a disruption are resolved. Apart from achieving optimal resolutions, we infer through experimental verification that a non-standard dispatch ordering is a requisite for global optimality, as cogitated by other authors. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

optimal resolution
single-track railway
mixed-integer linear programming


Application of partial mutual information variable selection to ANN forecasting of water quality in water distribution systems Recent trends in the management of water supply have increased the need for modelling techniques that can provide reliable, efficient, and accurate representation of the complex, non-linear dynamics of water quality within water distribution systems. Statistical models based on artificial neural networks (ANNs) have been found to be highly suited to this application, and offer distinct advantages over more conventional modelling techniques. However, many practitioners utilise somewhat heuristic or ad hoc methods for input variable selection (IVS) during ANN development. This paper describes the application of a newly proposed non-linear IVS algorithm to the development of ANN models to forecast water quality within two water distribution systems. The intention is to reduce the need for arbitrary judgement and extensive trial-and-error during model development. The algorithm utilises the concept of partial mutual information (PMI) to select inputs based on the analysis of relationship strength between inputs and outputs, and between redundant inputs. In comparison with an existing approach, the ANN models developed using the IVS algorithm are found to provide optimal prediction with significantly greater parsimony. Furthermore, the results obtained from the IVS procedure are useful for developing additional insight into the important relationships that exist between water distribution system variables.

O O B I I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

artificial neural networks
input variable selection
partial mutual information

water quality modelling
chlorine residual forecasting
chlorine disinfection


On the complexity of Schmudgen's Positivstellensatz Schmudgen's Positivstellensatz roughly states that a polynomial f positive on a compact basic closed semialgebraic subset S of R-n can be written as a sum of polynomials which are non-negative on S for certain obvious reasons. However, in general, you have to allow the degree of the summands to exceed largely the degree off. Phenomena of this type are one of the main problems in the recently popular approximation of non-convex polynomial optimization problems by semidefinite programs. Prestel (Springer Monographs in Mathematics, Springer, Berlin, 2001) proved that there exists a bound on the degree of the summands computable from the following three parameters: The exact description of S, the degree off and a measure of how close f is to having a zero on S. Roughly speaking, we make explicit the dependence on the second and third parameter. In doing so, the third parameter enters the bound only polynomially. (C) 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

O O B O O B O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

positive polynomial
sum of squares
preordering
moment problem
optimization of polynomials


New feature extraction approach for epileptic EEG signal detection using time-frequency distributions This paper describes a new method to identify seizures in electroencephalogram (EEG) signals using feature extraction in timefrequency distributions (TFDs). Particularly, the method extracts features from the Smoothed Pseudo Wigner-Ville distribution using tracks estimated from the McAulay-Quatieri sinusoidal model. The proposed features are the length, frequency, and energy of the principal track. We evaluate the proposed scheme using several datasets and we compute sensitivity, specificity, F-score, receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curve, and percentile bootstrap confidence to conclude that the proposed scheme generalizes well and is a suitable approach for automatic seizure detection at a moderate cost, also opening the possibility of formulating new criteria to detect, classify or analyze abnormal EEGs.

O B I O O O O O B O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

timefrequency distributions
detection
feature extraction

epilepsy
sinwave analysis
mcaulay-quatieri sinusoidal analysis


An effective dynamic priority list for 2-processor scheduling of program nets This paper aims at improving effectiveness of previously proposed hybrid priority lists, {L-i*=LdLsi}, that are applied in nonpreemptive 2-processor scheduling of general acyclic SWITCH-less program nets, where L-d and L-si are dynamic and static priority lists respectively. Firstly we investigate the effectiveness of Ld through experiments. According to the experimental results, we reconstruct Ld to propose its improved list L-d(1). Then analyzing the construction methodology of the static priority lists (Ls(i)), we propose a substituted list L-d(2) by taking into account of the factor: remaining firing numbers of nodes. Finally, we combine a part of L-d(1) and L-d(2) to propose a new priority list L**. Through scheduling simulation on 400 program nets, we find the new priority list L** can generate shorter schedules, close to ones of GA (Genetic Algorithm) scheduling that has been shown exceedingly effective but costing much computation time.

O O B I I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O

program net
2-processor scheduling
hybrid priority list


Intrinsic dimension estimation: Advances and open problems The paper reviews state-of-the-art of the methods of Intrinsic Dimension (ID) Estimation. The paper defines the properties that an ideal ID estimator should have. The paper reviews, under the above mentioned framework, the major ID estimation methods underlining their advances and the open problems.

B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

curse of dimensionality
maximum likelihood
correlation dimension
dimensionality reduction


Polygonal and polyhedral contour reconstruction in computed tomography This paper is about three-dimensional (3-D) reconstruction of a binary image from its X-ray tomographic data. We study the special case of a compact uniform polyhedron totally included in a uniform background and directly perform the polyhedral surface estimation. We formulate this problem as a nonlinear inverse problem using the Bayesian framework. Vertice estimation is done without using a voxel approximation of the 3-D image. It is based on the construction and optimization of a regularized criterion that accounts for surface smoothness. We investigate original deterministic local algorithms, based on the exact computation of the line projections, their update, and their derivatives with respect to the vertice coordinates. Results are first derived in the two-dimensional (2-D) case, which consists of reconstructing a 2-D object of deformable polygonal contour from its tomographic data. Then, we investigate the 3-D extension that requires technical adaptations. Simulation results illustrate the performance of polygonal and polyhedral reconstruction algorithms in terms of quality and computation time.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

closed contour and surface reconstruction

global and local iterative descent algorithms

two-dimensional and three-dimensional binary image reconstruction from projections


Parallel Delaunay triangulation in three dimensions A generic parallel Delaunay triangulation scheme by means of zonal partition of points is proposed. For efficient Delaunay triangulation, points are first sorted into cells, each of which is allocated roughly equal number of points. The cells are naturally grouped into zones, in which Delaunay triangulation is constructed by simultaneous point insertion cell by cell within each zone. Tetrahedra at the boundary between zones are created in parallel by adding layers of cells at the boundary of each zone to ensure that circumspheres of boundary tetrahedra contain no points in their interior. Redundant tetrahedra at the boundary between zones can be easily eliminated by individual processors in a completely independent manner by means of the elegant minimum vertex allocation scheme, such that a simplex with k vertices from zones (z1,z2,,zk) is allocated to zone z=min(z1,z2,,zk). The parallel 3D Delaunay triangulation algorithm has been coded in Intel FORTRAN VS2010. The parallel zonal insertion on a PC can boost the speed of the single-processor insertion by 4.5 times for the insertion of 50 million randomly generated spatial points in 133s. The scalability of the parallel zonal insertion algorithm has also been tested on a proper multi-core machine with 12 processors running on OpenMP parallel directives with shared memory. Provided the number of zones is an integral multiple of the number of processors used, almost 100% scalability at 90% efficiency was observed for parallel insertion using 2, 4, 6, 8 and 12 processors, and a 10.8 time speed up was recorded in a parallel insertion of 20 million points in 223=12 zones by 12 processors.

B I I O B I O O B I I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

parallel delaunay triangulation
point insertion
three dimensions


DJAVAN: Detecting jamming attacks in Vehicle Ad hoc Networks With development of wireless communications in the two last decades, new infrastructures have been developed. One of them is the Vehicular Ad hoc Networks (VANETs). They are considered as ad hoc networks with the particularity that the topology is always changed, that make more complicated the resource management and open some beaches in security. Specifically on the Physical and MAC layers that are more vulnerable as they are built on distributed systems and a fluctuating radio channel. Thus, it is not easy to know when transmitted data are not delivered to the destination, if this is due to an attack or to a propagation problem. In this study, we propose a new algorithm DJAVAN (solution of Detecting Jamming Attacks in Vehicle Ad Hoc Networks) to detect a jamming attack in VANETs using the Packet Delivery Ratio (PDR) and with the performance analysis, we determine the threshold that can make the difference between an attack and a poor radio link.

O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

vehicular ad hoc networks (vanet)
dos attacks
greedy behavior
packet delivery ratio (pdr)
markov chains


Sequential selection procedures: Using sample means to improve efficiency Two-stage selection procedures have been widely studied and applied to determine appropriate sample sizes for selecting the best of k designs. However, standard indifference-zone procedures are derived with a statistically conservative least-favorable-configuration assumption. The enhanced two-stage selection (ETSS) is a procedure that takes into account not only the variance of samples but also the difference between sample means when determining the sample sizes. This paper discusses an implementation of sequential ranking and selection procedures due to the ETSS procedure to avoid relying too much on information obtained in just one stage. We show that the needed ratios of sample sizes to maximize the probability of correct selection is approximately maintained at all iterations. An experimental performance evaluation demonstrates the efficiency of our sequential procedures.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

simulation
sample-size allocation
indifference zone


A two-step face hallucination approach for video surveillance applications In this paper we propose a novel face hallucination algorithm to synthesize a high-resolution face image from several low-resolution input face images. Face hallucination normally uses two models: a global parametric model which synthesizes the global face shapes from eigenfaces, and a local parametric model which enhances the local high frequency details. We follow a similar process to develop a robust face hallucination algorithm. First, we obtain eigenfaces from a number of low resolution face images segmented from a video sequence using a face tracking algorithm. Then we compute the difference between an interpolated low-resolution face and a mean face, and use this difference as the query to retrieve an approximate sparse eigenface representation. The eigenfaces are combined using the coefficients obtained from the sparse representation and added into the interpolated low-resolution face. In this way, the global shape of the interpolated low resolution face can be successfully enhanced. Second, we improve the example-based super-resolution method for local high frequency information enhancement. Our proposed algorithm uses the Approximate Nearest Neighbors (ANN) search method to find a number of nearest neighbors for a stack of queries, instead of finding the exact match for each low frequency patch. Median filtering is used to remove the noise from the nearest neighbors in order to enhance the signal. Our proposed algorithm uses a sparse representation and the ANN method to enhance both global face shape and local high frequency information while greatly improving the processing speed, as confirmed empirically.

O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

face tracking
face hallucination
sparse representation

face detection
face recognition
super-resolution
visual surveillance


Chemometrics in South Africa and the development of the South African Chemometrics Society In the south-western (Cape) region of South Africa, extensive use is made of chemometric techniques to characterize and quantify food, herbal, and agricultural products. A large proportion of the analyses involve processes of wine production and storage. Several groups make use of various analytical techniques and chemometric evaluations to support vineyard management, and to determine different properties of wine and the conditions under which to produce quality wine. For institutions located in the central part of South Africa (Gauteng province), the emphasis of research involves mainly industrial processes, the optimization of these processes, and the monitoring of their effects on the environment. The initiative to establish the South African Chemometrics Society in 2006 originated in the Institute for Wine Biotechnology at Stellenbosch University. At present there are enthusiastic members of the society from the entire country who contribute to the recognition of Chemometrics in South Africa. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

B I I I O O O O B I I I I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I I I I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I I I O O O O O O O

chemometrics in south africa
the south african chemometrics society

near infrared spectroscopy
chemometrics in food science
chemometrics for wine analysis
environmental chemistry


Stability and stabilization of a class of fuzzy time-delay descriptor systems This paper studies a class of fuzzy time-delay descriptor systems in the extended Takagi-Sugeno (T-S) fuzzy model. Sufficient conditions are derived for the stability and stabilization in terms of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). Illustrative examples are given to show the effectiveness and the advantages of the present results.

B O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O


design and development of a cpu scheduler simulator for educational purposes using sdl This paper presents the design and development of a CPU scheduler simulator using SDL. This simulator enables us to study the behavior of one level and multilevel queue scheduling algorithms (including the real-time ones), and to obtain performance statistics for algorithm evaluation. In addition, a multi-platform graphical user interface, based on the Tcl/Tk language, has been developed to simplify the simulator use. The paper also presents our experiences in using SDL for the specification of CPU scheduling algorithms for educational purposes.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O


Testable designs of multiple precharged Domino circuits Domino CMOS circuits are an option for speeding up critical units. An inherent problem of Domino logic is that under specific input conditions the charge redistribution between parasitic capacitances at internal nodes of a circuit can violate the noise margins and cause erroneous responses at the output. The dominant solution to this problem is the multiple precharging of the gate's internal nodes. However, the added precharge transistors are not testable for stuck-open faults. Undetectable stuck-open faults at these transistors may cause noise margins reduction and consequently may affect the reliability of the circuit since its operation in the field will be sensitive to environmental factors such as noise. In this paper, we propose new multiple precharging design schemes that enhance Domino circuits' testability with respect to transistor stuck-open and stuck-on faults.

O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

design for testability
multiple precharge


Simulated analysis for InGaP/GaAs heterostructure-emitter bipolar transistor with InGaAs/GaAs superlattice-base structure A novel InGaP/GaAs heterostructure-emitter bipolar transistor (HEBT) with InGaAs/GaAs superlattice-base structure is proposed and demonstrated by two-dimensional analysis. As compared with the traditional HEBT, the studied superlattice-base device exhibits a higher collector current, a higher current gain of 246, and a lower baseemitter (BE) turn-on voltage of 0.966V at a current level of 1?A, attributed to the increased charge storage of minority carriers in the InGaAs/GaAs superlattice-base region by tunneling behavior. The low turn-on voltage can reduce the operating voltage and collectoremitter offset voltage for low power consumption in circuit applications.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O

ingap/gaas
heterostructure emitter
superlattice base
turn-on voltage


Blend Shape Interpolation and FACS for Realistic Avatar The quest of developing realistic facial animation is ever-growing. The emergence of sophisticated algorithms, new graphical user interfaces, laser scans and advanced 3D tools imparted further impetus towards the rapid advancement of complex virtual human facial model. Face-to-face communication being the most natural way of human interaction, the facial animation systems became more attractive in the information technology era for sundry applications. The production of computer-animated movies using synthetic actors are still challenging issues. Proposed facial expression carries the signature of happiness, sadness, angry or cheerful, etc. The mood of a particular person in the midst of a large group can immediately be identified via very subtle changes in facial expressions. Facial expressions being very complex as well as important nonverbal communication channel are tricky to synthesize realistically using computer graphics. Computer synthesis of practical facial expressions must deal with the geometric representation of the human face and the control of the facial animation. We developed a new approach by integrating blend shape interpolation (BSI) and facial action coding system (FACS) to create a realistic and expressive computer facial animation design. The BSI is used to generate the natural face while the FACS is employed to reflect the exact facial muscle movements for four basic natural emotional expressions such as angry, happy, sad and fear with high fidelity. The results in perceiving the realistic facial expression for virtual human emotions based on facial skin color and texture may contribute towards the development of virtual reality and game environment of computer aided graphics animation systems.

B I O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O B I O O O B I I O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

facial expression
facial animation
blend shape
facial action coding


global routing revisited Recent progress in the area of global routing has been remarkable; yet, in many ways, the classical formulation has yet to catch up with the demands imposed by modern physical synthesis flows. In this work, we visit (and revisit) the topic of global routing. We provide a brief review of global routing's history, and touch on recent work that has contributed to the state-of-the-art in the field. While we cover in depth the basic principles behind leading approaches, we also emphasize open challenges and problems that remain unresolved. We argue that not only does the current academic formulation lack key components of the true routing problem - such as scenic control, layer directives, and capabilities for integration with physical synthesis - but also that present methods are likely to fail when extended toward the more generalized formulation. Finally, we offer a revised incarnation of the ISPD benchmarks to encourage continued progress in the research community.

B I O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O


distance metric learning and feature combination for shape-based 3d model retrieval This paper proposes a 3D model retrieval algorithm that employs an unsupervised distance metric learning with a combination of appearance-based features; two sets of local visual features and a set of global features. These visual features are extracted from range images rendered from multiple viewpoints about the 3D model to be compared. The local visual features are bag-of-features histograms of a set of Scale Invariant Feature Transform (SIFT) features by Lowe [7] sampled at either salient or dense and random points. The global visual feature is also a SIFT feature sampled at an image center. The proposed method then uses an unsupervised distance metric learning based on the Manifold Ranking (MR) [15] to compute distances between these features. However, the original MR may not be effective when applied to a set of features having certain distance distribution. We propose an empirical method to adjust the distance profile so that the MR becomes effective. Experiments showed that the retrieval algorithm using a linear combination of distances computed from the proposed set of features by using the modified MR performed well across multiple benchmarks having different characteristics.

B I I O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I I O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

feature combination
manifold ranking
distance metric learning

content-based retrieval
bag-of-features
3d geometric modeling
3d object retrieval


leveraging gesture and voice data to improve group brainstorming We seek to investigate how co-located group brainstorming could be enhanced through computational tools that leverage gestures and voice cues. To pursue this goal we are developing a computer mediated brainstorming environment that utilizes reality-based interaction techniques and sensor-driven Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) tracking group engagement to computationally augment existing brainstorming practices. In this paper, we report the results of a preliminary user study of brainstorming practices that indicate that gesture and voice data can serve as signals for group brainstorming success.

O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O


A near-tight lower bound on the time complexity of distributed minimum-weight spanning tree construction This paper presents a lower bound of (D + rootn/log n) on the time required for the distributed construction of a minimum-weight spanning tree (MST) in weighted n-vertex networks of diameter D = Omega (log n), in the bounded message model. This establishes the asymptotic near-optimality of existing time-efficient distributed algorithms for the problem, whose complexity is O(D + rootn log* n).

O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

distributed algorithm
minimum weight spanning tree


Turning knowledge into new product creativity: an empirical study Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between knowledge acquisition, dissemination, and innovation and new product creativity and to identify different hidden patterns in which knowledge acquisition, dissemination, and innovation affect new product creativity. Design/methodology/approach - The paper employs additivity and variance stabilization analysis. Findings - The new product creativity is significantly related to knowledge management. Practical implications - The paper implies that if organizations fail to understand the subtle ways by which different dimensions of knowledge acquisition, dissemination, and innovation influence new product creativity, they may fail to harvest the full value of knowledge management in creativity improvement. Originality/value - It is one of the first to assess the link between knowledge management and new product creativity.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O


Web 2D graphics file formats The earliest Web browsers focussed on the display, of textual information. When graphics were added, essentially, only image graphics and image file formats were supported. For a significant range of applications, image graphics has severe limitations, for example in terms of file size, download time and inability to interact with and modify, the graphics client-side. Vector graphics may be more appropriate in these cases, and this has become possible through the introduction of the WebCGM and Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) formats, both of which are open standards, the former from ISO/IEC and W3C and the latter from W3C. This paper reviews the background to Web graphics, presents the WebCGM file format, and gives a more detailed exposition of the most recent format, SVG. The paper concludes with reflections on the current state of this area and future prospects.

O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O B I I B O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

2d graphics
scalable vector graphics
svg
webcgm
w3c

graphics file formats
styling
world wide web
xml


Ranked Levels of Influence model: Selecting influence techniques to minimize IT resistance Implementation of electronic health records (EHR), particularly computerized physician/provider order entry systems (CPOE), is often met with resistance. Influence presented at the right time, in the right manner, may minimize resistance or at least limit the risk of complete system failure. Combining established theories on power, influence tactics, and resistance, we developed the Ranked Levels of Influence model. Applying it to documented examples of EHR/CPOE failures at Cedars-Sinai and Kaiser Permanente in Hawaii, we evaluated the influence applied, the resistance encountered, and the resulting risk to the system implementation. Using the Ranked Levels of Influence model as a guideline, we demonstrate that these system failures were associated with the use of hard influence tactics that resulted in higher levels of resistance. We suggest that when influence tactics remain at the soft tactics level, the level of resistance stabilizes or de-escalates and the system can be saved.

O O O B O O B O O O O B O O B I I O O O O O O O O O O O O B B O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B B O O B O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O B O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O

power
resistance
influence
electronic health records

clinical informatics
socio-technical
human factors
hospital information systems
medical order entry systems


measuring the impact of temporal context on video retrieval In this paper we describe the findings from the K-Space interactive video search experiments in TRECVid 2007, which examined the effects of including temporal context in video retrieval. The traditional approach to presenting video search results is to maximise recall by offering a user as many potentially relevant shots as possible within a limited amount of time. 'Context'-oriented systems opt to allocate a portion of the results presentation space to providing additional contextual cues about the returned results. In video retrieval these cues often include temporal information such as a shot's location within the overall video broadcast and/or its neighbouring shots. We developed two interfaces with identical retrieval functionality in order to measure the effects of such context on user performance. The first system had a 'recall-oriented' interface, where results from a query were presented as a ranked list of shots. The second was 'context-oriented', with results presented as a ranked list of broadcasts. 10 users participated in the experiments, of which 8 were novices and 2 experts. Participants completed a number of retrieval topics using both the recall-oriented and context-oriented systems.

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content-based video retrieval
user-evaluation


On a fuzzy bipolar relational algebra This paper presents an extension of relational algebra suitable for the handling of bipolar concepts. The type of queries considered involves two parts: a first one which expresses a (possibly flexible) constraint, and a second one that corresponds to a (possibly flexible) wish. The framework considered is that of bipolar fuzzy relations where each tuple is associated with a pair of satisfaction degrees.

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Understanding the Emergence of Cellular Organization More than one researcher is currently proposing that the notion of information become an important element for defining living systems as well as for explaining conditions that make their origins possible. During the pre-biotic era, the type of compounds encountered would mainly have been very simple in nature and might have been immersed in the natural dynamic of the physical world and in processes of self-organization. It is furthermore quite possible that they formed a relationship between and among certain types of processes that here we are specifically proposing as central for the emergence of cell organization. Consequently, an important initial step towards constructing a theory of biological information is to ask ourselves the question: how do biological systems process information? In this way, we will be contributing to the proposals of this paper where we seek to identify general principles that govern biological computing and that deal with biosemiotic approaches as they are defended in naturalistic normative terms.

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bio-meaning information
evolvability
informational dynamic systems
naturalistic normative emergence
small-world phenomenon


3D printing and simulation of naturally randomized cellular automata 3D printing technology usually aims at reproducing objects deterministically designed by 3D CAD tools; however, the author has discovered that 3D printing can also generate self-organizing patterns similar to stochastic (or randomized) 1D cellular automata (CA). A method for generating patterns similar to randomized 1D or 2D CA by using a fused deposition modeling 3D printer is thus proposed. With constant head motion and constant filament extrusion and without explicit randomness, this method generates very fine emergent patterns with natural fluctuation. By means of this method, each time a different pattern is generated. In addition, a computational CA model that simulates the above process is also proposed. The proposed method will open a new horizon of 3D printing applications.

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self-organization
asynchronous cellular automata (ca)
natural randomness
fused deposition modeling (fdm)


Tunable Mismatch Shaping for Quadrature Bandpass Delta-Sigma Data Converters This paper presents an architecture for quadrature bandpass mismatch shaping that allows the center frequency of the mismatch suppression band to be tunable over the entire Nyquist range. The approach is based on the previously reported complex-valued tree-based mismatch shaper, and extends this to allow tunable operation. The proposed design has been implemented using VHDL and synthesized to logic gates. The hardware complexity and mismatch shaping performance of the proposed architecture are compared to that of a reference architecture, which uses separate tunable mismatch shapers for each complex component path. Simulation results show consistent mismatch shaping performance across the entire tuning range.

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bandpass delta-sigma
quadrature delta-sigma
tunable delta-sigma
dac element matching
unit element dac


The importance of individual preferences when evaluating the associations between working hours and indicators of health and well-being Previous studies indicate that the effect of a given shift schedule may depend on individual factors. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether a misfit between individual preferences and actual working hours affected the association between working hours and self-reported indicators of health and well-being. The study population consisted of 173 female eldercare workers who mainly worked day or evening shifts. We combined self-reported questionnaire data on preferences with actual work schedules during a four-week period. The study showed that a misfit between preferences on one hand and non-day work, weekend work or only a few consecutive days off on the other hand was associated with an increased dissatisfaction with working hours and/or an increase in the intention to leave the workplace due to one's working hours.

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