TRANSMIT ANTENNA SELECTION FOR V-BLAST MIMO SYSTEM BASED ON EXTENDED CHANNEL MATRIX ANALYSIS For the sake of reducing the hardware cost of multiple RF chains and the complexity for spatial multiplexing systems, in this paper a novel low-complexity transmit antenna selection criterion is proposed for V-BLAST system with MMSE OSIC detection. Based on MMSE extension of V-BLAST with sorted QR decomposition, an intuitional performance analysis of each sub-stream for MMSE V-BLAST transmission is done, and a new solution to the transmit antenna selection problem is suggested. Unlike most of the existing works, the proposed algorithm synthetically considers the impacts of detection order, interference cancellation, and noise amplification. Theoretical analysis and simulation results show that the proposed algorithm achieves well both in outage capacity and in symbol error rate performance with low computational complexity.

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 B I 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 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

transmit antenna selection
qr decomposition

ordered successive interference cancellation


Spatially adaptive stochastic methods for fluidstructure interactions subject to thermal fluctuations in domains with complex geometries We develop stochastic mixed finite element methods for spatially adaptive simulations of fluidstructure interactions when subject to thermal fluctuations. To account for thermal fluctuations, we introduce a discrete fluctuationdissipation balance condition to develop compatible stochastic driving fields for our discretization. We perform analysis that shows our condition is sufficient to ensure results consistent with statistical mechanics. We show the GibbsBoltzmann distribution is invariant under the stochastic dynamics of the semi-discretization. To generate efficiently the required stochastic driving fields, we develop a Gibbs sampler based on iterative methods and multigrid to generate fields with O(N) O ( N ) computational complexity. Our stochastic methods provide an alternative to uniform discretizations on periodic domains that rely on Fast Fourier Transforms. To demonstrate in practice our stochastic computational methods, we investigate within channel geometries having internal obstacles and no-slip walls how the mobility/diffusivity of particles depends on location. Our methods extend the applicability of fluctuating hydrodynamic approaches by allowing for spatially adaptive resolution of the mechanics and for domains that have complex geometries relevant in many 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 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

stochastic partial differential equations


DEMON: preemptive route recovery for AODV in multi-hop wireless networks based on performance degradation monitoring Reactive routing protocols like ad hoc on-demand distance vector (AODV) have been widely proposed for multi-hop wireless networks (MWNs). However, these types of routing protocols only recover routes after route break detection. Considerable research efforts have been devoted to minimizing the route recovery delay or to anticipating link breaks by using preemptive mechanisms. To the best of our knowledge, state-of-the-art solutions in this space are mainly focused on mobility prediction. However, as we argue in this paper, other phenomena like interference and congestion should also be taken into account, since they can also negatively affect the performance of routes and even cause disconnections. This article presents a novel preemptive solution for AODV called performance degradation monitoring, which allows preemptive route recovery based on passive estimation of link data loss rate. Extensive simulations demonstrate that our proposal, which is sensitive to link quality degradation regardless of its nature, improves network performance in a wide range of scenarios.

O B I I O B 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 B 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

multi-hop wireless networks
ieee 802.11
routing metrics


Existence of three solutions for a class of elliptic eigenvalue problems In this paper, we consider a problem of the type - Deltau = lambda>(*) over bar * (f(u) + mug(u)) in Omega, u\(partial derivative Omega) = 0, where Omega subset of or equal to R-n is an open-bounded set, f, g are continuous real functions on R, and lambda, mu is an element of R. As an application of a new approach to nonlinear eigenvalues problems, we prove that, under suitable hypotheses, if \mu\ is small enough, then there is some lambda > 0 such that the above problem has at least three distinct weak solutions in W-0(1,2)(Omega). (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

nonlinear eigenvalue problems
local minima
multifunctions
connectedness
minimax inequalities


Systems

of

sets

such

that

each

set

properly

intersects

at

most

one

other

setApplication

to

cluster

analysis

A

set

X

is

said

to

properly

intersect

a

set

Y

if

of

the

sets

X?Y

X

Y

X?Y

X

Y

and

Y?X

Y

X

is

empty.

In

this

paper,

we

consider

collections

of

subsets

such

that

each

member

of

the

collection

properly

intersects

at

most

one

other

member.

Such

collections

are

hereafter

called

paired

hierarchical

collections.

The

two

following

combinatorial

properties

are

investigated.

First,

any

paired

hierarchical

collection

is

a

set

of

intervals

of

at

least

one

linear

order

defined

on

the

ground

set.

Next,

the

maximum

size

of

a

paired

hierarchical

collection

defined

on

an

n

-element

set

is

n

The

properties

of

these

collections

are

also

investigated

from

the

cluster

analysis

point

of

view.

In

the

framework

of

the

general

bijection

defined

by

Batbedat

[Les

isomorphismes

HTS

et

HTE

(aprs

la

bijection

de

BenzcriJohnson),

Metron

and

Bertrand

[Set

systems

and

dissimilarities,

European

J.

Combin.

we

characterize

the

dissimilarities

that

are

induced

by

weakly

indexed

paired

hierarchical

collections.

Finally,

we

propose

a

proof

of

the

so-called

agglomerative

paired

hierarchical

clustering

(APHC)

algorithm

that

extends

the

well-known

AHC

algorithm

in

order

to

allow

that

some

clusters

can

be

merged

twice.

An

implementation

and

some

illustrations

of

this

algorithm

and

of

a

variant

of

it

were

presented

by

Chelcea

et

al.

[A

new

agglomerative

hierarchical

clustering

algorithm,

in:

D.

Baier,

K.-D.

Wernecke

(Eds.),

Innovations

in

Classification,

Data

Science,

and

Information

Systems

(GfKL

Springer,

Berlin,

pp.

and

Un

Nouvel

Algorithme

de

Classification

Ascendante

Hirarchique,

in:

Reconnaissance

des

Formes

et

Intelligence

Artificielle

(RFIA

vol.

Toulouse,

France,

pp.

Available

at

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

agglomerative hierarchical classification (ahc)


On the approximability of maximum and minimum edge clique partition problems We consider the following clustering problems: given an undirected graph, partition its vertices into disjoint clusters such that each cluster forms a clique and the number of edges within the clusters is maximized (Max-ECP), or the number of edges between clusters is minimized (Min-ECP). These problems arise naturally in the DNA clone classification. We investigate the hardness of finding such partitions and provide approximation algorithms. Further, we show that greedy strategies yield constant factor approximations for graph classes for which maximum cliques can be found efficiently.

O O O O O O O O B I 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 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

clustering
clique partition
dna clone classification


anQCD:

A

Mathematica

package

for

calculations

in

general

analytic

QCD

models

We

provide

a

Mathematica

package

that

evaluates

the

QCD

analytic

couplings

(in

the

complex

domain)

A

Q

which

are

analytic

analogs

of

the

powers

a

Q

of

the

underlying

perturbative

QCD

(pQCD)

coupling

a

Q

s

Q

in

three

analytic

QCD

models

(anQCD):

Fractional

Analytic

Perturbation

Theory

(FAPT),

Two-delta

analytic

QCD

anQCD),

and

Massive

Perturbation

Theory

(MPT).

The

analytic

(holomorphic)

running

couplings

A

Q

in

contrast

to

the

corresponding

pQCD

expressions

a

Q

reflect

correctly

the

analytic

properties

of

the

spacelike

observables

D

Q

in

the

complex

Q

plane

as

dictated

by

the

general

principles

of

quantum

field

theory.

They

are

thus

more

suited

for

evaluations

of

such

physical

quantities,

especially

at

low

momenta

Q

GeV

Program

title:anQCD

Catalogue

identifier:

Program

summary

Program

obtainable

from:

CPC

Program

Library,

Queens

University,

Belfast,

N.

Ireland

Licensing

provisions:

Standard

CPC

licence,

No.

of

lines

in

distributed

program,

including

test

data,

etc.:

No.

of

bytes

in

distributed

program,

including

test

data,

etc.:

Distribution

format:

tar.gz

Programming

language:

Mathematica

versions

and

Computer:

Any

work-station

or

PC

where

Mathematica

is

running.

Operating

system:

Linux

and

Mac

OS

X,

software

Mathematica

and

Mathematica

Classification:

Nature

of

problem:

Evaluation

of

the

values

for

analytic

couplings

A

Q

N

f

in

analytic

QCD

[the

analytic

analog

of

the

power

s

Q

N

f

based

on

the

dispersion

relation;

A

represents

a

physical

(holomorphic)

function

in

the

plane

of

complex

squared

momenta

q

Q

In

anQCD.m

we

collect

the

formulas

for

three

different

analytic

models

depending

on

the

energy

scale,

Q

number

of

flavors

Nf

N

f

the

QCD

scale

N

f

and

the

(nonpower)

index

The

considered

models

are:

Analytic

Perturbation

theory

(APT),

Two-delta

analytic

QCD

anQCD)

and

Massive

Perturbation

Theory

(MPT).

Solution

method:

anQCD

uses

Mathematica

functions

to

perform

numerical

integration

of

spectral

function

for

each

analytic

model,

in

order

to

obtain

the

corresponding

analytic

images

A

Q

via

dispersion

relation.

Restrictions:

It

could

be

that

for

an

unphysical

choice

of

the

input

parameters

the

results

are

meaningless.

Running

time:

For

all

operations

the

running

time

does

not

exceed

a

few

seconds.

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

fractional analytic perturbation theory
massive perturbation theory

analytic (holomorphic) qcd coupling
two-delta analytic qcd model


complex event processing synergies with predictive analytics For Complex Event Processing (CEP), the synergy with Predictive Analytics (PA) is a promising research direction. In this paper we focus on the inclusion of PA technologies into CEP applications. Involving PA opens a wide range of possibilities in several application fields. However, we have observed that only a few CEP solutions apply PA techniques. We extended a CEP solution with predictive capabilities, defined the key aspects of the combination of these techniques, and summarized how CEP and PA could gain from the joint solution. Our approach is demonstrated in a proof-of-concept experiment and simulation results are provided.

B I I O O B I O B I I 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

complex event processing
predictive analytics


Incremental Laplacian eigenmaps by preserving adjacent information between data points Traditional nonlinear manifold learning methods have achieved great success in dimensionality reduction and feature extraction, most of which are batch modes. However, if new samples are observed, the batch methods need to be calculated repeatedly, which is computationally intensive, especially when the number or dimension of the input samples are large. This paper presents incremental learning algorithms for Laplacian eigenmaps, which computes the low-dimensional representation of data set by optimally preserving local neighborhood information in a certain sense. Sub-manifold analysis algorithm together with an alternative formulation of linear incremental method is proposed to learn the new samples incrementally. The locally linear reconstruction mechanism is introduced to update the existing samples embedding results. The algorithms are easy to be implemented and the computation procedure is simple. Simulation results testify the efficiency and accuracy of the proposed algorithms.

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 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

laplacian eigenmaps
incremental learning

locally linear construction
nonlinear dimensionality reduction


A demerit point strategy to reduce free-riding in BitTorrent BitTorrent is one of the popular P2P protocols to share files. In contrast to a traditional client-server application, all peers in a BitTorrent network participate in both downloading and uploading. Free-riding occurs when a peer intentionally tries to avoid uploading, but still downloads from the rest of the peers. Such a free-riding peer, or free-rider, hurts the overall system to its own benefit. Though there are mechanisms to discourage free-riding in the BitTorrent protocol, the protocol can be exploited by free-riders. In this paper we propose an alternative strategy called the demerit point strategy as an extension to what the protocol already offers, and show through experimental evidence that this strategy is highly effective in mitigating free-riding. We compare the new strategy against a similar recent extension, and through experimental evidence, establish that our strategy is better. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

O O O O O O O O B B 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 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


Convergence estimate of the RBF-based meshless method for initial-boundary value problem of wave equations This paper gives an order of convergence in applying the radial basis functions (RBF) as a meshless method for the initial-boundary value problem of wave equations. The analysis for a model wave equation shows that the convergence order of the proposed method is at least the same as which in finite difference method (FDM). For illustration, two examples are given to verify the accuracy and efficiency of the numerical solution by means of RBF and FDM.

O O O O O B 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 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

radial basis function
unsymmetric collocation


Support-vector modeling of electromechanical coupling for microwave filter tuning This article presents a support-vector modeling method for electromechanical coupling of microwave filter tuning in the case of the scarcity of experimental data available. This has been done for the purpose of establishing an accurate coupling model which can be used in an automatic tuning device of volume-producing filters. In the method, a coupling model that reveals the effect of mechanical structure on the filter electrical performance is established by using a proposed algorithm which can incorporate multi-kernel and prior knowledge into linear programming support vector regression (LPSVR). Some experiments from three microwave filters have been performed, and the results confirm the effectiveness of the support-vector modeling method. Moreover, the comparative results also show that the proposed multi-kernel prior knowledge LPSVR can improve the data-driven modeling accuracy of small dataset. The proposed algorithm show great potential in some problems where a sufficient experimental data is difficult and costly to obtain, but some prior knowledge data from a simulation model can be easily obtained. 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE, 2013.

O O O B I O B I 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 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 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 O

microwave filter
support vector regression
electromechanical coupling
prior knowledge


Instance variant nearest neighbor using particle swarm optimization for function approximation An approach to the function approximation problem using instance variant nearest neighbor (IVNN) is presented. IVNN attempts to apply less neighbors for noisy data and more neighbors for non-noisy data in order to avoid over-fitting and under-fitting respectively. IVNN is solved by a particle swarm optimization (PSO) such that the prediction performance is maximized. IVNN requires no model or distribution assumption in determining variant numbers of neighbors for each data, which provides a practical means to the function approximation problem. The prediction performance of IVNN is compared to conventional algorithms such as k nearest neighbor (kNN) regression, multilayer perceptron (MLP), and support vector regression (SVR).

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

function approximation
instance variant nearest neighbor
particle swarm optimization

machine learning
locally weighted regression


Mucin-like Molecules as Modulators of the Survival and Proliferation of Primitive Hematopoietic Cells Current data suggest that interplay between two classes of molecules contributes to the regulation of hematopoiesis

O O O O 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

bone marrow
stroma
adhesion
hematopoietic progenitors
selectins
sialomucins
cd34+


Ship-pack optimization in a two-echelon distribution system In large distribution systems, distribution centers (DC) deliver some merchandize to their retail stores in size-specific packages, also called ship-packs. These ship-packs include cases (e.g., cartons containing 24 or 48units), inners (packages of 6 or 8units) or eaches (individual units). For each Stock Keeping Unit (SKU), a retailer can decide which of these ship-pack options to use when replenishing its retail stores. Working with a major US retailer, we have developed a cost model that balances DC handling costs, store handling costs and inventory-related costs at both the DC and the stores, and therefore can help to determine the optimum warehouse ship-pack for each SKU. We implement our model for a sample of 529 SKUs, and show that by changing ship-pack size for about 30 SKUs, the retailer can reduce its total cost by 0.3% - 0.4%. Interestingly, we find that most of the cost savings occurs at the DC level.

O O O O O 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 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

ship-pack
replenishment
inventory optimization


A Non-Iterative Method for Calculating the Effective Capacitance of CMOS Gates with Interconnect Load Effect Gate delay evaluation is always a vital concern for high-performance digital VLSI designs. As the feature size of VLSIs decreases to the nano-meter region, the work to obtain an accurate gate delay value becomes more difficult and time consuming than ever. The conventional methods usually use iterative algorithms to ensure the accuracy of the effective capacitance C(eff), which is usually used to compute the gate delay with interconnect loads and to capture the output signal shape of the real gate response. Accordingly, the efficiency is sacrificed. In this paper, an accurate and efficient approach is proposed for gate delay estimation. With the linear relationship of gate output time points and C(eff), a polynomial approximation is used to make the nonlinear effective capacitance equation be solved without iterative method. Compared to the conventional methods, the proposed method improves the efficiency of gate delay calculation. Meanwhile, experimental results show that the proposed method is in good agreement with SPICE results and the average error is 2.8%.

O O O O O O 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 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 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 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


New approximation formulas for evaluating the ratio of gamma functions The aim of this paper is to establish new, increasingly accurate formulas for evaluating the ratio of gamma functions and the Wallis ratio. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

O O O O O O O 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

gamma function
approximations
inequalities


Silicon-based microelectrode arrays for stimulation and signal recording of in vitro cultured neurons Microelectrode arrays (MEAs) for stimulation and signal recording of in vitro cultured neurons are presented. Each MEA is composed of 60 independent electrodes with 59 working ones and one reference one. These electrodes are divided into 30 pairs. Through each pair of electrodes, four independent states can be realized to define the accessing modes of neurons cultured on the surface of the electrodes. A total MEA covers an area of 10 mm x 10 mm. MEAs are fabricated in a silicon-based semiconductor process. An implemented MEA is bonded on a specially designed printed-circuit-board (PCB) and surrounded by a culture chamber. An impedance measurement has been made to verify the electrical characteristics of MEAs. The surface was modified to enhance the biocompatibility. A series of PC12 cells culture experiments validates the effectiveness of the modification. An extracellular signal recording experiment with acetylcholine (Ach) as a stimulant has been carried out, and the results show the feasibility of MEAs for extracellular action potential recording. Extracellular electrical stimulation and recording experiments have been carried out too. They indicate that MEAs can be used for extracellular stimulation, recording, simultaneous stimulation and recording, and isolation of PC12 cells network cultured in vitro.

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

microelectrode arrays (meas)
extracellular recording
neurons network


Ensemble Learning Based Segmentation of Metastatic Liver Tumours in Contrast-Enhanced Computed Tomography This paper presents an ensemble learning algorithm for liver tumour segmentation from a CT volume in the form of U-Boost and extends the loss functions to improve performance. Five segmentation algorithms trained by the ensemble learning algorithm with different loss functions are compared in terms of error rate and Jaccard Index between the extracted regions and true ones.

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

liver tumour
segmentation
ensemble learning


Kernel scheduling techniques for efficient solution space exploration in reconfigurable computing Run-time reconfigurable systems have emerged as a flexible way of facing with a single device a wide range of applications. The adequate exploitation of the available hardware resources requires the development of design tools that support the design process. Task scheduling becomes a very critical issue in achieving the high performance that DSP and multimedia applications demand. This paper addresses task scheduling in reconfigurable computing for these kinds of applications. First, we discuss the main issues involved in the problem. Then, we propose a new methodology with some bounding and pruning techniques in order to produce an efficient exploration of the design space. This work has been developed for Morphosys, a coarse-grain multi-context reconfigurable architecture, and it can be successfully applied to systems with similar features.

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 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

reconfigurable computing
task scheduling


Canopyframe interactions for umbrella simulation In this paper, we present a method for umbrella animation generation. It includes a bi-time-step scheme to efficiently resolve canopy-frame interactions. Projection-based algorithm to accurately detect canopy-frame collision.

B I 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

umbrella simulation
canopyframe interactions

bi-time-step
projection-based collision detection


Hierarchical text categorization using neural networks This paper presents the design and evaluation of a text categorization method based on the Hierarchical Mixture of Experts model. This model uses a divide and conquer principle to define smaller categorization problems based on a predefined hierarchical structure. The final classifier is a hierarchical array of neural networks. The method is evaluated using the UMLS Metathesaurus as the underlying hierarchical structure, and the OHSUMED test set of MEDLINE records. Comparisons with an optimized version of the traditional Rocchio's algorithm adapted for text categorization, as well as flat neural network classifiers are provided. The results show that the use of the hierarchical structure improves text categorization performance with respect to an equivalent flat model. The optimized Rocchio algorithm achieves a performance comparable with that of the hierarchical neural networks.

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

automatic text categorization
applied neural networks
hierarchical classifiers


Comparison of logistic regression model and classification tree: An application to postpartum depression data In this study, it is aimed that comparing logistic regression model with classification tree method in determining social-demographic risk factors which have effected depression status of 1447 women in separate postpartum periods. In determination of risk factors, data obtained from prevalence study of postpartum depression were used. Cut-off value of postpartum depression scores that calculated was taken as 13. Social and demographic risk factors were brought up by helping of the classification tree and logistic regression model. According to optimal classification tree total of six risk factors were determined, but in logistic regression model 3 of their effect were found significantly. In addition, during the relations among risk factors in tree structure were being evaluated, in logistic regression model corrected main effects belong to risk factors were calculated. In spite of, classification success of maximal tree was found better than both optimal tree and logistic regression model, it is seen that using this tree structure in practice is very difficult. But we say that the logistic regression model and optimal tree had the lower sensitivity, possibly due to the fact that numbers of the individuals in both two groups were not equal and clinical risk factors were not considered in this study. Classification tree method gives more information with detail on diagnosis by evaluating a lot of risk factors together than logistic regression model. But making correct selection through constructed tree structures is very important to increase the success of results and to reach information which can provide appropriate explanations.

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

logistic regression model
postpartum depression

classification and regression trees
cross-validation
diagnostic models


Property testers for dense constraint satisfaction programs on finite domains Many NP-hard languages can be "decided" in subexponential time if the definition of "decide" is relaxed only slightly. Rubinfeld and Sudan introduced the notion of property testers, probabilistic algorithms that can decide, with high probability, if a function has a certain property or if it is far from any function having this property. Goldreich, Goldwasser, and Ron constructed property testers with constant query complexity for dense instances of a large class of graph problems. Since many graph problems can be viewed as special cases of the Constraint Satisfaction Problem on Boolean domains, it is natural to try to construct property testers for more general cases of the Constraint Satisfaction Problem. In this paper, we give explicit constructions of property testers using a constant number of queries for dense instances of Constraint Satisfaction Problems where the constraints have constant arity and the variables assume values in some domain of finite size. (C) 2002 Wiley Periodicals. Inc.

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 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 B I O O O O 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

approximation
property testing
randomized sampling


Weighted fuzzy interpolative reasoning for sparse fuzzy rule-based systems based on piecewise fuzzy entropies of fuzzy sets In this paper, we propose a new method for weighted fuzzy interpolative reasoning in sparse fuzzy rule-based systems based on piecewise fuzzy entropies of fuzzy sets. First, the proposed method uses the representative values of antecedent fuzzy sets, the representative values of observation fuzzy sets, and the representative values of consequence fuzzy sets of fuzzy rules to get the characteristic points of the fuzzy interpolative result represented by a fuzzy set. Then, it calculates the piecewise fuzzy entropies between any two characteristic points of the antecedent fuzzy sets, the piecewise fuzzy entropies between any two characteristic points of the observation fuzzy sets, and the piecewise fuzzy entropies between any two characteristic points of the consequence fuzzy sets of the fuzzy rules, respectively. Then, it calculates the weights of the antecedent fuzzy sets of each fuzzy rule, respectively, and calculates the weight of each fuzzy rule. Then, it calculates the piecewise fuzzy entropies between any two characteristic points of the fuzzy interpolative result. Finally, it uses the secant method to calculate the degree of membership of each obtained characteristic point of the fuzzy interpolative result. The experimental results show that the proposed method outperforms the existing methods for dealing with the multivariate regression problems, the MackeyGlass chaotic time series prediction problem, and the time series prediction problems.

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

piecewise fuzzy entropy
polygonal fuzzy sets
sparse fuzzy rule-based systems
weighted fuzzy interpolative reasoning


Memory-access-aware data structure transformations for embedded software with dynamic data accesses Embedded systems are evolving from traditional, stand-alone devices to devices that participate in Internet activity. The days of simple, manifest embedded software [e.g. a simple finite-impulse response (FIR) algorithm on a digital signal processor DSP)] are over. Complex, nonmanifest code, executed on a variety of embedded platforms in a distributed manner, characterizes next generation embedded software. One dominant niche, which we concentrate on, is embedded, multimedia software. The need is present to map large scale, dynamic, multimedia software onto an embedded system in a systematic and highly optimized manner. The objective of this paper is to introduce high-level, systematically applicable, data structure transformations and to show in detail the practical feasibility of our optimizations on three real-life multimedia case studies. We derive Pareto tradeoff points in terms of accesses versus memory footprint and obtain significant gains in execution time and power consumption with respect to the initial implementation choices. Our approach is a first step to systematically applying high-level data structure transformations in the context of memory-efficient and low-power multimedia systems.

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

data structure transformations
multimedia
power consumption


Design and realization of variable IIR digital filters as a cascade of identical subfilters A new approach to design variable IIR digital filters by using a cascade of N identical individual filter, of any order n is proposed in this paper. First, the approximation method for lowpass filter specifications is outlined, then the general limitations of the new method are investigated and a compact formula is derived. Next, the limitations for the main canonic approximations (Butterworth, Chebyshev and Elliptic) are investigated and compared and convenient expressions for design and evaluation are obtained. New first- and second-order filter sections, permitting very easy tuning of the cutoff frequency by recalculating and reprogramming of a single multiplier coefficient value, are developed and the design and tuning strategies for highpass, bandpass and bandstop filters are proposed. Finally design examples are given and the sound superiority of the new method compared to other known is demonstrated experimentally.

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

variable/tunable digital filters
iir filters
filter approximation


PET Image Reconstruction Using Information Theoretic Anatomical Priors We describe a nonparametric framework for incorporating information from co-registered anatomical images into positron emission tomographic (PET) image reconstruction through priors based on information theoretic similarity measures. We compare and evaluate the use of mutual information (MI) and joint entropy (JE) between feature vectors extracted from the anatomical and PET images as priors in PET reconstruction. Scale-space theory provides a framework for the analysis of images at different levels of detail, and we use this approach to define feature vectors that emphasize prominent boundaries in the anatomical and functional images, and attach less importance to detail and noise that is less likely to be correlated in the two images. Through simulations that model the best case scenario of perfect agreement between the anatomical and functional images, and a more realistic situation with a real magnetic resonance image and a PET phantom that has partial volumes and a smooth variation of intensities, we evaluate the performance of MI and JE based priors in comparison to a Gaussian quadratic prior, which does not use any anatomical information. We also apply this method to clinical brain scan data using F(18) Fallypride, a tracer that binds to dopamine receptors and therefore localizes mainly in the striatum. We present an efficient method of computing these priors and their derivatives based on fast Fourier transforms that reduce the complexity of their convolution-like expressions. Our results indicate that while sensitive to initialization and choice of hyperparameters, information theoretic priors can reconstruct images with higher contrast and superior quantitation than quadratic priors.

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

anatomical priors
joint entropy
mutual information


Reflections on iCODE: using web technology and hands-on projects to engage urban youth in computer science and engineering More than 200 middle school and high school students from underserved urban communities in Boston, Lowell, and Lawrence, Massachusetts, participated in after-school and summer enrichment programs over a three-year period, using hands-on learning materials and web resources to complete hands-on microcontroller-based projects. Program content was based on a suite of robotics and electronics kits developed by the University of Massachusetts Lowell and Machine Science Inc., together with on-line instructions, a web-based programming tool, and a shared electronic portfolio of student projects. Participating students worked with classroom teachers and undergraduate mentors to complete a series of projects, and took part each year in a non-competitive robotics exhibition and a competitive robot sumo tournament. Goodman Research Group assessed learning outcomes and attitudinal changes using a variety of measures, including observations of program sessions, group interviews with participating students, pre- and post-program student surveys, and educator feedback. The program was found to effectively engage participants, give them real engineering and programming skills, improve their attitudes toward science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects, and increase their interest in STEM career pathways. These results are presented, along with lessons learned from the program implementation, technology development, and evaluation.

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

robotics
programming
evaluation
career
computer science
engineering

education
k-12
informal
after school
microcontroller
logo
sensors
crafts
competition


An empirical evaluation of stages of strategic information systems planning: patterns of process design and effectiveness While much has been written about strategic information systems planning (SISP), two important aspects have been under-emphasized. The first is the planning process or how planning is accomplished. The second is planning evolution or how planning evolves as a learning system. Both perspectives can provide practical guidance on how organizations will change their planning process over time in an attempt to improve their effectiveness as well as leverage their investment in SISP. This paper draws on prior literature to identify key dimensions of SISP and its effectiveness. The evolution of these dimensions is studied as a three-stage model. The results provide an interesting insight into how planning evolves as organizations reconcile seemingly contradictory rational and adaptive dimensions of planning. This balanced approach to planning is shown to be more effective, providing strong implications for both research and practice.

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

planning stages
planning effectiveness
empirical study
planning maturity


Using standard image compression algorithms to store data from computational fluid dynamics Three-dimensional numerical modeling of fluid flows is an important research tool to understand many fluid dynamical effects observed in nature. With the strong growth of available computational resources the use of such models has greatly increased over the last years. Because the available mass storage has not increased in the same order as the CPU speed many researchers nowadays face the problem of how to store and transfer the large data sets produced by the model calculations for post-processing. The use of lossy wavelet-based compression techniques on this data has been investigated in several publications. These techniques are often specialized to one problem and are not easy to implement. In the area of digital media, however, advances have been made for still image (JPEG, JPEG-2000) and motion image (MPEG) compression. In this paper we investigate the usefulness of these image compression algorithms for the storage of data from computational fluid dynamics on regular cartesian grids. We analyze both the compression ratios achieved and the error introduced by these lossy compression schemes. We found that, for our purposes, the JPEG compression scheme allows an easy-to-use, portable, robust, and computationally efficient lossy compression. For the easy use of these compression algorithms we present a simple wrapper library. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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 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

data compression
visualization
post-processing


Intra-supply chain system with multiple sales locations and quality assurance The emergence of the global economy has transformed the interdepartmental nature of a transnational enterprise into a highly collaborative oriented team. This transformation enables the enterprise to lower its transaction and coordination costs and increase its competitive advantage in the global market. This study investigates such a so-called intra-supply chain system that exists in present-day transnational firms, wherein a single production unit manufactures products to meet the demands of multiple regional sales offices and incorporates quality assurance in its production. The objective of the present study is to determine an optimal production quantity and shipment policy that minimizes the integrated productioninventorydelivery costs for the intra-supply chain system. In this study, considerations related to a products quality assurance include inspection for quality, rework of defective items and failure in rework. Delivery of the finished products starts when quality of the entire production lot is assured. Multi-shipment policy is used to synchronously transport finished items to multiple locations for satisfying customer demands in each cycle. Mathematical modeling along with Hessian matrix equations is employed to solve the proposed intra-supply chain system. A numerical example with a discussion and cost-benefit analysis of outsourcing work to an external distributor is presented to demonstrate the practical applicability of the obtained results.

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

intra supply chain
optimization
production-shipment policy
synchronous deliveries
scrap


An Improved Fuzzy Unequal Clustering Algorithm for Wireless Sensor Network This paper introduces IFUC, which is an Improved Fuzzy Unequal Clustering scheme for large scale wireless sensor networks (WSNs).It aims to balance the energy consumption and prolong the network lifetime. Our approach focuses on energy efficient clustering scheme and inter-cluster routing protocol. On the one hand, considering each nodes local information such as energy level, distance to base station and local density, we use fuzzy logic system to determine each nodes chance of becoming cluster head and estimate the cluster head competence radius. On the other hand, we use Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) method to construct the energy-aware routing between cluster heads and base station. It reduces and balances the energy consumption of cluster heads and solves the hot spots problem that occurs in multi-hop WSN routing protocol to a large extent. The validation experiment results have indicated that the proposed clustering scheme performs much better than many other methods such as LEACH, CHEF and EEUC.

O O O B I 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 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 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 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

ant colony optimization
fuzzy logic
network lifetime
unequal clustering
wireless sensor network


Comparison of computer-based information support to clinical research in chinese and Japanese hospitals: A postal survey of clinicians' views Objectives: The objectives of this research are to examine the current situation of computer-based information support of clinical research in hospitals and to determine the expectations of clinicians toward clinical research support functions of hospital information systems (HISS) in both China and Japan. Methods: 172 clinicians from 42 major hospitals in China (2 groups), and 568 clinicians from 79 university hospitals in Japan (2 groups), were surveyed by postal questionnaire during July and August, 1999. The Kruskal-Wallis test was performed to analyze the differences among the groups. Results: The total response rate was 66.9%. The result shows that 94.8% of the Japanese clinicians, 3.5 times more than those in China, use computers almost every day. High significance was shown for the frequency of non-HIS based information resources used by clinicians between China and Japan (p < 0.001), whereas no significance for the frequency of HIS use by clinicians between the China I and Japan I groups (p = 0.725) was found. 33.3% clinicians in China thought they could obtain 30-50% of the necessary patient data for clinical research from the HIS, about 2 times more than in Japan (p = 0.009). Conclusions: Although the degree of computer involvement among clinicians in Japan is much higher than in China, the computer-based hospital information systems have not been developed well for supporting clinical research in both countries. The clinicians expect comprehensive computerized patient records (CPRs) and full use of patient related information in the existing HISS to support their clinical research.

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

information storage and retrieval
clinical medicine
questionnaires


On the semantics of communicating hardware processes and their translation into LOTOS for the verification of asynchronous circuits with CADP Hardware process calculi, such as CHP (Communicating Hardware Processes), BALSA, or HASTE (formerly TANGRAM), are a natural approach for the description of asynchronous hardware architectures. These calculi are extensions of standard process calculi with particular synchronisation features implemented using handshake protocols. In this article, we first give a structural operational semantics for value-passing CHP. Compared with the existing semantics Of CHP defined by translation into Petri nets, our semantics is general enough to handle value-passing CHP with communication channels open to the environment, and is also independent of any particular (2- or 4-phase) handshake protocol used for circuit implementation. We then describe the translation Of CHP into the process calculus LOTOS (ISO standard 8807), in order to allow asynchronous hardware architectures expressed in CHP to be verified using the CADP verification toolbox for LOTOS. A translator from CHP to LOTOS has been implemented and successfully used for the compositional verification of two industrial case studies, namely an asynchronous implementation of the DES (Data Encryption Standard) and an asynchronous interconnect of a NoC (Network on Chip). (c) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

chp
handshake protocol
lotos
network on chip
process calculus
translation
verification

asynchronous circuit
asynchronous logic
asynchrony
formal method
gals architecture
hardware architecture
hardware design
modelling
specification
structured operational semantics
validation


An examination into MSN Messenger 7.5 contact identification With the advent of new legislation in the United Kingdomas well as several high-profile criminal casesthe issue of Internet grooming has been the subject of much recent focus. Of particular interest to the forensic examiner is the ability to trace back from a known suspect's computer system to identify contact with his alleged victims. Specifically, when an allegation of grooming is made one of the first things the examiner should do is determine that the suspect's computer system had been used to contact the informant's account in the first place, thereby not only providing a strong evidential link between the victim and the suspect but also demonstrating that the suspect was responsible for that contact and not some third party who may have taken control of the suspect's chat account. This article demonstrates some methods of proving such a link where the suspect and victim have been in contact on the MSN Messenger chat service.

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 B I O O


Detection of Structural Features in Biological Signals In this article structures in biological signals are treated. The simplerdirectly visible in the signals, which still demand serious methods and algorithms in the feature detection, similarity investigation and classification. The major actions in this domain are of geometric, thus simpler sort, though there are still hard problems related to simple situations. The other large class of less simple signals unsuitable for direct geometric or statistic approach, are signals with interesting frequency components and behavior, those suitable for spectroscopic analysis. Semantics of spectroscopy, spectroscopic structures and research demanded operations and transformations on spectra and time spectra are presented. The both classes of structures and related analysis methods and tools share a large common set of algorithms, all of which aiming to the full automatization. Some of the signal features present in the brain signal patterns are demonstrated, with the contexts relevant in BCI, brain computer interfaces. Mathematical representations, invariants and complete characterization of structures in broad variety of biological signals are in the central focus.

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

wysiwig in geometric structures and spectroscopy

mathematical invariants and characterizations


Area and system clock effects on SMT/CMP throughput Two approaches to high throughput processors are Chip Multi-Processing (CMP) and Simultaneous Multi-Threading (SMT). CMP increases layout efficiency, which allows more functional units and a faster clock rate. However, CMP suffers from hardware partitioning of functional resources. SMT increases functional unit utilization by issuing instructions simultaneously from multiple threads. However, a wide-issue SMT suffers from layout and technology implementation problems. We use silicon resources as our basis for comparison and find that area and system clock have a large effect on the optimal SMT/CMP design trade. We show the area overhead of SMT on each processor and how it scales with the width of the processor pipeline and the number of SMT threads. The wide issue SMT delivers the highest single-thread performance with improved multithread throughput. However, multiple smaller cores deliver the highest throughput. Also, alternate processor configurations are explored that trade off SMT threads for other microarchitecture features. The result is a small increase to single-thread performance, but a fairly large reduction in throughput.

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

layout area estimation
processor architecture
microarchitecture trade off


Problem solving with insufficient resources A new approach, "controlled concurrency," is introduced for inference control in an adaptive reasoning system working with insufficient knowledge and resources. With this method, a problem-solving process is constructed from atomic steps in run time, according to the system's past experience and the current context. The system carries out many such processes in parallel by distributing its resources among them, and dynamically adjusting the distribution according to feedback. A data structure, "bag," is designed to support this dynamic time-space allocation, and is a kind of probabilistic priority queue. This approach provides a flexible, efficient, and adaptive control mechanism for real-time systems working with uncertain knowledge. To analyze problem solving in such a system, the traditional computability theory and computational complexity theory become inappropriate, because the system no longer follows problem-specific algorithms in problem solving.

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

insufficient resources
controlled concurrency

reasoning under uncertainty
intelligence and computation


Evolutionary Pareto optimizers for continuous review stochastic inventory systems Multi-objective inventory control has been studied for a long time. The trade-off analysis of cycle stock investment and workload, so called the exchange curve concept, possibly dates back to several decades ago. A classical way to such trade-off analysis is to utilize the Lagrangian relaxation technique or interactive method to search for the optimum in a sequence of single objective optimization problems. However, the field of optimization has been changed over the last few decades since the concept of evolutionary computation was introduced. In this paper, a continuous review stochastic inventory system with three objectives about cost and shortage is resolved by evolutionary computation in order to plan for the control policies under backordering and lost sales. Two evolutionary optimizers, multi-objective electromagnetism-like optimization (MOEMO) and multi-objective particle swarm optimization (MOPSO), are employed to well and fast approximate the non-dominated policies in term of lot size and safety stock. Trade-offs are observed in a non-dominated set that no one excels the others in all objectives. Computational results show that the evolutionary Pareto optimizers could generate trade-off solutions potentially ignored by the well-known simultaneous method. Comparisons between the results of backordering and lost sales indicate that decision makers will make more deliberate choices about lot sizing and safety stocking when unsatisfied demand is completely lost.

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 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

inventory control
evolutionary computation


animation for ancient tile mosaics In mosaic art, tiles of unique color, material, and shape are arranged on a plane to form patterns and shapes. Although previous research has been carried out on creating static mosaic-like images from non-mosaic input, mosaic animation requires a method to maintain the temporal coherence of tiles. Here we introduce a method that creates mosaic animations from videos by applying a temporally and spatially coherent tile-arrangement technique. We extract coherent feature lines from video input using video segmentation, and arrange tiles based on the feature lines. We then animate tiles along the motion of video, add and delete tiles to preserve the tile density, and smooth tile color via frames.

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

stroke-based animation
video stylization


Towards cognitive economy This publication discusses new development directions of cognitive economics charted based on cognitive processes of financial data analysis. Semantic analysis tasks will be dedicated to cognitive economics systems. Such systems, which semantically analyse the economic situation of enterprises/organisations/business structures, execute their tasks using semantic information available to them (contained in data sets). The foundation for the operation of economic cognitive systems consists in both the semantic analysis of the situation of an enterprise described by various economic/financial ratios and the assessment of the future situation of this enterprise. Hence cognitive economics is geared towards the semantic analysis of the economic/financial situation of enterprises carried out by means of an in-depth description, an analysis, a reasoning and a projection of the future condition of enterprises. The subject of cognitive economics discussed for the purpose of indicating and elaborating on the directions of this discipline and of semantic analysis of economic/financial data goes hand in hand with the currently growing trend of soft computing. Methods of semantic analysis, just like e.g. neural networks, were developed by researchers inspired by the operation of the human mind. The cognitive, decision-making, reasoning, understanding and prediction processes running in this mind have become the basis for attempts to create information systems analysing various data. This type of analysis, based on extracting semantic aspects and information from the analysed data sets has been aimed at using computational methods to help solve various problems. Since such solutions are dedicated to bioinformatics, cognitive informatics and artificial intelligence, it appeared likely that they could also be used in economics. It is in this regard that the development of semantic data analysis methods (dedicated to economic/financial problems) puts cognitive economics in the same group with all other scientific disciplines making use of soft computing techniques.

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

cognitive economy
semantic information
semantic analysis
cognitive systems


GKLEE: Concolic Verification and Test Generation for GPUs Programs written for GPUs often contain correctness errors such as races, deadlocks, or may compute the wrong result. Existing debugging tools often miss these errors because of their limited input-space and execution-space exploration. Existing tools based on conservative static analysis or conservative modeling of SIMD concurrency generate false alarms resulting in wasted bug-hunting. They also often do not target performance bugs (non-coalesced memory accesses, memory bank conflicts, and divergent warps). We provide a new framework called GKLEE that can analyze C++ GPU programs, locating the aforesaid correctness and performance bugs. For these programs, GKLEE can also automatically generate tests that provide high coverage. These tests serve as concrete witnesses for every reported bug. They can also be used for downstream debugging, for example to test the kernel on the actual hardware. We describe the architecture of GKLEE, its symbolic virtual machine model, and describe previously unknown bugs and performance issues that it detected on commercial SDK kernels. We describe GKLEE's test-case reduction heuristics, and the resulting scalability improvement for a given coverage target.

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 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 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

reliability
cuda
parallelism
symbolic execution
formal verification
automatic test generation


Inferences on the reliability in balanced and unbalanced one-way random models In this article, the hypothesis testing and interval estimation for the reliability parameter are considered in balanced and unbalanced one-way random models. The tests and confidence intervals for the reliability parameter are developed using the concepts of generalized p-value and generalized confidence interval. Furthermore, some simulation results are presented to compare the performances between the proposed approach and the existing approach. For balanced models, the simulation results indicate that the proposed approach can provide satisfactory coverage probabilities and performs better than the existing approaches across the wide array of scenarios, especially for small sample sizes. For unbalanced models, the simulation results show that the two proposed approaches perform more satisfactorily than the existing approach in most cases. Finally, the proposed approaches are illustrated using two real examples.

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 B I 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

reliability parameter
generalized confidence interval

generalized p-value
coverage probability


Quantum Arthur-Merlin games This paper studies quantum Arthur-Merlin games, which are Arthur-Merlin games in which Arthur and Merlin can perform quantum computations and Merlin can send Arthur quantum information. As in the classical case, messages from Arthur to Merlin are restricted to be strings of uniformly generated random bits. It is proved that for one-message quantum Arthur-Merlin games, which correspond to the complexity class QMA, completeness and soundness errors can be reduced exponentially without increasing the length of Merlin's message. Previous constructions for reducing error required a polynomial increase in the length of Merlin's message. Applications of this fact include a proof that logarithmic length quantum certificates yield no increase in power over BQP and a simple proof that QMA &SUBE; PP. Other facts that are proved include the equivalence of three ( or more) message quantum Arthur-Merlin games with ordinary quantum interactive proof systems and some basic properties concerning two-message quantum Arthur-Merlin games.

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

arthur-merlin games
quantum proofs
quantum complexity theory
quantum computation


An optimal neural network and concrete strength modeling In this paper, a new algorithm which combines the Akaike's information criterion (AIC) with the golden-section optimization technique has been developed for finding the optimal architecture for single-hidden layer feedforward neural networks. The computational experiments on two analytical functions have verified that the modified AIC criterion is in close agreement with the network generalization. It is observed that as long as proximity to global minimum solution is found for each configuration of the network, the AIC function of the networks over the whole domain is unimodal. Thus, it is suitable for the golden-section search method, that is, very effective and computationally time-saving, especially for large size or complex problems. The proposed optimization algorithm is applied to the modeling of the concrete strength under triaxial stresses.

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

aic
concrete strength
optimal architecture


Extended rough set-based attribute reduction in inconsistent incomplete decision systems A systematic study of attribute reduction in inconsistent incomplete decision systems (IIDSs) has not yet been performed, and no complete methodology of attribute reduction has been developed for IIDSs to date. In an IIDS, there are various ways to handle missing values. In this paper, a missing attribute value may be replaced with any known value of a corresponding attribute (such a missing attribute value is called a do not care condition). In this way, this paper establishes reduction concepts specifically for IIDSs, mainly by extending related reduction concepts from other types of decision systems into IIDSs, and then derives their relationships and properties. With these derived properties, the extended reducts are divided into two distinct types: heritable reducts and nonheritable reducts, and algorithms for computing them are presented. Using the relationships derived here, the eight types of extended reducts established for IIDSs can be converted to five equivalent types. Then five discernibility function-based approaches are proposed, each for a particular kind of reduct. Each approach can find all reducts of its associated type. The theoretical analysis of the proposed approaches is described in detail. Finally, numerical experiments have shown that the proposed approaches are effective and suitable for handling both numerical and categorical attributes, but that they have different application conditions. The proposed approaches can provide a solution to the reduction problem for IIDSs.

O O O B 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 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

inconsistent incomplete decision system
discernibility function
positive region
granular computing
rough set theory


A new definition of homomorphic signature for identity management in mobile cloud computing We define a new homomorphic signature for identity authentication. We give a formal secure model of this homomorphic signature. We construct a homomorphic signature scheme from GHR signature. We prove that our scheme is secure under strong RSA assumption.

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

homomorphic signature
identity management
mobile cloud computing
ghr signature


3D noisy discrete objects: Segmentation and application to smoothing ? We propose in this paper a segmentation process that can deal with noisy discrete objects. A flexible approach considering arithmetic discrete planes with a variable width is used to avoid the over-segmentation that might happen when classical segmentation algorithms based on regular discrete planes are used to decompose the surface of the object. A method to choose a seed and different segmentation strategies according to the shape of the surface is also proposed, as well as an application to smooth the border of convex noisy discrete objects.

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

segmentation
discrete planes
noisy discrete objects


Damping optimisation of hybrid active-passive sandwich composite structures Optimisation of active and passive damping is presented in this paper, using a new mixed layerwise finite element model developed for the analysis and optimisation of hybrid active-passive laminated sandwich plates. Optimisation is conducted through maximisation of modal loss factors, using as design variables the viscoelastic core thickness, the constraining elastic layers ply thicknesses and orientation angles, as well as the position of co-located sensor and actuator pairs. Optimal results for passive damping are compared with an alternative optimisation model, based on 3D finite elements included in commercial package ABAQUS. Optimal location for sensor-actuator pairs is also presented and results are discussed. (C) 2010 Civil-Comp Ltd and Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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 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

sandwich structures
active damping
gradient optimisation
genetic algorithms
co-located control


Gambling for the mnemonically impaired We obtain asymptotically tight bounds on the maximum amount of information that a single bit of memory can retain about the entire past. At each of n successive epochs, a single fair bit is generated and a one-bit memory is updated according to a family of memory update rules (possibly probabilistic and time-dependent) depending only on the value of the new input bit and on the current state of the memory. The problem is to estimate the supremum over all possible update rules of the minimum mutual information between the state of the memory at time (n + 1) and each of the previous n input bits. We show that this supremum is asymptotically equal to 1/(2n(2) ln 2) bit, as conjectured by Venkatesh and Franklin. We use this result to derive asymptotically sharp estimates of related maximin correlations between the memory and the input bits, thus resolving two more questions left open by Venkatesh and Franklin and by Komlos et al. Finally, we generalize the results to the case of an m-bit memory, again obtaining asymptotically tight bounds in many cases.

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

correlation
finite memory
learning
mutual information
rate distortion


user-assisted similarity estimation for searching related web pages To utilize the similarity information hidden in the Web graph, we investigate the problem of adaptively retrieving related Web pages with user assistance. Given a definition of similarities between pages, it is intuitive to estimate that any similarity will propagate from page to page, inducing an implicit topical relatedness between pages. In this paper, we extract connected subgraphs from the whole graph that consists of all pairs of pages whose similarity scores are above a given threshold, and then sort the candidates of related pages by a novel rank measure which is based on the combination distances of a flexible hierarchical clustering. Moreover, due to the subjectivity of similarity values, we dynamically supply the ordering list of related pages according to a parameter adjusted by users. We show our approach effectively handles a set of pages originating from three related categories of Web hierarchies, such as Google Directory. The experiments with three similarity measures demonstrate that using in-link information is favorable while using a combination measure of in-links and out-links lowers the precision of identifying similar pages.

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


A dynamic and automatic traffic light control expert system for solving the road congestion problem Traffic congestion is a severe problem in many modern cities around the world. To solve the problem, we have proposed a framework for a dynamic and automatic traffic light control expert system combined with a simulation model, which is composed of six submodels coded in Arena to help analyze the traffic problem. The model adopts interarrival time and interdeparture time to simulate the arrival and leaving number of cars on roads. In the experiment, each submodel represents a road that has three intersections. The simulation results physically prove the efficiency of the traffic system in an urban area, because the average waiting time of cars at every intersection is sharply dropped when the red light duration is 65s and the green light time duration is 125s. Meanwhile, further analysis also shows if we keep the interarrival time of roads A, B, and C, and change that of roads D, E, and F from 1.7 to 3.4s and the interdeparture times at the three intersections on roads A, B, and C are equal to 0.6s, the total performance of the simulation model is the best. Finally, according to the data collected from RFID readers and the best, second and third best traffic light durations generated from the simulation model, the automatic and dynamic traffic light control expert system can control how long traffic signals should be for traffic improvement.

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

traffic light control expert system
traffic congestion

simulation system
radio frequency identification


Improved collision attack on hash function MD5 In this paper, we present a fast attack algorithm to find two-block collision of hash function MD5. The algorithm is based on the two-block collision differential path of MD5 that was presented by Wang et al. in the Conference EUROCRYPT 2005. We found that the derived conditions for the desired collision differential path were not sufficient to guarantee the path to hold and that some conditions could be modified to enlarge the collision set. By using technique of small range searching and omitting the computing steps to check the characteristics in the attack algorithm, we can speed up the attack of MD5 efficiently. Compared with the Advanced Message Modification technique presented by Wang et al., the small range searching technique can correct 4 more conditions for the first iteration differential and 3 more conditions for the second iteration differential, thus improving the probability and the complexity to find collisions. The whole attack on the MD5 can be accomplished within 5 hours using a PC with Pentium4 1.70GHz CPU.

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


Use of ETM+ images to extend stem volume estimates obtained from LiDAR data Airborne LiDAR techniques can provide accurate measurements of tree height, from which estimates of stem volume and forest woody biomass can be obtained. These techniques, however, are still expensive to apply repeatedly over large areas. The current paper presents a methodology which first transforms mean stand heights obtained from LiDAR over small strips into relevant stem volume estimates. These are then extended over an entire forest by applying two estimation methods (k-NN and locally calibrated regression) to Landsat ETM+ images. The methodology is tested over a coastal area covered by pine forest in the Regional Park of San Rossore (Central Italy). The results are evaluated by comparison with the ground stem volumes of a recent forest inventory, taking into consideration the effect of stand size. In general, the accuracies of two estimation methods are dependent on the size of the forest stands and are satisfactory only when considering stands larger than 510ha. The outputs of the parametric regression procedure are slightly more stable than those of k-NN and more faithfully reproduce the spatial patterns of the ground data.

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


Learning conditional preference network from noisy samples using hypothesis testing The problem of learning Conditional Preference Networks (CP-nets) from a set of pairwise comparisons between outcomes has received great attention recently. However, because of the randomicity of the users behaviors or the observation errors, there exists some noise (errors) in the training samples. Most existing methods neglect to handle the case with noisy samples. In this work, we introduce a new model of learning CP-nets from noisy samples. Based on chi-squared testing, we propose an algorithm to solve this problem in polynomial time. We prove that the obtained CP-net converges in mean to initial CP-net as sample size increases. The proposed method is verified on both simulated data and real data. Compared with the previous methods, our method achieves more accurate results on noisy sample sets.

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

conditional preference networks hypothesis testing


Use of recurrence plot analysis for detecting chaos and noise in nonlinear switching circuits DC-DC converters controlled by naturally sampled, constant frequency pulse width modulation give rise to a wide range of bifurcation and chaos depending on the change in the system parameter values. Knowledge of transitions from regular to chaotic behavior is essential to understand the underlying dynamics of nonlinear switching circuits. While linear approaches are often insufficient to describe such processes, there are nonlinear methods available but requires long time observations. To overcome these difficulties, a newly developed pattern recognition method of nonlinear dynamics called Recurrence plot analysis method is proposed to detect transitions between periodic and chaotic states. The recurrence plot is a two-dimensional representation technique that brings out distance correlations in a time series and make it instantly apparent whether a system is periodic or chaotic. In this paper, the proposed method is applied to a nonlinear switching Buck converter, Boost converter, and Buck-Boost converters to analyze their period doubling route to chaos behavior and to distinguish chaos from noisy behavior. This may lead to a better understanding of the nonlinear switching systems, that may allow us to design stable, chaotic free switching circuits.

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 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 B 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


Deflation based nonlinear canonical correlation analysis This paper introduces two new techniques for determining nonlinear canonical correlation coefficients between two variable sets. A genetic strategy is incorporated to determine these coefficients. Compared to existing methods for nonlinear canonical correlation analysis (NLCCA), the benefits here are that the nonlinear mapping requires fewer parameters to be determined, consequently a more parsimonious NLCCA model can be established which is therefore simpler to interpret. A further contribution of the paper is the investigation of a variety of nonlinear deflation procedures for determining the subsequent nonlinear canonical coefficients. The benefits of the new approaches presented are demonstrated by application to an example from the literature and to recorded data from an industrial melter process. These studies show the advantages of the new NLCCA techniques presented and suggest that a nonlinear deflation procedure should be considered. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

linear projections
nonlinear transformations
neural networks
analysing variable interrelations


Virtual world consistency: A condition for STM systems (with a versatile protocol with invisible read operations) The aim of a Software Transactional Memory (STM) is to discharge the programmers from the management of synchronization in multiprocess programs that access concurrent objects. To that end, an STM system provides the programmer with the concept of a transaction. The job of the programmer is to design each process the application is made up of as a sequence of transactions. A transaction is a piece of code that accesses concurrent objects, but contains no explicit synchronization statement. It is the job of the underlying STM system to provide the illusion that each transaction appears as being executed atomically. Of course, for efficiency, an STM system has to allow transactions to execute concurrently. Consequently, clue to the underlying STM concurrency management, a transaction commits or aborts. This paper first presents a new STM consistency condition, called virtual world consistency. This condition states that no transaction reads object values from an inconsistent global state. It is similar to opacity for the committed transactions but weaker for the aborted transactions. More precisely, it states that (1) the committed transactions can be totally ordered, and (2) the values read by each aborted transaction are consistent with respect to its causal past. Hence, virtual world consistency is weaker than opacity while keeping its spirit. Then, assuming the objects shared by the processes are atomic read/write objects, the paper presents an STM protocol that ensures virtual world consistency (while guaranteeing the invisibility of the read operations). From an operational point of view, this protocol is based on a vector-clock mechanism. Finally, the paper considers the case where the shared objects are regular read/write objects. It also shows how the protocol can easily be weakened while still providing an STM system that satisfies causal consistency, a condition strictly weaker than virtual world consistency. (c) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

causal past
consistency condition
software transactional memory
transaction

atomic object
commit/abort
concurrency control
consistent global state
lock
read-from relation
regular read/write object
serializability
shared memory
vector clock


e-government based on cloud computing and service-oriented architecture Two main trends related to e-government are currently observed: constant development of computer infrastructure, and constant increase of users' skills and knowledge of operating computers and the Internet. Public sector should take advantage of those improved conditions for development and deployment of e-government solutions. This can be achieved through the adoption of new architectures such as cloud computing and service-oriented architecture, in the public sector. Cloud computing permits to uniformly cover the whole country with e-government solutions, independently of divergence of local administrative units that may be better or worse prepared to provide e-services. Service-oriented architecture facilitates provision of compound services covering whole customer processes, where a customer may be a citizen or an enterprise. Compound services provided jointly by administrative units and enterprises stimulate development of e-economy and create attractive job for well educated people.

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

service-oriented architecture
e-government
software as a service


Nanotribological properties of ALD-processed bilayer TiO2/ZnO films We evaluated the nanotribological response of ALD coating TiO2/ZnO films. TiO2/ZnO films correlation between mechanical properties and scratch/wear damage was demonstrated. Plastic deformation transitions are due to the continuities adhesion and/or cohesion failure. A significant suppression from lateral indented deformation, inducing the degree of pile-up of TiO2/ZnO films.

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

cvd coatings
nanotribology
scratch testing
sliding friction


Additive spectral method for fuzzy cluster analysis of similarity data including community structure and affinity matrices An additive spectral method for fuzzy clustering is proposed. The method operates on a clustering model which is an extension of the spectral decomposition of a square matrix. The computation proceeds by extracting clusters one by one, which makes the spectral approach quite natural. The iterative extraction of clusters, also, allows us to draw several stopping rules to the procedure. This applies to several relational data types differently normalized: network structure data (the first eigenvector subtracted), affinity between multidimensional vectors (the pseudo-inverse Laplacian transformation), and conventional relational data including in-house data of similarity between research topics according to working of a research center. The method is experimentally compared with several classic and recent techniques and shown to be competitive.

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

spectral fuzzy clustering
additive fuzzy clustering
one-by-one clustering
lapin transformation
research activity structure


Locks: Picking key methods for a scalable quantitative analysis ? Probabilistic model checking for quantitative analysis of low-level OS primitives. Combine measure-based analysis with formal modelling, spinlock protocol case study. Report on challenges and methods, tackling state-explosion problem.

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

measure-based quantitative analysis
low-level operating system code
test-and-test-and-set spinlock
conditional long-run probabilities
quantile-based queries
symmetry reduction


Selection of power plants by evaluation and comparison using graph theoretical methodology A deterministic quantitative model based on graph theoretical methodology has been developed to compare various technical and economical features of wind, hydro and thermal power plants and is used to evaluate and rank the power plants in ascending or descending order in accordance with the value of their suitability index. The plant with rank 1 is the optimized selection for the customer's/user's desires on the particular application under consideration. This suitability index is the permanent value of the plant attribute matrix, which is a combination of attribute rating matrix and attribute relative importance matrix. Three graphical methods of comprehensive comparison are also suggested to better educate the users/decision makers. The model developed is explained and illustrated with an example problem.

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 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