An M-X/G/1 queueing system with a setup period and a vacation period This paper deals with an M-X/G/1 queueing system with a vacation period which comprises an idle period and a random setup period. The server is turned off each time when the system becomes empty. At this point of time the idle period starts. As soon as a customer or a batch of customers arrive, the setup of the service facility begins which is needed before starting each busy period. In this paper we study the steady state behaviour of the queue size distributions at stationary (random) point of time and at departure point of time. One of our findings is that the departure point queue size distribution is the convolution of the distributions of three independent random variables. Also, we drive analytically explicit expressions for the system state probabilities and some performance measures of this queueing system. Finally, we derive the probability generating function of the additional queue size distribution due to the vacation period as the limiting behaviour of the M-X/M/1 type queueing system.

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

m(x/)g/1 queue
setup time
busy period and queue size


Yi An Editor in Haskell for Haskell Yi is a text editor written in Haskell and extensible in Haskell. We take advantage of Haskell's expressive power to define embedded DSLs that form the foundation of the editor. In turn, these DSLs provide a flexible mechanism to create extended versions

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


Analysis of Minimum-energy Path-preserving Graphs for Ad-hoc Wireless Networks We consider ad-hoc wireless networks and the topology control problem defined as minimizing the amount of power needed to maintain connectivity. The issue boils down to selecting the optimum transmission power level at each node based on the position information of reachable nodes. Local decisions regarding the transmission power level induce a subgraph of the maximum powered graph G(max) in which edges represent direct reachability at maximum power. In this paper we propose an analysis for constructing minimum-energy path-preserving subgraphs of G(max), i.e. subgraphs minimizing the energy consumption between node pairs. We also propose an algorithm for constructing subgraph of G(max) based on one-hop neighbor information. By presenting experimental results we show the effectiveness of our proposed algorithm.

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


A new relaxed proximal point procedure and applications to nonlinear variational inclusions A new relaxed algorithmic procedure based on the notion of A A -maximal relaxed monotonicity is developed, and then the convergence analysis in the context of solving a general class of nonlinear inclusion problems is examined. Furthermore, some results involving A A -maximal relaxed monotone mappings in a Hilbert space setting are included.

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

maximal monotone mapping
a a -maximal monotone mapping a a a a a
generalized resolvent operator


Generalised influential rule search scheme for fuzzy function approximation The present paper is a humble attempt to develop a fuzzy function approximator which can completely self-generate its fuzzy rule base and input-output membership functions from an input-output data set. The fuzzy system can be further adapted to modify its rule base and output membership functions to provide satisfactory performance. This proposed scheme, called generalised influential rule search scheme, has been successfully implemented to develop pure fuzzy function approximators as well as fuzzy logic controllers. The satisfactory performance of the proposed scheme is amply demonstrated by implementing it to develop different major components in a process control loop. The versatility of the algorithm is further proved by implementing it for a benchmark nonlinear function approximation problem.

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

adaptation of output membership functions


Waiting time estimates in symmetric ATM-oriented rings with the destination release of used slots This paper considers the basic access mechanism in asynchronous transfer mode (ATM)-oriented rings which, like Orwell, ATM ring, and ALine, apply destination release of used slots. The released slots may be reused by the destination station, or in some protocols, they must be given to the next station, Such a mechanism can be modeled by a multiple-server multiqueue system, where switchover times between consecutive polling instants of the queues are nonzero, The server polls the queues according to a certain polling discipline, which is dependent on the service time. This paper presents approximate mean minipacket waiting times in such systems. The approximation is based on a polling queueing model with Markovian server routing. Poisson arrivals and a symmetric workload model for minipackets having a full and partial traffic matrix are assumed. The performance characteristics are compared between the alternative options.

O O O O O O 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 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


On minimum cuts and the linear arrangement problem In this paper we examine the problem of finding minimum cuts in finite graphs with the side constraint that the vertex sets inducing these cuts must be of a given cardinality. As it turns out, this computation is of interest not only from a combinatorial perspective but also from a practical one, pertaining to the linear arrangement value of graphs. We look at some graph classes where these cuts can be efficiently computed (in general this computation is NP-hard) as well as some cases where their value can be determined in closed form.

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


"Is this document relevant? ... probably": A survey of probabilistic models in information retrieval This article surveys probabilistic approaches to modeling information retrieval. The basic concepts of probabilistic approaches to information retrieval are outlined and the principles and assumptions upon which the approaches are based are presented. The various models proposed in the development of IR are described, classified, and compared using a common formalism. New approaches that constitute the basis of future research are described.

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 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

probabilistic indexing
probabilistic modeling
probabilistic retrieval
uncertain inference modeling


Fault-tolerant computation in groups and semigroups: applications to automata, dynamic systems and Petri nets ? The traditional approach to fault-tolerant computation has been via modular hardware redundancy. Although universal and simple, modular redundancy is inherently expensive and inefficient. By exploiting particular structural features of a computational architecture or an algorithm, arithmetic codes and recently developed algorithm-based fault tolerance (ABFT) techniques manage to introduce analytical redundancy and offer more efficient fault coverage at the cost of narrower applicability and harder design. In this paper, we extend a variety of results and constructive procedures that were developed in previous work for computations that take place in an abelian group to a more general setting that considers computations in semigroups. We demonstrate possible encodings for semigroup operations of interest and use our extension to design concurrent error detection and correction schemes for group and semigroup machines. The method provides insight regarding the role of decomposition in fault-tolerant algebraic machines and results in a general, hardware-independent characterization of concurrent error detection and correction in finite semiautomata. We also demonstrate that by extending this approach to other dynamic systems, with specific hardware implementations and failure modes, we can systematically obtain fault-tolerant architectures. More specifically, we apply these techniques to linear time-invariant dynamic systems and Petri net models of discrete event systems.

O O O O O O O O B 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 B 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 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

semigroup machines
concurrent error detection
automata
petri nets

fault-tolerant computing
group machines
concurrent error correction
algorithm-based fault tolerance
linear time-invariant dynamic systems


A Monte Carlo Markov chain algorithm for a class of mixture time series models This article generalizes the Monte Carlo Markov Chain (MCMC) algorithm, based on the Gibbs weighted Chinese restaurant (gWCR) process algorithm, for a class of kernel mixture of time series models over the Dirichlet process. This class of models is an extension of Lo's (Ann. Stat. 12:351-357, 1984) kernel mixture model for independent observations. The kernel represents a known distribution of time series conditional on past time series and both present and past latent variables. The latent variables are independent samples from a Dirichlet process, which is a random discrete (almost surely) distribution. This class of models includes an infinite mixture of autoregressive processes and an infinite mixture of generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH) processes.

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

bayesian nonparametric
dirichlet process prior
poisson-dirichlet process prior
bayesian poisson calculus
volatility estimation


energy-balanced hole-movement mechanism for temporal full-coverage in mobile wsns In wireless mobile sensor networks, spatial full-coverage only can be achieved when the surplus mobile sensors contribute a larger coverage area than the hole size. The temporal full coverage problem asks to monitor every point of a given monitoring region within a specific time interval. This paper considers a mobile WSN that contains holes but exists no redundant mobile sensor to heal the hole. To achieve the temporal full-coverage purpose, a distributed hole-movement mechanism is proposed to balance the energy consumptions of mobile sensors. Simulation study reveals that the proposed hole-movement mechanism enhances the coverage ratio of WSN and balance the energy consumption of mobile sensor nodes.

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 B 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 O O O B I 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 B I O


Leakage-Aware TSV-Planning with Power-Temperature-Delay Dependence in 3D ICs Due to the increased power density and lower thermal conductivity, 3D ICs are faced with heat dissipation and temperature problem seriously. TSV (Through-Silicon-Via) has been shown as an effective way to help heat removal, but they introduce several issues related with cost and reliability as well. Previous researches of TSV planning didn't pay much attention to the impact of leakage power, which will bring in error on estimation of temperature, TSV number and also critical path delay. The leakage-temperature-delay dependence can potentially negate the performance improvement of 3D designs. In this paper, we analyze the impact of leakage power on TSV planning and integrate leakage-temperature-delay dependence into thermal via planning of 3D ICs. A weighted via insertion approach, considering the influence on both module delay and wire delay, is proposed to achieve the best balance among temperature, via number and performance. Experiment results show that, with leakage power and resource constraint considered, temperature and the required via number can be quite different, and the weighted TSV insertion approach with iterative process can obtain the trade-off between different factors including thermal, power consumption, via number and performance.

O O O O O 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 B 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 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 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


Eigenvalue decay: A new method for neural network regularization This paper proposes two new training algorithms for multilayer perceptrons based on evolutionary computation, regularization, and transduction. Regularization is a commonly used technique for preventing the learning algorithm from overfitting the training data. In this context, this work introduces and analyzes a novel regularization scheme for neural networks (NNs) named eigenvalue decay, which aims at improving the classification margin. The introduction of eigenvalue decay led to the development of a new training method based on the same principles of SVM, and so named Support Vector NN (SVNN). Finally, by analogy with the transductive SVM (TSVM), it is proposed a transductive NN (TNN), by exploiting SVNN in order to address transductive learning. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithms is evaluated on seven benchmark datasets.

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

transduction
regularization
classification margin
neural network


An EM algorithm for wavelet-based image restoration This paper introduces an expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm for image restoration (deconvolution) based on a penalized likelihood formulated in the wavelet domain. Regularization is achieved by promoting a reconstruction with low-complexity, expressed in the wavelet coefficients, taking advantage of the well known sparsity of wavelet representations. Previous works have investigated wavelet-based restoration but, except for certain special cases, the resulting criteria are solved approximately or require demanding optimization methods. The EM algorithm herein proposed combines the efficient image representation offered by the discrete wavelet transform (DWT) with the diagonalization of the convolution operator obtained in the Fourier domain. Thus, it is a general-purpose approach to wavelet-based image restoration with computational complexity comparable to that of standard wavelet denoising schemes or of frequency domain deconvolution methods. The algorithm alternates between an E-step based on the fast Fourier transform (FFT) and a DWT-based M-step, resulting in an efficient iterative process requiring O(N log N) operations per iteration. The convergence behavior of the algorithm is investigated, and it is shown that under mild conditions the algorithm converges to a globally optimal restoration. Moreover, our new approach performs competitively with, in some cases better than, the best existing methods in benchmark tests.

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

bayesian estimation
expectation-maximization algorithm
image deconvolution
penalized maximum likelihood
wavelets


Characterizing the memory of the GAL regulatory network in Saccharomyces cerevisiae Genetic regulatory networks respond dynamically to perturbations in the intracellular and extracellular environments of an organism. The GAL system in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae has evolved to utilize galactose as an alternative carbon and energy source, in the absence of glucose in the environment. We present a dynamic model for GAL system in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, which includes a novel mechanism for Gal3p activation upon induction with galactose. The modification enables the model to simulate the experimental observation that in absence of galactose, oversynthesis of Gal3p can also induce the GAL system. We then characterize the memory of the GAL system as the domain of attraction of the steady states.

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

domain of attraction
gal system
saccharomyces cerevisiae


Supervision and monitoring of logistic spaces by a cooperative robot team: methodologies, problems, and solutions Mobile robots can be employed in the logistic field to efficiently perform common tasks, such as building and updating maps of indoor and outdoor logistic spaces, locating specific goods on the map, tracing the product flow in the area, while preserving situational awareness and safety of the environment. This paper reports and discusses the main results of the MACP4Log (Mobile Autonomous and Cooperating robotic Platforms for supervision and monitoring of large LOGistic surfaces) research project, aimed at the study and development of a set of algorithms and services, enabling autonomous navigation of a team of mobile robots in large logistic spaces, and exploiting cooperation, through communication with a supervisor and among the robotic platforms. Although the main services required for the robots coincide with the most common issues of mobile robotics (i.e., localization, mapping, SLAM and exploration), the particular characteristics of the logistic spaces introduce specific problems (e.g., related to a high symmetry of the environment and/or to its variability), which must be properly taken into account. The paper discusses in detail such problems, summarizing the main results achieved both from the methodological and the experimental standpoint, and is completed by the description of the general functional architecture of the whole system, including navigation, logistic, and monitoring services.

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 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 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 B 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

cooperative mobile robots
active slam and exploration


Classification based on fuzzy robust PCA algorithms and similarity classifier In this article, classification method is proposed where data is first preprocessed using fuzzy robust principal component analysis (FRPCA) algorithms to obtain data in a more feasible form. After this we use similarity classifier for the classification. We tested this procedure for breast cancer data and liver-disorder data. The results were quite promising and better classification accuracy was achieved than using traditional PCA and similarity classifier. Fuzzy robust principal component analysis algorithms seem to have the effect that they project these data sets in a more feasible form, and together with similarity classifier classification on accuracy of 70.25% was achieved with liver-disorder data and 98.19% accuracy was achieved with breast cancer data. Compared to the results achieved with traditional PCA and similarity classifier about 4% higher accuracy was achieved with liver-disorder data and about 0.5% higher accuracy was achieved with breast cancer data.

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

similarity classifier
fuzzy robust pca
breast cancer data


Bayesian object matching Matching of object refers to the problem of inferring unknown co-occurrence or alignment between observations or samples in two data sets. Given two sets of equally many samples, the task is to find for each sample a representative sample in the other set, without prior knowledge on a distance measure between the sets. Given a distance measure, the problem would correspond to a linear assignment problem, the problem of finding a permutation that re-orders samples in one set to minimize the total distance. When no such measure is available, we need to consider more complex solutions. Typical approaches maximize statistical dependency between the two sets, whereas in this work we present a Bayesian solution that builds a joint model for the two sources. We learn a Bayesian canonical correlation analysis model that includes a permutation parameter for re-ordering the samples in one of the sets. We provide both variational and sampling-based inference for approximative Bayesian analysis, and demonstrate on three data sets that the resulting methods outperform the earlier solutions.

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

canonical correlation analysis
matching
permutation
bayesian analysis


Variation-aware adaptive voltage scaling system Conventional voltage scaling systems require a delay margin to maintain a certain level of robustness across all possible device and wire process variations and temperature fluctuations. This margin is required to cover for a possible change in the critical path due to such variations. Moreover, a slower interconnect delay scaling with voltage compared to logic delay can cause the critical path to change from one operating voltage to another. With technology scaling, both process variation and interconnect delay are growing and demanding more margin to guarantee an error-free operation. Such margin is translated into a voltage overhead and a corresponding energy inefficiency. In this paper, a critical path emulator architecture is shown to track the changing critical path at different process splits by probing the actual transistor and wire conditions. Furthermore, voltage scaling characteristics of the actual critical path is closely tracked by programming logic and interconnect delay lines to achieve the same delay combination as the actual critical path. Compared to conventional open-loop and closed-loop systems, the proposed system is up to 39% and 24% more energy efficient, respectively. A 0.18-mu m technology test chip is designed to verify the functionality of the proposed system showing critical path tracking of a 16 x 16 bit multiplier.

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

adaptive voltage scaling (avs)
circuit modeling
deep submicrometer mosfet


A part recognition based computer aided assembly system In this paper, a new approach has been developed to recognize the CAD models through their face adjacency relations and attributes and to automatically assemble the recognized parts in a CAD environment. Adjacent faces and the face attributes belonging to each face of parts designed in a CAD platform are derived by using of standard for the exchange of product data (STEP) file. They are represented in a square matrix format named face oriented relation matrix (FORM). An expert system was developed and embedded within the system. A knowledge base of the expert system is generated using a text editor. Reasoning the face adjacency relations and the face attributes in the knowledge base and FORM, the parts are recognized. Then, a reference face belonging to recognized parts is determined and they are positioned and assembled in assembly file through their reference faces. Part recognition approach developed in this study is applied to a computer aided assembly system. But it may be useful and practical for different CAD/CAM applications such as process planning and group technology too. The algorithm has been applied to a diesel automobile engine which has complex parts to demonstrate its efficiency and capability. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

step
form
part recognition
computer aided assembly
expert system


On the performance of greedy algorithms in packet buffering We study a basic buffer management problem that arises in network switches. Consider m input ports, each of which is equipped with a buffer ( queue) of limited capacity. Data packets arrive online and can be stored in the buffers if space permits; otherwise packet loss occurs. In each time step the switch can transmit one packet from one of the buffers to the output port. The goal is to maximize the number of transmitted packets. Simple arguments show that any work-conserving algorithm, which serves any nonempty buffer, is 2-competitive. Azar and Richter recently presented a randomized online algorithm and gave lower bounds for deterministic and randomized strategies. In practice, greedy algorithms are very important because they are fast, use little extra memory, and reduce packet loss by always serving a longest queue. In this paper we first settle the competitive performance of the entire family of greedy strategies. We prove that greedy algorithms are not better than 2-competitive no matter how ties are broken. Our lower bound proof uses a new recursive construction for building adversarial buffer configurations that may be of independent interest. We also give improved lower bounds for deterministic and randomized online algorithms. In this paper we present the first deterministic online algorithm that is better than 2-competitive. We develop a modified greedy algorithm, called semigreedy, and prove that it achieves a competitive ratio of 17/9 approximate to 1.89. The new algorithm is simple, fast, and uses little extra memory. Only when the risk of packet loss is low does it not serve the longest queue. Additionally we study scenarios when an online algorithm is granted additional resources. We consider resource augmentation with respect to memory and speed; i.e., an online algorithm may be given larger buffers or higher transmission rates. We analyze greedy and other online strategies.

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


Tracking bad apples: Reporting the origin of null and undefined value errors Programs sometimes crash due to unusable values, for example, when Java and C# programs dereference null pointers and when C and C++ programs use undefined values to affect program behavior. A stack trace produced on such a crash identifies the effect of the unusable value, not its cause, and is often not much help to the programmer. This paper presents efficient origin tracking of unusable values; it shows how to record where these values come into existence, correctly propagate them, and report them if they cause an error. The key idea is value piggybacking: when the original program stores an unusable value, value piggybacking instead stores origin information in the spare bits of the unusable value. Modest compiler support alters the program to propagate these modified values through operations such as assignments and comparisons. We evaluate two implementations: the first tracks null pointer origins in a JVM, and the second tracks undefined value origins in a memory-checking tool built with Valgrind. These implementations show that origin tracking via value piggybacking is fast and often useful, and in the Java case, has low enough overhead for use in a production environment.

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

reliability
performance
experimentation
debugging
low-overhead run-time support
null pointer exceptions
managed languages


Empirical and theoretical comparisons of selected criterion functions for document clustering This paper evaluates the performance of different criterion functions in the context of partitional clustering algorithms for document datasets. Our study involves a total of seven different criterion functions, three of which are introduced in this paper and four that have been proposed in the past. We present a comprehensive experimental evaluation involving 15 different datasets, as well as an analysis of the characteristics of the various criterion functions and their effect on the clusters they produce. Our experimental results show that there are a set of criterion functions that consistently outperform the rest, and that some of the newly proposed criterion functions lead to the best overall results. Our theoretical analysis shows that the relative performance of the criterion functions depends on (i) the degree to which they can correctly operate when the clusters are of different tightness, and (ii) the degree to which they can lead to reasonably balanced clusters.

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

criterion function
data mining
information retrieval


Shape change of Ag electrode with shrinkage difference between electrode and dielectric in PDP In PDP, edge-curl is one of the problems encountered as a result of an interaction between the transparent dielectric and the bus electrode, and has a deleterious effect on the electrical efficiency of the PDP. Edge-curl can increase its height while sintering the dielectric. Therefore, it is important to know the effect of the dielectric on the electrode. This study examined the shape change of the electrode as a function of the sintering temperature by scanning electron microscopy. The thermal properties of the electrode and the dielectric were measured by TG-DTA and dilatometer. Based on these results, a faster reaction of the dielectric around the electrode and the difference in shrinkage between the dielectric and the electrode were found to be causes of the occurrence and deepening of edge-curl.

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

electrode dielectric sintering shrinkage


Comment on Saeednia et al.'s strong designated verifier signature scheme In 1996, Jakobsson et al. proposed a designated verifier signature scheme in which only one specified person, called a designated verifier, can be convinced of the validity of the signature and the identity of the signer. This is possible by giving the designated verifier the ability to simulate a signature him/herself in an indistinguishable way. Therefore, the other third party cannot determine whether the signature is from the signer or the designated verifier. However, in some circumstances, the third party may be convinced that a signature intended for the designated verifier is actually generated by the signer. In 2003, Saeednia et al. proposed a strong designated verifier signature scheme to overcome this problem. However, we found that Saeednia et al.'s scheme would reveal the identity of the signer if the secret key of this signer is compromised. In this paper, we provide a new strong designated verifier signature scheme that provides signer ambiguity, even if the secret key of the signer is compromised. We also analyze the proposed scheme.

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

strong designated verifier signatures
key compromise


Analysis and design of interleavers for iterative multiuser receivers in coded CDMA systems We deal with the design of interleavers in a coded code-division multiple-access (CDMA) scenario, where at the receiver an iterative turbo-like structure to perform multiuser detection is employed. The choice of the interleavers affects both the maximum-likelihood (ML) performance and the impact of the suboptimality of the iterative receiver. First, heuristic criteria of goodness for a set of interleavers, each assigned to a given active user, are introduced and motivated. One of these criteria is based on the intersection between the equivalent codes seen after the interleavers for each user pair. The design rules are valid for any kind of channel code. In particular, when the channel code used by every user is a terminated convolutional code, a very simple design rule, in the subset of congruential interleavers, is specified. The suitability of an interleaver set to iterative decoding is also treated. The analysis leads to a design rule which is shown to have great importance on the performance of a turbo-like receiver. Numerical results assess the validity of the derived design rules by showing that, for iterative multiuser receivers and reasonable block lengths, the suitability to iterative decoding is more important than the performance optimization.

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

coded code-division multiple access (cdma)


visualizing the java heap Many of the problems that occur in long-running systems involve the way that the system uses memory. We have developed a framework for extracting and building a model of the heap from a running Java system. Such a model is only useful if programmers can extract from it the information they need to understand, find, and eventually fix memory-related problems in their system. We demonstrate the tool in action, showing how it works dynamically on running processes and how it is designed to address a variety of specific memory issues.

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

memory management
programming tools
dynamic program understanding
object ownership


TERA-MIR radiation: materials, generation, detection and applications II The main objective of MPNS COST ACTION MP1204 is to advance novel materials, concepts and device designs for generating and detecting THz (0.310THz) and Mid Infrared (10100THz) radiation using semiconductor, superconductor, metamaterials and lasers. This special edition summarizes part of the progress achieved in the first year of our network by covering a wide range of related topics, e.g. fundamental studies of intervalence THz polaritons and entangled excitons to the design and development of THz and MIR Quantum Cascade Lasers and novel antennas, filters and metamaterials. Spectroscopy and modelling of the interaction of THz radiation with biomatter are investigated. Mid infrared detection and emission are modelled and develped including supercontinuum studies. Relevant results for nitrides, bismides and graphene are discussed covering industrial and academic applications, theory and experiments, illustrating the impact of a synergistic approach to THz and MIR within our TERA-MIR concept.

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

tera-mir terahertz midinfrared sources detectors antipolaritons


Artefacts as designed, artefacts as used: resources for uncovering activity dynamics This paper addresses the use of artefacts as a powerful resource for analysis, focusing on the artefact as designed as a means of eliciting the designers explicit and implicit knowledge and artefacts as used as a means of uncovering the trail left by currently inactive processes. Artefact analysis is particularly suitable in situations where direct observation is ineffective, especially in activities that occur infrequently. We demonstrate the usefulness of our technique through the analysis of artefacts within both the office and the meeting environment. This is part of a wider study aimed at understanding the nature of decisions in meetings with the view of producing a tool to aid decision management and hence reduce rework. We conclude by drawing out some general lessons from our analysis, which reaffirms the intricate role that artefacts play in maintaining activity dynamics.

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

artefacts
activity dynamics
decision
meetings

archaeologically inspired artefact analysis


Microbubbles traversing the bloodbrain barrier for imaging and therapy In the last several years great progress has been made in the field of ultrasound perfusion imaging of the brain. Different approaches have been assessed and shown to be capable of early detection of cerebral perfusion deficits. Real-time low mechanical index imaging simplifies the acquisition of perfusion parameters and alleviates many of the previous imaging problems related to shadowing, uniplanar analysis, and temporal resolution. With the advent of this new, highly sensitive contrast-specific imaging technique new possibilities of real-time visualization of brain infarctions and cerebral hemorrhages have emerged. Microbubbles that traverse the bloodbrain barrier (BBB) can also elicit bioeffects that may be used to open the BBB for targeted delivery of macromolecular agents to the brain. Possible ways in which substances cross the BBB after application of this novel approach include transcytosis, passage through endothelial cell cytoplasmic openings, opening of tight junctions, and free passage through injured endothelium. Although relatively little tissue damage occurs at low acoustic intensities capable of opening the BBB, no investigation has demonstrated a total lack of BBB injury when using ultrasound and microbubbles. Further studies are necessary to address the effects of ultrasound and microbubbles upon the various transport mechanisms of the BBB. Moreover, investigations aimed at elucidating how ultrasound and microbubbles interact at the molecular level of the BBB are necessary. Results of such studies will increase our understanding of the mechanisms of BBB opening and also allow a better appraisal of the safety of this technique for future clinical applications.

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

bloodbrain barrier
ultrasound
microbubbles
safety
perfusion imaging


Closed form coefficients in the symmetric boundary element approach In the area of the structural analysis, the problems connected to the use of the symmetric Galerkin Boundary Element Method (SGBEM) must be investigated especially in the mathematical and computational difficulties that are present in computing the solving system coefficients. Indeed, any coefficient is made by double integrals including often fundamental solutions having a high degree of singularity. Therefore, the related computation proves to be difficult in the solution. This paper suggests a simple computation technique of the coefficients obtained in closed form. Using a particular matrix, called progenitor matrix [Panzeca T, Cucco F, Terravecchia S. Symmetric boundary element method versus finite element method. Comp Method Appl Mech Eng 2002;191:334767.], it is possible to derive the solving algebraic system made up of a coefficient matrix and of a known term vector. The latter matrices and vectors, arranged in the sub-structure approach, permitted to develop a versatile computation code, called KARNAK.sGbem [Cucco F, Panzeca T, Terravecchia S. The program KARNAK SGBEM release 1.0. Palermo; 2002. Available from: http://www.bemsoft.it.].

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 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

hypersingular coefficient
macro-element
substructuring


Adaptive object tracking based on an effective appearance filter We propose a similarity measure based on a Spatial-color Mixture of Gaussians (SMOG) appearance model for particle filters. This improves on the popular similarity measure based on color histograms because it considers not only the colors in a region but also the spatial layout of the colors. Hence, the SMOG-based similarity measure is more discriminative. To efficiently compute the parameters for SMOG, we propose a new technique with which the computational time is greatly reduced. We also extend our method by integrating multiple cues to increase the reliability and robustness. Experiments show that our method can successfully track objects in many difficult situations.

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

particle filters
mixture of gaussians
appearance model
similarity measure

color histogram
visual tracking
occlusion


Determination of cross-efficiency under the principle of rank priority in cross-evaluation As an extension to data envelopment analysis (DEA), cross-efficiency evaluation method not only provides a ranking among the decision making units (DMUs), but also eliminates unrealistic DEA weighting schemes without requiring a prior information on weight restrictions. A factor that possibly reduces the usefulness of the cross-efficiency evaluation method is that the cross-efficiency scores may not be unique due to the presence of alternate optima. As a result, it is recommended that secondary goals be introduced in cross-efficiency evaluation. In some cases, pursuing the best ranking is more important than maximizing the individual score. This paper seeks to propose a novel model for optimizing the ranking order for each DMU to determine the final cross-efficiency of all DMUs. Finally, preference voting application is presented to illustrate the differences between the proposed and existed models.

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

data envelopment analysis (dea)
cross-efficiency


privacy-preserving performance measurements Internet performance is an issue of great interest, but it is not trivial to measure. A number of commercial companies try to measure this, as does RIPE, and many individual Internet Service Providers. However, all are hampered in their efforts by a fear of sharing such sensitive information. Customers make decision about "which provider" based on such measurements, and so service providers certainly do not want such data to be public (except in the case of the top provider), but at the same time, it is in everyones' interest to have good metrics in order to reduce the risk of large network problems, and to test the effect of proposed network improvements.This paper shows that it is possible to have your cake, and eat it too. Providers (and other interested parties) can make such measurements, and compute Internet-wide metrics securely in the knowledge that their private data is never shared, and so cannot be abused.

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

measurement
secure distributed computation
management
privacy-preserving data-mining


The method of fundamental solutions for complex electrical impedance tomography The forward problem for complex electrical impedance tomography (EIT) is solved by means of a meshless method, namely the method of fundamental solutions (MFS). The MFS for the complex EIT direct problem is numerically implemented, and its efficiency and accuracy as well as the numerical convergence of the MFS solution are analysed when assuming the presence in the medium (i.e. background) of one or two inclusions with the physical properties different from those corresponding to the background. Four numerical examples with inclusion(s) of various convex and non-convex smooth shapes (e.g. circular, elliptic, peanut-shaped and acorn-shaped) and sizes are presented and thoroughly investigated.

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 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

electrical impedance tomography (eit)
multi-frequency
method of fundamental solutions (mfs)


Analysis and modeling of multivalued attributes in entity relationship modeling: An approach for improved database design The Entity-Relationship (ER) model has been recognized as the de facto standard for supporting relational database design. If the ER model is modeled cautiously, taking the business rules into consideration and then transformed into relations the resultant relations will be normalized. However, in most of the scenarios, database designers design relations directly without developing ER models which results in poor database design. In this paper, we propose a modeling methodology which eliminates modeling multivalued attributes in the ER model there by eliminating the need for normal forms that deal with multivalued attributes and nontrivial multivalued dependencies.

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

entity-relationship model
normalization
functional dependencies


A Hardware Implementation of a Run-Time Scheduler for Reconfigurable Systems New generation embedded systems demand high performance, efficiency, and flexibility. Reconfigurable hardware can provide all these features. However, the costly reconfiguration process and the lack of management support have prevented a broader use of these resources. To solve these issues we have developed a scheduler that deals with task-graphs at run-time, steering its execution in the reconfigurable resources while carrying out both prefetch and replacement techniques that cooperate to hide most of the reconfiguration delays. In our scheduling environment, task-graphs are analyzed at design-time to extract useful information. This information is used at run-time to obtain near-optimal schedules, escaping from local-optimum decisions, while only carrying out simple computations. Moreover, we have developed a hardware implementation of the scheduler that applies all the optimization techniques while introducing a delay of only a few clock cycles. In the experiments our scheduler clearly outperforms conventional run-time schedulers based on as-soon-as-possible techniques. In addition, our replacement policy, specially designed for reconfigurable systems, achieves almost optimal results both regarding reuse and performance.

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

field-programmable gate arrays (fpgas)
reconfigurable architectures
task scheduling


carving differential unit test cases from system test cases Unit test cases are focused and efficient. System tests are effective at exercising complex usage patterns. Differential unit tests (DUT) are a hybrid of unit and system tests. They are generated by carving the system components, while executing a system test case, that influence the behavior of the target unit, and then re-assembling those components so that the unit can be exercised as it was by the system test. We conjecture that DUTs retain some of the advantages of unit tests, can be automatically and inexpensively generated, and have the potential for revealing faults related to intricate system executions. In this paper we present a framework for automatically carving and replaying DUTs that accounts for a wide-variety of strategies, we implement an instance of the framework with several techniques to mitigate test cost and enhance flexibility, and we empirically assess the efficacy of carving and replaying DUTs.

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

framework strategies influence test behavior flexibility case paper cost hybrid

regression testing
systems
efficiency
carving and replay
unit test
fault
automated test generation
account
complexity
effect
pattern
component


Contention Avoidance and Resolution Schemes in Bufferless All-Optical Packet-Switched Networks: A Survey Optical Packet Switching (OPS) is the promising switching technique to utilize the huge bandwidth offered by all-optical networks using the DWDM (Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing) technology. However, optical packet contention is the major problem in an OPS network. Resolution and avoidance are two schemes to deal with the contention problem. A resolution scheme resolves collisions, while an avoidance scheme tries to reduce the number of potential collision events. Many OPS architectures rely on optical buffers to resolve contention. Unfortunately, optical buffering technology is still immature as it relies on bulky optical fiber delay lines. Furthermore, it requires a complex control. Therefore, a bufferless OPS network could still be the most straightforward implementation in the near future. In this article, we survey the contention resolution and avoidance schemes proposed for bufferless OPS networks. We also review the resolution and avoidance schemes that can handle the Quality of Service (QoS) issue in a QoS-capable bufferless OPS network.

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

optical packet switching
bufferless ops
contention avoidance
contention resolution
qos


Stochastic Fractal Search: A powerful metaheuristic algorithm Evolutionary Algorithms (EAs) are well-known terms in many science fields. EAs usually interfere with science problems when common mathematical methods are unable to provide a good solution or finding the exact solution requires an unreasonable amount of time. Nowadays, many EA methods have been proposed and developed. Most of them imitate natural behavior, such as swarm animal movement. In this paper, inspired by the natural phenomenon of growth, a new metaheuristic algorithm is presented that uses a mathematic concept called the fractal. Using the diffusion property which is seen regularly in random fractals, the particles in the new algorithm explore the search space more efficiently. To verify the performance of our approach, both the constrained and unconstrained standard benchmark functions are employed. Some classic functions including unimodal and multimodal functions, as well as some modern hard functions, are employed as unconstrained benchmark functions; On the other hand, some well-known engineering design optimization problems commonly used in the literature are considered as constrained benchmark functions. Numerical results and comparisons with other state of the art stochastic algorithms are also provided. Considering both convergence and accuracy simultaneously, experimental results prove that the proposed method performs significantly better than other previous well-known metaheuristic algorithms in terms of avoiding getting stuck in local minimums, and finding the global minimum.

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

random fractals
global optimization
exploration
exploitation


Reducing coding redundancy in LZW LZW is a widely used text compression algorithm. It has been known for a long time that its flat coding method causes redundancy. In this article, we identify three sources of redundancy: (1) Flat coding does not use the code space fully. (2) LZW considers the entire dictionary, including leaf nodes, for computation of codeword size, where as leaf nodes would not be encoded. (3) LZW assigns index to a node much ahead of the time it would use the node for output. For (1), we present an elegant implementation of an approach known as phase-in binary coding. A characteristic of our formulation is that it incurs virtually no overhead and that it can be applied for integer sequence coding, as well. For (2) and (3), we assign double indices to dictionary nodes to identify nodes which should not be considered for coding. Our method generates some extra code symbols. To reduce the coding cost of these symbols, we use arithmetic coding for the final output. Experimental results are given for several benchmark datasets to compare code size reduction of our methods with some published results.

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

lzw compression
phase-in binary coding
dictionary coding


has our curriculum become math-phobic? (an american perspective) We are concerned about a view in undergraduate computer science education, especially in the early courses, that it's okay to be math-phobic and still prepare oneself to become a computer scientist. Our view is the contrary: that any serious study of computer science requires students to achieve mathematical maturity (especially in discrete mathematics) early in their undergraduate studies, thus becoming well-prepared to integrate mathematical ideas, notations, and methodologies throughout their study of computer science. A major curricular implication of this theme is that the prerequisite expectations and conceptual level of the first discrete mathematics course should be the same as it is for the first calculus course --- secondary school pre-calculus and trigonometry. Ultimately, calculus, linear algebra, and statistics are also essential for computer science majors, but none should occur earlier than discrete mathematics. This paper explains our concerns and outlines our response as a series of examples and recommendations for future action.

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

computer science
statistics
examples
linear algebra
discrete mathematics
response
paper
future
action
curriculum

recommendation
methodology
computer science education
computation
integrability
student


Serotonergic Stimulation of the Rat Hypothalamo-Pituitary-Adrenal Axis: Interaction between 5-HT1A and 5-HT2A Receptors Acute stimulation of the hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis by selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) is mediated by several postsynaptic 5-HT receptor subtypes. Activation of 5-HT1A and 5-HT2A receptors increases plasma corticosterone levels, and it is likely that these receptor subtypes are central to mediating the effects of SSRIs. To study the interaction of these receptors, rats were administered with the 5-HT1A/7 agonist 8-OH-DPAT (0.05 to 1.25 mg/kg), the 5-HT2A/C agonist DOI (0.25 to 5 mg/kg), or a mixture of both compounds, and trunk blood was taken 60 min later. The two compounds given in combination produced a lower increase in corticosterone than DOI does alone. DOI and 8-OH-DPAT also produced a marked induction of c-Fos in the paraventricular nucleus (PVN), but the induction was not different if the two compounds were given together. These data show that the two serotonin receptor subtypes affect the HPA axis via a central target. In conclusion, 5-HT1A and 5-HT2A receptors regulate corticotrophin-releasing hormone (CRH) neurons via distinct but strongly interacting pathways, probably converging on the same neurons in the hypothalamus.

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 B I 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


Product data allocation for distributed product data management system In today's distributed manufacturing environment, how to manage the product data and distributing it to the right people who need it is critical to the success of a company. A distributed product data management (DPDM) system is thus required to manage product data distribution and product data integrity throughout the product life cycle. In this paper, a product data object is the logical unit of distribution in a DPDM system. Replication and migration techniques are discussed and employed in object distribution. Since the allocation of an object in a distributed manufacturing environment is a critical issue in a DPDM system, an optimal object allocation policy is needed. Therefore, object allocation objectives for DPDM are set to facilitate object replication and migration decision making. A comprehensive mathematical modeling approach is developed for product data object distribution within a DPDM system. Also, a distributed object-oriented database architecture is proposed for the DPDM system's use. Object-oriented databases were proposed to meet the needs of advanced technical applications, such as CAD/CAM, CAE, etc. where most of these applications are also run in a distributed environment. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science 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 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 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 O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I I O 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 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

pdm
data allocation model
oodbms
internet


Asymptotic stability of bidirectional associative memory neural networks with time-varying delays via delta operator approach ? This paper is interested in the problem of asymptotic stability analysis of Bidirectional Associative Memory (BAM) neural networks with time-varying delays via delta operator approach. The delays are assumed to exist in the nonlinear synaptic connection between different neural fields. Based on the LyapunovKrasovskii functional in delta domain, a new delay-dependent criterion for analyzing the asymptotic stability of BAM neural networks is obtained. Some previous results of continuous and discrete BAM systems are unified into the delta operator system framework due to the favorable numerical properties and the quasi-continuous performance of delta operator approach at high sampling rates. Since the sampling period is an explicit parameter in the results, it can be regulated to analyze the stability of systems. Numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the developed theoretical results.

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

delta operator approach
asymptotic stability
lyapunovkrasovskii functional

bidirectional associative memory (bam) neural networks


The Developing Mouse Dentition Developing limb or differentiating neural and blood cells are traditional models used to study programmed cell death in mammals. The developing mouse dentition can also be an attractive model for studying apoptosis regulation. Apoptosis is most extant during early odontogenesis in mice. The embryonic tooth pattern is comprised not only of anlagen of functional teeth (incisor, molars), but also of vestiges of ancestral tooth primordia that must be suppressed. Apoptosis is involved in (a) the elimination of vestigial tooth primordia in the prospective toothless gap (diastema) between the incisor and molars and (b) the shaping of germs in functional teeth. This type of apoptosis occurs in the dental epithelium according to a characteristic temporo-spatial pattern. Where apoptosis concentrates, specific signaling is also found. We proposed a hypothesis to explain the stimulation of apoptosis in the dental epithelium by integrating two concepts

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


learning the required number of agents for complex tasks Coordinating agents in a complex environment is a hard problem, but it can become even harder when certain characteristics of the tasks, like the required number of agents, are unknown. In those settings, agents not only have to coordinate themselves on the different tasks, but they also have to learn how many agents are required for each task. To achieve that, we have elaborated a selective perception reinforcement learning algorithm to enable agents to learn the required number of agents. Even though there were continuous variables in the task description, the agents were able to learn their expected reward according to the task description and the number of agents. The results, obtained in the RoboCupRescue, show an improvement in the agents overall performance.

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


Accurate and robust registration of high-speed railway viaduct point clouds using closing conditions and external geometric constraints This paper proposes an automatic method for registering multiple laser scans without a control network. The proposed registration method first uses artificial targets to pair-wise register adjacent scans for initial transformation estimates; the proposed registration method then employs combined adjustments with closing conditions and external triangle constraints to globally register all scans along a long-range, high-speed railway corridor. The proposed registration method uses (1) closing conditions to eliminate registration errors that gradually accumulate as the length of a corridor (the number of scan stations) increases, and (2) external geometric constraints to ensure the shape correctness of an elongated high-speed railway. A 640-m high-speed railway viaduct with twenty-one piers is used to conduct experiments using our proposed registration method. A group of comparative experiments is undertaken to evaluate the robustness and efficiency of the proposed registration method to accurately register long-range corridors.

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

high-speed railway
terrestrial laser scanning
combined adjustment
closing condition
triangle constraint


A Method to Evaluate the Suitability of Requirements Specifications for Offshore Projects Today, even the development of business information systems is subject to the global offshoring trend. With the division of development work in an inter-organizational and intercultural context, requirements specifications become the central means to communicate the development scope as explicitly as possible. The suitability of requirements specifications hence often is mission critical in offshore projects. To assess their suitability, we first present eight quality criteria for requirements specifications. We then discuss five critical compensating factors that may potentially balance out an insufficient specification quality during the offshore project. On this basis, we describe a method to rationally evaluate the suitability of requirements specifications for instantiating an offshore project. We illustrate the application of the method by elaborating on a large case study that has been conducted with an industry partner. The results achieved by applying our method were confirmed during the further course of the actual project.

O 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 O O

application development
requirements specification
evaluation


Novel expert system for defining power quality compensators Original expert system for compensation systems definition. Co-relation of recognized power quality indices through a fuzzy rule-based system. Application of the expert system in a 5-node grid with various load configurations. Simulation of the compensators suggested in every application case. Comparison of a result suggested by the expert system and a commonly-used solution.

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

compensation
expert system
power quality

decision-maker
harmonic distortion
load unbalance
power factor correction


Optimal routing in double loop networks In this paper, we study the problem of finding the shortest path in circulant graphs with an arbitrary number of jumps. We provide algorithms specifically tailored for weighted undirected and directed circulant graphs with two jumps which compute the shortest path. Our method only requires O (log N) arithmetic operations and the total bit complexity is O (log(2) N log log N log log log N), where N is the number of the graph's vertices. This elementary and efficient shortest path algorithm has been derived from the Closest Vector Problem (CVP) of lattices in dimension two and with an l(1) norm. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

double loop networks
shortest path
lattices
closest vector problem


maximal termsets as a query structuring mechanism Search engines process queries conjunctively to restrict the size of the answer set. Further, it is not rare to observe a mismatch between the vocabulary used in the text of Web pages and the terms used to compose the Web queries. The combination of these two features might lead to irrelevant query results, particularly in the case of more specific queries composed of three or more terms. To deal with this problem we propose a new technique for automatically structuring Web queries as a set of smaller subqueries. To select representative subqueries we use information on their distributions in the document collection. This can be adequately modeled using the concept of maximal termsets derived from the formalism of association rules theory. Experimentation shows that our technique leads to improved results. For the TREC-8 test collection, for instance, our technique led to gains in average precision of roughly 28\% with regard to a BM25 ranking formula.

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

weighting
information retrieval models
automatic query structuring
index term co-occurrences
association rule mining


Design for X-Abilities of a Mechatronic System-A Concurrent Engineering and Graph Theory Based Approach Design of a mechatronic system requires multidisciplinary knowledge. A designer should consider product lifecycle issues as well as design and manufacturing strategies simultaneously at conceptual design stage without missing any of the information. The proposed methodology concurrently considers all the x-abilities/design aspects along with interactions without missing any information and hence leads to a high quality product. A methodology which amalgamates concurrent design concepts, graph theory, matrix algebra, and permanent multinomial is proposed. Eight x-abilities namely, miniaturization, intelligence, integration, environment, quality, reliability, manufacturing, and assembly for concurrent design of a mechatronic system and the design parameters under each x-ability are identified. A colored graph useful for visual analysis is proposed. The design index derived is useful for researcher and designer in evaluating the conceptual design alternatives. The proposed step-by-step procedure would be useful for developing a new algorithm for software coding.

O O O O O O O B I 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 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 B I 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

mechatronic system
graph
concurrent engineering
permanent


Negotiating exchanges of P3P-labeled information for compensation We consider private information a commodity, of value to both the information holder and the information seeker. Hence, a customer can be enticed to trade his/her private information with a business in exchange for compensation. In this article, we propose to apply utility theory to allow each participant to express the value they place on each private datum and, separately, on combinations of data. The PrivacyPact protocol transmits messages that comprise possible exchanges. Each participant is prevented from making offers that necessarily have lower utility for the other partner than previous ones. The protocol is complete in that if an exchange exists that is acceptable to both, it will be found as long as neither partner exits the negotiation early. While the space of possible offers grows exponentially on the number of negotiable items, experimentation with simple strategies indicates that negotiations can converge relatively quickly.

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

privacy
multi-attribute utility
negotiating agents
p3p


A locally constrained watershed transform The watershed transform, from mathematical morphology, is a powerful and flexible tool for segmentation. However, it does not allow a priori knowledge relating to characteristics of region boundaries to be included in the way that other approaches do. This paper introduces the locally constrained watershed transform, which includes border constraints by modifying the underlying path definition upon which the watershed transform depends. This approach maintains many of the desirable properties of the watershed transform, such as well-defined stopping conditions and efficient implementation, while offering more stable segmentation in the presence of noisy or incomplete boundaries.

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

segmentation
constrained watershed transform

constrained region growing
covered cost
minkowski cost
seeded region growing.


Convergence analysis and application of fuzzy-HDP for nonlinear discrete-time HJB systems ? In this paper, a type of fuzzy system structure is applied to heuristic dynamic programming (HDP) algorithm to solve nonlinear discrete-time HamiltonJacobiBellman (DT-HJB) problems. The fuzzy system here is adopted as a 0-order TS fuzzy system using triangle membership functions (MFs). The convergence of HDP and approximability of the multivariate 0-order TS fuzzy system is analyzed in this paper. It is derived that the cost function and control policy of HDP can be iterated to the DT-HJB solution and optimal policy. The multivariate 0-order TS (TanakaSugeno) fuzzy system using triangle MFs is proven as a universal approximator, to guarantee the convergence of the Fuzzy-HDP mechanism. Some simulations are implemented to observe the performance of the proposed method both in mathematical solution and practical issue. It is concluded that Fuzzy-HDP outperforms traditional optimal control in more complex systems.

O O O 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 B I I 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 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


A semantic fuzzy expert system for a fuzzy balanced scorecard Balanced scorecard is a widely recognized tool to support decision making in business management. Unfortunately, current balanced scorecard-based systems present two drawbacks: they do not allow to define explicitly the semantics of the underlying knowledge and they are not able to deal with imprecision and vagueness. To overcome these limitations, in this paper we propose a semantic fuzzy expert system which implements a generic framework for the balanced scorecard. In our approach, knowledge about balanced scorecard variables is represented using an OWL ontology, therefore allowing reuse and sharing of the model among different companies. The ontology acts as the basis for the fuzzy expert system, which uses highly interpretable fuzzy IFTHEN rules to infer new knowledge. Results are valuable pieces of information to help managers to improve the achievement of the strategic objectives of the company. A main contribution of this work it that the system is general and can be customized to adapt to different scenarios.

O O O O O O O O B I 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 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

knowledge-based systems
expert systems
ontologies semantic web
applied economy
fuzzy logic


Simulated annealing with auxiliary knowledge for process planning optimization in reconfigurable manufacturing In this paper, three simulated annealing based algorithms that exploit auxiliary knowledge in different ways are devised and employed to handle a manufacturing process planning problem for reconfigurable manufacturing. These algorithms are configured based on a generic combination of the simulated annealing technique with; (a) heuristic knowledge, and (b) metaknowledge. Capabilities of the implemented algorithms are tested and their performances compared against a basic simulated annealing algorithm. Computational and optimization performances of the implemented algorithms are investigated and analyzed for two problem sizes. Each problem size consists of five different forms of a manufacturing process planning problem. The five forms are differentiated by five alternative objective functions. Experimental results show that the implemented simulated annealing algorithms are able to converge to good solutions in reasonable time. A computational analysis indicates that significant improvements towards a better optimal solution can be gained by implementing simulated annealing based algorithms that are supported by auxiliary knowledge.

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 B I 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 I

auxiliary knowledge
heuristic knowledge
metaknowledge

reconfigurable manufacturing systems (rms)


A CMOS piecewise curvature-compensated voltage reference This paper presents a novel approach to the design of a high-precision CMOS voltage reference. The proposed circuit utilizes MOS transistors instead of bipolar transistors to generate positive and negative temperature coefficient (TC) currents summed up to a resistive load to generate low TC reference voltage. A piecewise curvature-compensation technique is also used to reduce the TC of the reference voltage within a wider temperature range. The output reference voltage can be adjusted in a wide range according to different system requirements by setting different parameters such as resistors and transistor aspect ratios. The proposed circuit is designed for TSMC 0.6?m standard CMOS process. Spectre-based simulations demonstrate that the TC of the reference voltage is 4.3ppm/C with compensation compared with 107ppm/C without compensation in the temperature ranges from ?15 to 95C using a 1.5V supply voltage.

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

cmos voltage reference
temperature coefficient


Automatic analysis of DMA races using model checking and k-induction Modern multicore processors, such as the Cell Broadband Engine, achieve high performance by equipping accelerator cores with small "scratch-pad" memories. The price for increased performance is higher programming complexity - the programmer must manually orchestrate data movement using direct memory access (DMA) operations. Programming using asynchronous DMA operations is error-prone, and DMA races can lead to nondeterministic bugs which are hard to reproduce and fix. We present a method for DMA race analysis in C programs. Our method works by automatically instrumenting a program with assertions modeling the semantics of a memory flow controller. The instrumented program can then be analyzed using state-of-the-art software model checkers. We show that bounded model checking is effective for detecting DMA races in buggy programs. To enable automatic verification of the correctness of instrumented programs, we present a new formulation of k-induction geared towards software, as a proof rule operating on loops. Our techniques are implemented as a tool, Scratch, which we apply to a large set of programs supplied with the IBM Cell SDK, in which we discover a previously unknown bug. Our experimental results indicate that our k-induction method performs extremely well on this problem class. To our knowledge, this marks both the first application of k-induction to software verification, and the first example of software model checking in the context of heterogeneous multicore processors.

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

k-induction
multicore programming
cell be


Ordering relation of fuzzy implications In this paper we introduce a specific method, which is based on generalized modus ponens and generalized modus tollens, for introducing an ordering relation on the set of fuzzy implications. The existence of an ordering relation between fuzzy implications helps us to order fuzzy implications in a more powerful and/or more functional classes. We believe that, apart from the theoretical interest, this method appears to have interesting applications.

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


Using Discrete Event Simulation to Analyze Contention Managers Understanding the behavior and benefits of contention managers is important for designing transactional memory implementations. Contention manager design is closely tied to other design decisions in a transaction memory implementation, and therefore experiments to compare the behaviors of contention managers are difficult. This paper presents a discrete event simulator that allows researchers to explore the behavior of contention managers and even to perform experiments that compare lazy conflict detection without contention management to eager detection combined with a contention manager. For our benchmarks, we found that lazy conflict detection was competitive with the best contention managers. Our experiments confirm that contention management design is critical for transactional memories that use eager validation. We used the simulator to explore new tiered contention managers that combine livelock-prone contention managers with livelock-free contention managers to provide the benefits of the livelock-prone contention manager while avoiding its pathological behaviors under contention.

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 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

transactional memory
contention management


Some Pachpatte type inequalities on time scales ? In this paper, using the comparison theorem, we investigate some Pachpatte type integral inequalities on time scales, which provide explicit bounds on unknown functions. Our results extend some known dynamic inequalities on time scales, unify and extend some continuous inequalities and their corresponding discrete analogues. Some applications of the main results are given in the end of this paper.

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

time scale
dynamic inequality
dynamic equation


The Southern Ocean response to global warming in the CSIRO coupled ocean-atmosphere model The Southern Ocean response to global warming is examined for a transient greenhouse gas integration using the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) coupled ocean-atmosphere model. The ocean component includes the Gent and McWilliams scheme for adiabatic eddy-induced transport. The atmospheric equivalent CO2 concentration (COe2) follows the IPCC/IS92a radiative forcing scenario from 1880 to 2082, and is then maintained at a constant value of three times the 1880 level for seven centuries. The simulated changes which occur in the Southern Ocean under global warming are very profound, and they begin to separate clearly from the background climate noise in the model's 1990s. A major reduction in the depth and extent of convective mixing occurs by the time of COe2 doubling (year 2033), with near-cessation of convection by the time of COe2 tripling. Similarly major reduction occurs in the downwelling adjacent to Antarctica associated with Antarctic Bottom Water formation, which also nearly ceases by the time of COe2 tripling. These changes are associated with a marked reduction in surface density and salinity. By the time of COe2 tripling, both the pycnocline and halocline south from 60S intensify over the control by about a factor of four. The changes in surface salinity and density continue to intensify for several centuries during the subsequent period of elevated stable COe2, and convection and Antarctic downwelling do not recover at all for the duration of the transient run. The water of the entire global ocean below about 1.5 km depth remains stagnant for the duration of the period of elevated stable COe2, retaining a density which is too great to allow renewal from any source. Possible caveats on the realism of these results are discussed, and potential consequences of the above changes are noted.

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


Comparing spatial clustering tests based on rare to common spatial events This paper compares the performance of three clustering testsRogerson R, Getis-Ord G and Lin-Zeng LR-Tusing a range of simulated sample distributions from rare to common spatial events. It is shown that all of the tests are sensitive to high value clustering, and all but G are sensitive to low-value clustering. For a spatial pattern exhibiting negative spatial autocorrelation, R is likely to associate the autocorrelation with clustering when sample size is greater than 20, while LR-T and G are unlikely to accept any presence of negative autocorrelation as clustering.

O B I 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 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

spatial clustering
common spatial events


Comparative study of Indian patent databases There are now several databases which can be used to search for Indian patent information, including IPAIRS (Indian Patent Information Retrieval System), which is the official and free searching tool. This paper explores both the completeness of the patent coverage and also the accuracy of the information available in three subscription-based databases and IPAIRS. The results of our studies were encouraging, with accurate bibliographic information being retrieved and the data coverage of the databases showing increasing consistency over time.

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


residential student support In an attempt to better serve the campus' residential population, Student Computing Services at Bentley College implemented a program offering computer support in residence halls. This paper will describe the problems with our initial program, ResNet, and how they led to its rebirth as Dorm Storm. Staffing, marketing, student staff motivation, effectiveness and popularity with the student body will be covered in a comparison of the two models used.

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


Implicit Influencing Group Discovery from Mobile Applications Usage This paper presents an algorithmic approach to acquiring the influencing relationships among users by discovering implicit influencing group structure from smartphone usage. The method assumes that a time series of users' application downloads and activations can be represented by individual inter-personal influence factors. To achieve better predictive performance and also to avoid over-fitting, a latent feature model is employed. The method tries to extract the latent structures by monitoring cross validating predictive performances on approximated influence matrices with reduced ranks, which are generated based on an initial influence matrix obtained from a training set. The method adopts Nonnegative Matrix Factorization (NMF) to reduce the influence matrix dimension and thus to extract the latent features. To validate and demonstrate its ability, about 160 university students voluntarily participated in a mobile application usage monitoring experiment. An empirical study on real collected data reveals that the influencing structure consisted of six influencing groups with two types of mutual influence, i.e. intra-group influence and inter-group influence. The results also highlight the importance of sparseness control on NMF for discovering latent influencing groups. The obtained influencing structure provides better predictive performance than state-of-the-art collaborative filtering methods as well as conventional methods such as user-based collaborative filtering techniques and simple popularity.

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

latent structure
user behavior modeling
android
viral marketing


Games, Gameplay, and BCI: The State of the Art Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) and basic computer games have been interconnected since BCI development began, exploiting gameplay elements as a means of enhancing performance in BCI training protocols and entertaining and challenging participants while training to use a BCI. By providing the BCI user with an entertaining environment, researchers hope to assist users in becoming more proficient at controlling a BCI system. BCIs have been used to enrich the experience of abled-bodied and physically impaired users in various computer applications, in particular, computer games. BCI games have been reviewed previously, yet a critical evaluation of "gameplay" within BCI games has not been undertaken. Gameplay is a key aspect of any computer game and encompasses the challenges presented to the player, the actions made available to the player by the game designer to overcome the challenges and the interaction mechanism in the game. Here, the appropriateness of game genres (a category of games characterized by a particular set of gameplay challenges) and the associated gameplay challenges for different BCI paradigms is evaluated. The gameplay mechanics employed across a range of BCI games are reviewed and evaluated in terms of the BCI control strategy's suitability, considering the genre and gameplay mechanics employed. A number of recommendations for the field relating to genre-specific BCI-games development and assessing user performance are also provided for BCI game developers.

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

brain-computer interfaces (bcis)
game design
review