Mathematical Model Predicts Clinical Ocular Motor Syndromes Clinical ocular motor syndromes were compared with ocular motor syndromes simulated by a mathematical model of the vestibuloocular reflex. The mathematical sensorimotor feedforward model of otolith control of three-dimensional binocular eye position is based on relevant anatomical connections of the vestibuloocular reflex from the utricles to extraocular eye muscles. This is the first attempt to simulate static ocular motor syndromes for unilateral utricular or vestibular nerve failure, lesions of the vestibular nucleus, and lesions of the ascending vestibuloocular reflex pathways. Comparison of the predicted syndromes with those found in patients with unilateral disorders of the vestibular nerve (herpes zoster neuritis), the vestibular nucleus (medullary infarction), and the medial longitudinal fasciculus (pontine infarction) showed good agreement as regards the direction of horizontal, vertical, and torsional eye deviations. The ability of the model to simulate complete or incomplete failures of single elements or entire pathways allows us to pose direct clinical questions about as yet unknown ocular motor syndromes or about the localization of the damage as well as the mechanism involved in syndromes already known.

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

mathematical model
vestibuloocular reflex
otolith
patients

ocular motor syndrome
skew deviation
ocular torsion


analyzing client interactivity in streaming media This paper provides an extensive analysis of pre-stored streaming media workloads, focusing on the client interactive behavior. We analyze four workloads that fall into three different domains, namely, education, entertainment video and entertainment audio. Our main goals are: (a) to identify qualitative similarities and differences in the typical client behavior for the three workload classes and (b) to provide data for generating realistic synthetic workloads.

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

education
data
video
entertainment
streaming media
paper
workload
goals
audio
analysis
behavior

domain
interaction
workload characterization
class


A visual programming language for XML manipulation ? XML data flow has reached beyond the world of computer science and has spread to other areas such as data communication, e-commerce and instant messaging. Therefore, manipulating this data by non-expert programmers is becoming imperative and has emerged two alternatives. On one hand, Mashups have emerged a few years ago, providing users with visual tools for web data manipulation but not necessarily XML specific. Mashups have been leaning towards functional composition but no formal definitions have yet been defined. On the other hand, visual languages for XML have been emerging since the standardization of XML, and mostly relying on querying XML data for extraction or structure transformations. These languages are mainly based on existing textual XML languages, they have limited expressiveness and do not provide non-expert programmers with means to manipulate XML data. In this paper, we define a generic visual language called XCDL based on Colored Petri Nets allowing non-expert programmers to compose manipulation operations. The XML manipulations range from simple data selection/projection to data modification (insertion, removal, obfuscation, etc.). The language is oriented to deal with XML data (XML documents and fragments), providing users with means to compose XML oriented operations. The language core syntax is presented here along with an implemented prototype based on it.

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

visual languages
colored petri nets
composition

language syntax and specification
xml data manipulation
concurrency


expertise community detection Providing knowledge workers with access to experts and communities-of-practice is central to sharing expertise and crucial to organizational performance, adaptation, and even survival. This paper covers ongoing research to develop an Expert Locator prototype, a model-based system for detecting experts and broader communities-of-practice. The underlying expertise model is extensible and supports aggregation of evidence across diverse sources. The prototype is being used to locate critical expertise in key project areas, and current evaluation indicates its potential effectiveness.

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

fusion
expert finding
distributed retrieval


Tracing and recording interrupts in embedded software During the system development, developers often must correct wrong behavior in the softwarean activity colloquially called program debugging. Debugging is a complex activity, especially in real-time embedded systems because such systems interact with the physical world and make heavy use of interrupts for timing and driving I/O devices. Debugging interrupts is difficult, because they cause non-linear control flow in programs which is hard to reproduce in software. Record/replay mechanisms have proven their use to debugging embedded systems, because they provide means to recreate control flows offline where they can be debugged. In this work, we present the data tracing part of the record/replay mechanism that is specifically targeted to record interrupt behavior. To tune our tracing mechanism, we use the observed principle of return address clustering and a formal model for quantitative reasoning about the tracing mechanism. The presented heuristic and mechanisms show surprisingly good resultswith higher fingerprint widths an 800 percent speedup on the selector function and a 300 percent reduction on duplicates for non-optimal selector functionsconsidering the leanness of the approach. Using an equal portion for the fingerprint and for the return address lead to the best results in our experiments.

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


Gravity optimised particle filter for hand tracking Introduces Gravity Optimised Particle Filter (GOPF) to improve particle propagation. GOPF introduces gravitational force in addition to weighted particles. GOPF attracts particles towards peak of likelihood distribution to improve sampling. Introduces a fast detection and labelling of hand features using convexity defects. GOPF is incorporated in hand features tracking with a validation gate mechanism.

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

particle filter
gravity
convexity defects

articulated hand tracking
finger movement
camshift


Piecewise linear projection based on self-organizing map A piecewise linear projection algorithm, based on kohonen's Self-Organizing Map, is presented. Using this new algorithm, neural network is able to adapt its neural weights to accommodate with input space, while obtaining reduced 2-dimensional subspaces at each neural node. After completion of learning process, first project input data into their corresponding 2-D subspaces, then project all data in the 2-D subspaces into a reference 2-D subspace defined by a reference neural node. By piecewise linear projection, we can more easily deal with large data sets than other projection algorithms like Sammon's nonlinear mapping (NLM). There is no need to re-compute all the input data to interpolate new input data to the 2-D output space.

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

dimension reduction
sammon's nonlinear mapping
self-organizing map


Self-spawning neuro-fuzzy system for rule extraction In this paper we propose self-spawning neuro-fuzzy system (SSNFS), a new neuro-fuzzy system to derive fuzzy rules from data. The SSNFS model is based on a generic definition of incremental perceptron and a new learning algorithm that is capable of both structural (rule) learning and parametric learning. It constructs the fuzzy system by detecting a suitable number of rule patches and their positions and shapes in the input space. Initially the rule base consists of one single fuzzy rule; during the iterative learning process the rule base expands according to a supervised spawning validity measure. The rule induction process terminates when a given stop criterion is satisfied. SSNFS is very general since it does not require the prior knowledge about the input space and can be used in any application based on the scatter-partitioning fuzzy system. To demonstrate the effectiveness and applicability of our algorithm, we present a synthetic example and real-world modelling problems.

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

self-spawning competitive learning (sscl)

self-spawning neuro-fuzzy system (ssnfs)


ESM: Efficient and Scalable Data Center Multicast Routing Multicast benefits group communications in saving network traffic and improving application throughput, both of which are important for data center applications. However, the technical trend of data center design poses new challenges for efficient and scalable multicast routing. First, the densely connected networks make traditional receiver-driven multicast routing protocols inefficient in multicast tree formation. Second, it is quite difficult for the low-end switches widely used in data centers to hold the routing entries of massive multicast groups. In this paper, we propose ESM, an efficient and scalable multicast routing scheme for data center networks. ESM addresses the challenges above by exploiting the feature of modern data center networks. Based on the regular topology of data centers, ESM uses a source-to-receiver expansion approach to build efficient multicast trees, excluding many unnecessary intermediate switches used in receiver-driven multicast routing. For scalable multicast routing, ESM combines both in-packet Bloom Filters and in-switch entries to make the tradeoff between the number of multicast groups supported and the additional bandwidth overhead. Simulations show that ESM saves 40%similar to 50% network traffic and doubles the application throughputs compared to receiver-driven multicast routing, and the combination routing scheme significantly reduces the number of in-switch entries required. We implement ESM on a Linux platform. The experimental results further demonstrate that ESM can well support online tree building for large-scale groups with churns, and the overhead of the combination forwarding engine is light-weighted.

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


A multi-objective mathematical model for the industrial hazardous waste location-routing problem Industrial hazardous waste management involves the collection, transportation, treatment, recycling and disposal of industrial hazardous materials that pose risk to their surroundings. In this paper, a new multi-objective location-routing model is developed, and implemented in the Marmara region of Turkey. The aim of the model is to help decision makers decide on locations of treatment centers utilizing different technologies, routing different types of industrial hazardous wastes to compatible treatment centers, locations of recycling centers and routing hazardous waste and waste residues to those centers, and locations of disposal centers and routing waste residues there. In the mathematical model, three criteria are considered: minimizing total cost, which includes total transportation cost of hazardous materials and waste residues and fixed cost of establishing treatment, disposal and recycling centers; minimizing total transportation risk related to the population exposure along transportation routes of hazardous materials and waste residues; and minimizing total risk for the population around treatment and disposal centers, also called site risk. A lexicographic weighted Tchebycheff formulation is developed and computed with CPLEX software to find representative efficient solutions to the problem. Data related to the Marmara region is obtained by utilizing Arcview 9.3 GIS software and Marmara region geographical database.

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

routing
industrial hazardous waste management

multiple objective programming
location-routing problem
pareto optimization
multi-objective model


How to detect a counterfeit coin: Adaptive versus non-adaptive solutions In an old weighing puzzle, there are n greater than or equal to 3 coins that are identical in appearance. All the coins except one have the same weight, and that counterfeit one is a little bit lighter or heavier than the others, though it is not known in which direction. What is the smallest number of weighings needed to identify the counterfeit coin and to determine its type, using balance scales without measuring weights? This question was fully answered in 1946 by Dyson [The Mathematical Gazette 30 (1946) 231-234]. For values of n that are divisible by three, Dyson's scheme is non-adaptive and hence its later weighings do not depend on the outcomes of its earlier weighings. For values of n that are not divisible by three, however, Dyson's scheme is adaptive. In this note, we show that for all values n greater than or equal to, 3 there exists an optimal weighing scheme that is non-adaptive. (C) 2003 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 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

non-adaptive algorithm
algorithms
weighing problem
mathematical puzzle


Exploring the efficiency and effectiveness in global e-retailing companies Efficiency and effectiveness can be considered as key elements for achieving greater business performance and a better decision making. This study applies the data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach combining multiple outputs and inputs to explore the efficiency and effectiveness of 30 global e-retailing companies. The empirical result reveals that the overall technical inefficiencies of the companies are primarily due to scale inefficiencies rather than pure technical inefficiencies. Approximately 43% of the global e-retailing companies need to reduce their inputs if they are to become efficient. Only 57% of the global e-retailing companies are regarded as efficient. This indicates that overall global e-retailing companies still have room for improving their management practices. Furthermore, when bias-corrected efficiencies were used to rank the global e-retailing company sample, the ranking order changed compared to the ranking order of the original efficiencies. This suggests that any DEA study should also employ bootstrapping as standard practice to detect the reliability of efficiency ranking and to have a more accurate benchmark of the firms.

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


Optimization methods of parallel execution of numerical programs in the LuNA fragmented programming system The organization of high-performance execution of a fragmented program has encountered with the problem of choosing of an acceptable way of its execution. The potentialities of optimizing the execution at the stages of fragmented program development, compilation and execution are considered. The methods and algorithms of such an optimization are proposed to be included into the LuNA fragmented programming language, compiler, generator and run-time system.

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 B I O O O O O O

parallel programming
high performance computing
program execution optimization


New delay-dependent stability criteria for switched Hopfield neural networks of neutral type with additive time-varying delay components The objective of this paper is to analyze the stability of switched Hopfield neural networks of neutral type with additive time-varying discrete delay components and finitely distributed delay. By constructing a suitable LyapunovKrasovskii functional with triple and four integral terms and by using Finsler?s lemma, a new delay-dependent stability criterion is derived in terms of linear matrix inequalities to ensure the asymptotic stability of the equilibrium point of the considered neural networks. The derived criteria use the information of the upper delay bounds, which may lead to conservativeness. Finally, numerical example is provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the obtained theoretical 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 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

switched neural networks of neutral type


engineering crowd interaction within smart environments Smart environments (e.g., airports, hospitals, stadiums, and other physical spaces using ubiquitous computing to empower many mobile people) provide novel challenges for usability engineers. Firstly, interaction can be implicit and therefore unintentional on the part of its users. Secondly, the impact of a smart environment can influence the collective or crowd behavior of those immersed within it. These challenges lead to requirements for complementary analyses which must be combined with the more typical focus on the interaction between user and device. The paper explores a family of stochastic models aimed at analyzing these features with a particular focus on crowd interaction.

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

formal methods
dynamic signage systems
usability analysis
performance evaluation
process algebra


dealing with key challenges in international usability and user research In this SIG, we will present scenarios that exemplify many of the key challenges of doing user research and usability evaluation internationally. We will use these to stimulate discussion about solutions and approaches, and then share our own recommendations.

O O O O O O 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

international user research
international usability testing


From flop to megaflops: Java for technical computing Although there has been some experimentation with Java as a language for numerically intensive computing, there is a perception by many that the language is unsuited for such work because of performance deficiencies. In this article we show how optimizing array bounds checks and null pointer checks creates loop nests on which aggressive optimizations can be used. Applying these optimizations by hand to a simple matrix-multiply test case leads to Java-compliant programs whose performance is in excess of 500 Mflops on a four-processor 332MHz RS/6000 model F50 computer. We also report in this article the effect that various optimizations have on the performance of six floating-point-intensive benchmarks. Through these optimizations we have been able to achieve with Java at least 80% of the peak Fortran performance on the same benchmarks. Since all of these optimizations can be automated, we conclude that Java will soon be a serious contender for numerically intensive computing.

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


Bootstrap methods for bias correction and confidence interval estimation for nonlinear quantile regression of longitudinal data This paper examines the use of bootstrapping for bias correction and calculation of confidence intervals (CIs) for a weighted nonlinear quantile regression estimator adjusted to the case of longitudinal data. Different weights and types of CIs are used and compared by computer simulation using a logistic growth function and error terms following an AR(1) model. The results indicate that bias correction reduces the bias of a point estimator but fails for CI calculations. A bootstrap percentile method and a normal approximation method perform well for two weights when used without bias correction. Taking both coverage and lengths of CIs into consideration, a non-bias-corrected percentile method with an unweighted estimator performs best.

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

autocorrelated errors
bias reduction
dependent errors
median regression
panel data
repeated measurements


In silico identification and characterization of 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylate deaminase from Phytophthora sojae As part of an effort to obtain a fungal 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylate deaminase encoding gene from Phytophthora sojae expressed sequence Tag database, we identify and characterize the ACCD from P. sojae using bioinformatics data mining tools and techniques. Computed structural model of P. sojae ACCD was found to consist of mixed alpha/beta motifs and probable loops. The predicted model resembles the structure of Pseudomonas ACCD (RMSD-0.44 ). The main differences observed between them are the presence of partial length of domain one, and longer helix alpha 4. Ramachandran plot analysis revealed that portion of all residues falling into the most favorable regions was 95.0%. The substrate - and geometrical- docking of developed structure postulated functional capability of ACCD to carry out ACC cleavage reaction. The catalytic site in homo-tetrameric structure open to opposite directions separated by 37.97 distance arranged around central axis. This study provides a comprehensive identification and characterization of the ACCD in P. sojae and it may be helpful in the transcriptional and expression based study of P. sojae pathogenesis.

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

active site
ests
homo-tetramer
modeller
phytopthora sojae


Viscosity Characterization of the Value Function of an Investment-Consumption Problem in Presence of an Illiquid Asset We study a problem of optimal investment/consumption over an infinite horizon in a market consisting of a liquid and an illiquid asset. The liquid asset is observed and can be traded continuously, while the illiquid one can only be traded and observed at discrete random times corresponding to the jumps of a Poisson process. The problem is a nonstandard mixed discrete/continuous optimal control problem, which we face by the dynamic programming approach. The main goal of the paper is the characterization of the value function as unique viscosity solution of an associated HamiltonJacobiBellman equation. We then use such a result to build a numerical algorithm, allowing one to approximate the value function and so to measure the cost of illiquidity.

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

optimal stochastic control
viscosity solutions
comparison principle
investment-consumption problem
liquidity risk


a gp algorithm for efficient synthesis of gm-c filters on a hexagonal fpaa structure This work presents an approach based on Genetic Programming for the synthesis of continuous-time analog filters on a field-programmable analog array. A multi-objective algorithm is used to synthesize both the topology and parameter values of Gm-C filter structures to be instantiated on the FPAA based on a given filter specification. The presented algorithm is highly adapted to the underlying hardware platform, with the goal of making an efficient crossover of high-quality building blocks possible without biasing certain types of schemata. By manipulating of the program tree in the instantiation phase, it is assured that the resulting synthesized structure fits within the physical constraints of the underlying hardware platform.

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

filter synthesis
evolvable hardware
microelectronics


Model-Driven Automation for Simulation-Based Functional Verification Developing testbenches for dynamic functional verification of hardware designs is a software-intensive process that lies on the critical path of electronic system design. The increasing capabilities of electronic components is contributing to the construction of complex verification environments that are increasingly difficult to understand, maintain, extend, and reuse across projects. Model-driven software engineering addresses issues of complexity, productivity, and code quality through the use of high-level system models and subsequent automatic transformations. Reasoning about verification testbench decomposition becomes simpler at higher levels of abstraction. In particular, the aspect-oriented paradigm, when applied at the model level, can minimize the overlap in functionality between modules, improving maintainability and reusability. This article presents an aspect-oriented model-driven engineering process and toolset for the development of hardware verification testbenches. We illustrate how this process and toolset supports modularized design and automatic transformation to verification environment-specific models and source code through an industry case study.

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

languages
model-based software engineering
theme/uml
code generation
aspect-oriented
e hardware verification language
function verification


Optimisation of water use in batch process industries The water management in the batch process industries has been optimised considering the reuse of water effluents in the same plant through storage tanks. For a given production plan, the characterisation of the water streams associated to the different production tasks is established. The connections between the available tanks and the water streams have been determined targeting different aspects: freshwater demand, water cost, utility demand of water streams and water reuse network costs. The water reuse system has been modelled, simulated and optimised. A software tool has been developed that permits an easy application of the methodology. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

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


scalable molecular dynamics for large biomolecular systems We present an optimized parallelization scheme for molecular dynamics simulations of large biomolecular systems, implemented in the production-quality molecular dynamics program NAMD. With an object-based hybrid force and spatial decomposition scheme, and an aggressive measurement-based predictive load-balancing framework, we have attained speeds and speedups that are much higher than any reported in literature so far. The paper first summarizes the broad methodology we are pursuing, and the basic parallelization scheme we used. It then describes the optimizations that were instrumental in increasing performance, and presents performance results on benchmark simulations.

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

spatial
decomposition
framework
systems
methodology
benchmark
performance
paper
molecular dynamics
hybrid
scheme

measurement
speedup
product
quality
simulation
optimality
scalability
parallel
object
load balancing
instrument
predict


Theorem of abstraction for equivalent controllers in hybrid systems ? In the analysis and synthesis of controllers for hybrid systems, it is often required to verify whether two controllers for a given hybrid plant are equivalent. This is not easy to do because one needs to verify that the two controlled hybrid systems generate the same sequence of discrete events and the same trajectory for continuous variables for the given initial conditions. In this paper, we prove that under certain conditions, the verification of equivalence can be done at the abstract level of discrete event systems. More precisely, two controllers are equivalent if and only if the languages (that is, the sets of all possible sequences of discrete transitions) generated by two controlled systems are the same. This theorem of abstraction implies that many control problems of hybrid systems can be studied at the abstract level of discrete event systems. Therefore, it can be used in the control synthesis for decentralized controllers and partial observation controllers because techniques developed for discrete event systems can now be applied to hybrid systems.

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

hybrid systems
discrete event systems
control
abstraction


Event-triggered fuzzy H? control for a class of nonlinear networked control systems using the deviation bounds of asynchronous normalized membership functions This paper is concerned with the event-triggered H? control for a nonlinear networked control system. A new event-triggered transmission scheme is first proposed to reduce the network bandwidth utilization. Under this scheme, the nonlinear networked control system is formulated as a TakagiSugeno fuzzy threshold-error-dependent system with asynchronous normalized membership functions. Then, by using the deviation bounds of asynchronous normalized membership functions, some sufficient conditions on the existence of the parameters of the event-triggered transmission scheme and the fuzzy controller are derived such that the TakagiSugeno fuzzy threshold-error-dependent system with asynchronous normalized membership functions is asymptotically stable with a prescribed H? attenuation level. It is shown that the proposed design method can reduce the conservativeness of some existing results. Finally, two examples are given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed design method and the event-triggered transmission scheme.

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

networked control systems
normalized membership functions

event-triggered transmission scheme
fuzzy control
h? control


Memory efficient and scalable address mapping for flash storage devices Flash memory devices commonly rely upon traditional address mapping schemes such as page mapping, block mapping or a hybrid of the two. Page mapping is more flexible than block or hybrid mapping without being restricted by block boundaries. However, its mapping table tends to grow large quickly as the capacity of flash memory devices does. To overcome this limitation, we propose novel mapping schemes that are fundamentally different from the existing mapping strategies. We call these new schemes Virtual Extent Trie (VET) and Extent Mapping Tree (EMT), as they manage mapping information by treating each I/O request as an extent and by using extents as basic mapping units rather than pages or blocks. By storing extents instead of individual addresses, our extent mapping schemes consume much less memory to store mapping information and still remain as flexible as page mapping. We observed in our experiments that our schemes reduced memory consumption by up to an order of magnitude in comparison with the traditional mapping schemes for several real world workloads. Our extent mapping schemes also scaled well with increasing address spaces by synthetic workloads. Even though the asymptotic mapping cost of VET and EMT is higher than the O O (1) time of a page mapping scheme, the amount of increased overhead was almost negligible or low enough to be hidden by an accompanying I/O operation.

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


An experimental economics approach toward quantifying online privacy choices The importance of personal privacy to Internet users has been extensively researched using a variety of survey techniques. The limitations of survey research are well-known and exist in part because there are no positive or negative consequences to responses provided by survey participants. Such limitations are the motivation for this work. Experimental economics is widely accepted by economists and others as an investigative technique that can provide measures of economic choice-making that are substantially more accurate than those provided by surveys. This paper describes our efforts at applying the techniques of experimental economics to provide a foundation for (a) estimating the values that consumers place on privacy and various forms of security (encryption, HIPAA, etc.) and for (b) quantifying user responses to changes in the Internet environment. The contribution of this study is a better understanding of individual decision-making in the context of benefits and costs of making private information available to Internet sites. Preliminary results from a series of pilot studies are consistent with optimizing behaviors, indicating that continued application of experimental economics techniques in the quantification of Internet user actions in privacy/security space will be illuminating. Our results show that Internet users place great value on security measures, both regulatory and technical, that make identity theft much less likely. Our Web-based experiments indicate that privacy- and security- enhancing protections are likely to be subject to moral hazard responses, as participants in our online experiments became more aggressive in their Internet usage with greater protection in place.

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


Steady states of epidemic spreading in small-world networks We consider a standard susceptible-infected-susceptible (SIS) model to study the behaviors of steady states of epidemic spreading in small-world networks. Using analytical methods and large scale simulations, we recover the usual epidemic behavior with a critical threshold lambda(c) below which infectious diseases die out. For the spreading rate lambda far above lambda(c), it was found that the density of infected individuals p as a function of lambda has the property p approximate to f(K) (ln lambda - ln lambda(c)).

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

networks and genealogical trees
phase transitions


Texture discrimination using discrete cosine transformation shift-insensitive (DCTSIS) descriptors ? Many of the numerous texture measurements are based on space-frequency signal decomposition; these include Gabor filters and wavelet-based methods. The discrete cosine transformation (DCT) extracts spatial-frequency (SF) components from a local image region. It is the basis for the JPEG image compression standard and has many fast algorithmic implementations. By using a sliding DCT we derive a SF representation for a region of interest (ROI) surrounding each image pixel. We show that the DCT coefficients may represent a SF as a combination of several DCT coefficients depending on the offset of the SF waveform maximum from the ROI's beginning. Thus, the DCT coefficients for a texture with a certain SF will change as the transformation is moved over the texture. In order to circumvent this problem, we derive horizontal and vertical SF shift-insensitive measurements from DCT components. Examples are given which show how these DCT shift-insensitive (DCTSIS) descriptors can be used to classify textured image regions. Since a large number of image display, storage and analysis systems are based on DCT hardware and software, DCTSIS descriptors may be easily integrated into existing technology and highly useful.

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 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

discrete cosine transformation
texture discrimination

texture analysis
shift insensitive
spatial-frequency analysis
discriminant analysis


A location-routing problem in glass recycling In this study, a location-routing problem encountered in glass recycling is addressed. We formulate a combined maximal covering location problem in the presence of partial coverage and selective traveling salesman problem to determine the location of bottle banks and the route of a collecting vehicle that will daily visit a number of customers and the bottle banks. We propose a nested heuristic procedure to solve the problem. The outer loop of the heuristic is based on variable neighborhood search while the inner loop solves the traveling salesman problem on the locations defined. The performance of the heuristic procedure is demonstrated with computational experimentation on instances that are both randomly generated and are taken from the literature. An application of the procedure on a case study using a geographical information system is also reported.

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 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 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

traveling salesman problem
glass recycling

location-routing
maximal covering problem
vehicle routing allocation problem
geographical information systems


Quantum networks: anti-core of spin chains The purpose of this paper is to exhibit a quantum network phenomenonthe anti-corethat goes against the classical network concept of congestion core. Classical networks idealized as infinite, Gromov hyperbolic spaces with least-cost path routing (and subject to a technical condition on the Gromov boundary) have a congestion core, defined as a subnetwork that routing paths have a high probability of visiting. Here, we consider quantum networks, more specifically spin chains, define the so-called maximum excitation transfer probability \(p_{\max }(i,j)\) between spin \(i\) and spin \(j\) and show that the central spin has among all other spins the lowest probability of being excited or transmitting its excitation. The anti-core is singled out by analytical formulas for \(p_{\mathrm{max}}(i,j)\), revealing the number theoretic properties of quantum chains. By engineering the chain, we further show that this probability can be made vanishingly small.

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 B I 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

quantum networks
spin chains
transfer probability

distance
gromov negatively curved networks
anti-core


Colon segmentation and colonic polyp detection using cellular neural networks and three-dimensional template matching In this study, an automatic three-dimensional computer-aided detection system for colonic polyps was developed. Computer-aided detection for computed tomography colonography aims at facilitating the detection of colonic polyps. First, the colon regions of whole computed tomography images were carefully segmented to reduce computational burden and prevent false positive detection. In this process, the colon regions were extracted by using a cellular neural network and then the regions of interest were determined. In order to improve the segmentation performance of the study, weights in the cellular neural network were calculated by three heuristic optimization techniques, namely genetic algorithm, differential evaluation and artificial immune system. Afterwards, a three-dimensional polyp template model was constructed to detect polyps on the segmented regions of interest. At the end of the template matching process, the volumes geometrically similar to the template were emhanced.

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 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 I 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 O

computed tomography colonography
cellular neural network
colon segmentation
colonic polyp detection


Some approaches to a conjecture on short cycles in digraphs We consider the following special case of a conjecture due to Caccetta and Hggkvist: Let D be a digraph on n vertices that all have in-degree and out-degree at least n/3. Then, D contains a directed cycle of length 2 or 3. We discuss several necessary conditions for possible counterexamples to this conjecture, in terms of cycle structure, diameter, maximum degree, clique number, toughness, and local structure. These conditions have not enabled us to prove or refute the conjecture, but they lead to proofs of special instances of the conjecture.

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


Photogrammetric and Image Processing Aspects in Quantitative Flow Visualization The development of a measurement system for the visualization, topological classification, and quantitative analysis of complex flows in large-scale wind tunnel experiments is described. A new approach was sought in which the topological features of the flow (e.g., stream lines, separation and reattachment regions, stagnation points, and vortex lines) were extracted directly and preferably visualized in real-time in a virtual wind tunnel environment. The system was based on a stereo arrangement of two CCD cameras. A frame rate of 120 fps allowed measurements at high flow velocities. The paper focuses on the problem of fast and accurate reconstruction of path lines of helium filled soap bubbles in three dimensions (3D). A series of simple algorithmic steps was employed to ensure fast data processing. These included fast image segmentation, a spline approximation of the path lines, a camera model, point correspondence building, calculation of path line points in 3D and creation of a three-dimensional spline representation. The path lines, which contained both velocity and topological information, were analyzed to extract the relevant information.

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

complex flows
topological classification
wind tunnel
vortex lines

streamlines
separation and attachment regions


Kernel machines for epilepsy diagnosis via EEG signal classification: A comparative study We carry out a systematic assessment on a suite of kernel-based learning machines while coping with the task of epilepsy diagnosis through automatic electroencephalogram (EEG) signal classification. The kernel machines investigated include the standard support vector machine (SVM), the least squares SVM, the Lagrangian SVM, the smooth SVM, the proximal SVM, and the relevance vector machine. An extensive series of experiments was conducted on publicly available data, whose clinical EEG recordings were obtained from five normal subjects and five epileptic patients. The performance levels delivered by the different kernel machines are contrasted in terms of the criteria of predictive accuracy, sensitivity to the kernel function/parameter value, and sensitivity to the type of features extracted from the signal. For this purpose, 26 values for the kernel parameter (radius) of two well-known kernel functions (namely, Gaussian and exponential radial basis functions) were considered as well as 21 types of features extracted from the EEG signal, including statistical values derived from the discrete wavelet transform, Lyapunov exponents, and combinations thereof. We first quantitatively assess the impact of the choice of the wavelet basis on the quality of the features extracted. Four wavelet basis functions were considered in this study. Then, we provide the average accuracy (i.e., cross-validation error) values delivered by 252 kernel machine configurations; in particular, 40%/35% of the best-calibrated models of the standard and least squares SVMs reached 100% accuracy rate for the two kernel functions considered. Moreover, we show the sensitivity profiles exhibited by a large sample of the configurations whereby one can visually inspect their levels of sensitiveness to the type of feature and to the kernel function/parameter value. Overall, the results evidence that all kernel machines are competitive in terms of accuracy, with the standard and least squares SVMs prevailing more consistently. Moreover, the choice of the kernel function and parameter value as well as the choice of the feature extractor are critical decisions to be taken, albeit the choice of the wavelet family seems not to be so relevant. Also, the statistical values calculated over the Lyapunov exponents were good sources of signal representation, but not as informative as their wavelet counterparts. Finally, a typical sensitivity profile has emerged among all types of machines, involving some regions of stability separated by zones of sharp variation, with some kernel parameter values clearly associated with better accuracy rates (zones of optimality).

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

kernel machines
eeg signal classification
epilepsy


enforcing trace properties by program transformation We propose an automatic method to enforce trace properties on programs. The programmer specifies the property separately from the program; a program transformer takes the program and the property and automatically produces another equivalent pogram satisfying the property. This separation of concerns makes the program easier to develop and maintain. Our approach is both static and dynamic. It integrates static analyses in order to avoid useless transformations. On the other hand, it never rejects programs but adds dynamic checks when necessary. An important challenge is to make this dynamic enforcement as inexpensive as possible. The most obvious application domain is the enforcement of security policies. In particular, a potential use of the method is the securization of mobile code upon receipt.

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

challenge
program
security policies
order
use
method
dynamic
mobile code
programmer

applications
traces
maintainability
separation-of-concerns
program transformation


Internet electronic product catalogs: an approach beyond simple keywords and multimedia Internet-based Electronic Product Catalogs (IEPCs) are one of the most important parts of electronic markets. They are the merchants interactive interface towards online customers. Based on the features of their carrier, the interactive and ubiquitous Internet, IEPCs are online, permanently up-to date, and enable customization as well as direct communication between seller and buyer. Even though IEPCs are more sophisticated compared to paper-based catalogs, the search for products on the Internet is still a cumbersome process. Surveys show, that online customers have difficulties navigating through merchants sites to find the products they need. In this paper, a comprehensive approach for IEPCs as complex information spaces will be presented. First a detailed requirements analysis for IEPCs will be conducted. Then a concept for organizing information within IEPCs, which goes beyond simple keywords and multimedia, will be presented. Finally, technologies for its implementation will be identified.

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

interoperability of electronic markets
online shopping


An automata-theoretic approach to the study of the intersection of two submonoids of a free monoid We investigate the intersection of two finitely generated submonoids of the free monoid on a finite alphabet. To this purpose, we consider automata that recognize such submonoids and we study the product automata recognizing their intersection. By using automata methods we obtain a new proof of a result of Karhumaki on the characterization of the intersection of two submonoids of rank two, in the case of prefix (or sufix) generators. In a more general setting, for an arbitrary number of generators, we prove that if H and K are two finitely generated submonoids generated by prefix sets such that the product automaton associated to H boolean AND K has a given special property then (rn) over tilde (H boolean AND K) <= (rn) over tilde (H) (rn) over tilde (K) where (rn) over tilde (L) = max(0, rk(L) - 1) for any submonoid L.

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


Compiler Directed Write-Mode Selection for High Performance Low Power Volatile PCM Micro-Controller Units (MCUs) are widely adopted ubiquitous computing devices. Due to tight cost and energy constraints, MCUs often integrate very limited internal RAM memory on top of Flash storage, which exposes Flash to heavy write traffic and results in short system lifetime. Architecting emerging Phase Change Memory (PCM) is a promising approach for MCUs due to its fast read speed and long write endurance. However, PCM, especially multi-level cell (MLC) PCM, has long write latency and requires large write energy, which diminishes the benefits of its replacement of traditional Flash. By studying MLC PCM write operations, we observe that writing MLC PCM can take advantages of two write modes - fast write leaves cells in volatile state, and slow write leaves cells in non-volatile state. In this paper, we propose a compiler directed dual-write (CDDW) scheme that selects the best write mode for each write operation to maximize the overall performance and energy efficiency. Our experimental results show that CDDW reduces dynamic energy by 32.4%(33.8%) and improves performance by 6.3%(35.9%) compared with an all fast(slow) write approach.

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 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 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

multi-level cell
worst case execution time


Semantic refinement and error correction in large terminological knowledge bases Capturing the semantics of concepts in a terminology has been an important problem in AI. A two-level approach has been proposed where concepts are classified into high-level semantic types, with these types constituting a portion of the concepts' semantics. We present an algorithmic methodology for refining such two-level terminologic networks. A new network is produced consisting of "pure" semantic types and intersection types. Concepts are uniquely re-assigned to these new types. Overall, these types form a better conceptual abstraction, with each exhibiting uniform semantics. Using them, it becomes easier to detect classification errors. The methodology is applied to the UMLS. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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

concept hierarchy
semantic type
terminological knowledge base
semantic error correction


The Study of the Electromagnetic Shielding Properties of a Textile Material with Amorphous Microwire The paper presents the results concerning the utilization of a new class of composite textile materials with electromagnetic properties and the possibility of their utilization in the production of electromagnetic field protective equipment. The experimental and theoretical results concerning the electromagnetic characterization of a new textile material with composite structure are presented also considering the following aspects: - evaluation of the possibilities to use amorphous magnetic microwires in electromagnetic shielding; - study of the electromagnetic properties of the composite textile material, especially the electromagnetic field shielding, reflection and polarization; - determination of the frequency range within which these properties can be used in the realization of materials for the protection against electromagnetic fields. The experimental results of a material sample and a phantom for applications are connected with shielding in the frequency range used in mobile communications.

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

amorphous magnetic wires
electromagnetic compatibility


Ten usability principles for the development of effective WAP and m-commerce services This paper reports on the results of a Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) usability study, which consists of a survey, an evaluation of two UK WAP portals and an experiment that was carried out between November 2001 and February 2002. A number of usability issues, which prevented the users from completing basic and common tasks, were identified. For instance, 70 per cent of the users were not successful in searching for a textbook on the Amazon.co.uk WAP site. Additionally, even experienced users were not immune to these problems. The general conclusion of the study is that WAP usability remains poor. We argue that this could have a negative effect on the future of WAP and m-commerce. Finally, we propose a set of ten principles, which are based on the findings of this study, and we believe will aid towards the development of more usable WAP and m-commerce services.

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

information technology
mobile communications
communications technology
internet


Faxed Arabic prescriptions: A medication error waiting to happen? The Arabic language uses notations called diacritical marks around characters to change which letter a symbol represents, changing the word in which that letter is contained. We explore the potential for error of these marks when faxed in a critical case such as prescriptions. A large number of patients are hurt by medical errors each year [1]. Extensive literature already documents the risks from handwritten prescriptions, while little work has been done with risks from reproduced printed prescriptions. No literature exists to examine risks of prescriptions in non-Roman character alphabets being reproduced. Reproduction via fax transmission is a common practice and often produces damaged copies which can lead to medication errors [2], [3]and[4]. Languages with diacritical marks, particularly small ones, used for critical contextual meaning would more likely be at risk for misreading due to fax damage. We generated text in English and Arabic reproducing common prescribing instructions, such as every day at various font sizes. This was placed on commonly used prescription paper, and reproduced via fax between 2 medical facility fax machines. We demonstrate meaningful change of prescribing instructions in the Arabic text by both the fax compression algorithm changing the appearance of diacritical marks along with a large amount of stochastic noise and dropouts being present. This change produced a potentially dangerous change in the instructions in the example we present. Prescriptions that are faxed in languages that use diacritical marks to denote contextual meaning, are at high risk for misreading when reproduced via fax. We suggest mitigating strategies, including minimal font size and use of alliteration text in other languages.

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


Knowledge sharing and expertise coordination of event response in organizations This paper provides an overview of opportunities and challenges for expert coordination, knowledge sharing, and task performance using advanced information and communication technologies. Evolving in part from [Hendrick, H., 1991. Ergonomics in organizational design and management. Ergonomics 34(6), 743756] discussion of macroergonomics, this paper describes the author's framework for systems engineering analysis of information flow and performance at team and organizational units of analysis. Work in the author's research lab has focused on several aspects of information technology use and team interactions to support shared understandings, task demands, and effective responses in responses to events. Multiple empirical studies are summarized describing evaluations of technology use, task cycles and expert knowledge coordination in several settings, including aerospace, healthcare, and project management.

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

feedback systems
sociotechnical systems
team performance


Optimal dynamic pricing strategies for high-occupancy/toll lanes This paper proposes a self-learning approach to determine optimal pricing strategies for high-occupancy/toll lane operations. The approach learns recursively motorists willingness to pay by mining the loop detector data, and then specifies toll rates to maximize the freeways throughput while ensuring a superior travel service to the users of the toll lanes. In determination of the tolls, a multi-lane hybrid traffic flow model is used to explicitly consider the impacts of the lane-changing behaviors before the entry points of the toll lanes on throughput and travel time. Simulation experiments are conducted to demonstrate and validate the proposed approach, and provide insights on when to convert high-occupancy lanes to toll lanes.

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

high-occupancy/toll lanes
self-learning
lane changes


Applying the attribute based hill climber heuristic to the vehicle routing problem The attribute based hill climber (ABHC) is a variant of the general tabu-search principle which has shown to be competitive with respect to quality as well as efficiency to other local search heuristics for the two corner stone problems in combinatorial optimization: the travelling salesman problem and the quadratic assignment problem. ABHC is completely parameter-free, and its generic logic depends on the concept of partitioning the solution space based on solution attributes, which is the problem-specific choice. In this paper we analyze the effectiveness of this concept and the efficiency of the ABHC heuristic for the general vehicle routing problem.

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 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 O

combinatorial optimization
heuristics
routing


Radio number for the product of a path and a complete graph A multilevel distance labeling of a graph \(G=(V,E)\) is a function \(f\) on \(V\) into \(\mathbb N \cup \{0\}\) such that \(|f(v)-f(w)| \ge \text{ diam }(G)+1-\text{ dist }(v,w)\) for all \(v,w\in V\). The radio number \(\text{ rn }(G)\) of \(G\) is the minimum span over all multilevel distance labelings of \(G\). In this paper, we completely determine the radio number \(\text{ rn }(G)\) of \(G\) where \(G\) is the Cartesian product of a path \(P_n\) with \(n\,(n\ge 4)\) vertices and a complete graph \(K_m\) with \(m\,(m\ge 3)\) vertices.

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

multilevel distance labeling
radio number
cartesian product


On linear fuzzifications of groupoids with special emphasis on BCK-algebras In this paper, for a given groupoid (X, (*)) and a relation R on X we consider a related structure LFRX = { is an element of X-3 vertical bar xRy, yRz}, and we discuss three different types on LFRX, and we construct a linear fuzzy real BCK-algebra (LF <= X, circle minus, epsilon(0)) and a new BCK-algebra (LF <= X, circle star, epsilon(0)) from a BCK-algebra (X, (*), 0).

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

linear fuzzy real number
linear fuzzy real bck-algebra
bck-algebra
bin(x)
poset
additive type
subtractive type
reverse subtractive type


QM methods in structure based design: Utility in probing protein-ligand interactions Small changes in ligand structure can lead to large unexpected changes in activity yet it is often not possible to rationalize these effects using empirical modeling techniques, suggesting more effective methods are required. In this study we investigate the use of high level QM methods to study the interactions found within protein-ligand complexes as improved understanding of these could help in the design of new, more active molecules. We study aspects of ligand binding in a set of protein ligand complexes containing ligand efficient, fragment-like inhibitors as these structures are often challenging to determine experimentally. To assess the reliability of our theoretical models we compare the MP2/6-31+G** QM results to the original X-ray coordinates and to QM/MM B3LYP/6-31G*//UFF results which we have previously reported. We also contrast these results with data obtained from an analysis of the distribution of comparable interactions found in (a) high resolution kinase complexes (<= 1.8 angstrom) from the PDB and (b) more generic, small molecule crystal structures from the CSD. (C) 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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 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 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

hydrogen bond strength
kinase inhibitors
qm/mm structure based design


ACCURACY ANALYSIS OF EARTHWORK CALCULATION BASED ON TRIANGULATED IRREGULAR NETWORK (TIN) In most of conventional methods for calculating earthwork, the assessment of accuracy contains many uncertainties. This paper discusses the relationship between the accuracy of terrain data and that of the earthwork calculation. The main research method is propagation of error, and a formula is created which expresses the quantity relationship that how the errors of terrain data effects the accuracy of earthwork calculation. Setting the different values of parameters, the relative errors can be calculated. Through adjusting values of parameters, it is easy to make a plan of data acquisition that is cost-optimal and meets the accuracy requirement of the land consolidation. In the end, the calculating methods with different sources of terrain data are discussed.

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

earthwork calculation
assessment of accuracy

triangulated irregular network (tin)
errors propagation


Adaptive creeping locomotion of a CPG-controlled snake-like robot to environment change In this paper, we present a biomimetic approach which is based on Central Pattern Generator (CPG) to solve the difficulty in control of a snake-like robot with a large number of degrees of freedom. A new network with a feedback connection is proposed, which can generate uniform outputs without any additional adjustment. The relations between the CPG parameters and the characteristics of output are also investigated. A simulation platform is also established for the analysis of the CPG-based locomotion control of a snake-like robot. To figure out adaptive creeping locomotion of the robot to the environment with changed friction or the given slope, the relations of CPG parameters and locomotion efficiency by the proposed curvature adaptive principle have been discussed.

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

snake-like robot
cpg network
motion control
adaptive locomotion


A Walsh function method for a non-linear Volterra integral equation ? A new method for the numerical solution of linear and non-linear Volterra integral equations, using the discontinuous wavelet packets known as the Walsh functions, is proposed and investigated. Sufficient conditions for the method to converge are derived and a priori error estimates are obtained. Given sufficient regularity conditions on the integral equation, the method is shown to be locally of order two.

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

walsh functions
volterra integral equations
a priori error estimates


Population-Based Incremental Learning With Associative Memory for Dynamic Environments In recent years, interest in studying evolutionary algorithms (EAs) for dynamic optimization problems (DOPs) has grown due to its importance in real-world applications. Several approaches, such as the memory and multiple population schemes, have been developed for EAs to address dynamic problems. This paper investigates the application of the memory scheme for population-based incremental learning (PBIL) algorithms, a class of EAs, for DOPs. A PBIL-specific associative memory scheme, which stores best solutions as well as corresponding environmental information in the memory, is investigated to improve its adaptability in dynamic environments. In this paper, the interactions between the memory scheme and random immigrants, multipopulation, and restart schemes for PBILs in dynamic environments are investigated. In order to better test the performance of memory schemes for PBILs and other EAs in dynamic environments, this paper also proposes a dynamic environment generator that can systematically generate dynamic environments of different difficulty with respect to memory schemes. Using this generator, a series of dynamic environments are generated and experiments are carried out to compare the performance of investigated algorithms. The experimental results show that the proposed memory scheme is efficient for PBILs in dynamic environments and also indicate that different interactions exist between the memory scheme and random immigrants, multipopulation schemes for PBILs in different dynamic environments.

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

associative memory scheme
random immigrants

immune system-based genetic algorithm (isga)

population-based incremental learning (pbil)


Universal Properties of Impure Programming Languages We investigate impure, call-by-value programming languages. Our first language only has variables and let-binding. Its equational theory is a variant of Lambek's theory of multicategories that omits the commutativity axiom. We demonstrate that type constructions for impure languages - products, sums and functions - can be characterized by universal properties in the setting of 'premulticategories', multicategories where the commutativity law may fail. This leads us to new, universal characterizations of two earlier equational theories of impure programming languages: the premonoidal categories of Power and Robinson, and the monad-based models of Moggi. Our analysis thus puts these earlier abstract ideas on a canonical foundation, bringing them to a new, syntactic level.

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


the virtual museum of sculpture This paper presents the Virtual Museum of Sculpture (VMS) of Pietrasanta, a permanent Virtual Reality installation enabling users to interactively explore a museographical diffused virtual space. The virtual environment hosts several digital 3D models of sculptures realized by important Italian artists of the XX century, connected for historical and cultural reasons with the town of Pietrasanta, a renowned place near the marble quarries of Alpi Apuane. The VMS is currently being enriched of new content, aimed at promoting local art and culture, with the perspective of developing guidelines for an integrated methodology sharing museological and ICT know-hows, targeted to the design of specific virtual applications and to the qualitative evaluation of their social impact as a novel important means of communication and learning.

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

cultural heritage
3d graphics
interaction


A NOVEL FEATURE SELECTION ALGORITHM WITH SUPERVISED MUTUAL INFORMATION FOR CLASSIFICATION Feature selection is essential in data mining and pattern recognition, especially for database classification. During past years, several feature selection algorithms have been proposed to measure the relevance of various features to each class. A suitable feature selection algorithm normally maximizes the relevancy and minimizes the redundancy of the selected features. The mutual information measure can successfully estimate the dependency of features on the entire sampling space, but it cannot exactly represent the redundancies among features. In this paper, a novel feature selection algorithm is proposed based on maximum relevance and minimum redundancy criterion. The mutual information is used to measure the relevancy of each feature with class variable and calculate the redundancy by utilizing the relationship between candidate features, selected features and class variables. The effectiveness is tested with ten benchmarked datasets available in UCI Machine Learning Repository. The experimental results show better performance when compared with some existing algorithms.

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

mutual information
feature selection
classification


visualization of concurrent tones in music with colours Visualizing music in a meaningful and intuitive way is a challenge. Our aim is to visualize music by interconnecting similar aspects in music and in visual perception. We focus on visualizing harmonic relationships between tones and colours. Related existing visualizations map tones or keys into a discrete set of colours. As concurrent (simultaneous) tones are not perceived as entirely separate, but also as a whole, we present a novel method for visualizing a group of concurrent tones (limited to the pitches of the 12-tone chromatic scale) with one colour for the whole group. The basis for calculation of colour is the assignment of key spanning circle of thirds to the colour wheel. The resulting colour is not limited to discrete set of colours: similar tones, chords and keys have similar colour hue; dissonance and consonance are represented by low and high colour saturation respectively. The proposed method is demonstrated as part of our prototype music visualization system using extended 3-dimensional piano roll notation.

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

colour
music visualization
concurrent tones


modular bases for fluid dynamics We present a new approach to fluid simulation that balances the speed of model reduction with the flexibility of grid-based methods. We construct a set of composable reduced models, or tiles , which capture spatially localized fluid behavior. We then precompute coupling terms so that these models can be rearranged at runtime. To enforce consistency between tiles, we introduce constraint reduction . This technique modifies a reduced model so that a given set of linear constraints can be fulfilled. Because dynamics and constraints can be solved entirely in the reduced space, our method is extremely fast and scales to large domains.

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

reduced models
constraint reduction
fluid simulation


Algorithm for haplotype resolution and block partitioning for partial XOR-genotype data Problems of haplotyping and block partitioning have been extensively studied with regard to the regular genotype data, but more cost-efficient data called XOR-genotypes remain under-investigated. Previous studies developed methods for haplotyping of short-sequence partial XOR-genotypes. In this paper we propose a new algorithm that performs haplotyping of long-range partial XOR-genotype data with possibility of missing entries, and in addition simultaneously finds the block structure for the given data. Our method is implemented as a fast and practical algorithm. We also investigate the effect of the percentage of fully genotyped individuals in a sample on the accuracy of results with and without the missing data. The algorithm is validated by testing on the HapMap data. Obtained results show good prediction rates both for samples with and without missing data. The accuracy of prediction of XOR sites is not significantly affected by the presence of 10% or less missing data.

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

xor-haplotyping
xor-genotype
haplotype block
genetic algorithm


Designing fractional-order (PID mu)-D-lambda controller using differential harmony search algorithm Harmony Search (HS) has recently emerged as an efficient metaheuristic algorithm that draws inspiration from the music improvisation process. This article describes the design of fractional-order proportional-integral-derivative (FOND) controllers, using a newly developed variant of HS, known as differential harmony search (DHS). Design of FOPID controllers is more complex than that of conventional integer-order PID controller since the latter involves only three parameters while the former involves five parameters to tune. Controller synthesis is based on user specifications like peak overshoot and, rise time; which are used to formulate a single objective optimisation problem. Tustin operator-based continuous fraction expansion (CFE) scheme was used to digitally realise fractional-order closed loop transfer function of the designed plant-controller setup. Experimental results of comparison between DHS and a few established optimisation techniques [particle swami optimisation (PSO) and genetic algorithm (GA)] over different instantiations of the design problem reflect the superiority of the proposed methodology.

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 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

differential harmony search
dhs fractional-order pid controller
particle swarm optimisation
pso genetic algorithm


Layout techniques for radiation hardening of standard CMOS active pixel sensors This article presents a radiation hardened active pixel sensor implemented in a standard 0.35 mu m CMOS process. The integrated circuit is composed of a 64 x 64 pixel matrix with a 25 mu m pixel pitch and has four different pixel architectures. There are also test structures to permit the characterization of the MOS transistors. The radiation hardening of the circuit is implemented with two layout techniques: enclosed geometry transistors and guard rings. It is shown that, with these techniques, the sensor is able to operate with total ionization doses that surpass 500 krad, which is more than double of the requirement for our application. Also, the techniques do not compromise the optical response of the pixels. To obtain an electrical model of the designed transistors, an EKV MOSFET Model was extracted.

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


Applications of support vector machines to cancer classification with microarray data Microarray gene expression data usually have a large number of dimensions, e.g., over ten thousand genes, and a small number of samples, e.g., a few tens of patients. In this paper, we use the support vector machine (SVM) for cancer classification with microarray data. Dimensionality reduction methods, such as principal components analysis (PCA), class-separability measure, Fisher ratio, and t-test, are used for gene selection. A voting scheme is then employed to do multi-group classification by k(k - 1) binary SVMs. We are able to obtain the same classification accuracy but with much fewer features compared to other published results.

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

cancer classification
gene expression data
microarray
support vector machine


Multiobjective fuzzy regression with central tendency and possibilistic properties A multiobjective fuzzy regression model (MOFR) is developed. This MOFR model combines central tendency and possibilistic properties of statistical and fuzzy regressions and overcomes several shortcomings of these two approaches. A new class of distance measure for two intervals that takes into account all the points in both intervals is introduced. The methodology is illustrated by numerical examples. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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

fuzzy statistics and data analysis
fuzzy mathematical programming
multiple criteria evaluation


Numerical study of a double preconditioning strategy Purpose - The aim of this paper is to accelerate the convergence of iterative methods on ill-conditioned linear systems of equations. Design/methodology/approach - First a brief numerical analysis is given of left preconditioners on ill-conditioned linear systems of equations. From this result, it is deduced that a double preconditioning approach may be better. Then, a double preconditioner based on an iterative diagonal scaling method and an incomplete factorization method is proposed. The efficiency of this approach is illustrated on two finite element models produced by computational electromagnetism. Findings - The double preconditioning approach is efficient for 2D and 3D finite element problems. The bi-conjugate gradient algorithm always converges when it is double preconditioned. This is not the case when a simple incomplete factorization method is applied. Furthermore, when the two preconditioning techniques lead to the convergence of the iterative solving method, the double preconditioner significantly reduces the number of iterations in comparison with the simple preconditioner. On the proposed 2D problem, the speed-up is between 6 and 32. On the proposed 3D problem, the speed-up is between 13 and 20. Finally, the approach seems to reduce the growth of the condition number when higher-order finite elements are used. Research limitations/implications - The paper proposes a particular double preconditioning approach which can be applied to any invertible linear system of equations. A numerical evaluation on a singular linear system is also provided but no proof or analysis of stability is given for this case. Originality/value - The paper presents a new preconditioning technique based on the combination of two very simple and elementary methods: a diagonal scaling method and an incomplete factorization process. Acceleration obtained from this approach is quite impressive.

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

finite element analysis
differential equations


Multi-target tracking for flower counting using adaptive motion models Counting the number of flowers in a plant is an example of agricultural quality inspection issues in which a simple 2D image of the product does not suffice. It is essential to see the object under inspection from multiple viewpoints to get a clear estimation of the quality of the product. In order to use multiple viewpoints to obtain a proper quality assessment, a multi-target tracking algorithm that accurately identifies relevant features of the product under inspection is proposed in this paper. The approach is illustrated with an experiment in which the flowers in a number of plants are counted. For the presented method, the plant rotates in front of a camera and a number of consecutive images is taken. The tracking algorithm detects, predicts, and matches the (partially occluded) flowers in the image. The experiments provide a proof of principle of the proposed method. The conclusion of this paper is that the presented multi-target tracking algorithm can be used to solve many similar quality assessment issues for agricultural objects.

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

multi-target tracking
adaptive motion model
particle cloud


Neurophysiology of the Neuromuscular Junction: Overview This manuscript reviews the physiology of neuromuscular transmission with emphasis on four features

neuromuscular junction
neuromuscular transmission

sodium channels
acetylcholine esterase
transmitter release
quantal transmitter release
safety factor
contractility
skeletal muscle


tcp with adaptive pacing for multihop wireless networks In this paper, we introduce a novel congestion control algorithm for TCP over multihop IEEE 802.11 wireless networks implementing rate-based scheduling of transmissions within the TCP congestion window. We show how a TCP sender can adapt its transmission rate close to the optimum using an estimate of the current 4-hop propagation delay and the coefficient of variation of recently measured round-trip times. The novel TCP variant is denoted as TCP with Adaptive Pacing (TCP-AP). Opposed to previous proposals for improving TCP over multihop IEEE 802.11 networks, TCP-AP retains the end-to-end semantics of TCP and does neither rely on modifications on the routing or the link layer nor requires cross-layer information from intermediate nodes along the path. A comprehensive simulation study using ns-2 shows that TCP-AP achieves up to 84\% more goodput than TCP NewReno, provides excellent fairness in almost all scenarios, and is highly responsive to changing traffic conditions.

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

ieee 802.11 wireless networks
end-to-end congestion control
performance evaluation


Grasp capability analysis of multifingered robot hands This paper addresses the problem of grasp capability analysis of multifingered robot hands. The aim of the grasp capability analysis is to find the maximum external wrench that the multifingered robot hands can withstand, which is an important criterion in the evaluation of robotic systems. The study of grasp capability provides a basis for the task planning of force control of multifingered robot hands. For a given multifingered hand geometry, the grasp capability depends on the joint driving torque limits, grasp configuration, contact model and so on. A systematic method of the grasp capability analysis, which is in fact a constrained optimization algorithm, is presented. In this optimization, the optimality criterion is the maximum external wrench, and the constraints include the equality constraints and the inequality constraints. The equality constraints are for the grasp to balance the given external wrench, and the inequality constraints are to prevent the slippage of fingertips, the overload of joint actuators, the excessive forces over the physical limits of the object, etc. The advantages of this method are the ability to accommodate diverse areas such as multiple robot arms, intelligent fixtures and so on. The effectiveness of the proposed method is confirmed with a numerical example of a trifingered grasp. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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

grasp capability
task planning
optimization
multifingered robot hands


Low-Cost Characterization and Calibration of RF Integrated Circuits through I-Q Data Analysis Due to the increasing complexity of radio-frequency circuits, their testing becomes more challenging. A large number of performance parameters under several operation conditions are needed in order to ensure compliance to specifications. In this paper, we present a low-cost test methodology that determines significant performance parameters, such as path gain IIP(3), quadrature imbalances, noise, bit error rate, and error vector magnitude through a single test setup. The proposed test methodology is applicable for both single-carrier and multicarrier systems. Simulation and measurement results indicate that these performance parameters can be calculated and estimated accurately through a single test setup and using a shorter test sequence than required by traditional techniques. In addition, a calibration technique is presented for single-carrier systems to recover marginally failing devices through analytically correcting performance parameters.

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

i-q calibration
radio-frequency (rf) testing
wlan testing


Computing and evaluating view-normalized body part trajectories This paper proposes an approach to compute and evaluate view-normalized body part trajectories of pedestrians from monocular video sequences. The proposed approach uses the 2D trajectories of both feet and of the head extracted from the tracked silhouettes. On that basis, it segments the walking trajectory into piecewise linear segments. Finally, a normalization process is applied to head and feet trajectories over each obtained straight walking segment. View normalization makes head and feet trajectories appear as if seen from a fronto-parallel viewpoint. The latter is assumed to be optimal for gait modeling and identification purposes. The proposed approach is fully automatic as it requires neither manual initialization nor camera calibration. An extensive experimental evaluation of the proposed approach confirms the validity of the normalization process.

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