Deformable Templates Guided Discriminative Models for Robust 3D Brain MRI Segmentation Automatically segmenting anatomical structures from 3D brain MRI images is an important task in neuroimaging. One major challenge is to design and learn effective image models accounting for the large variability in anatomy and data acquisition protocols. A deformable template is a type of generative model that attempts to explicitly match an input image with a template (atlas), and thus, they are robust against global intensity changes. On the other hand, discriminative models combine local image features to capture complex image patterns. In this paper, we propose a robust brain image segmentation algorithm that fuses together deformable templates and informative features. It takes advantage of the adaptation capability of the generative model and the classification power of the discriminative models. The proposed algorithm achieves both robustness and efficiency, and can be used to segment brain MRI images with large anatomical variations. We perform an extensive experimental study on four datasets of T1-weighted brain MRI data from different sources (1,082 MRI scans in total) and observe consistent improvement over the state-of-the-art systems.

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

brain image segmentation
deformable templates
discriminative models


Accurate retinal blood vessel segmentation by using multi-resolution matched filtering and directional region growing A new method to extract retinal blood vessels from a colour fundus image is described. Digital colour fundus images are contrast enhanced in order to obtain sharp edges. The green bands are selected and transformed to correlation coefficient images by using two sets of Gaussian kernel patches of distinct scales of resolution. Blood vessels are then extracted by means of a new algorithm, directional recursive region growing segmentation or D-RRGS. The segmentation results have been compared with clinically-generated ground truth and evaluated in terms of sensitivity and specificity. The results are encouraging and will be used for further application such as blood vessel diameter measurement.

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

fundus image
blood vessel
region growing


technology mapping for fpgas with embedded memory blocks Modern field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) provide embedded memory blocks (EMBs) to be used as on-chip memories. In this paper, we explore the possibility of using EMBs to implement logic functions when they are not used as on-chip memory. We propose a general technology mapping problem for FPGAs with EMBs for area and delay minimization and develop an efficient algorithm based on the concepts of Maximum Fanout Free Cone (MFFC) [3] and Maximum Fanout Free Subgraph (MFFS) [7], named EMB_Pack, which minimizes the area after or before technology mapping by using EMBs while maintaining the circuit delay. We have tested EMB_Pack on MCNC benchmarks on Altera's FLEX10K device family [1]. The experimental results show that compared with the original mapped circuits generated from CutMap [5] without using EMBs, EMB_Pack as postprocessing can further reduce up to 10\% of the area on the mapped circuits while maintaining the layout delay by making efficient use of available EMB resources. Compared with CutMap-e without using EMBs, EMB_Pack as pre-mapping processing followed by CutMap-e can reduce 6\% of the area while maintaining the circuit optimal delay.

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

fpgas
use
technology mapping
device
delay
layout
logic
general
algorithm
paper
circuits

field-programmable-gate-array experimentation efficiency families optimality benchmark concept process memorialized map resource embedding exploration minimal


b-spline surfaces for ship hull design The use of true sculptured surface descriptions for design applications has been proposed by numerous authors. The actual implementation and use of interactive sculptured surface description techniques for design and production has been limited. The use of such techniques for ship hull design has been even more limited. The present paper describes a preliminary implementation of such a system for the design of ship hulls and for the production of towing tank models using numerical control techniques. The present implementation is based on a Cartesian product B-spline surface description. Implementation is on an Evans and Sutherland Picture System supported by a PDP-11/45 minicomputer. The B-spline surface is manipulated by its associated polygonal net. Both surface and net are three-dimensional. Techniques both good and bad for 3-D picking of a polygon point when the net, its associated surface, and the 3-D picking cue independently exist and can be independently manipulated in three space are presented and discussed. The shape of a B-spline surface of fixed order is controlled by the location of the polygon net points, the number of multiple points at a particular net point, and the knot vector. Frequently multiple points imply multiple knot vectors. Practical techniques for controlling and shaping the surface with and without this assumption are discussed and the results illustrated. Experience attained by interactively fitting a single fourth order B-spline surface patch to the forebody half of an actual ship hull described by three dimensional digitized points is discussed and the results illustrated.

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

point
applications
order
use
design
polygon
paper
shape
practical
control
patch
product
space
implementation
sculptured surface
ship hull
surface

fit
association
computer graphics
model
interaction
vectorization
author
systems
locatability
b-spline
cadcam
numerical control


FPGA implementation of a near computation free image compression scheme based on adaptive decimation Adaptive decimation is a technique that can be applied to compress images with good visual quality at low bit-rate. Despite the low complexity of the method, the encoding process involves floating point computation that requires the use of medium speed processors in order to achieve real time operation. In this paper, a new approach has been taken to restructure the adaptive decimation algorithm to a form that includes only small amount of arithmetic operations. The revised algorithm can be implemented with simple logic circuits. The encoder is practically free from complicated numerical computation. A FPGA implementation of the proposed algorithm was realized. The architecture of the encoder is simple and suitable for valuable applications in the development of low cost non-processor based multimedia products.

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

adaptive decimation
computation free
fpga


the study of wsn routing ZigBee Network Layer, the main purpose of the agreement is to provide reliable and secure transmission. There are three kinds of networks topology in ZigBee Network Layer: Star topology, Tree topology, Mesh topology. This study was used in the experiment of the packet size and speed are not great, postponed plans did not change significantly. However, the same packet would be delayed with the lost, only a very small number, but if increasing the amount of packets with the transmission speed, delay will increase with the loss of. When over load, will be a substantial loss. From the experiments, the tree to delay longer than the star topology and mesh topology a long time, star topology is also informed that easy to synchronize the delay time is to do the least. Although the delay of the mesh topology is better than the tree topology, but the mesh topology to play its characteristics, his performance is better than the star and tree topology.

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

mesh topology
tree topology
star topology


Effect of varying concentration and temperature on steady and dynamic parameters of low concentration photovoltaic energy system Low concentration photovoltaic (LCPV) system is designed and developed. Commercially available crystalline silicon solar PV cells used under concentration. Dynamic behavior of LCPV system is modeled and estimated. Real-time analysis of LCPV system is presented.

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

low-concentration photovoltaic (lcpv) system


On the numerical modelling of the multiphysics self piercing riveting process based on the finite element technique The development of reliable numerical models permits to investigate the manufacturing processes with very low incremental costs or prototyping efforts hence it provides a relevant help in process optimisation and gives great opportunity for making maximum use of sparse process data [Shercliff HR, Lovatt AM. Selection of manufacturing process in design and the role of process modelling. Prog Mater Sci 2001;46:42959]. Among others the metal forming processes have heavily benefited from the finite element numerical computing technology [Chenot JL, Massoni E. Finite element modelling and control of new metal forming processes. Int J Machine Tool Manuf 2006;46:1194200]. The self piercing riveting (SPR) is a cold forming process which creates a strong mechanical interlock between two or more sheets by means of a semi-tubular rivet, which, pressed by a punch, pierces the upper sheet and flares into the bottom one. It is governed by complex multiphysics phenomena whose governing equations can be resolved using the finite element method. In this paper all the governing equations are fully reported along with the mathematics of the resolving method needed for setting up and simulate a finite element model of the self piercing riveting of an aluminium alloy. A case study of the SPR of two sheets of the 6060T4 aluminium alloy using a steel rivet was investigated. The calculations were performed using the LsDyna finite element commercial code. The problems encountered and the solutions applied for the preparation of the model and the run of the calculation were presented and discussed. The obtained results were validated by comparison with data coming from a laboratory experiment.

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

self piercing riveting
numerical modelling


Adaptive available bandwidth estimation for internet video streaming In this study, an adaptive available bandwidth estimation approach that is suitable for Internet video streaming is developed. The algorithm exploits repetitive measurements and uses this redundancy to improve its video adaptation decision. The importance of available bandwidth estimation in Internet applications has recently increased particularly because of the heterogeneity of the network links. Many of the Internet paths may contain wired and wireless links in which loss may happen due to congestion as well as link errors. Hence, loss rate by itself is not a sufficient statistics for monitoring purposes. If the loss is due to congestion, video quality can then be decreased whereas if the loss is due to link error, no such action is necessary. Moreover, in video streaming, such an estimate can be used to determine the new video rate if the quality is to be increased. In our approach, active probing packets are used to estimate bandwidth in very short time duration. The novelty of our estimator is its adaptivity in the sense that the overhead caused by the estimator is automatically reduced when congestion builds up. The trade off is reduced accuracy. Such accuracy is not needed under congestion anyway and when things get back to normal, our estimator turns back to normal operation mode. We have integrated our algorithm into our video streamer and carried out experiments on both simulated and actual streaming applications on the Internet. The results indicate that our estimator algorithm increases streaming performance substantially.

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

available bandwidth estimation
congestion
link errors

bottleneck bandwidth
rate adaptive video streaming


Cost-oriented task allocation and hardware redundancy policies in heterogeneous distributed computing systems considering software reliability Task allocation policy and hardware redundancy policy for distributed computing system (DCS) are of great importance as they affect many system characteristics such as system cost, system reliability and performance. In recent years, abundant research has been carried out on the optimal task allocation and/or hardware redundancy problem, most of which took a reliability-oriented approach, i.e., the optimization criterion was system reliability maximization. Nevertheless, besides system reliability, other system characteristics such as system cost may be of great concern to management. In this paper, we take a cost-oriented approach to the optimal task allocation and hardware redundancy problem for DCS, which addresses both system cost and system reliability issues. A system cost model which could reflect the impact of system unreliability on system cost is developed, and by minimizing the total system cost, a satisfactory level of system reliability could be reached simultaneously. In the reliability modeling and analysis of DCS, we take both hardware reliability and software reliability into account. Two numerical examples are given to illustrate the formulation and solution procedures, in which genetic algorithm is used. Results show that based on the developed system cost model, appropriate decision-makings on task allocation and hardware redundancy policies for DCS could be made, and the result obtained seems to be a fairly good trade-off between system cost and system reliability. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd, All rights reserved.

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

distributed computing system
task allocation
cost model
software reliability


A qualitative case study of the adoption and use of an agricultural decision support system in the Australian cotton industry: The socio-technical view In response to the call for research that considers the human as well as the technical aspects of information systems implementation, the authors report on an interpretive case study which explores the adoption and use of an agricultural decision support system (DSS) CottonLOGIC in the Australian cotton industry. The study was informed through the innovation-decision model by Rogers and the technology-in-practice model by Orlikowski using a socio-technical approach. It was found that participants who achieved a high level of implementation success were reflexive and resourceful in adapting the technology to their changing needs, often in ways unanticipated by DSS builders.

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

cotton
qualitative
case study
implementation

decision support systems
farm management
australia
diffusion theory
structurational model of technology
socio-technical


An innovationdiffusion view of implementation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems and development of a research model ? Firms around the world have been implementing enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems since the 1990s to have an uniform information system in their respective organizations and to reengineer their business processes. Through a case type analysis conducted in six manufacturing firms that have one of the widely used ERP systems, various contextual factors that influenced these firms to implement this technology were understood using the six-stage model proposed by Kwon and Zmud. Three types of ERP systems, viz. SAP, Baan and Oracle ERP were studied in this research. Implementation of ERP systems was found to follow the stage model. The findings from the process model were used to develop the items for the causal model and in identifying appropriate constructs to group those items. In order to substantiate that the constructs developed to measure the causal model were congruent with the findings based on qualitative analysis, i.e. that the instrument appropriately reflects the understanding of the case interview; triangulation technique was used. The findings from the qualitative study and the results from the quantitative study were found to be equivalent, thus, ensuring a fair assessment of the validity and reliability of the instrument developed to test the causal model. The quantitative measures done only at these six firms are not statistically significant but the samples were used as a part of the triangulation method to collect data from multiple sources, to verify the respondents understanding of the scales and as an initial measure to see if my understanding from the qualitative studies were accurately reflected by the instrument. This instrument will be pilot tested first and administered to a large sample of firms.

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

process model
causal model
contextual factors
triangulation

enterprise resource planning (erp) systems


Biasing Bayesian Optimization Algorithm using Case Based Reasoning Studies show that application of the prior knowledge in biasing the Estimation of Distribution Algorithms (EDAs), such as Bayesian Optimization Algorithm (BOA), increases the efficiency of these algorithms significantly. One of the main advantages of the EDAs over other optimization algorithms is that the former provides a trail of probabilistic models of candidate solutions with increasing quality. Some recent studies have applied these probabilistic models, obtained from previously solved problems in biasing the BOA algorithm, to solve the future problems. In this paper, in order to improve the previous works and reduce their disadvantages, a method based on Case Based Reasoning (CBR) is proposed for biasing the BOA algorithm. Herein, after running BOA for solving optimization problems, each problem, the corresponding solution, as well as the last Bayesian network obtained from the BOA algorithm, will be stored as an entry in the case-base. Upon introducing a new problem, similar problems from the case-base are retrieved and the last Bayesian networks of these solved problems are combined according to the degree of their similarity with the new problem; hence, a compound Bayesian network is constructed. The compound Bayesian network is sampled and the initial population for the BOA algorithm is generated. This network will be applied efficiently for biasing future probabilistic models during the runs of BOA for the new problem. The proposed method is tested on three well-known combinatorial benchmark problems. Experimental results show significant improvements in algorithm execution time and quality of solutions, compared to previous methods.

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

bayesian optimization algorithm
bayesian network
case based reasoning
initial population


A numerical study on mechanical performance of asphalt mixture using a meso-scale finite element model This paper concerns with meso-scale finite element (FE) modeling of asphalt mixtures. The proposed FE model is capable of simulating the complex geometry of several types of asphalt mixture in which different gradations of aggregates could be properly modeled. The meso-structure of the mixture is constructed by a novel technique identified in this paper. The main idea of such technique is that the aggregate particles could be randomly packed together into the simulation region, by defining a kind of artificial interaction forces among the particles. After that by the Voronoi tessellation method, the set of the generated discrete grains will alter to space-filling, adjoining polyhedrons with respect to the real geometry so that it were possible to investigate the behavior of mixture by finite element method. Such a model considers the main components of the asphalt mixture consisting of aggregate particles, mastic, interfacial zone and air voids. Moreover, different moving wheel loads with different passing velocities are considered and their effects on the mechanical responses of the asphalt mixture are examined. The FE model gives some better insights into the behavior of mixture's components under moving loads. The responses include vertical displacement of the pavement surface as well as the development of stress in mixture components. The proposed models give results that are in agreement with theoretical predictions and previous studies.

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


expressive and efficient pattern languages for tree-structured data (extended abstract) It would be desirable to have a query language for tree-structured data that is (1) as easily usable as SQL, (2) as expressive as monadic second-order logic (MSO), and (3) efficiently evaluable. The paper develops some ideas in this direction. Towards (1) the specification of sets of vertices of a tree by combining conditions on their induced subtree with conditions on their path to the root is proposed. Existing query languages allow regular expressions (hence MSO logic) in path conditions but are limited in expressing subtree conditions. It is shown that such query languages fall short of capturing all MSO queries. On the other hand, allowing a certain guarded fragment of MSO-logic in the specification of subtree conditions results in a language fulfilling (2), (3) and, anguably, (1).

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

tree
language
sql
query languages
queries
logic
paper

fragmentation
regular expression
order
pattern language
efficiency
abstraction
usability
express
direct
combinational
structural data


A Fuzzy Approach to Resource Aware Automatic Parallelization Any realistic approach to automatic program parallelization must take into account practical issues related to the resource usage of parallel executions, such as the overheads associated with parallel tasks creation, migration of tasks to remote processors, and communication. The aim of granularity control techniques is avoiding such overheads undermining the benefits of parallel executions. For example, sufficient conditions have been proposed to ensure that the parallel execution of some given tasks will not take longer than their corresponding sequential execution. However, when the goal is to optimize the average execution time of several runs, such conditions can be very conservative, causing a loss in parallelization opportunities. To solve this problem, we have proposed novel conditions based on fuzzy logic and performed an experimental assessment with real programs. The results show that such conditions select the optimal type of execution in most cases and behave much better than the conservative conditions.

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

automatic parallelization
granularity control

fuzzy logic application
parallel computing
scheduling
complexity analysis


A survey of experienced user perceptions about software design patterns Although the concept of the software design pattern is well-established, there is relatively little empirical knowledge about the patterns that experienced users consider to be most valuable. To identify which patterns from the set catalogued by the Gang of Four are considered to be useful by experienced users, which ones are considered as not being useful, and why this is so. We undertook a web-based survey of experienced pattern users, seeking information about their experiences as software developers and maintainers. Our sampling frame consisted of the authors of all of the pattern papers that we had identified in a preceding systematic review of studies of patterns. We received 206 usable responses, corresponding to a response rate of 19% from the original sampling frame. Most respondents were involved with software development rather than maintenance. While patterns can provide a means of sharing knowledge schemas between designers, only three patterns were widely regarded as valuable. Around one quarter of the patterns gained very low approval or worse. These observations need to be considered when using patterns; teaching students about the pattern concept; and planning empirical studies about patterns.

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

software design patterns
survey
software design


Integrating radial basis function networks with case-based reasoning for product design This paper presents a case-based design expert system that automatically determines the design values of a product. We focus on the design problem of a shadow mask which is a core component of monitors in the electronics industry. In case-based reasoning (CBR), it is important to retrieve similar cases and adapt them to meet design specifications exactly. Notably, difficulties in automating the adaptation process have prevented designers from being able to use design expert systems easily and efficiently. In this paper, we present a hybrid approach combining CBR and artificial neural networks in order to solve the problems Occurring during the adaptation process. We first constructed a radial basis function network (RBFN) composed of representative cases created by K-means clustering. Then, the representative case most similar to the current problem was adjusted using the network. The rationale behind the proposed approach is discussed, and experimental results acquired from real shadow mask design are presented. Using the design expert system, designers can reduce design time and errors and enhance the total quality of design. Furthermore, the expert system facilitates effective sharing of design knowledge among designers. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

case-based reasoning (cbr)
radial basis function network (rbfn)


RNA-Mediated Inhibition of HIV in a Gene Therapy Setting At present, treatment for HIV-1 infection employs highly active anti-retroviral therapy (HAART), which utilizes a combination of RT and protease inhibitors. Unfortunately, HIV can escape many therapies because of its high mutation rate and the complexity of its pathogenesis. HIV-1 integrates into the cellular genome, which facilitates persistence and acts as a reservoir for reactivation and replication. As an alternative or adjuvant to chemotherapy we have been developing an RNA-based gene therapy approach for the treatment of HIV-1 infection. This article summarizes the various RNA based technologies that we have developed for potential application in a gene therapy setting.

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

ribozymes
nucleolar rna decoys
sirnas
lentiviral vector
hiv-1


Identifying and quantifying metabolites by scoring peaks of GC-MS data Metabolomics is one of most recent omics technologies. It has been applied on fields such as food science, nutrition, drug discovery and systems biology. For this, gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) has been largely applied and many computational tools have been developed to support the analysis of metabolomics data. Among them, AMDIS is perhaps the most used tool for identifying and quantifying metabolites. However, AMDIS generates a high number of false-positives and does not have an interface amenable for high-throughput data analysis. Although additional computational tools have been developed for processing AMDIS results and to perform normalisations and statistical analysis of metabolomics data, there is not yet a single free software or package able to reliably identify and quantify metabolites analysed by GC-MS.

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


Optical properties of SiC/AZO plasmonic nano composite at infrared frequencies We report a study of the optical properties of a mixture of spherical inclusions within a host continuum. The structure of the designed SiC/AZO material is a binary composite of two different kinds of nano spheres, one made from a semiconductor material (SiC) and the other from a plasmonic material (AZO). Its electromagnetic response is studied using the extended MaxwellGarnett effective medium theory and a rigorous method based on layer-multiple-scattering theory. A very nice agreement between both treatments is established, rendering the effective medium approximation a useful guide for the experimentalist in the field.

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

plasmonic composite
extended maxwellgarnett theory
layer-multiple-scattering method
effective permittivity
effective permeability


Linear broadcast encryption schemes A new family of broadcast encryption schemes, which will be called linear broadcast encryption schemes (LBESs), is presented in this paper by using linear algebraic techniques. This family generalizes most previous proposals and provides a general framework to the study of broadcast encryption schemes. We present a method to construct, for a general specification structure, LBESs with a good trade-off between the amount of secret information stored by every user and the length of the broadcast message. In this way, we are able to find schemes that fit in situations that have not been considered before.

O B I 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 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

distributed cryptography
key distribution
key predistribution schemes


programming living cells to function as massively parallel computers We have reprogrammed the genomes of living cells to construct massively parallel biological computers capable of processing two-dimensional images at a theoretical resolution of greater than 100 megapixels per square inch. First, we rewired a signal transduction pathway in Escherichia coli to express a pigment producing enzyme under the control of red light. We then use the engineered bacteria as pixels in biological film. Next, use the 'bacterial photography' technology as tool for the engineering of a massively parallel biological computer which uses cell-cell communication to compute the edges (light-dark boundaries) within images.

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

edge detection
cellular computing
synthetic biology
image processing


performance optimization of large non-negatively constrained least squares problems with an application in biophysics Solving large non-negatively constrained least squares systems is frequently used in the physical sciences to estimate model parameters which best fit experimental data. Analytical Ultracentrifugation (AUC) is an important hydrodynamic experimental technique used in biophysics to characterize macromolecules and to determine parameters such as molecular weight and shape. We previously developed a parallel divide and conquer method to facilitate solving the large systems obtained from AUC experiments. New AUC instruments equipped with multi-wavelength (MWL) detectors have recently increased the data sizes by three orders of magnitude. Analyzing the MWL data requires significant compute resources. To better utilize these resources, we introduce a procedure allowing the researcher to optimize the divide and conquer scheme along a continuum from minimum wall time to minimum compute service units. We achieve our results by implementing a preprocessing stage performed on a local workstation before job submission.

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


Influence of equivalent bolt length in finite element modeling of T-stub steel connections In this paper the development and implementation of a finite element model for simple T-stub steel connections is presented. Material and geometric non-linearities as well as contact and friction have been implemented in the model. The model is validated by comparison with experimental data found in the literature, for configurations exhibiting different failure mechanisms and featuring different bolt preloading levels. The impact of bolt length considered in the model is investigated and is shown to be of primary importance. This issue is representative of the continuously increasing use of advanced numerical analysis, supported by progress in computational mechanics, as a tool for practical design of engineering structures.

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

steel connections
finite element modeling
contact

t-stub
material and geometric non-linearity


A novel FEM model for biaxial non-crimp fabric composite materials under tension This paper presents a novel finite element based approach able to represent the complex architecture of the non-crimp fabric (NCF) composite materials. By means of the stiffness averaging method, implemented in the research oriented FEM (finite element method) code B2000, the developed model is able to simulate the NCFs mechanical performances. Applications to simple coupons loaded in tension are presented in order to demonstrate the capability and the effectiveness of the presented approach. Nevertheless, the proposed methodology can be applied and extended to all NCF geometries. First, for validation purposes the numerical results detained for a specific configuration have been compared with experimental results available from literature. Then, a parametric study has been carried out to investigate the influence of the bundle waviness on the tension stiffness. Finally, due to the degradation of the in-plane mechanical properties, the presence of the stitching has been investigated.

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

ncf
stiffness averaging method
stitching
waviness
fem


Implementing polyinstantiation as a strategy for electronic commerce customer relationship management Polyinstantiation is the situation where multiple records sharing the same identifier value occur in one table. Multi-level secure (MLS) data models manage and utilize polyinstantiation to provide a secure way of handling classified information. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems for e-business can leverage the strategy of managed polyinstantiation by implementing MLS technology to coordinate B2C interactions in order to build long-term loyalty. This approach can be used to address some of the challenges faced by providers and adopters of e-business CRM technology solutions. A pilot study evaluated polyinstantiated information-presentation strategy as a means of enhancing relationships between e-businesses and their customers. The results support the idea that customers perceive the benefits of their special customer status as a function of how the relevant data are presented.

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

customer behavior
customer relationship management (crm)
e-commerce crm
information presentation
market segmentation
multi-level secure (mls) data model


Bayesian age-period-cohort modeling and prediction - BAMP The software package B A M P provides a method of analyzing incidence or mortality data on the Lexis diagram, using a Bayesian version of an age-period-cohort model. A hierarchical model is assumed with a binomial model in the first-stage. As smoothing priors for the age, period and cohort parameters random walks of first and second order, with and without an additional unstructured component are available. Unstructured heterogeneity can also be included in the model. In order to evaluate the model fit, posterior deviance, DIC and predictive deviances are computed. By projecting the random walk prior into the future, future death rates can be predicted.

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

bayesian hierarchical models
age-period-cohort models


Knowledge based manufacturing system (KBMS) Production management, in batch type manufacturing environment, is regarded by the current research community as a very complex task. This paper claims that the complexity is a result of the system approach where management performance relies on decisions made at a too early stage in the manufacturing process. Decisions are made and stored in company databases by engineers who are neither economists nor production planner's experts. This paper presents a new method where engineer's task is not to make decisions but rather to prepare a knowledge-based "road map". The road map method does introduce flexibility and dynamics in the manufacturing process and thus simplifies the decision making process in production planning. Each user will generate a routine that meets his/her needs at the time of needs by using KBMS CAPP. Thereby this method increases dramatically manufacturing efficiency.

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

scheduling
capacity planning
shop floor control


Document retrieval by projection based frequency distribution In document retrieval task, random projection (RP) is a useful technique of dimension reduction. It can be obtained very quickly yet the recalculation is not necessary to any changes. However, in lower dimension, random projection has instability by randomness in itself. In this investigation, we propose a new technique, called skewed projection (SP), for dimension reduction based on term frequency distribution. By our experiments, we show that we can take advantages of local independence thus we can obtain efficient retrieval for documents which belong to specific application area. Also we examine document size by which we can determine term distribution.

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

skewed projection
random projection
dimension reduction

information retrieval
vector space model


robust blind watermarking mechanism for motion data streams The commercial reuse of 3D motion capture (Mocap) data in animation and life sciences raises issues with respect to its copyright. In order to improvise content protection of Mocap data, we devise a substitutive blind watermarking technique. This technique visualizes 3D Mocap data as a series of non-intersecting cluster of triangles. Bits are encoded inside the triangles by using an extended substitutive bit encoder in spatial domain. The encoding supports watermark imperceptibility and develops robustness against affine transforms (rotation, translation, scaling), noise addition, reordering and sample loss attacks. Security of the scheme can be enhanced by adding secret embedding distances between clusters, which are based on a secret key used for watermarking purpose.

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

spatial watermarking imperceptibility encoding blind


Computational expressiveness of Genetic Systems We introduce Genetic Systems, a formalism inspired by genetic regulatory networks and suitable for modelin g the interactions between the genes and the proteins, acting as regulatory products. The generation of: new objects, representing proteins, is driven by genetic gates: a new object is produced when all the activator objects are available in the system, and no inhibitor object is available. Activators are not consumed by the application of such an evolution rule. Objects disappear because of degradation: each object is equipped with a lifetime, and the object decays when such a lifetime expires. We investigate the computational expressiveness of Genetic Systems: we show that they are Turing equivalent by providing encodings of Random Access Machines in Genetic Systems. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

concurrency and distributed computation
molecular computation


Identifying the nature of stomach diseases by ultrasonography based on genetic neural network Clinical features and ultrasound signs of 76 subjects including 23 health subjects are collected. All samples are divided into the training set (38 samples) and the test set (38 samples) based on mean vector similarity. Each set contains 19 benign and 19 malignant. Multiple linear regression model (MLR-Model), back propagation neural network model (BPN-Model) and genetic algorithm-based back propagation neural network model (GABPN-Model) are established for distinguishing malignant from benign stomach diseases and are trained using the training set. Then three models are tested using the test set. The accuracy, the sensitivity and the specificity for the test set, GABPN-Model are 92.1%, 89.5% and 94.7%, BPN-Model are 89.5%, 89.5% and 89.5%, MLR-Model are 89.5%, 84.2% and 94.7%. Areas under curve of GABPN-Model, BPN-Model and MLR-Model are respectively 0.978, 0.945 and 0.958 in ROC analysis. These results confirm that Color Doppler ultrasound can be used as a tool for distinguishing benign from malignant stomach diseases (p < 0.01). Genetic algorithm-based neural network outperforms the multivariate linear regression and the back propagation neural network to establish a model identifying the nature of stomach diseases. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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 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 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

computer-assisted diagnosis
artificial neural network
genetic algorithm


The selection and assemblage of approximation functions and disposal of its singularity in axisymmetric DRBEM for heat transfer problems In this paper, a group of approximation functions f with summed form are developed in the dual reciprocity boundary element method (DRBEM) based on the three-dimensional Poisson-type equation whose right-hand side is radial basis function. The singularity on symmetrical axis of the function f is eliminated by integral averaging and selecting different assemblage of the functions f on the basis of the different characteristic of computational domains. By solving the transient heat conduction problems in solid cylinder and sphere, the laminar convective heat transfer problem in tube and the solidliquid phase change process of sphere, the feasibility of present selecting and assembling function f and its singularity processing are well proved.

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

approximation function f
axisymmetric problems


A new coupled fluidstructure modeling methodology for running ductile fracture A coupled fluidstructure modeling methodology for running ductile fracture in pressurized pipelines has been developed. The pipe material and fracture propagation have been modeled using the finite-element method with a ductile fracture criterion. The finite-volume method has been employed to simulate the fluid flow inside the pipe, and the resulting pressure profile was applied as a load in the finite-element model. Choked-flow theory was used for calculating the flow through the pipe crack. A comparison to full-scale tests of running ductile fracture in steel pipelines pressurized with hydrogen and with methane has been done, and very promising results have been obtained.

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


A dempster-shafer theoretic framework for boosting based ensemble design Training set resampling based ensemble design techniques are successfully used to reduce the classification errors of the base classifiers. Boosting is one of the techniques used for this purpose where each training set is obtained by drawing samples with replacement from the available training set according to a weighted distribution which is modified for each new classifier to be included in the ensemble. The weighted resampling results in a classifier set, each being accurate in different parts of the input space mainly specified the sample weights. In this study, a dynamic integration of boosting based ensembles is proposed so as to take into account the heterogeneity of the input sets. An evidence-theoretic framework is developed for this purpose so as to take into account the weights and distances of the neighboring training samples in both training and testing boosting based ensembles. The effectiveness of the proposed technique is compared to the AdaBoost algorithm using three different base classifiers.

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

evidential pattern classification
classifier ensembles
dynamic classifier combination
sample neighborhood information


BPELDebugger: An effective BPEL-specific fault localization framework ? A formal fault localization framework for BPEL programs. Synthesization of existing fault localization techniques in the proposed framework. An empirical study that validated the feasibility of the proposed framework. Significant improvements in fault localization effectiveness are observed.

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

service compositions
fault localization guidelines
integration and interaction faults


Development of a moving artificial compressibility solver on unified coordinates Based on the unified Eulerian and Lagrangian coordinate transformations, the unsteady incompressible Navier-Stokes equations with artificial compressibility effects are developed. As we know, the Eulerian coordinates cause excessive numerical diffusion across flow discontinuities, slip lines in particular. The Lagrangian coordinates, on the other hand, can resolve slip lines sharply but cause severe grid deformation, resulting in large errors and even breakdown of the Computation. Recently, Hui et al. (J. Comput. Phys. 1999; 153:596-637) have introduced a unified coordinate system that moves with velocity hq, q being the velocity of the fluid particle. It includes the Eulerian system as a special case when h = 0, and the Lagrangian when h = 1, and was shown for the two-dimensional unsteady Euler equations of compressible flow to be superior than both Eulerian and Lagrangian systems. In the framework of unified coordinates, our work will derive the unsteady incompressible flow equations and moving geometry equations, when hq equals and velocity in conservation form and is updated simultaneous] during each time step. Thus, the accurate estimation of geometry conservation and controlling the grid velocity or the h value based on the unified approach can keep numerical stability and avoid computation breakdown caused by moving body or boundary layers (considered as slip lines in Lagrangian coordinates). Also, the existing high-resolution Riemann solver can be extended to discretize the Current unified incompressible flow equations. Our benchmark tests including the lid-driven cavity flow and backward step flow, oscillating flat plat and pulsating stenotic tube are used to validate the Computations. The results verify the accuracy and robustness of the unified artificial compressibility solver on the moving body simulation. Copyright (c) 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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 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 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 B I I O O O O O O O O

unified coordinates
incompressible flow
moving body simulation

artificial compressibility fluid-structure interaction


Single-case study in rehabilitation with SaM method (Sense and Mind): a proposal and analysis The aim of the present case report is to describe a new rehabilitation approach for traumatic brain injury (TBI).

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 B O O O O O B

embodied cognition
neuropsychology
spatial skills
process-oriented approach


Enhanced and hierarchical structure algorithm for data imbalance problem in semantic extraction under massive video dataset Data imbalance problem often exists in our real life dataset, especial for massive video dataset, however, the balanced data distribution and the same misclassification cost are assumed in traditional machine learning algorithms, thus, it will be difficult for them to accurately describe the true data distribution, and resulting in misclassification. In this paper, the data imbalance problem in semantic extraction under massive video dataset is exploited, and enhanced and hierarchical structure (called EHS) algorithm is proposed. In proposed algorithm, data sampling, filtering and model training are considered and integrated together compactly via hierarchical structure algorithm, thus, the performance of model can be improved step by step, and is robust and stability with the change of features and datasets. Experiments on TRECVID2010 Semantic Indexing demonstrate that our proposed algorithm has much more powerful performance than that of traditional machine learning algorithms, and keeps stable and robust when different kinds of features are employed. Extended experiments on TRECVID2010 Surveillance Event Detection also prove that our EHS algorithm is efficient and effective, and reaches top performance in four of seven events.

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

data imbalance
semantic indexing
surveillance event detection
massive video dataset

enhanced and hierarchical structure (ehs)


Using equivalence-checking to verify robustness to denial of service In this paper, we introduce a new security property which intends to capture the ability of a cryptographic protocol being resistant to denial of service. This property, called impassivity, is formalised in the framework of a generic value-passing process algebra, called Security Protocol Process Algebra, extended with local function calls, cryptographic primitives and special semantics features in order to cope with cryptographic protocols. Impassivity is defined as an information flow property founded on bisimulation-based non-deterministic admissible interference. A sound and complete proof method, based on equivalence-checking, for impassivity is also derived. The method extends results presented in a previous paper on admissible interference and its application to the analysis of cryptographic protocols. Our equivalence-checking method is illustrated throughout the paper on the TCP/IP connection protocol and on the 1KP secure electronic payment protocol.

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

denial of service
protocols
process algebra
admissible interference


an interactive system for computer-aided design of printed circuit boards This paper describes an interactive system for the design of printed circuit boards. The system uses an interactive graphics terminal for solving the placement and routing problems. It can be used for designing two-layer boards with integrated circuit modules and discrete components. A substantial portion of the wire-routing is performed automatically and the remaining wires are routed manually in a single interactive session. The system provides significant savings in both design time and processing costs over batch processing and manual methods.

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

printed circuit board design
computer-aided design
design automation


A class of composable and preemptible high-level Petri nets with an application to multi-tasking systems This paper presents an extension of an algebra of high-level Petri nets with operations for suspension and abortion. These operations are sound with respect to the semantics of preemption, and can be applied to the modelling of the semantics of high-level parallel programming languages with preemption-related features. As an illustration, the paper gives an application to the modelling of a multi-tasking system in a parallel programming language, which is provided with a concurrent semantics based on Petri nets and for which implemented tools can be used.

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


Facial emotion and gesture reproduction method for substitute robot of remote person CEOs of big companies may travel frequently to give their philosophies and policies to the employees who arc working at world wide branches. Video technology makes it possible to give their lectures anywhere and anytime in the world very easily. However, 2-dimentional video systems lack the reality. If we can give natural realistic lectures through humanoid robots. CEOs do not need to meet the employees in person. They can save their time and money for traveling. We propose a substitute robot of remote person. The substitute robot is a humanoid robot that can reproduce the lecturers' facial expressions and body movements, and that can send the lecturers to everywhere in the world instantaneously with the feeling of being at a live performance. There arc two major tasks for the development; they arc the facial expression recognition/reproduction and the body language reproduction. For the former task, we proposed a facial expression recognition method based oil a neural network model. We recognized five emotions, or surprise, anger, sadness, happiness and no emotion, in real time. We also developed a facial robot to reproduce the recognized emotion on the robot face. Through experiments, we showed that the robot could reproduce the speakers' emotions with its face. For the latter task, we proposed it degradation control method to reproduce the natural movement of the lecturer even when a robot rotary joint fails. For the fundamental stage of our research for this sub-system, we proposed a control method for the front view movement model, or 2-dimentional model. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

O O O B I O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 Response of nNOS Knockout Mice to MDMA (Ecstasy)- and Methamphetamine-Induced Psychomotor Sensitization and Neurotoxicity It has been shown that mice deficient in neuronal nitric oxide synthase (nNOS) gene are resistant to cocaine-induced psychomotor sensitization and methamphetamine (METH)-induced dopaminergic neurotoxicity. The present study was undertaken to investigate the hypothesis that nNOS has a major role in dopamine (DA)- but not serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine; 5-HT)-mediated effects of psychostimulants. The response of nNOS knockout (KO) and wild-type (WT) mice to the psychomotor-stimulating and neurotoxic effects of 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA; Ecstasy) and METH were investigated. Repeated administration of MDMA for 5 days resulted in psychomotor sensitization in both WT and nNOS KO mice, while repeated administration of METH caused psychomotor sensitization in WT but not in KO mice. Sensitization to both MDMA and METH was persistent for 40 days in WT mice, but not in nNOS KO mice. These findings suggest that the induction of psychomotor sensitization to MDMA and METH is NO independent and NO dependent, respectively, while the persistence of sensitization to both drugs is NO dependent. For the neurochemical studies, a high dose of MDMA caused marked depletion of 5-HT in several brain regions of both WT and KO mice, suggesting that the absence of the nNOS gene did not afford protection against MDMA-induced depletion of 5-HT. Striatal dopaminergic neurotoxicity caused by high doses of MDMA and METH in WT mice was partially prevented in KO mice administered with MDMA, but it was fully precluded in KO mice administered with METH. The differential response of nNOS KO mice to the behavioral and neurotoxic effects of MDMA and METH suggests that the nNOS gene is required for the expression and persistence of DA-mediated effects of METH and MDMA, while 5-HT-mediated effects of MDMA (induction of sensitization and 5-HT depletion) are not dependent on nNOS.

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

knockout mice
neurotoxicity
dopamine
serotonin


Automatic programming methodologies for electronic hardware fault monitoring This paper presents three variants of Genetic Programming (GP) approaches for intelligent online performance monitoring of electronic circuits and systems. Reliability modeling of electronic circuits can be best performed by the stressor-susceptibility interaction model. A circuit or a system is considered to be failed once the stressor has exceeded the susceptibility limits. For on-line prediction, validated stressor vectors may be obtained by direct measurements or sensors, which after pre-processing and standardization are fed into the GP models. Empirical results are compared with artificial neural networks trained using backpropagation algorithm and classification and regression trees. The performance of the proposed method is evaluated by comparing the experiment results with the actual failure model values. The developed model reveals that GP could play an important role for future fault monitoring systems.

O O O O B I 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 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 B I O

genetic programming
neural networks
fault monitoring
electronic hardware

decision trees
computational intelligence


Reproducing Kernel Hilbert Spaces With Odd Kernels in Price Prediction For time series of futures contract prices, the expected price change is modeled conditional on past price changes. The proposed model takes the form of regression in a reproducing kernel Hilbert space with the constraint that the regression function must be odd. It is shown how the resulting constrained optimization problem can be reduced to an unconstrained one through appropriate modification of the kernel. In particular, it is shown how odd, even, and other similar kernels emerge naturally as the reproducing kernels of Hilbert subspaces induced by respective symmetry constraints. To test the validity and practical usefulness of the oddness assumption, experiments are run with large real-world datasets on four futures contracts, and it is demonstrated that using odd kernels results in a higher predictive accuracy and a reduced tendency to overfit.

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

financial time series
kernel ridge regression (krr)
odd kernel
reproducing kernel hilbert space (rkhs)


Computational simulation modelling of bioreactor configurations for regenerating human bladder The objective of this study was to investigate a bioreactor suitable for human bladder regeneration. Simulations were performed using the computational fluid dynamic tools. The thickness of the bladder scaffold was 3mm, similar to the human bladder, and overall hold-up volume within the spherical shape scaffold was 755ml. All simulations were performed using (i) Brinkman equation on porous regions using the properties of 1% chitosan-1% gelatin structures, (ii) Michaelis-Menten type rate law nutrient consumption for smooth muscle cells (SMCs) and (iii) Mackie-Meares relationship for determining effective diffusivities. Steady state simulations were performed using flow rates from 0.5 to 5ml/min. Two different inlet shapes: (i) straight entry at the centre (Design 1) and (ii) entry with an expansion (Design 2) were simulated to evaluate shear stress distribution. Also, mimicking bladder shape of two inlets (Design 3) was tested. Design 2 provided the uniform shear stress at the inlet and nutrient distribution, which was further investigated for the effect of scaffold locations within the reactor: (i) attached with a 3-mm open channel (Design 2-A), (ii) flow through with no open channel (Design 2-B) and (iii) porous structure suspended in the middle with 1.5-mm open channel on either side (Design 2-C). In Design 2-A and 2-C, fluid flow occurred by diffusion dominant mechanisms. Furthermore, the designed bioreactor is suitable for increased cell density of SMCs. These results showed that increasing the flow rate is necessary due to the decreased permeability at cell densities similar to the human bladder.

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


Codes based on BCK-algebras The notion of a BCK-valued function on a set is introduced, and related properties are investigated. Codes generated by BCK-valued functions are established.

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


Rule-based management for simulation in agricultural decision support systems Rule-based management systems can offer the farmer or consultant the opportunity to better approximate current or proposed management options, especially as they relate to dynamic conditions in farm fields and across the whole farm. Most existing attempts at rule-based management within simulation-oriented agricultural decision support systems (DSS) involve limited extension of fixed management dates in response to environmental conditions, or involve rules for implementing limited management events such as fertilizer applications or irrigations. A comprehensive rule-based management system for agricultural DSS was developed that allows simulated management events to occur in response to flexible producer-defined rules and to weather and management induced changes in the soilcrop system over time and space. The system provides a simple, English-based rules language, a rules development editor, and software to parse and interpret these rules and provide linkages to application DSS software packages such as Great Plains Framework for Agricultural Resource Management (GPFARM). Rules can be quickly and easily developed that cover management activities for individual management units (MUs) or groups of MUs. Feedback to the simulation package at each time step provides for generation of site- and time-specific management events across the application. Tests of the rule-based system on: wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), corn (Zea mays L.), fallow and wheatfallow crop rotations used in eastern Colorado showed that management events were simulated within the correct time windows and in the proper sequence. Dates for simulated events varied as expected across each rotational cycle as a function of temporal conditions. Additional work is anticipated to allow dynamic calculation of event attributes, capture and implementation of producer time priorities, and a simplified menu system for the rule editor.

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

whole-farm management
production rules
soilcrop models


Estimation of predictive uncertainties in flood wave propagation in a river channel using adjoint sensitivity analysis This paper applies adjoint sensitivity analysis to flash flood wave propagation in a river channel. A numerical model, based on the St-Venant equations and the corresponding adjoint equations, determines the sensitivities of predicted water levels to uncertainities in key controls such as inflow hydrograph, channel topography, frictional resistance and infiltration rate. Sensitivities are calculated in terms of a measuring function that quantifies water levels greater than certain safe threshold levels along the channel. The adjoint model has been verified by means of an identical twin experiment. The method is applied to a Simulated flash flood in a river channel. The sensitivities to key controls are evaluated and ranked and the effects of individual and combined uncertainties on the predicted flood impact are also quantified. Copyright (C) 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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

data assimilation
open channel flow
numerical models
st-venant equations


Identifying material properties of a dielectric motor Purpose - The purpose of the paper is to define a methodology for identifying the electric conductivity and permittivity of lossy dielectric materials employed in a class of small dielectric motors, knowing the motor torque. Reference is made to data measured on an existing prototype. Design/methodology/approach - The motor operates because of the interaction between a rotating electric field, generated by a three-phase system of electrodes, and the charge density induced at the surface of the rotor, which lags with respect to the field. The stator and the rotor are hollow cylinders made of dielectric materials. A finite-element model of the motor has been developed. For a given set of material properties, the time-averaged value of starting torque acting on the rotor is evaluated by means of the Maxwell stress tensor. Findings - A family of curves of starting torque vs conductivity for different values of rotor permittivity are obtained. Each curve is well approximated by a Lorentz distribution. Originality/value - A field model of the motor was exploited to estimate the conductivity that gives rise to a prescribed value of the starting torque. The solution of the underlying inverse problem, which is ill-posed, can give an helpful insight for maximizing the torque.

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

electrically operated devices
numerical analysis
electrical conductivity


Estimation of the principle curvatures of approximated surfaces This paper presents a method for estimating curvature values of a surface, which is given only approximatively, e.g., by measured data. The presented method requires estimates of the curvature of curves. These lead, along with the theorems from Euler and Meusnier, to the values of surface curvature. Methods are presented, which converge with the different error order of O(h(2)) and O(h(2n)). For the first of them explicit formulae are given. It is proved that the error order remains the same through all further calculations until the final estimation of surface curvature is found. (C) 2000 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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


Performance analysis of an improved soft preemptive scheme for unevenly distributed traffic in optical wavelength-division multiplexing networks In optical wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) networks, traffic can be unevenly distributed across the network causing inefficient utilization of resources. To solve this problem, an improved soft preemptive (SP) scheme is proposed by considering dynamic resource distribution to deal with the uneven network utilization. A novel unevenly distributed traffic model in cross-time-zone networks is also presented to evaluate the efficiency of the new scheme. Compared with other schemes such as normal shortest path first (SPF) routing and wavelength conversion (WC), the new proposed scheme results demonstrate significantly better performance with respect to the network utilization and overall network blocking probability.

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

unevenly distributed traffic
wavelength conversion

optical wdm networks
net work utilization
soft preemption
traffic engineering


An effective taint-based software vulnerability miner Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to propose an approach to detect Indirect Memory-Corruption Exploit (IMCE) at runtime on binary code, which is often caused by integer conversion error. Real-world attacks were evaluated for experimentation. Design/methodology/approach - Current dynamic analysis detects attacks by enforcing low level policy which can only detect control-flow hijacking attack. The proposed approach detects IMCE with high level policy enforcement using dynamic taint analysis. Unlike low-level policy enforced on instruction level, the authors' policy is imposed on memory operation routine. The authors implemented a fine-grained taint analysis system with accurate taint propagation for detection. Findings - Conversion errors are common and most of them are legitimate. Taint analysis with high-level policy can accurately block IMCE but have false positives. Proper design of data structures to maintain taint tag can greatly improve overhead. Originality/value - This paper proposes an approach to block IMCE with high-level policy enforcement using taint analysis. It has very low false negatives, though still causes certain false positives. The authors made several implementation contributions to strengthen accuracy and performance.

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

data structures
exploit
taint analysis
policy

data security
data management
computer software


CRONOA code for the simulation of chemical weathering We present a code CRONO for simulation of chemical weathering. Dissolution kinetics is combined with the calculation of thermodynamic equilibrium. This algorithm simulates the regolith forming in time. This algorithm emulates low-temperature systems that do not reach the equilibrium. The application of the code was illustrated by an example of weathering of basalts.

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

kinetics of minerals dissolution
thermodynamic modeling
waterrock systems


approximating minimum size weakly-connected dominating sets for clustering mobile ad hoc networks We present a series of approximation algorithms for finding a small weakly-connected dominating set (WCDS) in a given graph to be used in clustering mobile ad hoc networks. The structure of a graph can be simplified using WCDS's and made more succinct for routing in ad hoc networks. The theoretical performance ratio of these algorithms is O (ln ?) compared to the minimum size WCDS, where ? is the maximum degree of the input graph. The first two algorithms are based on the centralized approximation algorithms of Guha and Khuller cite guha-khuller-1998 for finding small connected dominating sets (CDS's). The main contribution of this work is a completely distributed algorithm for finding small WCDS's and the performance of this algorithm is shown to be very close to that of the centralized approach. Comparisons between our work and some previous work (CDS-based) are also given in terms of the size of resultant dominating sets and graph connectivity degradation.

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

dominating set
approximation algorithms
structure
input
size
performance
clustering
graph
routing
algorithm
mobile ad hoc networks

network
weakly-connected dominating set
approximation
centrality
connection
distributed algorithm
ad hoc network


Incorporating partial matches within multiobjective pharmacophore identification This paper describes the extension of our earlier multiobjective method for generating plausible pharmacophore hypotheses to incorporate partial matches. Diverse sets of molecules rarely adopt exactly the same binding mode, and so allowing the identification of partial matches allows our program to be applied to larger and more diverse datasets. The method explores the conformational space of a series of ligands simultaneously with their alignment using a multiobjective genetic algorithm (MOGA). The principles of Pareto ranking are used to evolve a diverse set of pharmacophore hypotheses that are optimised on conformational energy of the ligands, the goodness of the overlay and the volume of the overlay. A partial match is defined as a pharmacophoric feature that is present in at least two, but not all, of the ligands in the set. The number of ligands that map to a given pharmacophore point is taken into account when evaluating an overlay. The method is applied to a number of test cases extracted from the Protein Data Bank (PDB) where the true overlay is known.

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

pharmacophore
moga
multiobjective genetic algorithm
partial matches

molecular alignment
multiobjective optimisation


DNA SEQUENCE RECONSTRUCTION BASED ON GENETIC ALGORITHM It is becoming increasingly important to develop a novel process for determining the letters of our genetic code, known as DNA sequencing. This task is performed by large datasets using the combination of heuristic methods with little mathematical calculation. In this paper, we present a new method for DNA sequence reconstruction using genetic algorithm, which is able to predict the actual DNA sequence. The performance of the genetic algorithm is evaluated with respect to previous methods in the literature. The results indicate that the proposed new method is superior to previous methods. Finally we compare the results of the experiment and discuss the performance of the proposed method in the DNA sequence reconstruction.

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 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 B I O

subsequence
oligonucleotide
population construction
fitness function
crossover
mutation


self-compensating design for focus variation Process variations have become a bottleneck for predictable and high-yielding IC design and fabrication. Linewidth variation (?L) due to defocus in a chip is largely systematic after the layout is completed, i.e., dense lines "smile" through focus while isolated (iso) lines "frown". In this paper, we propose a design flow that allows explicit compensation of focus variation, either within a cell (self-compensated cells) or across cells in a critical path (self-compensated design). Assuming that iso and dense variants are available for each library cell, we achieve designs that are more robust to focus variation. Design with a self-compensated cell library incurs ~11-12\% area penalty while compensating for focus variation. Across-cell optimization with a mix of dense and iso cell variants incurs ~6-8\% area overhead compared to the original cell library, while meeting timing constraints across a large range of focus variation (from 0 to 0.4um). A combination of original and iso cells provides an even better self-compensating design option, with only 1\% area overhead. Circuit delay distributions are tighter with self-compensated cells and self-compensated design than with a conventional design methodology.

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


A Software-Only Solution to Use Scratch Pads for Stack Data A dynamic scratch pad memory (SPM) management scheme for program stack data with the objective of processor power reduction is presented. Basic technique does not need the SPM size at compile time, does not mandate any hardware changes, does not need profile information, and seamlessly integrates support for recursive functions. Stack frames are managed using a software SPM manager, integrated into the application binary, and shows average energy savings of 32% along with a performance improvement of 13%, on benchmarks from MiBench. SPM management can be further optimized and made pointer safe, by knowing the SPM size.

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

cache
compilers
embedded systems
scratch pad memory (spm)
static analysis


A new algorithm for fixed point quantum search The standard quantum search lacks a feature, enjoyed by many classical algorithms, of having a fixed point, i.e. monotonic convergence towards the solution. Recently a fixed point quantum search algorithm has been discovered, referred to as the Phase-pi/3 search algorithm, which gets around this limitation. While searching a database for a target state, this algorithm reduces the error probability from epsilon to epsilon(2q+1) using q oracle queries, which has since been proved to be asymptotically optimal. A different algorithm is presented here, which has the same worst-case behavior as the Phase-pi/3 search algorithm but much better average-case behavior. Furthermore the new algorithm gives epsilon(2q+1) convergence for all integral q, whereas the Phase-pi/3 search algorithm requires q to be (3(n) - 1)/2 with n a positive integer. In the new algorithm, the operations are controlled by two ancilla qubits, and fixed point behavior is achieved by irreversible measurement operations applied to these ancillas. It is an example of how measurement can allow us to bypass some restrictions imposed by unitarity on quantum computing.

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

ancilla
fixed point
measurement
quantum search algorithm


Test enrichment for path delay faults using multiple sets of target faults Test sets for path delay faults in circuits with large numbers of paths are typically generated for path delay faults associated with the longest circuit paths. It is shown that such test sets may not detect faults associated with the next-to-longest paths. This may lead to undetected failures since shorter paths may fail without any of the longest paths failing. In addition, paths that appear to be shorter may actually be longer than the longest paths if the procedure used for estimating path length is inaccurate. A test enrichment procedure is proposed that increases significantly the number of faults associated with the next-to-longest paths that are detected by a test set without increasing its size. This is achieved by targeting both types of faults, but ensuring that the test generation procedure would detect the faults associated with the longest paths, while allowing the procedure the flexibility of detecting or not detecting the faults associated with the next-to-longest paths. The proposed procedure thus improves the quality of the test set without increasing its size. The test enrichment procedure is built on top of a new and effective dynamic test compaction, procedure in order to demonstrate that test enrichment is effective even for compact test sets.

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

dynamic test compaction
path delay faults
test generation


Some problems of computer-aided testing and "interview-like tests" Computer-based testing - is an effective teacher's tool, intended to optimize course goals and assessment techniques in a comparatively short time. However, this is accomplished only if we deal with high-quality tests. It is strange, but despite the 100-year history of Testing Theory (see, Anastasi, A., Urbina, S. (1997). Psychological testing. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall) there still exist some misconceptions. Modern wide-spread systems for computer based course management and testing reveal a set of problems corresponding to certain features of testing methods. This article is devoted to some omissions typical to several course management systems (e.g., Moodle and Blackboard). These omissions and the ways of avoiding them are shown in a simple test intended to verify student knowledge. We suggest a special test description language dedicated to drawing your attention to the mathematical aspects of test quality. The language can also be realized in computer software. We provide an example of such software in this article. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

course management systems
moodle
blackboard
test description language

computer-based testing
teaching techniques
chopin
test validity
economy
reliability
difficulty of a test
guessing probability
measures of similarity
inseparable hypotheses


Numerical simulation of viscous flows with free surface around realistic hull forms with transom This paper describes a method for simulation of viscous flows with a free surface around realistic hull forms with a transom, which has been developed based on a FINFLO RANS solver with a moving mesh. A dry-transom model is proposed and implemented for the treatment of flows off the transom. The bulk RANS flow with the artificial compressibility is solved by a cell-centred finite volume multigrid scheme and the free surface deformed by wave motions is tracked by satisfying the kinematic and dynamic free-surface boundary conditions on the actual location of the surface. The effects of turbulence on flows are evaluated with the Baldwin-Lomax turbulence model without a wall function. A test case is modern container ship model with a transom, the Hamburg Test Case. The calculated results are validated and they agree well with the measured results in terms of the free-surface waves and the total resistance coefficient. Furthermore. the numerical solutions successfully captured many important features of the complicated interaction of the free surface with viscous flows around transom stern ships. In addition, the convergence performance and the grid refinement studies are also investigated. Copyright (C) 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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

dry-transom model
modern hull forms with a transom
viscous free surface flows


An Analysis of Language-Level Support for Self-Adaptive Software Self-adaptive software has become increasingly important to address the new challenges of complex computing systems. To achieve adaptation, software must be designed and implemented by following suitable criteria, methods, and strategies. Past research has been mostly addressing adaptation by developing solutions at the software architecture level. This work, instead, focuses on finer-grain programming language-level solutions. We analyze three main linguistic approaches: metaprogramming, aspect-oriented programming, and context-oriented programming. The first two are general-purpose linguistic mechanisms, whereas the third is a specific and focused approach developed to support context-aware applications. This paradigm provides specialized language-level abstractions to implement dynamic adaptation and modularize behavioral variations in adaptive systems. The article shows how the three approaches can support the implementation of adaptive systems and compares the pros and cons offered by each solution.

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

languages
design
context
self-adaptive software
context-oriented programming
autonomic computing