Velodrome: A sound and complete dynamic atomicity checker for multithreaded programs Atomicity is a fundamental correctness property in multithreaded programs, both because atomic code blocks are amenable to sequential reasoning (which significantly simplifies correctness arguments), and because atomicity violations often reveal defects in a program's synchronization structure. Unfortunately, all atomicity analyses developed to date are incomplete in that they may yield false alarms on correctly synchronized programs, which limits their usefulness. We present the first dynamic analysis for atomicity that is both sound and complete. The analysis reasons about the exact dependencies between operations in the observed trace of the target program, and it reports error messages if and only if the observed trace is not conflict-serializable. Despite this significant increase in precision, the performance and coverage of our analysis is competitive with earlier incomplete dynamic analyses for atomicity.

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

languages algorithms verification serializability


Is Someone in this Office Available to Help Me? Proactively Seeking Help from Spatially-Situated Humans Robots are increasingly autonomous in our environments, but they still must overcome limited sensing, reasoning, and actuating capabilities while completing services for humans. While some work has focused on robots that proactively request help from humans to reduce their limitations, the work often assumes that humans are supervising the robot and always available to help. In this work, we instead investigate the feasibility of asking for help from humans in the environment who benefit from its services. Unlike other human helpers that constantly monitor a robot's progress, humans in the environment are not supervisors and a robot must proactively navigate to them to receive help. We contribute a study that shows that several of our environment occupants are willing to help our robot, but, as expected, they have constraints that limit their availability due to their own work schedules. Interestingly, the study further shows that an available human is not always in close proximity to the robot. We present an extended model that includes the availability of humans in the environment, and demonstrate how a navigation planner can incorporate this information to plan paths that increase the likelihood that a robot can find an available helper when it needs one. Finally, we discuss further opportunities for the robot to adapt and learn from the occupants over time.

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

human-robot interaction
user study
planning


An anomaly-based approach to the analysis of the social behavior of VoIP users In this paper we present the results of a study we recently conducted by analyzing a large data set of VoIP Call Detail Records (CDRs), provided by an Italian telecom operator. The objectives of this study were twofold: (i) first, to provide a representation of users behavior, as well as of their mutual interaction and communication patterns, allowing to identify certain easily separable user categories; and (ii) second, to design and implement a framework calculating such a representation starting from CDR, capable of operating within certain time constraints, and grouping users using unsupervised techniques. The paper shows how we can reliably identify behavioral patterns associated with the most common anomalous behaviors of VoIP users. It also exploits the expressive power of relational graphs in order to both validate the results of the unsupervised analysis and ease their interpretation by human operators.

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

voip security
social threats
clustering
behavior profiling


a self-adaptive hvs-optimized texture compression algorithm A self-adaptive HVS-optimized textures compression algorithm based on Vector Quantization (VQ) is presented. Utilizing the property of Human Visual System (HVS), a function judging the similarity between blocks is designed instead of using Euclid distance between pixels in block. Correlated threshold in the judgment is computed using the property of image. With the novel quantizer, different resolution images can be handled automatically. In addition, a self-adaptive threshold adjustment during the compression is designed to improve the reconstruct quality for textures with different regional correlation. To enhance the efficiency of the code-words, lateral association is used through the compression process. Experiment on various resolution images indicates that the algorithm can achieve satisfied compression rate and reconstruct quality at the same time. Furthermore, the compression and decompression process is speed up with the usage of GPU, on account of their parallelism.

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 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 B O O O O O


The influence of threshold variability on the response of visual cortical neurons Orientationselective neurons in monkeys and cats show contrast saturation and contrast-invariant orientation tuning (Albrecht and Hamilton, J. Neurophysiol. 48 (1982) 217237). Recently proposed models for orientation selectivity predict contrast invariant orientation tuning but no contrast saturation at high strength of intracortical recurrent couplings, whereas at lower coupling strengths the contrast response saturates but the tuning widths are contrast dependent (Hansel and Sompolinsky, Methods in Neuronal Modeling, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1997, pp. 499567; Stetter et al., Visual Neurosci., Submitted for publication). In the present work we address the question, if and under which conditions the incorporation of a stochastic distribution of activation thresholds for cortical neurons helps resolving that paradoxon. We find that both phenomena occurs naturally if two different classes of inhibitory inter-neurons are combined. Low-threshold inhibition keeps the gain of the cortical amplification finite, whereas high-threshold inhibition causes contrast saturation.

biological modeling
primary visual cortex
contrastsaturation


An ILP Solution to Address Code Generation for Embedded Applications on Digital Signal Processors Digital Signal Processors (DSPs) are a family of embedded processors designed under tight memory, area, and cost constraints. Many DSPs use irregular addressing modes where base-plus-offset mode is not supported. However, they often have Address Generation Units (AGUs) that can perform auto-increment/decrement address arithmetic instructions in parallel with Load/Store instructions. This feature can be utilized to reduce the number of explicit address arithmetic instructions and thus reduce the embedded application code size. This code size reduction is essential for this family of DSP as the code usually resides in the ROM and hence the code size directly translates into silicon area. An effective technique for optimized code generation is offset assignment. This is a well-used technique in the literature to decrease the code size by finding an offset assignment that can effectively utilize auto-increment/decrement. This problem is known as simple offset assignment when there is only one address register and as General Offset Assignment (GOA) for multiple available address registers. In this article, we present an optimal Integer Linear Programming (ILP) solution to the offset assignment problem with variable coalescing where more than one variable can share the same memory location. Variable permutation is also formulated to find the best access sequence to achieve the best offset assignment that decreases the code size the most. Experimental results on several benchmarks show the effectiveness of our variable permutation technique as well as the large improvement from the ILP-based solutions compared to heuristics.

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

simple offset assignment
general offset assignment
variable coalescing
dsp


Controller design for rigid spacecraft attitude tracking with actuator saturation This paper investigates the attitude tracking control problem for rigid spacecraft with actuator saturations, inertia uncertainties and external disturbances. First, based on adaptive algorithm, a sliding mode control (SMC) law is designed to achieve accurate attitude tracking, and asymptotic convergence is guaranteed by means of the Barbalat lemma. Then, the spacecraft dynamic equation is optimized, and a novel method plays a crucial role toward ensuring stability robustness to actuator saturations in the control design. Using backstepping technique (BT) associated with extended state observer (ESO) or modified differentiator (MD), the corresponding SMC approaches are appropriately designed, which not only achieve a faster and more accurate response, better transient performance, but also afford stronger capability of resistance to inertia uncertainties, external disturbances and control input saturations. Finally, simulation results are presented to illustrate effectiveness of the control strategies.

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

attitude tracking
sliding mode control
extended state observer
actuator saturations


Minimum-Delay Service Provisioning in Opportunistic Networks Opportunistic networks are created dynamically by exploiting contacts between pairs of mobile devices that come within communication range. While forwarding in opportunistic networking has been explored, investigations into asynchronous service provisioning on top of opportunistic networks are unique contributions of this paper. Mobile devices are typically heterogeneous, possess disparate physical resources, and can provide a variety of services. During opportunistic contacts, the pairing peers can cooperatively provide (avail of) their (other peer's) services. This service provisioning paradigm is a key feature of the emerging opportunistic computing paradigm. We develop an analytical model to study the behaviors of service seeking nodes (seekers) and service providing nodes (providers) that spawn and execute service requests, respectively. The model considers the case in which seekers can spawn parallel executions on multiple providers for any given request, and determines: 1) the delays at different stages of service provisioning; and 2) the optimal number of parallel executions that minimizes the expected execution time. The analytical model is validated through simulations, and exploited to investigate the performance of service provisioning over a wide range of parameters.

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

opportunistic networks
service provisioning

performance evaluation
analytical modeling


Three-dimensional elasto-static analysis of 100 million degrees of freedom GeoFEM, a parallel finite element analysis system, is application software that is being developed for conducting simulations of solid earth. This system is currently run on a massively parallel computer and can perform linear elastic analysis of a simple shape involving up to 100,000,000 degrees of freedom. In the present study, the memory capacity required and elapsed time were estimated for large-scale structural analyses, and the efficiencies were examined to investigate the parallel performance. This paper shows the possibility of performing super large-scale analyses with GeoFEM and a parallel computer.

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

fem
large-scale analysis
structural analysis


A modulus replication complex adaptive filter IP core In this paper the modulus replication residue number system (MRRNS) is used to design a high-throughput multirate equalizer for an asymmetrical wireless LAN, where all of the equalization functions are carried out in the base station. The MRRNS mapping technique allows the implementation of parallel and independent channels computing complex arithmetic over finite fields with moduli of 17 and 257. The channels are built as linear systolic arrays using a basic finite-field index calculus and conversion processor, the same processor is also used for the input and output mapping. The processor is defined as a hard intellectual property (IP) block in the target technology, with module generators to build the maps and filter channels. In this paper the authors briefly discuss the mathematical technique used, the basic structure of the processor block and the firm IP generation techniques, and the architectural advantages that the system provides for system-on-chip applications.

O B I O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 fir filters
computer arithmetic
system-on-chip
ip cores
wireless networks


Exact maximum likelihood estimation of partially nonstationary vector ARMA models A useful class of partially nonstationary vector autoregressive moving average (VARMA) models is considered with regard to parameter estimation. An exact maximum likelihood (EML) approach is developed on the basis of a simple transformation applied to the error-correction representation of the models considered. The employed transformation is shown to provide a standard VARMA model with the important property that it is stationary. Parameter estimation can thus be carried out by applying standard EML methods to the stationary VARMA model obtained from the error-correction representation. This approach resolves at least two problems related to the current limited availability of EML estimation methods for partially nonstationary VARMA models. Firstly, it resolves the apparent impossibility of computing the exact log-likelihood for such models using currently available methods. And secondly, it resolves the inadequacy of considering lagged endogenous variables as exogenous variables in the error-correction representation. Theoretical discussion is followed by an example using a popular data set. The example illustrates the feasibility of the EML estimation approach as well as some of its potential benefits in cases of practical interest which are easy to come across. As in the case of stationary models, the proposed EML method provides estimated model structures that are more reliable and accurate than results produced by conditional methods.

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

vector autoregressive moving average model


On the average length of secret key exchange Eulerian circuits Designing a protocol to exchange a secret key is one of the most fundamental subjects in cryptography. Using a random deal of cards, pairs of card players (agents) can share secret keys that are information-theoretically secure against an eavesdropper. A key set protocol, which uses a random deal of cards, can perform an Eulerian secret key exchange, in which the pairs of players sharing secret keys form an Eulerian circuit passing through all players. Along the Eulerian circuit any designated player can send a message to the rest of players and the message can be finally sent back to the sender. Checking the returned message with the original one, the sender can know whether the message circulation has not been influenced by a possible single transmission error or false alteration. It has been known that any Eulerian circuit formed by the protocol has length at most 3/2 k, where k is the number of players. Note that the length corresponds to the time required to send the message to all players and acknowledge the secure receipt. In this paper, we show that the average length of Eulerian circuits is approximately k + in k.

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

card game
eulerian graph
information-theoretically secure


Robust adaptive Metropolis algorithm with coerced acceptance rate The adaptive Metropolis (AM) algorithm of Haario, Saksman and Tamminen (Bernoulli 7(2):223-242, 2001) uses the estimated covariance of the target distribution in the proposal distribution. This paper introduces a new robust adaptive Metropolis algorithm estimating the shape of the target distribution and simultaneously coercing the acceptance rate. The adaptation rule is computationally simple adding no extra cost compared with the AM algorithm. The adaptation strategy can be seen as a multidimensional extension of the previously proposed method adapting the scale of the proposal distribution in order to attain a given acceptance rate. The empirical results show promising behaviour of the new algorithm in an example with Student target distribution having no finite second moment, where the AM covariance estimate is unstable. In the examples with finite second moments, the performance of the new approach seems to be competitive with the AM algorithm combined with scale adaptation.

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 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 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

adaptive markov chain monte carlo
ergodicity
robustness


Managing knowledge sharing: Emergent and engineering approaches We wished to determine how the process of knowledge sharing could be managed, seeing that it is a knowledge management dilemma. If knowledge sharing is crucial to an organizations interests, but is inherently emergent in nature, how can the organization still manage the process? In order to answer this question, a distinction was made between two approaches towards managing knowledge sharing: an emergent approach, focusing on the social dynamics between organizational members and the nature of their daily tasks, and an engineering approach, focusing on management interventions to facilitate knowledge transfer. While the first is central to todays thinking about knowledge, we used a field study in six organizations to show that both approaches have value in explaining knowledge sharing. Instruments that are part of the engineering approach create conditions for variables in the emergent approach, which in turn also exert a direct influence on knowledge sharing.

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

social capital
organizational culture
ict infrastructure


"Be Nice": Wikipedia norms for supportive communication Wikipedia is acknowledged to have been home to osome bitter disputes.o Indeed, conflict at Wikipedia is said to be oas addictive as cocaine.o Yet, such observations are not cynical commentary but motivation for a collection of social norms. These norms speak to the intentional stance and communicative behaviors Wikipedians should adopt when interacting with one another. In the following pages, I provide a survey of these norms on the English Wikipedia and argue that they can be characterized as supportive based on Jack Gibb's classic communication article oDefensive Communication.o.

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


DYNAD: a Framework IVSMT project addressed to the development of dynamic test techniques for analog-to-digital converters DYNAD, a Standards, Measurements and Testing project supported by the European Commission within the Framework IV activities, is a research project aiming at the investigation of test procedures for evaluating the dynamic performances of A/D converters and S/H circuits. The paper concisely reports about the activities carried out in the first months of the project, activities which aim at improving the existing norms for what concerns the "classical" dynamic test methods for A/D converters, based on the use of sinusoidal stimuli. Web links are provided so that any interested party may contribute his/her opinion on the developed draft. Then, the research activities planned for the following years are briefly illustrated. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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/d converters
a/d testing
dynamic errors
sine wave testing


a survey on secure hierarchical routing protocols in wireless sensor networks WSNs usually deployed in the targeted area to monitor or sense the environment and depending upon the application sensor node transmit the data to the base station. To relay the data intermediate nodes communicate together, select appropriate routing path and transmit data towards the base station. Routing path selection depends on the routing protocol of the network. Base station should receive unaltered and fresh data. To fulfill this requirement, routing protocol should beenergy-efficient and secure. Hierarchical or cluster-base routing protocol for WSNs is the most energy-efficient among other routing protocols. In this paper, we study different hierarchical routing technique for WSNs. Further we analyze and compare secure hierarchical routing protocols based on various criteria.

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

routing security
wireless sensor network


Origin and Effect of Thermocapillary Convection in Subcooled Boiling During the past two decades we have performed pool boiling experiments under microgravity conditions with saturated and subcooled liquids using various fluids, mostly fluorinated hydrocarbons, and various shapes of heaters. The common observation at subcooled boiling is the development of thermocapillary convection around bubbles. This convection forms jet streams above the head of the bubbles that carry the heat from the bubbles into the ambient liquid. Heat transfer measurements demonstrate that this flow does not directly contribute to the overall heat transfer itself, but that it is an important transport mechanism in subcooled boiling, not only at microgravity, but also under terrestrial conditions. The development of a thermocapillary flow is surprising, because it is well known that for this convection a temperature gradient along the interface of a bubble is necessary. However, it is also well known that the interfacial kinetics of evaporation and condensation is very strong. Thus, small temperature differences generate strong mass flow rates across the interface, coupled with high heat transfer rates that immediately equalize even moderate temperature gradients appearing along the bubble interface. This is confirmed by the observation that, during boiling in saturated liquids under microgravity conditions, thermocapillary convection was never observed, thus indicating uniformity of the temperature along the interface. From this we must conclude that the temperature difference of wall superheat, which generates boiling, cannot be the driving force for the observed thermocapillary flow even in subcooled liquids. Therefore, the question about the origin of this flow arises and is discussed in this paper.

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

pool boiling
heat transfer
microgravity
thermocapillary flow

mechanism of subcooled boiling
bubble dynamics
inert gas
marangoni convection


A modified particle swarm optimization for correlated phenomena The wide applicability of correlation analysis inspired the development of this paper. In this paper, a new correlated modified particle swarm optimization (COM-PSO) is developed. The Correlation Adjustment algorithm is proposed to recover the correlation between the considered variables of all particles at each of iterations. It is shown that the best solution, the mean and standard deviation of the solutions over the multiple runs as well as the convergence speed were improved when the correlation between the variables was increased. However, for some rotated benchmark function, the contrary results are obtained. Moreover, the best solution, the mean and standard deviation of the solutions are improved when the number of correlated variables of the benchmark functions is increased. The results of simulations and convergence performance are compared with the original PSO. The improvement of results, the convergence speed, and the ability to simulate the correlated phenomena by the proposed COM-PSO are discussed by the experimental results.

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

correlation coefficient
mutation
secondary pso


Improved Cryptanalysis of AES-like Permutations AES-based functions have attracted of a lot of analysis in the recent years, mainly due to the SHA-3 hash function competition. In particular, the rebound attack allowed to break several proposals and many improvements/variants of this method have been published. Yet, it remained an open question whether it was possible to reach one more round with this type of technique compared to the state-of-the-art. In this article, we close this open problem by providing a further improvement over the original rebound attack and its variants, that allows the attacker to control one more round in the middle of a differential path for an AES-like permutation. Our algorithm is based on lists merging as defined in (Naya-Plasencia in Advances in Cryptology: CRYPTO 2011, pp.188205, 2011) and we generalized the concept to non-full active truncated differential paths(Sasaki et al. in Lecture Notes in Computer Science, pp.3855, 2010).

O B 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 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

cryptanalysis
hash function
rebound attack


the impact of prior experience in an information technology programming course sequence Like most computing departments, the Information Technology (IT) Department of the Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences (GCCIS) at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) offers an introductory programming sequence. Students typically spend their first three quarters completing the sequence. We have found that students enter the sequence with varying degrees of experience ranging from none at all to significant programming experience. Those with previous exposure to programming could have received this experience in many different ways: programming courses in high school, programming that is tangential to other high school courses, clubs, self study, and work experience.A survey was conducted on 159 students starting the sequence. We analyzed the survey results and the students' performance in the courses to investigate the effects of prior programming experience. Specifically, did students who had prior programming experience demonstrate stronger performance throughout the sequence than their counterparts? This paper discusses the course content across the sequence, the format of the study and the study results.

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

high school
introductory programming
survey
performance
demonstrate
programming
experience
paper
sequence

science
contention
technologies
computation
information technology education
teaching
java
programming experience
effect
informal
information technologies
student


A hybrid one-then-two stage algorithm for computationally expensive electromagnetic design optimization Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to propose a surrogate model-assisted optimization algorithm which effectively searches for the optimum at the earliest opportunity, avoiding the need for a large initial experimental design, which may be wasteful. Design/methodology/approach - The methodologies of two-stage and one-stage selection of points are combined for the first time. After creating a small experimental design, a one-stage Kriging algorithm is used to search for the optimum for a fixed number of iterations. If it fails to locate the optimum, the points it samples are then used in lieu of a traditional experimental design to initialize a two-stage algorithm. Findings - The proposed approach was tested on a mathematical test function. It was found that the optimum could be located, without necessarily constructing an accurate surrogate model first. The algorithm performed well on an electromagnetic design problem, out performing both a random search and a genetic algorithm, in significantly fewer iterations. The results suggest a new interpretation of surrogate models - merely as tools for constructing a utility function to locate the optimum of an unknown function, as opposed to actual approximations of the unknown function. Research limitations/implications - The research was carried out on unconstrained problems only. The findings have implications for modem experimental designs, as the proposed algorithm can often locate the optimum without necessarily constructing an accurate surrogate model. Originality/value - The two paradigms of one-stage and two-stage selection of points in surrogate-model assisted optimization are combined for the first time. Also, it is believed that this is the first time that the methodology of one-stage optimization has been used in optimal electromagnetic design.

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


An integrated approach to shallow aquifer characterization: combining geophysics and geostatistics We present a method of aquifer characterization that is able to utilize multiple sources of conditioning data to build a more realistic model of heterogeneity. This modeling approach (InMod) uses geophysical data to delineate bounding surfaces within sedimentary deposits. The depositional volumes between bounding surfaces are identified automatically from the geophysical data by a region growing algorithm. Simple geometric rules are used to constrain the growth of the regions in 3-D. The nodes within the depositional volume are assigned to categorical lithologies using geostatistical realizations and a dynamic lookup routine that can be conditioned to field data. The realizations created with this method preserve geologically expected features and produces sharp juxtapositions of high and low hydraulic conductivity lithologies along bounding surfaces. The realizations created with InMod also have higher variance than models created only with geostatistics and honor the volumetric distribution of sediments measured from field data.

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

geophysics
geostatistics
aquifer characterization


Emergent capital markets efficiency: The case of Romania Many financial models are based on the efficient capital markets hypothesis. Therefore, the validation of this concept is an interesting investigation field, not only for the developed economies but also for the emergent ones. The results of our research could be useful to evaluate the applicability of these models in developing capital markets. For testing informational efficiency, we focused on the Romanian case, using standard methods. Based on such classical tests, we could conclude the market inefficiency. However, transaction costs, and also temporary lack of liquidity, do not allow earning excessive returns. Nevertheless, the asset prices are not the result of a rational fundamental valuation, so our study finally concludes the inefficiency of the Romanian capital market.

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

informational efficiency
liquidity
rational fundamental valuation


monitoring of hypertensive patients through conventional medical devices integrated to the brazilian digital tv This paper presents an implementation of a healthcare monitoring system integrated to the model of Digital TV adapted in Brazil (SBTVD), which provides the convergence among wireless sensor network, mobile devices, the World Wide Web (WEB) and embedded systems, through the connection of these devices to a central computer called healthcare gateway. This gateway manages the service requests and access via Digital TV (DTV) and mobile devices like cellular phones. Conventional sensors capture the patient's body temperature, pressure, heartbeat and room temperature which are sent to the gateway. Then a reactive software agent based on the behavior, verifies the status of the sensors and dispatch a message to a DTV and/or a cellular phone previously registered in the system via WEB interface. The impact of this new concept will be very high on the Brazilian population due to the great number of people suffering from hypertension and the high level usage of digital TV and mobile devices can help health teams in monitoring the patient.

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

medical devices
wireless sensor network
brazilian digital tv


Testing motion controllers robustness by emulating electrical and mechanical parameter variations of motor drives The manuscript extends the method of testing the motion controllers robustness by emulating uncertainties and disturbances, caused by real loads and mechanical and electrical parameter variations to multiloop motor drives. Such a contribution is important since multiloop drives are widely used in the industrial environment. The proposed technique requires neither connecting physical load nor actually changing any parameter of the electric drive under test. The microprocessor of the motor drive itself creates the effect of the load torque and parameter variations by applying equivalent feed-forward commands to the corresponding loop controller using digital signal processing software. As a result, the electric drive is virtually perturbed, and the controllers behavior resembles the performance of a really perturbed drive controllers. The present method, which can be related to a class of Hardware-in-the-Loop Simulations, can be used to test the implementation of robust control algorithms or at didactic purposes using motion control kits found on the market. Simulations and experimental results validate the proposed algorithm, applied to a Brushless DC motor drive, demonstrating an excellent agreement.

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

uncertainty emulation
brushless dc drives
dsp
hardware-in-the-loop


Background shifts affect explanatory style: how a pragmatic theory of explanation accounts for background effects in the generation of explanations Cognitive scientists are interested in explanation because it provides a window into the cognition that underlies ones understanding of the world. We argue that the study of explanation has tended to focus on what makes an explanation bona fide as opposed to the processes involved in how the explanation is generated. In the current study, we asked participants to respond to the request for an explanation within a novel domain after we manipulated their initial exposure to the domain, and thus the background of the request. In two experiments, we found evidence that the background shaped participants interpretations of the prompt for the explanation and that this, in turn, influenced whether they used a causal or functional style of explanation when responding to the prompt. We also asked participants to evaluate a number of explanations and found that the manipulation of the background did not have the same effect on the evaluative tasks. Our data support a pragmatic approach (e.g. The scientific image. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1980) to the study of explanation generation, a philosophical approach which argues that the background influences the interpretation of the question, the development of a relevance relation which connects the question and explanation, and the identification of some set of candidate answers. We also suggest there is an important difference between the process of generating an explanation and evaluating an explanation, a difference that has escaped the attention of cognitive scientists thus far.

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


QA document recommendations for communities of questionanswering websites With the rapid development of Internet and Web 2.0 technology, Question & Answering (Q&A) websites have become an essential knowledge-sharing platform. This platform provides knowledge community services where users with common interests or expertise can form a knowledge community. Community members can collect and share QA knowledge (documents) regarding their interests. However, due to the massive amount of QAs created every day, information overload can become a major problem. Consequently, a recommendation mechanism is needed to recommend QA documents for communities of Q&A websites. Existing studies did not investigate the recommendation mechanisms for knowledge collections in communities of Q&A Websites. Traditional recommendation methods use member importance as weight to consolidate individual profiles and generate group profiles, which in turn are used to filter out items of recommendation. However, they do not consider certain factors of the recommended items, such as the reputation of the community members and the complementary relationships between documents. In this work, we propose a novel method to recommend related QA documents for knowledge communities of Q&A websites. The proposed method recommends QA documents by considering factors such as the community members reputation in collecting and answering QAs, the push scores and collection time of QAs, the complementary relationships between QAs and their relevance to the communities. This research evaluates and compares the proposed methods using an experimental dataset collected from Yahoo! Answers Taiwan website. Experimental results show that the proposed method outperforms other conventional methods, providing a more effective manner to recommend Q&A documents to knowledge communities.

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

knowledge community
questionanswering websites

group recommendation
knowledge complementation
link analysis
knowledge reputation


Performance of multilevel shunt active filter for smart grid applications Five level cascaded multilevel inverter with fuzzy PI controller. Synchronous reference frame theory is used for reference current generation. Injects real power generated from renewable energy source to the grid. Used to compensate the load reactive power. Eliminates additional power conditioning equipment to improve power quality.

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 B I

active power filter
harmonics compensation


An algorithm for rapid computational construction of metabolic networks: A cholesterol biosynthesis example Alternative pathways of metabolic networks represent the escape routes that can reduce drug efficacy and can cause severe adverse effects. In this paper we introduce a mathematical algorithm and a coding system for rapid computational construction of metabolic networks. The initial data for the algorithm are the source substrate code and the enzyme/metabolite interaction tables. The major strength of the algorithm is the adaptive coding system of the enzymesubstrate interactions. A reverse application of the algorithm is also possible, when optimisation algorithm is used to compute the enzyme/metabolite rules from the reference network structure. The coding system is user-defined and must be adapted to the studied problem. The algorithm is most effective for computation of networks that consist of metabolites with similar molecular structures. The computation of the cholesterol biosynthesis metabolic network suggests that 89 intermediates can theoretically be formed between lanosterol and cholesterol, only 20 are presently considered as cholesterol intermediates. Alternative metabolites may represent links with other metabolic networks both as precursors and metabolites of cholesterol. A possible cholesterol-by-pass pathway to bile acids metabolism through cholestanol is suggested.

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

systems biology
binary coding
modelling
simulation


A new traitor tracing A traitor tracing scheme is a broadcast encryption scheme in which a provider can trace malicious authorized users who illegally gave their personal keys to unauthorized users. The conventional schemes have some problems one of them is that there exists an upper bound on the sizes of keys to certify the security of the scheme against a collusion attack by many traitors, and so that the size of the header increases according to the increase of the bound. We shall propose a new traitor tracing scheme where the header size is independent of the number of traitors.

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


Neuroprotective

Effects

of

Novel

Cholinesterase

Inhibitors

Derived

from

Rasagiline

as

Potential

Anti-Alzheimer

Drugs

(N-propargyl-(3R)-aminoindan-5-yl-ethyl,

methyl

carbamate)

was

prepared

in

order

to

combine

the

neuroprotective

effects

of

rasagiline,

a

selective

inhibitor

of

monoamine

oxidase

(MAO)-B

with

the

cholinesterase

(ChE)

inhibitory

activity

of

rivastigmine

as

a

potential

treatment

for

Alzheimer's

disease.

The

study

reported

here

examined

the

neuropotective

effects

of

against

various

insults

in

vitro

and

in

vivo.

caused

a

dose

related

?M)

reduction

in

death

induced

in

NGF

differentiated

rat

pheochromocytoma

cells

by

hour

exposure

to

oxygen-glucose

deprivation.

A

single

sc

injection

of

given

five

minutes

after

closed

head

injury

in

mice

significantly

reduced

the

cerebral

edema,

and

accelerated

the

recovery

of

motor

function

and

spatial

memory

several

days

later.

Unilateral

icv

injection

of

streptozotocin

(STZ)

mg

in

rats,

caused

specific

damage

to

myelinated

neurones

in

the

fornix

and

corpus

callosum

accompanied

by

microgliosis.

Three

bilateral

injections

of

STZ,

mg

each,

caused

more

widespread

damage,

and

a

marked

impairment

in

spatial

memory.

Chronic

oral

treatment

with

?mols/kg)

reduced

the

neuronal

damage

and

microgliosis

and

almost

completely

prevented

the

memory

impairment.

The

neuroprotective

effect

in

cells

may

be

due

to

a

combination

of

ChE

inhibition

and

antiapoptotic

activity.

The

latter

does

not

result

from

ChE

inhibition.

It

is

associated

with

the

presence

of

the

propargyl

group,

since

it

occurs

with

other

propargylamines

that

do

not

inhibit

MAO,

but

not

with

drugs

that

inhibit

only

ChE.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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

glucose-oxygen deprivation
streptozotocin memory deficits


Establishing parameters of very high voltage power lines for various loadings and atmospheric conditions The idea of establishing parameters of electro-power system elements under real conditions of work, and therefore of very high voltage power lines, was suggested at CIGRE congress of 1972. In Romania, I undertook the work on this applied research. In the classical theory of the symmetrical quadrupole of a very high voltage power line, it was considered known its uniform distributed parameters and the magnitudes of its input values and its output values unknown. The problem arising is to determine its internal parameters when the input and output values are known. It was necessary to develop an adequate mathematical method for this purpose, and in the first part of the article I present it in detail. The article presents an adequate way of measurement to reach this purpose, as well as the necessary cautions to do away with the possible errors of measurement, and a synthesis of the results obtained. It also presents one method for testing in laboratory, to double check the correctness of the results of the real high voltage line parameter measurements, because they seem to be abnormal, different from those previously considered as normal. The results of the measured parameters obtained in the laboratory model confirm the results obtained on the real high voltage lines. Finally, I present the theoretically explanation of this results.

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

high voltage lines
power
symmetrical quadrupole


Persistence temperament associated with children playing math games between touch panel and embodied interaction The different designs of various interactive gaming controllers affect posture and muscle loading of the body. It is assumed that prolonged exposure to the interactive gaming controllers can affect the effectiveness in using the game for the purposes of learning. This study explores the differences in behavioural responses among students with different temperaments regarding mathematic gameplay by comparing the touch-based and gesture-based interactive devices. The experiment was designed for 119 5-year-old kindergarten children, and valid data from 99 individuals were analysed for this study. The results indicated that participants in the touch-based interaction (TBI) groups performed better than the participants in the gesture-based interaction (GBI) groups with respect to numerical counting in both games. The results also showed that among all dimensions of temperaments, only persistence had a positive correlation to TBI. This implied that TBI was preferred over GBI for kindergarten children. Accordingly, e-learning designers should place more emphasis on TBI.

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

gesture-based interaction
learning behaviour


Elimination of redundant messages with a two-pass static analysis algorithm ? Eliminating redundant messages in distributed programs leads to the reduction of communication overheads, and thus to the improvement of the overall performances of the distributed program. Therefore, a lot of work has been done recently to achieve this goal. In this paper, we present an algorithm for eliminating redundant messages in parallel programs that have been distributed automatically. This algorithm works on program whose control flow is as general as possible, i.e., contains gotos. Precisely, the control flow is a finite deterministic automaton with a DAG of actions in each state. Our algorithm proceeds in two passes: First a global data-flow analysis which computes, for each state of the automaton, the set of distant variables that are known at the beginning of the state. Then a local elimination which removes redundant messages locally in each state of the automaton. We present the algorithms as well as the corresponding time and memory costs.

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

redundant message elimination
data-flow analysis
parallel program optimisation
distributed memory machine


Electromechanical system with IPM motor used in electric or hybrid vehicle Purpose - In the last few years, the understanding of environmental problems has grown. Car producers original equipment manufacturers are aiming to reduce fuel consumption and pollution. In order to fulfil these aims, new technologies have been launched. Many hydraulics systems have been removed and replaced with electric ones, e.g. power steering, water and oil pump, etc. In this paper, an electromechanical subsystem used in an automotive application is analyzed. The subsystem is composed of interior permanent synchronous magnet motor and electronic control unit. The range of mechanical output power for studied system is up to 1 kW. The aim of this paper is to compare electromechanical systems working with different on-board voltage levels in order to find the optimum balance between motors' and electronics' efficiency. This will help to decrease the total system's weight, the consequence of which will decrease fuel consumption and reduce CO(2) emissions. Design/methodology/approach - During the analysis, the reduced order modelling (ROM) techniques has been applied. First, with utilization of finite-elemente-methode the basic motor's parameter like: synchronous inductance and flux per pole as a function of the direct-axis current and also the quadrature-axis current are calculated. In the second step, these parameters are used in the system simulation. During this simulation, the maximum torque per ampere control strategy together with ROM techniques was used. Findings - As a result, the performance of the system for different voltage levels has been obtained. Additionally, the important factors for an electromechanical system, such as maximum power density, sizing and cost of the total electromechanical system, have been compared. Practical implications The performed comparison shows that the cost optimized system should work with the higher voltage, where the electric motor size is reduced ca. 25 per cent. This result is also valid for different electromechanical systems in an automotive area, e.g. automated manual transmission, engine cooling and electric compressor. Originality/value - It is the first paper, where electric power steering system design for different on-board voltage levels has been systematically analyzed and compared. Results from this paper can be also applied to different electromechanical systems mounted in hybrid or electric cars.

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

mass production
cost effectiveness
electromechanical devices
electric motors
vehicle components


3D head model retrieval in kernel feature space using HSOM In this paper, we propose a novel 3D head model retrieval framework. Specifically, to facilitate better classification and retrieval, the original 3D head model representations are embedded into another kernel feature space in which kernel principal component analysis (kernel PCA) is then performed to search for the optimal basis representation. Based on the extracted nonlinear features, a hierarchical indexing structure for 3D model retrieval is constructed using the hierarchical self organizing map (HSOM). The proposed indexing structure clusters the database into a hierarchy so that head models are partitioned by coarse features initially and then by finer scale features at lower levels. The main motivation of adopting this approach is that subspace technique like kernel PCA provides an elegant mechanism to describe the 3D head models on multiple resolutions based on the choices for reconstruction error and the orthogonal property of the produced eigenvectors. To further enhance the performance, a fuzzy metric between the query and the feature vector associated with each node on the SOMs is adopted instead of the usual Euclidean metric. Only nodes that possess high fuzzy measure values will be considered further for retrieval. In this way, the fuzzy measure approach is able to pick up potential relevant models even though they may be distributed across a number of neighbouring nodes. In addition to model categorization, the topology-preserving property of HSOM also facilitates the exploration of the model database with the possibility for further knowledge discovery. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is verified by a set of simulation examples on a 3D head model database.

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

3d head model retrieval
kernel feature space
kernel pca
hsom


Machine vision technology for agricultural applications Current applications of machine vision in agriculture are briefly reviewed. The requirements and recent developments of hardware and software for machine vision systems are discussed, with emphases on multispectral and hyperspectral imaging for modern food inspection. Examples of applications for detection of disease, defects, and contamination on poultry carcasses and apples are also given. Future trends of machine vision technology applications are discussed. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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


a broadband web-based application for video sharing and annotation This demonstration reports on the current stage of development of a web-based environment to support video sharing and annotation. The initial requirements and their implementation are briefly presented. The application is aimed at supporting the professional development of teachers with a multimedia application over a broadband network. However, work with teachers has pointed us to new requirements, differentiating VSA from prrevious work. Continued work with teachers will lead to further evolution of VSA.

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


Estimation of regional myocardial mass at risk based on distal arterial lumen volume and length using 3D micro-CT images ? The determination of regional myocardial mass at risk distal to a coronary occlusion provides valuable prognostic information for a patient with coronary artery disease. The coronary arterial system follows a design rule which allows for the use of arterial branch length and lumen volume to estimate regional myocardial mass at risk. Image processing techniques, such as segmentation, skeletonization and arterial network tracking, are presented for extracting anatomical details of the coronary arterial system using micro-computed tomography (micro-CT). Moreover, a method of assigning tissue voxels to their corresponding arterial branches is presented to determine the dependent myocardial region. The proposed micro-CT technique was utilized to investigate the relationship between the sum of the distal coronary arterial branch lengths and volumes to the dependent regional myocardial mass using a polymer cast of a porcine heart. The correlations of the logarithm of the total distal arterial lengths (L) to the logarithm of the regional myocardial mass (M) for the left anterior descending (LAD), left circumflex (LCX) and right coronary (RCA) arteries were log(L)=0.73log(M)+0.09 (R=0.78), log(L)=0.82log(M)+0.05 (R=0.77) and log(L)=0.85log(M)+0.05 (R=0.87), respectively. The correlation of the logarithm of the total distal arterial lumen volumes (V) to the logarithm of the regional myocardial mass for the LAD, LCX and RCA were log(V)=0.93log(M)?1.65 (R=0.81), log(V)=1.02log(M)?1.79 (R=0.78) and log(V)=1.17log(M)?2.10 (R=0.82), respectively. These morphological relations did not change appreciably for diameter truncations of 6001400?m. The results indicate that the image processing procedures successfully extracted information from a large 3D dataset of the coronary arterial tree to provide prognostic indications in the form of arterial tree parameters and anatomical area at risk.

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

vessel segmentation
arterial length
coronary arteries
simulation


Understanding corporate data models Corporate data models are widely used to support data management within organisations. However, both IS professionals and business users find them difficult to understand. This paper describes a methodology for designing and representing corporate data models that uses explanation and visualisation mechanisms to improve understanding, and reports a case study of the use of the methodology in the development of a data warehouse. The methodology was shown to be effective in that a high quality corporate data model was designed and then understood and utilised by all the participants. The model was used as an active, hypertext interface to the first prototype of the data warehouse. The case study findings indicated that: scenarios are useful for eliciting information requirements and explaining abstract concepts in the model to business users; graphical icons and subject area partitions are effective means of visualising the model and lead to improved understanding of the model by business users; and design rationale is an effective means of explaining the evolution of concepts in the model for specialist data modellers.

O B I I 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 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

data administration
data warehousing
information systems methodologies


Theoretical study on the ground state intramolecular proton transfer (IPT) and solvation effect in two Schiff bases formed by 2-aminopyridine with 2-hydroxy-1-naphthaldehyde and 2-hydroxy salicylaldehyde The tautomerization mechanism the isolated and monohydrated forms of two Schiff bases 1 and 2, and the effect of solvation on the proton transfer from enol-imine form to the keto-enamine form have been investigated using the B3LYP hybrid density functional method at the 6-31G** basis set level. The barrier heights for H(2)O-assisted reactions are significantly lower than that of unassisted tautomerization reaction in the gas phase. Nonspecific solvent effects have also been taken into account by using the continuum model (IPCM) of four different solvent. The tautomerization energies and the potential energy barriers are decreased by increasing solvent polarity.

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

density functional theory
enol-imine
keto-enamine tautomerizm
solvent effect


Neural network simulation of a dielectric ring resonator antenna This paper discusses the application of neural network (NN) techniques in the modelling of an electromagnetic (EM) field problem consisting of a dielectric-ring resonator antenna. The NN takes into consideration the geometrical and material parameters of the antenna, and the input reflection coefficient values for different frequencies in the bandwidth of interest. The NN is trained off-line using results obtained with the finite element method (FEM). The NN is considered as a nonlinear function approximator and the Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm is used to solve the corresponding least-squares optimization problem. The NN approach is found to provide a tremendous computational speed improvement as well as computer memory reduction compared to the traditional numerical methods of analysis.

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

electromagnetic field modelling
dielectric resonator antenna


an implementation for accessing twitter across challenged networks We describe the challenges, design decisions, and implementation details behind a proof-of-concept application that uses social networking to demonstrate the feasibility behind Delay-Tolerant Networking (DTN) principles. For the main platform, we use DTN2, an implementation of DTN protocols designed for experimentation, production, and deployment. Although this application is specific to Twitter, it is easily modifiable to adapt to other social networks.

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

social networking
dtn
application
twitter


an approach to interactive media system for mobile devices The interactive system which interacts human with computer has been recognized as one direction of computer development for a long time. For example, in cinema, a person gets information he wants or plays the media data while moving by using a mobile device. As the development of this system, we designed and implemented the system interacts with users in a small terminal. Our study has three categories. The first category is the development of new interactive media markup language (IML) for the writing interactive media data. The second category is the IML translator which translates IML into the best form to be played on mobile device. And the third category is the IM player , which plays the transferred media data and interacts with user. IML was designed for controlling vector graphics and general media objects in detail and supporting synchronization. Also, it was designed to be operated in small mobile device as well as desktop PC or set-top box which has high CPU performance. The player, implemented finally, is operated on PDA (HP iPAQ) and plays the multimedia data consist of vector graphics (OpenGL), H.264 and AAC etc. according to the choice of user. This system can be used in the ways of interactive cinema and interactive game, and can substitute new interactive web services for existing web services.

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


accessible blog posts with windows live writer Windows Live Writer is a desktop application for publishing to blogs. This paper demonstrates the ways in which Writer enables blog authors to publish accessible HTML to blogs without extra effort, knowledge of HTML or awareness of accessibility.

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

writer
windows live
publishing
accessibility
blogs


Application of a mixed simulated annealing-genetic algorithm heuristic for the two-dimensional orthogonal packing problem In this paper a pure meta-heuristic (genetic algorithm) and a mixed meta-heuristic (simulated annealing-genetic algorithm) were applied to two-dimensional orthogonal packing problems and the results were compared. The major motivation for applying a modified genetic algorithm is as an attempt to alleviate the problem of pre-mature convergence. We found that in the long run, the mixed heuristic produces better results; while the pure heuristic produces only good results, but produces them faster.

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 O O O O O 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 token circulation in mobile ad hoc networks This paper presents several distributed algorithms that cause a token to continually circulate through all the nodes of a mobile ad hoc network. An important application of such algorithms is to ensure total order of message delivery in a group communication service. Some of the proposed algorithms are aware of, and adapt to changes in, the ad hoc network topology. When using a token circulation algorithm, a round is said to complete when every node has been visited at least once. Criteria for comparing the algorithms include the average time required to complete a round, number of bytes sent per round, and number of nodes visited per round. Comparison between the proposed algorithms is performed using simulation results obtained from a detailed simulation model (with ns-2 simulator). We also give a rigorous worst-case analysis of the proposed LR algorithm, which gives the best overall performance in the simulation.

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

mobile ad hoc networks
token circulation


Unsupervised writer adaptation applied to handwritten text recognition This paper deals with the problem of off-line handwritten text recognition. It presents a system of text recognition that exploits an original principle of adaptation to the handwriting to be recognized. The adaptation principle is based on the automatic learning, during the recognition, of the graphical characteristics of the handwriting. This on-line adaptation of the recognition system relies on the iteration of two steps: a word recognition step that allows to label the writer's representations (allographs) on the whole text and a re-evaluation step of character models. Tests carried out on a sample of 15 writers, all unknown by the system, show the interest of the proposed adaptation scheme since we obtain during iterations an improvement of recognition rates both at the letter and the word levels.

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


Torus square tilings We consider periodic square tilings of the plane. By extending a formalism introduced in 1940 for tiling of rectangles by squares we build a correspondence between periodic plane maps endowed with a periodic harmonic vector and periodic square tilings satisfying a regularity condition. The space of harmonic vectors is isomorphic to the first homology group of a torus. So, periodic plane square tilings are described by two parameters and the set of parameters is split into angular sectors. The correspondence between symmetry of the square tiling and symmetry of the corresponding plane map and harmonic vector is discussed and a method for enumerating the regular periodic plane square tilings having \(r\) orbits of squares is outlined.

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


Bayesian-learning based guidelines to determine equivalent mutants Mutation testing (Mutation Analysis), although powerful in revealing faults, is considered a computationally expensive criterion, due to the high number of mutants created and the effort to determine the equivalent mutants. Using mutation-based alternative testing criteria it is possible to reduce the number of mutants but it is still necessary to determine the equivalent ones. In this paper the Bayesian Learning(one of the Artificial Intelligence techniques used in machine learning) is investigated to define the Bayesian Learning-Based Equivalent Detection Technique (BaLBEDeT), which provides guidelines to help the tester to analyze the live mutants in order to determine the equivalent ones.

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

program equivalence analysis
bayesian learning


Dynamic MAC-based architecture of artificial neural networks suitable for hardware implementation on FPGAs Artificial neural networks (ANNs) is a well known bio-inspired model that simulates human brain capabilities such as learning and generalization. ANNs consist of a number of interconnected processing units, wherein each unit performs a weighted sum followed by the evaluation of a given activation function. The involved computation has a tremendous impact on the implementation efficiency. Existing hardware implementations of ANNs attempt to speed up the computational process. However these implementations require a huge silicon area that makes it almost impossible to fit within the resources available on a state-of-the-art FPGAs. In this paper, we devise a hardware architecture for ANNs that takes advantage of the dedicated adder blocks, commonly called MACs to compute both the weighted sum and the activation function. The proposed architecture requires a reduced silicon area considering the fact that the MACs come for free as these are FPGA's built-in cores. The hardware is as fast as existing ones as it is massively parallel. Besides, the proposed hardware can adjust itself on-the-fly to the user-defined topology of the neural network, with no extra configuration, which is a very nice characteristic in robot-like systems considering the possibility of the same hardware may be exploited in different tasks.

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


MAJORITY-VOTE MODEL WITH HETEROGENEOUS AGENTS ON SQUARE LATTICE We study a nonequilibrium model with up-down symmetry and a noise parameter q known as majority-vote model (MVM) of [M. J. Oliveira, J. Stat. Phys. 66, 273 (1992)] with heterogeneous agents on square lattice (SL). By Monte Carlo (MC) simulations and finite-size scaling relations, the critical exponents beta/nu, gamma/nu and 1/nu and points q(c) and U* are obtained. After extensive simulations, we obtain beta/nu = 0: 35(1), gamma/nu = 1: 23(8) and 1/nu = 1: 05(5). The calculated values of the critical noise parameter and Binder cumulant are q(c) = 0: 1589(4) and U* = 0: 604(7). Within the error bars, the exponents obey the relation 2 beta/nu + gamma/nu = 2 and the results presented here demonstrate that the MVM heterogeneous agents belongs to a different universality class than the nonequilibrium MVM with homogeneous agents on SL.

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


An image model and segmentation algorithm for reflectance confocal images of in vivo cervical tissue The automatic segmentation of nuclei in confocal reflectance images of cervical tissue is an important goal toward developing less expensive cervical precancer detection methods. Since in vivo confocal reflectance microscopy is an emerging technology for cancer detection, no prior work has been reported on the automatic segmentation of in vivo confocal reflectance images. However, prior work has shown that nuclear size and nuclear-to-cytoplasmic ratio can determine the presence or extent of cervical precancer. Thus, segmenting nuclei in confocal images will aid in cervical precancer detection. Successful segmentation of images of any type can be significantly enhanced by the introduction of accurate image models. To enable a deeper understanding of confocal reflectance microscopy images of cervical tissue, and to supply a basis for parameter selection in a classification algorithm, we have developed a model that accounts for the properties of the imaging system and of the tissues. Using our model in conjunction with a powerful image enhancement tool (anisotropic median-diffusion), appropriate statistical image modeling of spatial interactions (Gaussian Markov random fields), and a Bayesian framework for classification-segmentation, we have developed an effective algorithm for automatically segmenting nuclei in confocal images of cervical tissue. We have applied our algorithm to an extensive set of cervical images and have found that it detects 90% of hand-segmented nuclei with an average of 6 false positives per frame.

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

automatic segmentation
cervical tissue
image model

anisotropic diffusion
confocal microscopy
gaussian markov random fields (gmrfs)


Automating the dependency pair method Developing automatable methods for proving termination of term rewrite systems that resist traditional techniques based on simplification orders has become an active research area in the past few years. The dependency pair method of Arts and Giesl is one of the most popular such methods. However, there are several obstacles that hamper its automation. In this paper we present new ideas to overcome these obstacles. We provide ample numerical data supporting our ideas. (c) 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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 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


Self-organising socio-technical description in service systems for supporting smart user decisions in public transport Exploration to transpose service science principles to guide service systems design. Modelling of value co-creation service interactions embedding customer experience. Description of the Socio-Technical Systems Engineering (STSE) process. Exploratory case study of a real time information and travel planning service. Integration guidelines of the STSE process steps with Presage2 multiagent platform.

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

m&sbse modelling and simulation-based systems engineering

stse socio-technical systems engineering


CBR-based cost prediction model-II of the design phase for multi-family housing projects Predicting adequate construction cost is an important factor in effective investment because owners must set the most appropriate budget for their projects. Unlike the existing cost prediction models, the variables that have an interrelation with construction cost were selected as attributes using correlation analysis based on 786 cases. In selecting the attribute weight, the cost prediction model-II for construction projects was developed using the genetic algorithm. The developed cost prediction model-II was verified with four project cases. The result of the verification showed error ratios of -2.57%, -4.25%, 5.25%, and 4.59%, respectively. The developed cost prediction model-II can predict construction cost that corresponds with the project characteristics. It can also be expected that the developed model is effective in design management and cost management since the construction cost can be predicted before the completion of a project's design stage. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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


A feature selection method based on kernel canonical correlation analysis and the minimum Redundancy-Maximum Relevance filter method In this paper, we propose a feature selection method based on a recently popular minimum Redundancy-Maximum Relevance (mRMR) criterion, which we called Kernel Canonical Correlation Analysis based mRMR (KCCAmRMR) based on the idea of finding the unique information, i.e. information that is distinct from the set of already selected variables, that a candidate variable possesses about the target variable. In simplest terms, for this purpose, we propose using correlated functions explored by KCCA instead of using the features themselves as inputs to mRMR. We demonstrate the usefulness of our method on both toy and benchmark datasets. Crown Copyright (C) 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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


hierarchical state machine architecture for regular expression pattern matching Regular expression has been widely used in network intrusion detection system to represent attack patterns due to its expressive power and flexibility. However, the traditional memory architecture suffers from the problem of memory explosion for certain types of complex regular expressions. In this paper, we propose a hierarchical state machine architecture which can significantly reduce the memory required to accommodate complex regular expression patterns. The experiments demonstrate a significant reduction in memory for the complex regular expression patterns commonly used in network intrusion detection systems.

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

regular expression
state machine
pattern matching


Computing as utility: Managing availability, commitment, and pricing through contingent bid auctions Enabled by advances in grid and network computing architectures for the delivery of on-demand computing services, the vision of an e-services economy in which computing will be as ubiquitous as a utility is becoming a possibility in business computing. Major firms in the computing industry such as IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and Sun Microsystems are focusing on agility and flexibility of computing resources and gearing up for their own versions of on-demand computing and information technology (IT) outsourcing solutions. The successful introduction of these new computing models requires the development of appropriate pricing mechanisms that are consistent with the enabling technologies. Our paper introduces the notion of contingent auctions to address this lacuna. In contingent auctions, users bid for computing resources in an auction, but are relieved from the contract (paying a penalty) if demand is not realized. We study different mechanisms-ranging from an advance commitment (capacity reservation) to no commitment (pay-as-you-go)-under demand uncertainty. We consider markets in which the demand for computing is uncertain and, moreover, users' value of computing and demand realization may be related. We show how the different levels of commitment affect prices, revenues, and resource utilization under different market conditions. Our results reiterate the need to address the availability-commitment dichotomy in the design of business models for on-demand computing and IT outsourcing.

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

computing marketplace
electronic auctions
grid computing
on-demand computing
utility computing


ISRUC-Sleep: A comprehensive public dataset for sleep researchers A publicly-available sleep dataset, called ISRUC-Sleep, is introduced. It contains data of healthy and patient subjects with different characteristics. Two recording sessions per subject are included in subgroup-II of the dataset. ISRUC-Sleep were evaluated using the ASSC method SSM4S. Effects of sleep disorders, diseases and medications are presented.

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

automatic sleep stage classification
polysomnographic signals
effects of sleep disorder
medication effects
feature selection


user-calibration-free gaze tracking with estimation of the horizontal angles between the visual and the optical axes of both eyes This paper presents a user-calibration-free method for estimating the point of gaze (POG) on a display accurately with estimation of the horizontal angles between the visual and the optical axes of both eyes. By using one pair of cameras and two light sources, the optical axis of the eye can be estimated. This estimation is carried out by using a spherical model of the cornea. The point of intersection of the optical axis of the eye with the display is termed POA. By detecting the POAs of both the eyes, the POG is approximately estimated as the midpoint of the line joining the POAs of both the eyes on the basis of the binocular eye model; therefore, we can estimate the horizontal angles between the visual and the optical axes of both the eyes without requiring user calibration. We have developed a prototype system based on this method using a 19" display with two pairs of stereo cameras. We evaluated the system experimentally with 20 subjects who were at a distance of 600 mm from the display. The result shows that the average of the root-mean-square error (RMSE) of measurement of POG in the display screen coordinate system is 16.55 mm (equivalent to less than 1.58).

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 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


sysml-based requirement modeling environment for multicore embedded system The requirements engineering plays an important role during the lifespan of a complex system development project. The writing of system requirements in system developments process is through the natural language frequently. Natural language usually contains uncertainty. Additionally, requirements engineer lacks field knowledge and often shows shortages of relevant experiences. All these cause equivocal and wrong requirements analysis of the system requirements specification. In order to avoid these, the appropriate requirements modeling tools and can offer engineer's appropriate mechanism to understand what the customer want, analyze the requirements, assess feasibility, consult the rational solution, clearly point out the solution, confirm the specification, and reduce the possibility that the specific project may fail. We have presented a requirements modeling tool based on SysML. This research copes with model driven approach and requirements definition template for precise, consistent requirements specifications definition. MDA offers a procedure of analyzing the requirements to prevent a specific project from procrastinating. It assists users to confirm and improve the exactness of the requirements contents via the "Profile" of the requirements. The OCL leads users to write the template of the requirements, and brings in the characteristics of multi-core embedded system in the requirements documents through "profile".

O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 Design-Specific and Thermally-Aware Methodology for Trading-Off Power and Performance in Leakage-Dominant CMOS Technologies As CMOS technology scales deeper into the nanometer regime, factors such as leakage power and chip temperature emerge as critically important concerns for high-performance VLSI design. Consequently, enhancing processing performance is no longer the most important factor that dominates future circuit design considerations. This paper, for the first time, proposes a systematic methodology to determine a generalized design optimization metric for simultaneously trading-off power and performance in nanometer scale integrated circuits to achieve design-specific targets. The methodology incorporates interconnect effects as well as electrothermal couplings between substrate temperature, power, and performance for nanometer scale design optimization. Implications of choosing a specific design optimization metric on power, performance, and operating temperature are illustrated and discussed. The proposed methodology is shown to provide a more meaningful optimization metric (for power-performance tradeoff analysis) and basis, with considerations of chip-level thermal management including maximum allowable operating temperature and packaging/cooling solutions. Furthermore, implications of CMOS technology scaling and parameter variations on the proposed methodology are discussed.

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

leakage
performance
power
thermal management

chip-package co-design
integrated circuit (ic)
thermal-aware design


Design and Performance Evaluation of Data Dissemination Systems for Opportunistic Networks Based on Cognitive Heuristics In the convergence of the Cyber-Physical World, user devices will act as proxies of the humans in the cyber world. They will be required to act in a vast information landscape, asserting the relevance of data spread in the cyber world, in order to let their human users become aware of the content they really need. This is a remarkably similar situation to what the human brain has to do all the time when deciding what information coming from the surrounding environment is interesting and what can simply be ignored. The brain performs this task using so called cognitive heuristics, i.e. simple, rapid, yet very effective schemes. In this article, we propose a new approach that exploits one of these heuristics, the recognition heuristic, for developing a self-adaptive system that deals with effective data dissemination in opportunistic networks. We show how to implement it and provide an extensive analysis via simulation. Specifically, results show that the proposed solution is as effective as state-of-the-art solutions for data dissemination in opportunistic networks, while requiring far less resources. Finally, our sensitiveness analysis shows how various parameters depend on the context where nodes are situated, and suggest corresponding optimal configurations for the algorithm.

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

design
performance
opportunistic networks
cognitive heuristics
recognition heuristic
data dissemination