Resilient and efficient load balancing in distributed hash tables As a fundamental problem in distributed hash table (DHT)-based systems, load balancing is important to avoid performance degradation and guarantee system fairness. Among existing migration-based load balancing strategies, there are two main categories: (1) rendezvous directory strategy (RDS) and (2) independent searching strategy (ISS). However, none of them can achieve resilience and efficiency at the same time. In this paper, we propose a group multicast strategy (GMS) for load balancing in DHT systems, which attempts to achieve the benefits of both RDS and ISS. GMS does not rely on a few static rendezvous directories to perform load balancing. Instead, load information is disseminated within the formed groups via a multicast protocol. Thus, each peer has enough information to act as the rendezvous directory and perform load balancing within its group. Besides intra-group load balancing, inter-group load balancing and emergent load balancing are also supported by GMS. In GMS, the position of the rendezvous directory is randomized in each round, which further improves system resilience. In order to have a better understanding of GMS, we also perform analytical studies on GMS in terms of its scalability and efficiency under churn. Finally, the effectiveness of GMS is evaluated by extensive simulation under different workload and churn levels.

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


Tabu search with path relinking for an integrated production-distribution problem This paper deals with the problem of integrating production and distribution planning over periods of a finite horizon. We consider a capacity-constrained plant that produces a number of items distributed by a fleet of homogenous vehicles to customers with known demand for each item in each period. The production planning defines the amount of each item produced in every period, while the distribution planning defines when customers should be visited, the amount of each item that should be delivered to customers, and the vehicle routes. The objective is to minimize production and inventory costs at the plant, inventory costs at the customers and distribution costs. We propose two tabu search variants for this problem, one that involves construction and a short-term memory, and one that incorporates a longer term memory used to integrate a path relinking procedure to the first variant. The proposed tabu search variants are tested on generated instances with up to ten items and on instances from the literature involving a single item. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

supply chain management
production-distribution problem


Preprocessing and analysis of ECG signals - A self-organizing maps approach The objective of this paper is to consider self-organizing maps (SOMs) as a vehicle for analysis of ECG data and making decisions as to further preprocessing and selecting classification algorithms. In contrast to other commonly used methods of unsupervised learning (such as e.g., Fuzzy C-Means or K-Means), the results formed by SOMs are more user-oriented allowing for an intensive interaction with the user in supporting various tasks of "what-if" analysis. In this manner, the map scan serve as a preliminary vehicle supporting a detailed system design. In the study, the standard model of SOM is augmented by several interpretation-oriented features such as region analysis and feature descriptors. The map helps reveal a structure in a set of ECG patterns and visualize a topology of such data. The role of the designer of any subsequent classifier or signal analyzer is associated with an inspection of some already visualized regions of the self-organizing map characterized by a significant level of data homogeneity and based on the discovered topology, make decisions as to the development of classification schemes. The experimental part illustrating the proposed design practices is concerned with the data coming from the MIT-BIH ECG database being commonly utilized in the realm of ECG signal analysis and classifier design. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

computerized ecg signal analysis and classification


Mapping multiple potential ATP binding sites on the matrix side of the bovine ADP/ATP carrier by the combined use of MD simulation and docking The mitochondrial adenosine diphosphate/adenosine triphosphate (ADP/ATP) carrier-AAC-was crystallized in complex with its specific inhibitor carboxyatractyloside (CATR). The protein consists of a six-transmembrane helix bundle that defines the nucleotide translocation pathway, which is closed towards the matrix side due to sharp kinks in the odd-numbered helices. In this paper, we describe the interaction between the matrix side of the AAC transporter and the ATP(4-) molecule using carrier structures obtained through classical molecular dynamics simulation (MD) and a protein-ligand docking procedure. Fifteen structures were extracted from a previously published MD trajectory through clustering analysis, and 50 docking runs were carried out for each carrier conformation, for a total of 750 runs ("MD docking"). The results were compared to those from 750 docking runs performed on the X-ray structure ("X docking"). The docking procedure indicated the presence of a single interaction site in the X-ray structure that was conserved in the structures extracted from the MD trajectory. MD docking showed the presence of a second binding site that was not found in the X docking. The interaction strategy between the AAC transporter and the ATP(4-) molecule was analyzed by investigating the composition and 3D arrangement of the interaction pockets, together with the orientations of the substrate inside them. A relationship between sequence repeats and the ATP(4-) binding sites in the AAC carrier structure is proposed.

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

mitochondrial adp/atp carrier
cluster analysis
protein-ligand docking
atp-carrier interaction


A hybrid discrete differential evolution algorithm to minimise total tardiness on identical parallel machines This paper presents a hybrid discrete differential evolution (HDDE) algorithm to solve the Pm// problem. The coding and decoding scheme based on job permutation is applied in the algorithm. The algorithm employs several efficient heuristics in the initialisation phase and incorporates an insertion-based local search. To validate the proposed algorithm, computational experiments are conducted on a benchmark problem set from the literature. Computational results show that the HDDE algorithm outperforms the existing state-of-the-art algorithms for the Pm// problem.

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


Local structure of Gaussian texture The joint histogram of second order scale space differential invariants of natural images (including textures) is typically clustered about parabolic surface patches, whereas symmetrical elliptical patches (local convexities or concavities) are very rare and symmetrical hyperbolical patches also occur less frequently than parabolic patches. We trace the origin of this striking effect in the context of Gaussian random noise. For this case one may derive the joint histogram of curvedness and shape index analytically. The empirical observations are fully corroborated. In deriving these results we introduce a polar coordinate system in the space of second order scale space derivatives that turns out to be particularly useful in the study of the statistics of local curvature properties. The empirical observations apply also to non-Gaussian noise (e.g., Brownian noise) as well as to photographs of natural scenes. We discuss general arguments that help explain these observations.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 tabu search heuristic for resource management in naval warfare Effective utilization of scarce resources, in particular weapon resources, is a prominent issue in naval anti-air warfare. In this paper, defence plans are constructed to guide the allocation and scheduling of different types of defence weapons against anti-ship missiles, subject to various physical and operational constraints. To reduce the frequency of replanning, decision trees are considered to explicitly account, in a probabilistic manner, for all possible outcomes of a particular action. A construction heuristic is first developed to generate an initial tree. A tabu search heuristic then improves this tree through the removal or addition of defence actions, followed by update operations aimed at maintaining the consistency. Numerical results obtained on scenarios with an increasing number of threats show that substantial improvements, in terms of survivability of the ship, can be obtained in reasonable computation times using tabu search.

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

naval warfare
resource management
weapon
tabu search


diagnosis of realistic bridging faults with single stuck-at information Abstract: Precise failure analysis requires accurate fault diagnosis. A previously proposed method for diagnosing bridging faults using single stuck-at dictionaries was applied only to small circuits, produced large and imprecise diagnoses, and did not take into account the Byzantine Generals Problem for bridging faults. We analyze the original technique and improve it by introducing the concepts of match restriction, match requirement, and failure recovery. Our new technique, which requires no information other than that used by standard stuck-at methods, produces diagnoses that are an order of magnitude smaller than those produced by the original technique and produces many fewer misleading diagnoses than that of traditional stuck-at diagnosis.

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

fault diagnosis
failure analysis
failure recovery
match requirement
match restriction

logic testing
fault location
realistic bridging faults diagnosis
single stuck-at information
single stuck-at dictionaries
stuck-at methods
stuck-at diagnosis


Traffic Information Detection Based on Scattered Sensor Data: Model and Algorithms This paper presents the mathematical model and algorithms for traffic flow information detection based on proximity sensor networks. Take into account the intrinsic properties of traffic flow and the principle of traffic congestion formation to build an observation model in the intersection and near segments. Based on the analytical model, this paper developed the method and algorithms to estimate traffic parameter with the scattered sensor data, and reconstruct the traffic surface using numerical interpolation and finite elements method. The result is expected to support the optimal global timing for the purpose of traffic light control, real-time traffic state monitoring and evaluation, and try to avoid the traffic congestion before it formation. The performance is analyzed based on the Mobile Century dataset. The simulation result shows that this method can improve the spatial-temporal resolution of traffic detection, and it is helpful to make quantitative analysis of traffic congestion.

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

numerical interpolation
finite elements method

intelligent transportation system (its)
wireless sensor networks (wsn)
traffic surveillance
traffic flow theory
traffic congestion-model
nonlinear surface reconstruction
scattered data fitting


Spatio-temporal composition of video objects: Representation and querying in video database systems A key characteristic of video data is the associated spatial and temporal semantics. It is important that a video model models the characteristics of objects and their relationships in time and space. Allen's 13 temporal relationships [2] are often used in formulating queries that contain the temporal relationships among video frames. For the spatial relationships, most of the approaches are based on projecting objects on a two or three-dimensional coordinate system. However, very few attempts have been made formally to represent the spatio-temporal relationships of objects contained in the video data and to formulate queries with spatio-temporal constraints. The purpose of our work is to design a model representation for the specification of the spatio-temporal relationships among objects in video sequences. The model describes the spatial relationships among objects for each frame in a given video scene and the temporal relationships (for this frame) of the temporal intervals measuring the duration of these spatial relationships. It also models the temporal composition of an object, which reflects the evolution of object's spatial relationships over the subsequent frames in the video scene and in the entire video sequence. Our model representation also provides an effective and expressive way for the complete and precise specification of distances among objects in digital video. This model is a basis for the annotation of raw video.

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

spatio-temporal modeling
video annotation
content-based retrieval
multimedia modeling


Finite element-based force/moment-driven simulation of orthodontic tooth movement The objectives of this study were to develop a numerically controlled experimental set-up to predict the movement caused by the force systems of orthodontic devices and to experimentally verify this system. The presented experimental set-up incorporated an artificial tooth fixed via a 3D force/moment sensor to a parallel kinematics robot. An algorithm determining the initial movement of the tooth in its elastic embedding controlled the set-up. The initial tooth movement was described by constant compliances. The constants were obtained prior to the experiment in a parameterised finite element (FE) study on the basis of a validated FE model of a human molar. The long-term tooth movement was assembled by adding up a multiple of incremental steps of initial tooth movements. A pure translational movement of the tooth of about 8mm resulted for a moment to force ratio of -8.85mm, corresponding to the distance between the bracket and the centre of resistance. The correct behaviour of this linear elastic model in its symmetry plane allows for simulating single tooth movement induced by orthodontic devices.

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

force
orthodontic tooth movement
centre of resistance
parallel kinematics robot

moment-driven
finite element method
bone remodelling


ON MONOTONIC SUFFICIENT CONDITIONS OF FUZZY INFERENCE SYSTEMS AND THEIR APPLICATIONS An important and difficult issue in designing a Fuzzy Inference System (FIS) is the specification of fuzzy sets and fuzzy rules. In this paper, two useful qualitative properties of the FIS model, i.e., the monotonicity and sub-additivity properties, are studied. The monotonic sufficient conditions of the FIS model with Gaussian membership functions are further analyzed. The aim is to incorporate the sufficient conditions into the FIS modeling process, which serves as a simple (which can be easily understood by domain users), easy-to-use (which can be easily applied to or can be a part of the FIS model), and yet reliable (which has a sound mathematical foundation) method to preserve the monotonicity property of the FIS model. Another aim of this paper is to demonstrate how these additional qualitative information can be exploited and extended to be part of the FIS designing procedure (i.e., for fuzzy sets and fuzzy rules design) via the sufficient conditions (which act as a set of useful governing equations for designing the FIS model). The proposed approach is able to avoid the "trial and error" procedure in obtaining a monotonic FIS model. To assess the applicability of the proposed approach, two practical problems are examined. The first is an FIS-based model for water level control, while the second is an FIS-based Risk Priority Number (RPN) model in Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA). To further illustrate the importance of the sufficient conditions as the governing equations, an analysis on the consequences of violating the sufficient conditions of the FIS-based RPN model is presented.

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

monotonicity property
sufficient conditions

sub-additivity property
fuzzy controller
failure mode and effect analysis (fmea)
risk assessment


Physics-based numerical simulation and device characterizations of AlGaN/GaN HEMTs with temperature effects The research presents AlGaN/GaN HEMTs device characterizations at different temperatures using physics-based numerical simulation. Industry standard simulation tool Silvaco ATLAS is used to characterize the various electronic properties of the device. An extensive theoretical overview is done to achieve the most comprehensive values for GaN and AlGaN properties, as discussed in the paper. This research is mainly focused on simulation of temperature dependent device performances as well as on some other material properties that are not well defined in ATLAS. Energy bandgap, density of states, saturation velocities, surface traps, polarization effect, carrier lifetime and mobility, permittivity, effective Richardson's constant, and donor and acceptor energy levels are considered as critical parameters for predicting temperature effect in ALGaN/GaN HEMT. Various aspects of device performance are analyzed at high temperature along with the different bias configurations.

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


multiresolution plant models with complex organs Interactive visualization of virtual trees and forests is an important challenge in computer graphics and virtual reality. Complex geometric representation of virtual vegetation often overwhelms computer processing units and graphic hardware resources. We present here a new cluster based polygon decimation method, Hierarchical Union of Organs , to progressively and hierarchically simplify complex plant organs (foliage, flower, fruits). Using this method, we propose a novel approach to construct multiresolution organ geometrical models under spatial error control. During rendering, the approach generates minimal graphical primitives. The implementation shows its efficiency for geometrical compression on single trees. It also illustrates its fast rendering capabilities on scenes composed of numerous tree and plant species, including broadleaf and coniferous species.

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


A Serum Proteomics Approach to the Diagnosis of Ectopic Pregnancy An ectopic pregnancy (EP) occurs when implantation of the embryo occurs outside of the uterus. If left untreated, the developing fetus will continue to grow, leading to life-threatening consequences for the mother. A major difficulty with the diagnosis of ectopic pregnancy is that methods of detection are limited, and some, such as ultrasound, are not very reliable in the earliest days of gestation. Currently, no effective serum test exists to distinguish an ectopic pregnancy from a normal intrauterine pregnancy. The incidence of ectopic pregnancy is increasing and has doubled in the last 20 years. It is now the second most common cause of maternal death in the first trimester of pregnancy. To address this issue, we initiated a project to identify serum markers of ectopic pregnancy. The subjects for these studies presented at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. We obtained over 140 serum samples from women with suspected ectopic pregnancy

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

serum proteomics
diagnosis
ectopic pregnancy


Coherence time-based cooperative MAC protocol 1 for wireless ad hoc networks In this article, we address the goal of achieving performance gains under heavy-load and fast fading conditions. CoopMACI protocol proposed in Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC), Seoul, Korea, picks either direct path or relay path based on rate comparison to enhance average throughput and delay performances. However, CoopMACI performance deteriorates under fading conditions because of lower direct path or relay path reliability compared to UtdMAC (Agarwal et al. LNCS, 4479, 415-426, 2007). UtdMAC was shown to perform better than CoopMACI in terms of average throughput and delay performances because of improved transmission reliability provided by the backup relay path. Although better than CoopMACI, UtdMAC does not fully benefit from higher throughput relay path (compared to the direct path), since it uses relay path only as a secondary backup path. In this article, we develop a cooperative MAC protocol (termed as instantaneous relay-based cooperative MAC--IrcMAC) that uses channel coherence time and estimates signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of source-to-relay, relay-to-destination, and source-to-destination links, to reliably choose between relay path or direct path for enhanced throughput and delay performances. Unique handshaking is used to estimate SNR and single bit feedbacks resolve contentions among relay nodes, which further provides source node with rate (based on SNR) information on source-to-destination, source-to-relay, and relay-to-destination links. Simulation results clearly show that IrcMAC significantly outperforms the existing CoopMACI and the UtdMAC protocols in wireless ad hoc network. Results show average throughput improvements of 41% and 64% and average delay improvementd of 98.5% and 99.7% compared with UtdMAC and CoopMACI, respectively.

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

ieee 802.11
medium access control
signal-to-noise ratio
cooperative communication


Inhibition Mechanisms of Bioflavonoids Extracted from the Bark of Pinus maritima on the Expression of Proinflammatory Cytokines The effect of bioflavonoids extracted from the bark of Pinus maritima, Pycnogenol (PYC), on gene expression of the proinflammatory cytokines interleukin-1? (IL-1?) and interleukin-2 (IL-2) were investigated in RAW 264.7 cells and Jurkat E6.1 cells, respectively. PYC exerted strong scavenging activities against reactive oxygen species (ROS) generated by H2O2 in RAW 264.7. In situ ELISA, immunoblot analysis, and competitive RT-PCR demonstrated that pretreatment of LPS-stimulated RAW 264.7 cells with PYC dose-dependently reduced both the production of IL-1? and its mRNA levels. Furthermore, in the same cells, PYC blocked the activation of nuclear factor ?B (NF-?B) and activator protein-1 (AP-1), two major transcription factors centrally involved in IL-1? gene expression. Concordantly, pretreatment of the cells with PYC abolished the LPS-induced I?B degradation. We also investigated the effect of PYC on IL-2 gene expression in phorbol 12-myristate 13acetate plus ionomycin (PMA/Io)-stimulated human T-cell line Jurkat E6.1. PYC inhibited the PMA/Io-induced IL-2 mRNA expression. However, as demonstrated in a reporter gene assay system, the mechanism of IL-2 gene transcriptional regulation by PYC was different from the regulation of IL-1?. PYC inhibited both NF-AT and AP-1 chloramphenicol acetyltransferase (CAT) activities in transiently transfected Jurkat E6.1, but not NF-?B CAT activity. We also found that PYC can destabilize PMA/Io-induced IL-2 mRNA by posttranscriptional regulation. All these results suggest that bioflavonids can be useful therapeutic agents in treating many inflammatory, autoimmune, and cardiovascular diseases based on its diverse action mechanisms.

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


Calculating upward and downward simulations of state-based specifications This paper concerns calculational methods of refinement in state-based specification languages. Data refinement is a well-established technique for transforming specifications of abstract data types into ones, which are closer to an eventual implementation. The conditions under which a transformation is a correct refinement are encapsulated into two simulation rules: downward and upward simulations. One approach for refining an abstract system is to specify the concrete data type, and then attempt to verify that it is a valid refinement of the abstract type. An alternative approach is to calculate the concrete specification based upon the abstract specification and a retrieve relation, which links the abstract and concrete states. In this paper we generalise existing calculational methods for downward simulations and derive similar results for upward simulations; we also document their use and application in a particular specification language, namely Z.

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

state-based systems
calculating refinements


The bipanpositionable bipancyclic property of the hypercube A bipartite graph is bipancyclic if it contains a cycle of every even length from 4 to vertical bar V(G)vertical bar inclusive. A hamiltonian bipartite graph G is bipanpositionable if, for any two different vertices x and y, there exists a hamiltonian cycle C of G such that d(c)(x, y) = k for any integer k with d(G)(x, y) = 2. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

bipanpositionable bipancyclic hypercube hamiltonian


Violence against Pregnant Women in Northwestern Ontario Violence against women during pregnancy is a global problem with adverse outcomes for the mothers and their children. This paper provides a discussion of the prevalence rates of pregnancy-related violence, associated factors, and outcomes. Most of the outcome literature focuses on perinatal and postnatal outcomes, but little is known about the longer term psychological outcome of children born to women abused during pregnancy. Moreover, the question as to whether the abuse increases during pregnancy remains unanswered given the equivocal findings in the literature. Findings from a small study conducted with women in the region of northwestern Ontario, Canada, are presented. The pattern of abuse during pregnancy over the three trimesters was examined. The long-term psychological outcomes of the children born to women abused during pregnancy were also investigated by comparing these children to a sex- and age-matched cohort of children born to women who were not abused during pregnancy. Although key confounding variables were controlled in the study, the results still showed that children born to women abused during pregnancy had greater behavioral problems

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

violence
pregnancy
pattern of abuse
children
psychological outcome


A comprehensive and automated approach to intelligent business processes execution analysis Business process management tools have traditionally focused on supporting the modeling and automation of business processes, with the aim of enabling faster and more cost-effective process executions. As more and more processes become automated, customers become increasingly interested in managing process executions. Specifically, there is a desire for getting more visibility into process executions, to be able to quickly spot problems and areas for improvements. The idea is that, by being able to assess the process execution quality, it is possible to take actions to improve and optimize process execution, thereby leading to processes that have higher quality and lower costs. All this is possible today, but involves the execution of specialized data mining projects that typically last months, costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, and only provide a specialized, narrow solution whose applicability is often relatively short in time, due to the ever changing business and IT environments. Still, the need is such that companies undertake these efforts. To address these needs, this paper presents a set of concepts and architectures that lay the foundation for providing users with intelligent analysis and predictions about business process executions. For example, the tools are able to provide users with information about why the quality of a process execution is low, what will be the outcome of a certain process, or how many processes will be started next week. This information is crucial to gain visibility into the processes, understand or foresee problems and areas of optimization, and quickly identify solutions. Intelligent analysis and predictions are achieved by applying data mining techniques to process execution data. In contrast to traditional approaches, where lengthy projects, considerable efforts, and specialized skills in both business processes and data mining are needed to achieve these objectives, we aim at automating the entire data mining process lifecycle, so that intelligent functionality can be provided by the system while requiring little or no user input. The ambitious end goal of the work presented in this paper is that of laying the foundation for a framework and tool that is capable of providing analysts with key intelligence information about process execution, affecting crucial IT and business decisions, almost literally at the click of a button.

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 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

business process intelligence
process analysis
prediction
metrics
star schema


teaching privacy with ubicomp scenarios in hci classes Privacy is a many-faceted concept and, consequently, designing for privacy is a challenging topic to teach. Privacy in ubicomp environments adds to the challenge, since such environments are still rare and people have not gained experience from interacting in them. Scenarios can be used to make the issues concrete for students. We describe three cases, with different scenarios, different pedagogical goals, different levels of students, and different data collection methods, for teaching about privacy using scenarios. We report on the experiences, both the successes and the pitfalls that need to be taken into account.

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

scenario
hci education
ubiquitous computing


On the Capabilities of the Polynomial Chaos Expansion Method within SFE Analysis-An Overview This paper addresses the most recent developments concerning the application of the P-C expansion method within the Stochastic Finite Element (SFE) analysis, in particular considering computational solid mechanics. More specifically, the focus has been on the use of the method for the propagation of the stochastic structural responses due to the extensive amount of contributions in this context. Numerical examples presented in the literature are listed in this regard, in order to shed some light on the range of applications, especially in terms of the probabilistic dimensionality of the problem. Furthermore, the recently emerging utilization of the method within the modeling of uncertain input parameters is covered briefly. With this contribution, it is aimed to present an overview on the state-of-art of the P-C literature and the capabilities of the method.

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


A tool for generating and explaining expressive music performances of monophonic jazz melodies In this paper we present a machine learning approach to modeling the knowledge applied by a musician when performing a score in order to produce an expressive performance of a piece. We describe a tool for both generating and explaining expressive music performances of monophonic Jazz melodies. The tool consists of three components: (a) a melodic transcription component which extracts a set of acoustic features from monophonic recordings, (b) a machine learning component which induce both an expressive transformation model and a set of expressive performance rules from the extracted acoustic features, and (c) a melody synthesis component which generates expressive monophonic output (MIDI or audio) from inexpressive melody descriptions using the induced expressive transformation model. We compare several machine learning techniques we have explored for inducing the expressive transformation model.

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


Pyrolysis mechanism of carbon matrix precursor cyclohexaneThe formation of condensed-ring aromatics and the growing process of molecules Based on the experiments, the UAM1 method was adopted to investigate benzene condensation of an important intermediate and the molecule growing mechanism during the cyclohexane pyrolysis process. The conclusions were drawn as follows: (1) from the viewpoint of thermodynamics, the condensation of benzene and C4H5 is a spontaneous reaction and the rising temperature will increase the spontaneous tendency of the reaction. (2) From the viewpoint of kinetic, the condensation of benzene and C4H5 is a two-step reaction. The rate-determining step is step 2 of hydrogen removal from intermediate C10H10 (I1) with the activation energy of 350.61kJ/mol below 1473K while the rate-determining step is step 1 that free radical C4H5 attacks benzene to form intermediate C10H10 (I1) with the activation energy ? E 0 ? ? = 31.74 kJ/mol above 1473K. (3) The space structure, electronic structure and thermodynamics parameters of molecular reaction of dense-ring aromatizing compounds can be used to replace the resonance energy and free valence to judge the activation of thermodynamic reaction of compounds. And (4) the analysis of the space structure, electronic structure and thermodynamic parameters show that the growing process of molecules with benzene used as initial reactants becomes more easier as the multi-ring aromatizing molecular system increases.

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

carbon/carbon composites
condensed-ring aromatics
aromatization
uam1 method computation


DISCO - Acquisition of translucent objects Translucent objects are characterized by diffuse light scattering beneath the object's surface. Light enters and leaves an object at possibly distinct surface locations. This paper presents the first method to acquire this transport behavior for arbitrary inhomogeneous objects. Individual surface points are illuminated in our DISCO measurement facility and the object's impulse response is recorded with a high-dynamic range video camera. The acquired data is resampled into a hierarchical model of the object's light scattering properties. Missing values are consistently interpolated resulting in measurement-based, complete and accurate representations of real translucent objects which can be rendered with various algorithms.

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

subsurface scattering
bssrdf
translucency
reflection model


Insufficient augmentation of ambient GABA responsible for age-related cognitive deficit Age-related degeneration of intracortical inhibition could underlie declines in cognitive function during senescence. Based on a hypothesis that a decrease in basal concentration of ambient (extrasynaptic) GABA with aging leads to depressing intracortical inhibition, we investigated how the basal concentration affects stimulus-evoked activity (as signal), ongoing-spontaneous activity (as noise) of neurons and their (signal-to-noise) ratio S/N. We simulated a neural network model equipped with a GABA transport system that regulates ambient GABA concentration in a neuronal activity-dependent manner. An increase in basal concentration augmented ambient GABA, increased GABA-mediated inhibitory current, and depressed ongoing-spontaneous activity while still keeping stimulus-evoked activity. This led to S/N improvement, for which it was necessary for the reversal potential of GABA transporter to be close to the resting potential of neurons. Above the resting potential, ongoing-spontaneous activity was predominantly enhanced due to excessive GABA-uptake from the extracellular space by transporters. Below the resting potential, stimulus-evoked activity was predominantly depressed, caused by excessive GABA-release. We suggest that the insufficient augmentation of ambient GABA due to a decrease in its basal concentration may be one of the possible causes of cognitive deficit with aging, increasing ongoing-spontaneous neuronal activity as noise. GABA transporter may contribute to improving S/N, provided that its reversal potential is close to the resting potential.

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

ongoing-spontaneous neuronal activity
noise reduction
age-related cognitive decline
signal-to-noise ratio


A stochastic model for the analysis of a two-machine flexible manufacturing cell This paper presents a stochastic model to determine the performance of a flexible manufacturing cell (FMC) under variable operational conditions, including random machining times, random loading and unloading times, and random pallet transfer times. The FMC under study consists of two machines, pallet handling system, and a loading/unloading robot. After delivering the blanks by the pallet to the cell, the robot loads the first machine followed by the second. Unloading of a part starts with the machine that finishes its part first, followed by the next machine. When the machining of all parts on the pallet is completed, the handling system moves the pallet with finished parts out and brings in a new pallet with blanks. A model with these characteristics turns out to be a Markov chain with a transition matrix of size 5n + 3, where n is the number of parts on the pallet. In this paper, we present exact numerical solutions and economic analysis to evaluate FMC systems, to determine optimal pallet capacity and robot speed that minimize total FMC cost per unit of production. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

flexible manufacturing cells
stochastic modeling
production planning


Evolutionary-based heuristic generators for checkers and give-away checkers Two methods of genetic evolution of linear and non-linear heuristic evaluation functions for the game of checkers and give-away checkers are presented in the paper. The first method is based on the simplistic assumption that a relation close to partial order can be defined over the set of evaluation functions. Hence an explicit fitness function is not necessary in this case and direct comparison between heuristics (a tournament) can be used instead. In the other approach a heuristic is developed step-by-step based on the set of training games. First, the end-game positions are considered and then the method gradually moves backwards in the game tree up to the starting position and at each step the best fitted specimen from the previous step (previous game tree depth) is used as the heuristic evaluation function in the alpha-beta search for the current step. Experimental results confirm that both approaches lead to quite strong heuristics and give hope that a more sophisticated and more problem-oriented evolutionary process might ultimately provide heuristics of quality comparable to those of commercial programs.

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

heuristic generators
checkers
evaluation function

game playing
give-away checkers
evolutionary computation


Model-based adaptive enhancement of far infrared image sequences Two enhancement algorithms, the spatial and spatiotemporal homomorphic filtering (SHF and STHF), were proposed in (Highnam, R., Brady, M., 1997. IEEE Trans. Pattern Anal. Machine Intell. 19, 410415) to enhance far infrared images based upon a far infrared imaging model. In this paper, we theoretically and experimentally prove that the enhanced results with SHF are in general smoother than those with STHF, although STHF may reduce the processing time greatly in comparison to SHF. Based on this conclusion, an adaptive spatiotemporal homomorphic filtering (ASTHF) algorithm is proposed. The adaptive factor of ASTHF is also discussed in detail to obtain the trade-off between smoothness and convergence time.

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 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

image enhancement
far infrared imagery
adaptive filtering
spatiotemporal filtering
prometheus


obsolescent materialized views in query processing of enterprise information systems In recent years, query processing has become more complex as data sources are frequently replicated and data are periodically processed and embedded within several data sources simultaneously. These trends have necessitated the optimization of techniques for query processing in order to exploit these new alternatives. Accordingly, this paper introduces an improved query optimization technique, which is capable of assessing query plans that use both current and obsolescent data. In particular, we provide a cost model by which the trade-offs of using obsolescent materialized views can be evaluated and we also discuss the method's applicability to contemporary query optimization techniques.

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

cost model
order
views
use
enterprise
exploit
data
paper
query optimization
query processing
query

applications
method
optimality
complexity
information system
embedding


authoring and execution environments for multimedia applications featuring robotic actors Recent advances in multimedia systems and robotics encourage the development of novel types of applications that associate the use of various multimedia objects with the behavior of multiple robotic actors. Unfortunately, the development of such systems is hampered by the lack of appropriate authoring and execution environments. This paper seeks to fill this gap by describing CHOROS, a Java-based authoring environment for visually planning the behavior of multiple robotic actors and linking it with the rendering state of various multimedia objects. This is accomplished with an augmented reality interface in which the author draws the robot paths and associates them with timelines describing the use of various multimedia objects. During the actual execution of the application the environment automatically tracks and adjusts the behavior of the robotic actors in order to maintain its association with the rendering state of the multimedia objects.

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

multimedia tools
augmented reality and robotics
authoring environments
end-system and applications


Counting solutions to equations in many variables over finite fields We present a polynomial-time algorithm for computing the zeta function of a smooth projective hypersurface of degree d over a finite field of characteristic p, under the assumption that p is a suitably small odd prime and does not divide d. This improves significantly upon an earlier algorithm of the author and Wan which is only polynomial-time when the dimension is fixed.

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

finite field
projective hypersurface
zeta function
algorithm

homogeneous polynomial
dwork cohomology
deformation theory
p-adic differentail equation


On the resolution and optimization of a system of fuzzy relational equations with sup-T composition This paper provides a thorough investigation on the resolution of a finite system of fuzzy relational equations with sup-T composition, where T is a continuous triangular norm. When such a system is consistent, although we know that the solution set can be characterized by a maximum solution and finitely many minimal solutions, it is still a challenging task to find all minimal solutions in an efficient manner. Using the representation theorem of continuous triangular norms, we show that the systems of sup-T equations can be divided into two categories depending on the involved triangular norm. When the triangular norm is Archimedean, the minimal solutions correspond one-to-one to the irredundant coverings of a set covering problem. When it is non-Archimedean, they only correspond to a subset of constrained irredundant coverings of a set covering problem. We then show that the problem of minimizing a linear objective function subject to a system of sup-T equations can be reduced into a 0-1 integer programming problem in polynomial time. This work generalizes most, if not all, known results and provides a unified framework to deal with the problem of resolution and optimization of a system of sup-T equations. Further generalizations and related issues are also included for discussion.

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 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 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 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

fuzzy relational equations
triangular norms
integer programming


high-performance spatial indexing for location-based services Much attention has been accorded to Location-Based Services and location tracking, a necessary component in active, trigger-based LBS applications. Tracking the location of a large population of moving objects requires very high update and query performance of the underlying spatial index. In this paper we investigate the performance and scalability of three main-memory based spatial indexing methods under dynamic update and query loads: an R-tree, a ZB-tree, and an array/hashtable method. By leveraging the LOCUS performance evaluation testbed and the City Simulator dynamic spatial data generator, we are able to demonstrate the scalability of these methods and determine the maximum population size supported by each method, a useful parameter for capacity planning by wireless carriers.

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

applications
scalability
performance
paper
component
spatial indexing
wireless
spatial
attention
method
size
dynamic
data
testbed
demonstrate
tracking
update
query

tree
activation
generation
simulation
mobile computing
high-performance
arrays
performance evaluation
capacity-planning
indexing
locatability
memorialized
moving object
location-based services


Temporal logic replication for dynamically reconfigurable FPGA partitioning In this paper, we propose the idea of temporal logic replication in dynamically reconfigurable field-programmable gate array partitioning to reduce the communication cost. We show that this is a very effective means to reduce the communication cost by taking,advantage of the slack logic capacity available. Given a K-stage temporal partition, the min-area min-cut replication problem is defined and we present an optimal algorithm to, solve it. We also present a How-based replication heuristic which is applicable When there is. a tight area bound that limits the amount of possible replication. In addition, we show a correct network. flow model for partitioning sequential circuits temporally and propose a new hierarchical flow-based performance-driven partitioner for computing initial partitions without replication.

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

dynamically reconfigurable fpgas
field-programmable gate arrays
reconfigurable computing
temporal partitioning


Robust control for a class of time-delay uncertain nonlinear systems based on sliding mode observer In this paper, a robust control scheme is proposed for a class of time-delay uncertain nonlinear systems with unknown input using the sliding mode observer. The sliding mode state observer is given with radial basis function neural networks, and then the robust control scheme is presented based on the designed sliding mode observer. The developed observer-based control scheme consists of two parts. One term is a linear controller and the other term is a neural network controller. Using the Lyapunov method, a criterion for bounded stability of the closed-loop system is developed in terms of linear matrix inequalities. Finally, a simulation example is used to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed robust control scheme.

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

uncertain nonlinear system
linear matrix inequality
rbf neural network


Collaborative learning based on associative models: Application to pattern classification in medical datasets We address social networking and collaborative learning in the medical domain. We examine social networking between computer experts and postgraduate students. We assess collaborative learning between expert and less experienced physicians.

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

associative models
collaborative learning
medical datasets
pattern classification
social networking


Combined hidden Markov source estimation and low-density parity-check coding: a novel joint sourcechannel coding scheme for multimedia communications Joint sourcechannel coding schemes have been proven to be very effective for reliable multimedia communications. In this paper, we develop a joint sourcechannel coding scheme that combines the hidden Markov source (HMS) estimation and the low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes with an iterative estimation/decoding scheme. With this innovative combination, multimedia source redundancy could be accurately extracted by the hidden Markov estimation without any a priori information about the source. Moreover, the interleaver that is usually used to separate the source coding and channel coding can be avoided by exploiting the randomizing property of the LDPC codes. Furthermore, the channel decoding procedure may be implemented in parallel, resulting in good performance with a fairly low decoding complexity and delay. Simulation results have shown that the proposed scheme can achieve much better performance than the standard coding scheme over the binary input additive white Gaussian noise (BIAWGN) channels. Copyright 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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

joint sourcechannel coding
multimedia communications

hidden markov source (hms) estimation
low-density parity-check (ldpc) codes


Finite element analysis of the indentation test on rocks with microstructure Strength parameters of rocks are currently determined from indentation tests. In this paper, a finite element analysis of this test is presented and scale effect is studied. The rock is modelled as an elasto-plastic medium with Cosserat microstructure and consequently possesses an internal length. The response of the indentation curve is studied for various values of the size of the indentor as compared to the internal length of the rock in order to assess the scale effect.

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

strength
microstructure
finite element analysis
scale effect


Systolic array architecture implementing Berlekamp-Massey-Sakata algorithm for decoding codes on a class of algebraic curves We construct a two-dimensional systolic array implementing the Berlekamp-Massey-Sakata (BMS) algorithm to provide error-locator polynomials for codes on selected algebraic curves. This array is constructed by introducing some new polynomials in order to increase the parallelism of the algorithm. The introduced polynomials are used in the majority logic scheme by Sakata et al. to correct errors up to the designed minimum distance without affecting its high speed. The arrangement of the nearest local connection of processing units in the systolic array is obtained for the general case. Furthermore, shortened systolic arrays that reduce the circuit scale and have the same function are constructed with only a slight modification of the connections and controls; this enables the adjustment of the circuit scale for different types of systems.

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

berlekamp-massey-sakata (bms) algorithm
codes on algebraic curves
grobner basis
parallel decoding


Tradeoffs between cost and information for rendezvous and treasure hunt ? In rendezvous, two agents traverse edges in rounds and have to meet at some node. In treasure hunt, an agent must find a fixed target at some node of the network. Objective: tradeoffs between the advice available to the agents and the cost. Results: bounds on the size of advice to achieve a given cost.

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


Extended Gabor approach applied to classification of emphysematous patterns in computed tomography Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a progressive and irreversible lung condition typically related to emphysema. It hinders air from passing through airpaths and causes that alveolar sacs lose their elastic quality. Findings of COPD may be manifested in a variety of computed tomography (CT) studies. Nevertheless, visual assessment of CT images is time-consuming and depends on trained observers. Hence, a reliable computer-aided diagnosis system would be useful to reduce time and inter-evaluator variability. In this paper, we propose a new emphysema classification framework based on complex Gabor filters and local binary patterns. This approach simultaneously encodes global characteristics and local information to describe emphysema morphology in CT images. Kernel Fisher analysis was used to reduce dimensionality and to find the most discriminant nonlinear boundaries among classes. Finally, classification was performed using the k-nearest neighbor classifier. The results have shown the effectiveness of our approach for quantifying lesions due to emphysema and that the combination of descriptors yields to a better classification performance.

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

copd
emphysema
gabor filters
kernel fisher analysis
local binary patterns


Advances in media theory Media theory is a new branch of mathematical social and behavioral sciences with ap plications ranging from combinatorics to political sciences. Because of the generality of the concept of a medium and the natural character of its defining axioms, we believe the theory has a potential to become a new methodology for the management of imprecise, uncertain or incomplete information. In this paper, we review the basic concepts of media theory and present some advances in its combinatorial and stochastic parts. We prove that any medium is isomorphic to a submedium of a complete oriented medium and characterize these submedia. We also present some results concerning the stochastic evolution of a complete oriented medium and some of its submedia.

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


studies of high temperature sliding wear of medium carbon nickel-chromium based alloy steel In order to explore the tribological potential of the medium carbon Ni-Cr based alloy steel as a wear-resistant material, the friction and wear characteristics have been investigated at room temperature and high temperature condition. Dry sliding wear tests were conducted on steel using a pin-on-disk machine under different wear pressures of 0.125, 0.375 & 0.625 MPa, sliding speeds of 1, 3 & 5 m/s and ambient temperatures of room temperature, 200, 400 & 600C for 10,000 m sliding distance. Weight loss has been measured at the end of each experiment. With increase in the load and sliding speed the hardness of the worn out surface increased due to work hardening at room temperature. Under low operational conditions, two body abrasive, under high operational conditions oxidative and under moderate operational conditions adhesive wear mechanisms are observed. The wear behaviour of metallic material is influenced by the frictional force, which is turn, is governed by the hardness & oxidation kinetics of the mating surface. Keeping in view the present investigation was undertaken to find the influence of mating surface on the high temperature wear. Understanding the behaviour of metals and alloys at elevated temperature, Nickel Chromium based alloy have been reported to be widely used as they combine several advantages such as abrasion, erosion & resistance to high temperature corrosive atmospheres. In this article a brief review of the performance of Nickel Chromium based alloy at different speeds, loads and temperatures has been made and compared with the room temperature. It is observed that the sliding speed of 3 m/s is critical sliding speed.

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


Chaotic species based particle swarm optimization algorithms and its application in PCB components detection An improved particle swarm optimizer using the notion of chaos and species is proposed for solving a template matching problem which is formulated as a multimodal optimization problem. Template matching is one of the image comparison techniques. This technique is widely applied to determine the existence, location and alignment of a component within a captured image in the printed circuit board (PCB) industry where 100% quality assurance is always required. In this research, an efficient auto detection method using a multiple templates matching technique for PCB components detection is described. The new approach using chaotic species based particle swarm optimization (SPSO) is applied to the multi-template matching (MTM) process. To test its performance, the proposed Chaotic SPSO based MTM algorithm is compared with other approaches by using real captured PCB images. The Chaotic SPSO based MTM method is proven to be superior to other methods in both efficiency and effectiveness.

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

chaos
particle swarm optimization
multimodal optimization
pcb components detection


Weighted high-order hidden Markov models for compound emotions recognition in text Emotion recognition in text has attracted a great deal of attention recently due to many practical applications and challenging research problems. In this paper, we explore an efficient identification of compound emotions in sentences using hidden Markov models (HMMs). In this problem, emotion has temporal structure and can be encoded as a sequence of spectral vectors spanning an article range. The major contributions of the research include the (i) proposal of weighted high-order HMMs to determine the most likely sequence of sentence emotions in an article. The weighted high-order HMMs take into account the impact degree of context emotions with different lengths of history; (ii) introduction of a representation of compound emotions by a sequence of binary digits, namely emotion code; (iii) development of an architecture that uses the emotions of simple sentences as part of known states in the weighted high-order hidden Markov emotion models for further recognizing more unknown sentence emotions. The experimental results show that the proposed weighted high-order HMMs is quite powerful in identifying sentence emotions compared with several state-of-the-art machine learning algorithms and the standard n-order hidden Markov emotion models. And the use of emotion of simple sentences as part of known states is able to improve the performance of the weighted n-order hidden Markov emotion models significantly.

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

affective computing
sentence emotion recognition
weighted n-order


WhatIf: R software for evaluating counterfactuals WhatIf is an R package that implements the methods for evaluating counterfactuals introduced in King and Zeng (2006a) and King and Zeng (2006b). It offers easy-to-use techniques for assessing a counterfactual's model dependence without having to conduct sensitivity testing over specified classes of models. These same methods can be used to approximate the common support of the treatment and control groups in causal inference.

O B O O O B 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 B 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 B I

counterfactuals
causal inference
model dependence
common support
r


A normal form algorithm for the Brieskorn lattice This article describes a normal form algorithm for the Brieskorn lattice of an isolated hypersurface singularity. It is the basis of efficient algorithms to compute the BernsteinSato polynomial, the complex monodromy, and Hodge-theoretic invariants of the singularity such as the spectral pairs and good bases of the Brieskorn lattice. The algorithm is a variant of Buchbergers normal form algorithm for power series rings using the idea of partial standard bases and adic convergence replacing termination.

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


coalition structure generation with worst case guarantees based on cardinality structure Coalition formation is a key topic in multiagent systems. One may prefer a coalition structure that maximizes the sum of the values of the coalitions, but often the number of coalition structures is too large to allow exhaustive search for the optimal one. But then, can the coalition structure found via a partial search be guaranteed to be within a bound from optimum? Sandholm et al. showed that it suffices to search the lowest two levels of the coalition structure graph in order to establish a worst case bound K ( n ). Dang et al. presented an algorithm that takes a step further to search those coalition structures whose biggest coalition's cardinality is greater than or equal to ? n(k ? 1)/(k + 1)? , which is the best result known so far. Against this background, this paper reports on a novel anytime algorithm based on cardinality structure that only have to take a step further to search those coalition structures whose cardinality structure is in the CCS ( n, b ). Consequently, the algorithm reported in this paper is obviously better than that of Sandholm et al. (up to 10 35 times faster when n =100, K =2) and Dang et al (up to 10 18 times faster when n =100, K =3).

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

cardinality structure
coalition structure


the disom distributed shared object memory DiSOM is a software-based distributed shared memory system for a multicomputer composed of heterogeneous nodes connected by a high-speed, low latency network [Guedes 93]. The current prototype comprises a Sun SPARCCenter 2000 with 10 processors and several SPARCStation 10, i486 PC and Dec Alpha, connected by ATM and Ethernet.Programs in DiSOM are written using a shared-memory multiprocessor model where synchronization objects are explicitly associated with data items. Programs are composed of a set of parallel threads of execution. These threads share data objects and synchronize by explicit calls to system provided synchronization constructs. The system traps these calls and uses the information to drive both distributed synchronization and the memory coherence protocol. DiSOM uses the entry consistency memory model [Bershad 93] to ensure coherence. This model guarantees memory consistency, as long as an access to a data item is enclosed between an acquire and a release on the synchronization object associated with the data item.DiSOM addresses two issues we believe to be crucial in distributed shared memory systems: good performance, achieved by a close integration of the programming model with the synchronization mechanisms, and fault-tolerance, with an efficient checkpointing algorithm that requires no extra messages during the failure-free period.

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

network
drive
synchronization
memory model
performance
object
access
model
distributed shared memory
coherence
latency
systems
prototype
parallel
data
consistency
algorithm
distributed

efficiency
association
fault tolerance
heterogeneity
ethernet
informal
program modelling
failure
processor
sharing
thread
program
software
message
shared memory multiprocessors
memorialized
checkpoint
integrability


A hybrid Trefftz plane elasticity element with drilling degrees of freedom We suggest a linear plane element that is accurate and easy to use. The new element is based on the hybrid Trefftz method. To give the drilling degrees of freedom and to enhance the performance of the element, we take the hybrid Trefftz method based on the total potential energy principle and adopt Allmans quadratic displacement field as a boundary displacement field. To stabilize the drilling degrees of freedom, we restrict the rotation field by a penalty term. The penalty term ties up the drilling rotation with the true rotation derived from the internal displacement field, which is made up of Trefftz functions. With the proposed formulation, we can make up polygonal elements in a unified framework. The performance of the new element reveals an advantage in modeling and analyzing, as well as good accuracy and robustness.

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


Geolocation of man-made reservoirs across terrains of varying complexity using GIS ? The Reservoir Sedimentation Survey Information System (RESIS) is one of the world's most comprehensive databases of reservoir sedimentation rates, comprising nearly 6000 surveys for 1819 reservoirs across the continental United States. Sediment surveys in the database date from 1904 to 1999, though more than 95% of surveys were entered prior to 1980, making RESIS largely a historical database. The use of this database for large-scale studies has been limited by the lack of precise coordinates for the reservoirs. Many of the reservoirs are relatively small structures and do not appear on current USGS topographic maps. Others have been renamed or have only approximate (i.e. township and range) coordinates. This paper presents a method scripted in ESRI's ARC Macro Language (AML) to locate the reservoirs on digital elevation models using information available in RESIS. The script also delineates the contributing watersheds and compiles several hydrologically important parameters for each reservoir. Evaluation of the method indicates that, for watersheds larger than 5km2, the correct outlet is identified over 80% of the time. The importance of identifying the watershed outlet correctly depends on the application. Our intent is to collect spatial data for watersheds across the continental United States and describe the land use, soils, and topography for each reservoir's watershed. Because of local landscape similarity in these properties, we show that choosing the incorrect watershed does not necessarily mean that the watershed characteristics will be misrepresented. We present a measure termed terrain complexity and examine its relationship to geolocation success rate and its influence on the similarity of nearby watersheds.

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

reservoir sedimentation
gis
terrain complexity


A realistic outdoor urban pedestrian mobility model Existing generative mobility models, used to produce mobility data for simulated agents in, e.g., wireless network simulations, suffer from a number of limitations. Most significantly, existing models are not representative of actual human movement. We introduce a new mobility model based on state-of-the-art work in understanding pedestrian mobility patterns in urban areas, known as Space Syntax. Under our model, agents move in a meaningful fashion in terms of destination selection and pathfinding, constrained by their surroundings in an outdoor urban environment. Our model is implemented as the publicly available Destination-Based Space Syntax Simulator (DBS3). We use DBS3 to demonstrate which mobility model parameters affect wireless network simulations: centrality bias significantly affects network simulation results in non-grid-based urban centres, whereas the pathfinding metric affects results more in grid-based urban centres; distance decay has minimal impact on our wireless network metrics.

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

generative mobility model
wireless network simulation


Power optimization for dynamic spectrum access with convex optimization and intelligent algorithm In dynamic spectrum access networks, relay transmission has been considered as a potential method to help cognitive users communicate by reducing their interferences to primary networks especially in the underlay mode. In this paper, we propose a power optimization algorithm for both regenerative and non-regenerative relay systems in condition of Rayleigh fading channels. Based on analyzing the features of dynamic spectrum access networks, a relevant interference model is first built. Then, we propose a combined power allocation strategy in order to minimize the outage probabilities in the cooperative transmission. For regenerative system, we give a closed-form expression for the power allocation by taking into account the characteristics of the fading channels. For non-regenerative system, we utilize pattern search algorithm to solve the optimization problem since the objective function is complex and uneasy to be figured out directly. A competitive strategy for initial point selection is also designed to guarantee a global optimal outcome for the proposed pattern search algorithm. Numerical results show that the system performances with optimum power allocation outperform those with uniform power allocation whereas lower outage probabilities can be obtained.

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

dynamic spectrum access
cooperative transmission
power optimization


Mitigating transient loops through interface-specific forwarding Under link-state routing protocols such as OSPF and ISIS, when there is a change in the topology, propagation of link-state advertisements, path recomputation, and updating of forwarding tables (FIBs) will all incur some delay before traffic forwarding can resume on alternate paths. During this convergence period, routers may have inconsistent views of the network, resulting in transient forwarding loops. Previous remedies proposed to address this issue enforce a certain order among the nodes in which they update their FIBs. While such approaches succeed in avoiding transient loops, they incur additional message overhead and/or increased convergence delay. We explore an alternative approach, loopless interface-specific forwarding (LISF), that mitigates transient loops by forwarding a packet based on both its incoming interface and destination address. LISF needs to compute and update interface-specific instead of interface-independent forwarding tables. But it requires neither the synchronization of FIB updates at different nodes nor the modification of the existing link-state routing mechanisms. LISF is easily deployable with current routers if they already maintain a FIB at each interface for lookup efficiency. This paper presents the LISF approach, illustrates its strengths and limitations, discusses four alternative implementations of it and evaluates their performance.

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

link state routing
interface-specific forwarding


improved combination of online algorithms for acceptance and rejection Given two admission control algorithms that are c A -accept-competitive and c R -reject-competitive respectively, we give two ways to make an algorithm that is simultaneously O ( c A )-accept-competitive and O ( c A c R )-reject-competitive. The combined algorithms make no reference to the offline optimal solution. In addition, one of the algorithms does not require knowing the value of either c A or c R . This improves on work of Azar, Blum, and Mansour, whose combined algorithm was O ( c 2 A )-accept-competitive, involved computing offline optimal solutions, and required knowing the values of both c A and c R .

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


A numerical model for run-up of breaking waves In the present paper, the numerical method for the three-dimensional run-up, given in Johnsgard and Pedersen ['A numerical model for three-dimensional run-up', Int. J. Numer. Methods Fluids, 24, 913-931 (1997)], is extended to include wave breaking. In the fundamental problem of run-up of a uniform bore, the present model is compared with analytical solutions from the literature. The numerical solutions converge, but very slowly. This is not due to the numerical model, but rather to the structure of the solutions themselves. Numerical results for two realistic but simplified tsunami cases are also presented. In the first case, two-dimensional simulations are performed concerning the run-up of a tsunami in Portugal, in the second case, the three dimensional wave pattern generated after a slide in Tafjord, Norway in 1931, is studied. A discussion of different aspects of the model is summarized at the end of the paper. Copyright (C) 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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


Dynamic speculation and hedging in commodity futures markets with a stochastic convenience yield A continuous-time asset allocation model to hedge commodities risk with futures. Formulae are expressed in terms of two discount bonds (traded and synthetic). The speculative and hedging proportions for each risky asset are explicitly computed. The sensitivity of optimal demands to each state variable can be assessed. Mean reversion and time-varying prices of risk determine the sign of the positions.

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

commodity spot prices
futures prices
stochastic market prices of risk
dynamic portfolio optimization


An interpretation of the internal desynchronizations based on dynamics of the two-process model Daan's two-process model is known to be one of the most powerful models, covering various situations from free-running to sleep deprivation. In this study, bifurcation properties of the model dynamics are clarified using a circle map. In addition, the two-process model is applied to simulate the two distinct patterns (the period-prolonged: I and the period-shortened: II) of sleep-wake cycles during internal desynchronizations. We propose the novel interpretation that types I and II could be regarded as mutual entrainments between the body temperature rhythm and the sleep-wake cycle with the period ratios 3.4 and 3:2, respectively. From the bifurcation properties of the two-process model obtained above, the model is shown to be able to generate the respective type of mutual entrainment with an appropriate range of a parameter value, i.e, a gap between thresholds. The variable behavior of human circadian rhythm is suggested to be systematically understood based on the bifurcation properties of the two-process model.

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

two-process model
desynchronization
sleep-wake cycle


Bounds on the a priori index crossover probabilities for trellis-based channel codes This paper derives truncated union bounds on the a priori index crossover probabilities p(j/i) that result when an n-bit data index i is convolutionally encoded, transmitted over a noisy channel, and decoded with the Viterbi algorithm, giving received index j, The bounds are derived with a modified transfer function technique, using n-stage state transition matrices with symbolic labels. The technique is easily automated with commercial symbolic algebra packages, Bounds are obtained for convolutional and trellis-coded modulation (TCM) codes, over binary-symmetric and additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channels. A joint source channel coding example demonstrates that the bounds on p(j/i) developed in this paper can give a 1-3-dB accuracy improvement in end-to-end signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) predictions, when compared to predictions based on bounds on the delivered bit error probability P-b.

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

index crossover probabilities
joint source channel coding
union bounds

couvolutional coding
trellis-coded modulation


A review of machine learning in dynamic scheduling of flexible manufacturing systems A common way of dynamically scheduling jobs in a flexible manufacturing system (FMS) is by means of dispatching rules. The problem of this method is that the performance of these rules depends on the state the system is in at each moment, and no single rule exists that is better than the rest in all the possible states: that the system may be in. It would therefore be interesting to use the most appropriate dispatching rule at each moment. To achieve this goal, a scheduling approach which uses machine learning can be used. Analyzing the previous performance of the system (training examples) by means of this technique, knowledge is obtained that can be used to decide which is the most appropriate dispatching rule at each moment in time. In this paper, a review of the main machine learning-based scheduling approaches described in the literature is presented.

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

dispatching rules
dynamic scheduling
flexible manufacturing systems
machine learning


Modelling of the robotic Powerball (R): a nonholonomic, underactuated and variable structure-type system The Powerball (R) is the commercial name for a gyroscopic device that is marketed as a wrist exerciser. The device has a rotor with two underactuated degrees of freedom, which can be actuated by the appropriate motion of human or robot wrist axes. After the initial spin, applying the appropriate motion and torques to the housing leads to a spin-up of the rotor. Finding these torques intuitively is an easy task for human operators, but a complex task for a technical consideration, for example, in robotics. This article's main contribution is a novel dynamic model that considers friction effects. The presented model includes all three working principles of the device: free rotor mode and both modes of rotor rolling in the housing. The work introduces models with one and two degrees of freedom actuation, both of which are suitable for laboratory control experiments. An estimation of the friction is discussed, and both the simulation and the experimental results are presented to evaluate the models.

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

dynamic system
nonholonomic load
rhythmic motion
dynamical analysis


Development and application of a GIS-based tool for earthquake-induced hazard prediction An integrated GIS-based tool (GTIS) was constructed to estimate site effects related to the earthquake hazards in the Gyeongju area of Korea. To build the GTIS for the study area, intensive site investigations and geotechnical data collections were performed and a walk-over site survey was additionally carried out to acquire surface geo-knowledge data in accordance with the procedure developed to build the GTIS. For practical applications of the GTIS used to estimate the site effects associated with the amplification of ground motion, seismic microzoning maps of the characteristic site period and the mean shear wave velocity to a depth of 30m were created and presented as a regional synthetic strategy addressing earthquake-induced hazards. Additionally, based on one-dimensional site response analyses, various seismic microzoning maps for short- and mid-period amplification potentials were created for the study area. Case studies of seismic microzonations in the Gyeongju area verified the usefulness of the GTIS for predicting seismic hazards in the region.

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

gis
seismic hazard
seismic microzonation
geotechnical information system


Matching scale-space features in 1D panoramas We define a family of novel interest operators for extracting features from one-dimensional panoramic images for use in mobile robot navigation. Feature detection proceeds by applying local interest operators in the scale space of a 1D circular image formed by averaging the center scanlines of a cylindrical panorama. We demonstrate that many such features remain stable over changes in viewpoint and in the presence of noise and camera vibration, and define a feature descriptor that collects shape properties of the scale-space surface and color information from the original images. We then present a novel dynamic programming method to establish globally optimal correspondences between features in images taken from different viewpoints. Our method can handle arbitrary rotations and large numbers of missing features. It is also robust to significant changes in lighting conditions and viewing angle, and in the presence of some occlusion.

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 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

omnidirectional
scale-space
one-dimensional
feature matching


A survey of the state-of-the-art of common due date assignment and scheduling research We aim at providing a unified framework of the common due date assignment and scheduling problems in the deterministic case by surveying the literature concerning the models involving single machine and parallel machines. The problems with due date determination have received considerable attention in the last 15 years due to the introduction of new methods of inventory management such as just-in-time (JIT) concepts. The common due date model corresponds, for instance, to an assembly system in which the components of the product should be ready at the same time, or to a shop where several jobs constitute a single customer's order. In the problems under consideration, the objective is to find an optimal value of the common due date and the related optimal schedule in order to optimize a given criterion based on the due date and the completion times of jobs. The results on the algorithms and complexity of the common due date assignment and scheduling problems are summarized.

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

scheduling
due date assignment
common due date