a framework for research in database management for statistical analysis or a primer on statistical database management problems for computer scientists This paper is intended to introduce those familiar with database management issues to the problems of managing large statistical databases. We begin with a characterization of statistical databases based on the structure and use of the data in the database. Several data management problems are then described. In particular, we discuss the problem of repetitive computations on large segments of the database during the lifetime of a statistical analysis. The organization of a data management system which avoids this problem by caching previously computed results and automatically maintaining their integrity is presented. We conclude with a list of problems that this organization raises and a discussion of related work.

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

lifetime
framework
organization
research
structure
use
characterization
database management
data
paper
statistical analysis
database
management

statistics
systems
computation
segmentation
data management
caches
integrability


RESPONSE TO "VULNERABILITY OF 'A NOVEL PROTOCOL-AUTHENTICATION ALGORITHM RULING OUT A MAN-IN-THE-MIDDLE ATTACK IN QUANTUM CRYPTOGRAPHY' " In this work, we respond to a comment by A. Abidin and J.-A. Larsson on our previous paper, Int. J. Quant. Inf. 3 (2005) 225.

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


peer to peer mobile tv recovery system Mobile TV is already available for several years. The provided quality is generally attractive but of course, data transfer is not always optimal. It can be subject to disturbances such as fading, noise or interference that are responsible for temporary quality decreases. In Europe, the common way of realising mobile broadcasting is the implementation of the DVB-H standard without return channel. Until now, the embedded forward error correction MPE-FEC represents the main strategy applied to avoid data loss. The contribution of this paper is twofold: We started by measuring the currently experienced DVB-H loss in a typical urban place at different times a day and with antennas of different quality. This experiment led us to the conclusion that losses are affecting seriously obtained video quality when using a standard antenna of a mobile phone. These losses could be avoided (1) by using a high quality antenna or (2) by implementing a simple recovery strategy. Since the amount of data rates requested tend to increase with time the use of the high quality antenna does not represent a lasting solution. Therefore we decided to propose a new hybrid peer-to-peer recovery strategy combining DVB-H with UMTS connections. We evaluated the recovery mechanism by performing a simulation. Realistic transmission parameter values have been used. We showed that data loss can be significantly reduced with the cost of a marginal amount of waiting time increase.

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


Test sequence generation for test time reduction of IDDQ testing In this paper, test time reduction for IDDQ testing is discussed. Although IDDQ testing is known to be effective to detect faults in CMOS circuit, test time of IDDQ testing is larger than that of logic testing since supply current is measured after a circuit is in its quiescent state. It is shown by simulation that test time of IDDQ test mostly depends on switching current. A procedure to modify test vectors and a procedure to arrange test vectors are presented for reducing the test time of IDDQ testing. A test sequence is modified such that switching current quickly disappears. The procedure utilizes a unit delay model to estimate the time of the last transition of logic value from L to H in a circuit. Experimental results for benchmark circuits show the effectiveness of the procedure.

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

bridging faults
supply current test
cmos circuits


A mobility management model based on users' mobility profiles for IPv6 networks Fourth-generation (4G) mobile systems provide access to a wide range of services and enable mobile users to communicate regardless of their geographical location and their roaming characteristics. Due to the growing number of mobile users, global connectivity, and the small size of cells, one of the most critical issues pertaining to these networks is location management. In recent years, several strategies have been proposed to improve the performance of the location management procedure in 3G and 4G mobile networks. In this paper, we propose a new model called Seamless Mobile IPv6 (SMIPv6) to improve the performance of the handover component in location management schemes. This model improves handover by predicting user location based on Users' Mobility Profiles. The overall goals of SMIPv6 are to reduce both handover latency and signaling loads generated during the location update process. Simulation results show that the use of SMIPv6 produces a handover with low delay, as well as a significant drop of signaling overhead. Better results have been obtained by our protocol in all cases studied when compared to Mobile IPv6 (MIPv6) and Fast Handovers for MIPv6 (FMIPv6). (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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


Modelling of impulse loading in high-temperature superconductors Assessment of accuracy and performance of computational techniques Purpose - The aim of this paper is to access performance of existing computational techniques to model strongly non-linear field diffusion problems. Design/methodology/approach - Multidimensional application of a finite volume front-fixing method to various front-type problems with moving boundaries and non-linear material properties is discussed. Advantages and implementation problems of the technique are highlighted by comparing the front-fixing method with computations using fixed grids. Particular attention is focused on conservation properties of the algorithm and accurate solutions close to the moving boundaries. The algorithm is tested using analytical solutions of diffusion problems with cylindrical symmetry with both spatial and temporal accuracy analysed. Findings - Several advantages are identified in using a front-fixing method for modelling of impulse phenomena in high-temperature superconductors (HTS), namely high accuracy can be obtained with a small number of grid points, and standard numerical methods for convection problems with diffusion can be utilised. Approximately, first order of spatial accuracy is found for all methods (stationary or mobile grids) for 2D problems with impulse events. Nevertheless, errors resulting from a front-fixing technique are much smaller in comparison with fixed grids. Fractional steps method is proved to be an effective algorithm for solving the equations obtained. A symmetrisation procedure has to be introduced to eliminate a directional bias for a standard asymmetric split in diffusion processes. Originality/value - This paper for the first time compares in detail advantages and implementation complications of a front-fixing method when applied to the front-type field diffusion problems common to HTS. Particular attention is paid to accurate solutions in the region close to the moving front where rapid changes in material properties are responsible for large computational errors.

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


Handling the increasing complexity of detailed batch process simulation and optimisation Production economics, once dominated by efficiency factors or cost-effectiveness ratios, have been incorporating inventory reduction, flexibility and quality improvement as additional factors. But production also has to take account of environmental control. If a linkage of these production concepts with the methodical approaches of an optimised production will be successful, high efficiency reserves can be activated. In this work a prospective and perspective view is given on the systematic methodologies currently developed and the software available that addresses the dominant current trends in the modeling, simulation and optimization of batch process industries, which represent the fastest growing segment of the process industries.

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


Twin support vector regression for the simultaneous learning of a function and its derivatives Twin support vector regression (TSVR) determines a pair of \(\epsilon\)-insensitive up- and down-bound functions by solving two related support vector machine-type problems, each of which is smaller than that in a classical SVR. On the lines of TSVR, we have proposed a novel regressor for the simultaneous learning of a function and its derivatives, termed as TSVR of a Function and its Derivatives. Results over several functions of more than one variable demonstrate its effectiveness over other existing approaches in terms of improving the estimation accuracy and reducing run time complexity.

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

twin support vector machines
\(\epsilon\)-insensitive bound
function approximation


Inference of causal structure using the unobservable Current constraint-based approaches to the discovery of causal structure in statistical data are unable to discriminate between causal models which entail identical sets of marginal dependencies. Often, marginal dependencies between observed variables are the result of complex causal connections involving observed and latent variables. This paper shows that, in such cases, the latent causal structure in a model often entails properties which can be tested against empirical evidence, and thus used to discriminate between equivalent alternative models of an empirical phenomenon under study.

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


an interactive tool for register-level structure optimization This paper presents a program named RLEXT (Register Level Exploration Tool), which allows a user to manually modify a register-level datapath design. The allowed operations are addition and deletion of components and connections. Any component not an i/o port, a register, or an addressable memory may be added or deleted. Any wire or connection of a pin to a wire may be added or deleted. The unique aspect of RLEXT is that the continued ability of the datapath to support its behavioral specifications is guaranteed: that is, if the user makes changes that would impair the datapath's ability to carry out the desired function, RLEXT will automatically repair the datapath so that it is once again able to express the specified behavior.

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

aspect structure behavior design tool support paper connection user exploration component

interaction optimality functional operability memorialized change


Mental map preserving graph drawing using simulated annealing ? Visualizing graphs has been studied extensively in the community of graph drawing and information visualization over the years. In some applications, the user is required to interact with a graph by making slight changes to the underlying graph structure. To visualize graphs in such an interactive environment, it is desirable that the differences between the displays of the original and the modified graphs be kept minimal, allowing the user to comprehend the changes in the graph structure faster. As the mental map concept refers to the presentation of a persons mind while exploring visual information, the better the mental map is preserved, the easier the structure change of a graph is understood. It is somewhat surprising that preserving the users mental map has largely been ignored in the graph drawing community in the past. We propose an effective mental-map-preserving graph drawing algorithm for straight-line drawings of general undirected graphs based on the simulated-annealing technique. Our experimental results and questionnaire analysis suggest this new approach to be promising.

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

mental map
simulated annealing
graph drawing


Querying sensor networks using ad hoc mobile devices: A two-layer networking approach An interplay between mobile devices and static sensor nodes is envisioned in the near future. This will enable a heterogeneous design space that can offset the stringent resource and power constraints encountered in traditional Static sensor networks by taking advantage of the more powerful mobile devices. We present a systematic framework for end-to-end query processing, using a two-layer architecture that consists of mobile devices at the upper layer and static sensor nodes at the bottom layer. The framework employs a "PULL" query model that contains staged operations including query generation, query routing, query injection, and query result routing. Each of these stages of query processing is discussed with in emphasis on techniques for energy-efficient query injection and query result routing with location-ignorant sensor nodes. The techniques leverage the mobility and transmission flexibility of mobile objects at the upper layer. Numeric and simulation results are provided to Support the proposed methods. (c) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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


DOA: DSR over AODV routing for mobile ad hoc networks We present a lightweight hierarchical routing model, Way Point Routing (WPR), in which a number of intermediate nodes on a route are selected as waypoints and the route is divided into segments by the waypoints. Waypoints, including the source and the destination, run a high-level intersegment routing protocol, while the nodes on each segment run a low-level intrasegment routing protocol. One distinct advantage of our model is that when a node on the route moves out or fails, instead of discarding the whole original route and discovering a new route from the source to the destination, only the two waypoint nodes of the broken segment have to find a new segment. In addition, our model is lightweight because it maintains a hierarchy only for nodes on active routes. On the other hand, existing hierarchical routing protocols such as CGSR and ZRP maintain hierarchies for the entire network. We present an instantiation of WPR, where we use DSR as the intersegment routing protocol and AODV as the intrasegment routing protocol. This instantiation is termed DSR over AODV (DOA) routing protocol. Thus, DSR and AODV - two well-known on-demand routing protocols for MANETs - are combined into one hierarchical routing protocol and become two special cases of our protocol. Furthermore, we present two novel techniques for DOA: one is an efficient loop detection method and the other is a multitarget route discovery. Simulation results show that DOA scales well for large networks with more than 1,000 nodes, incurring about 60 percent-80 percent less overhead than AODV, while other metrics are better than or comparable to AODV and DSR.

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

ad hoc networks
routing protocols
hierarchical
dsr
aodv


Small hydro power plant identification using NNARX structure A feedforward multi-layer perceptron neural network structure is developed to model the nonlinear dynamic relationship between input and output of a hydro power plant connected as single machine infinite bus system. Two independent second-order neural network nonlinear auto-regressive with exogenous signal models are used in the study. The structure selection of each independent model is based on various validation tests. The optimal brain surgeon pruning strategy adopted for optimizing the neural network structure. The network performance is studied for fixed and change in operating point.

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

single machine infinite bus
identification
neural network


Accessibility and usability of a digital TV health information database City University and the University of Sheffield have been commissioned by the Department of Health to evaluate the use of digital interactive television as a source of health information. The aim of this study was to evaluate access issues related to one of these pilot projects, the Living Health database. Nine older people and four deaf people tested the accessibility and usability of the database by attempting to find answers to their health questions. Their opinions were obtained using a combination of questionnaires, interviews and observations. Readability tests were also carried out to assess the reading level of the information content. The results gave an insight into the issues of accessibility and usability, and attempted to describe the individual experiences, difficulties, opinions and perceptions of the study participants. Recommendations were subsequently made for improving the accessibility and usability of the Living Health database to deaf and older people.

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

questionnaires
older people
information
television


Micromechanics of inelastic composites with misaligned inclusions: Numerical treatment of orientation This paper is concerned with the micromechanics of multi-phase fiber- or inclusion-reinforced inelastic composites with a special emphasis on the numerical treatment of misaligned orientation. Mean-field homogenization of these composites involves volume and orientation averaging. The latter usually needs average orientation measures known as the second- and fourth-rank orientation tensors a and A, respectively. Usually the only orientation data available is a and a first issue is to reconstruct A using closure approximations. We propose a new weighted regularization method which deals with orientations which are strictly neither 1D, 2D nor 3D and ensures a smooth transition between the 3 cases. A second issue is that there are situations where the inclusions orientation distribution function (ODF) is needed for homogenization but is unavailable. The ODF is recovered using a and A and numerically computed at a number of discrete orientations. A third issue is the actual computation of orientation averaging integrals. An efficient algorithm approximates the integrals with sums over a finite number of orientations. Orientation and volume averaging concepts are applied to the mean-field homogenization of two classes of multi-phase composites: linear thermo-elastic and rate-independent inelastic. In the latter case, an incremental formulation is proposed which enables the simulation of unloading, cyclic and otherwise non-proportional loadings. Implicit time-discretization and consistent tangent operators are employed. The procedures and the corresponding algorithms were implemented in the [DIGIMAT version 1.4, 2004. Linear and nonlinear multi-scale material modeling software, e-Xstream engineering SA (http://www.e-Xstream.com), Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.] software and several numerical simulations show their accuracy and efficiency.

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

composites
micromechanics
homogenization
orientation distribution function
orientation tensors


Visualization of interval changes of pulmonary nodules using high-resolution CT images This paper presents a method to analyze volumetrically evolutions of pulmonary nodules for discrimination between malignant and benign nodules. Our method consists of four steps; (1) The 3-D rigid registration of the two successive 3-D thoracic CT images, (2) the 3-D affine registration of the two successive region-of-interest (ROI) images, (3) non-rigid registration between local volumetric ROIs, and (4) analysis of the local displacement Field between successive temporal images. In the preliminary study, the method was applied to the successive 3-D thoracic images of two pulmonary nodules including a metastasis malignant nodule and a inflammatory benign nodule to quantify evolutions of the pulmonary nodules and their surrounding structures. The time intervals between successive 3-D thoracic images for the benign and malignant cases were 150 and 30 days, respectively. From the display of the displacement fields and the contrasted image by the vector field operator based on the Jacobian, it was observed that the benign case reduced in the volume and the surrounding structure was involved into the nodule. It was also observed that the malignant case expanded in the volume. These experimental results indicate that our method is a promising tool to quantify how the lesions evolve their volume and surrounding structures.

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

computer-aided diagnosis
evolution
pulmonary nodule
interval change


Project-oriented resource assignment: from business process modelling to business process instantiation with operational performance consideration Business process modelling is the description of business process chains and their associated aspects such as resources, information, organization and so on. Business process instantiation is the operational process-centred performance configuration through project-oriented task decomposition, resource assignment and activity arrangement. The present paper elucidates the links between business process modelling and project-oriented business process instantiation, and proposes the optimization model and algorithm of resource assignment of business processes in multi-project environment. Based on the extended AON (activity on node) graph, the trade-off analytical model between time and cost is developed considering resources, cost and time constraints as well as decision nodes such as OR and XOR (exclusively OR) besides AND junction in IDEF3 process models for multi-project resource assignment. The proposed algorithm employs genetic algorithm to deal with resource assignment and stack technique and unified time window to tackle resource constraints and decision nodes. The validity of the model and the effectiveness of the algorithm are revealed. The proposed methodology, model and algorithm of project-oriented resource assignment from business process modelling to business process instantiation are a useful support for the establishment of truly integrated enterprise modelling and analysis environment.

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

business process modelling
business process instantiation
resource assignment


Patent filing and searching: Is deflation in quality the inevitable consequence of hyperinflation in quantity? ? Roughly one million patent applications are filed each year world-wide. Many describe a small improvement upon the state of the art. The increasing volume of information makes determining the true state of the art almost impossible. Thus many doubtful applications are being filed and granted, increasing workload and reducing efficiency. It is a vicious cycle of inflation in numbers leading to deflation in quality.

O O O O O O O O O O O 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 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

quantity increase
quality decrease
patent input
pct filings
examiner training


Medical support system for continuation of care based on XML web technology In this paper, the implementation of an Internet-based telematic service for medical support is presented, which was developed and operated in pilot form within the INTRANET HEALTH CLINIC projecta 2-year project supported by the European Commission under the Health Telematics Programme. The aim of the application is to offer high quality care to users of health services over inexpensive communication pathways, using Internet-based, interactive communication tools, like remote access to medical records and transmission of multimedia information. The XML technology was employed to achieve customised views on patient data, according to the access rights of different user profiles. Strict security and access control policy were implemented to ensure secure transmission of medical data through the Internet. The system was designed to collaborate with existing clinical patient record systems and to be adjustable to different medical applications. Current implementations include the fields of Oncology, Lupus Erythrematosis, Obstetrics and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary disease. The results of the pilot operation with oncological patients in Greece were encouraging, so that the refining of the system and its expansion to a large number of patients is already in progress.

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

electronic patient record
world wide web
health care


Development of a knowledge management initiative and system: A case study As knowledge emerges as the primary strategic resource in the 21st century, many firms in the manufacturing and service sectors alike are beginning to introduce and implement Knowledge Management (KM). Organisations can certainly benefit from its application for enhanced decision support, efficiency and innovation, thus helping them to realise their strategic mission. However, KM is an emerging paradigm, and not many organisations have a clear idea of how to proceed with it. This paper presents the results of a case study conducted in one company in the United Kingdom (UK), the major aim being to identify how it has developed a KM initiative and system. Hopefully, the information extracted from this study will be beneficial to other organisations that are attempting to implement KM or to those that are in the throes of adopting it.

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


Hierarchical Line Integration This paper presents an acceleration scheme for the numerical computation of sets of trajectories in vector fields or iterated solutions in maps, possibly with simultaneous evaluation of quantities along the curves such as integrals or extrema. It addresses cases with a dense evaluation on the domain, where straightforward approaches are subject to redundant calculations. These are avoided by first calculating short solutions for the whole domain. From these, longer solutions are then constructed in a hierarchical manner until the designated length is achieved. While the computational complexity of the straightforward approach depends linearly on the length of the solutions, the computational cost with the proposed scheme grows only logarithmically with increasing length. Due to independence of subtasks and memory locality, our algorithm is suitable for parallel execution on many-core architectures like GPUs. The trade-offs of the method-lower accuracy and increased memory consumption-are analyzed, including error order as well as numerical error for discrete computation grids. The usefulness and flexibility of the scheme are demonstrated with two example applications: line integral convolution and the computation of the finite-time Lyapunov exponent. Finally, results and performance measurements of our GPU implementation are presented for both synthetic and simulated vector fields from computational fluid dynamics.

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

flow visualization
integral curves
hierarchical computation
ftle
lic


Tracking Pylorus in Ultrasonic Image Sequences With Edge-Based Optical Flow Tracking pylorus in ultrasonic image sequences is an important step in the analysis of duodenogastric reflux (DGR). We propose a joint prediction and segmentation method (JPS) which combines optical flow with active contour to track pylorus. The goal of the proposed method is to improve the pyloric tracking accuracy by taking account of not only the connection information among edge points but also the spatio-temporal information among consecutive frames. The proposed method is compared with other four tracking methods by using both synthetic and real ultrasonic image sequences. Several numerical indexes: Hausdorff distance (HD), average distance (AD), mean edge distance (MED), and edge curvature (EC) have been calculated to evaluate the performance of each method. JPS achieves the minimum distance metrics (HD, AD, and MED) and a smaller EC. The experimental results indicate that JPS gives a better tracking performance than others by the best agreement with the gold curves while keeping the smoothness of the result.

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


Common Logic and the Horatio problem Modules allow the reuse of an ontology as part of another ontology. If the ontologies do not share a common domain of discourse a simple 'cut and paste' approach to module reuse leads to unintended consequences, the Horatio problem. To solve this problem ISO/IEC 24707's Common Logic includes modules as a syntactic category. However, the semantics of modules is treated incongruently in ISO/IEC 24707. In this paper we propose an alternative semantics of modules, discuss their logical properties, and how they can be used in ontology development.

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


A wearable cardiorespiratory sensor system for analyzing the sleep condition This paper describes a long-term cardiorespiratory sensor system, which is supposed to be used for monitoring sleep condition at home environment. This system consists of belt sensor probe, data acquisition and communication devices, and the data processing algorithms. New wearable sensor probe with a couple of conductive fabric sheets material and a PVDF film material is developed. To obtain clear cardiorespiratory responses from the belt sensor probe, adaptive hardware filters with signal conditioners are designed and further software data processing algorithms are proposed for extraction of the relative cardiorespiratory information, such as respiratory cycle (RC) and RR interval (RRI). These simple and powerful data processing algorithms for extraction of the proposed RC and RRI information are described and testified in detail. And two commercial sensor devices such as thermistor-type pneumography sensor and 3-lead electrocardiogram sensor are used simultaneously to validate the performance and efficiency of the proposed sensor system. Furthermore, the belt type sensor demonstrated that PVDF film and conductive fabric sensors can complement each other, especially in RRI extraction. Finally, for a case study, the sleep conditions are estimated experimentally by analyzing the heart rate variability (HRV) from the extracted RRI information.

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

cardiorespiratory information
sleep condition

spectral heart rate variability (hrv) analysis


Design and testing of an efficient and compact piezoelectric energy harvester Piezoelectric materials generate electricity when they are subjected to dynamic strain. In this paper compact size self contained energy harvesters were built by considering typical space available for AA size batteries. Each of the harvesters contains a rectifier circuit with four diodes and a capacitor. A series of piezoelectric energy harvesters with circular and square cross-sections were built and tested at different frequency and amplitude levels. On 1M? impedance digital oscilloscope, it was observed that the voltages reached to 16V (round cross-section) and 25V (square cross-section) at 50Hz frequency. The highest power output accomplished was 625?W. The outputs of both types of the harvesters were very similar at low amplitudes. However, the square cross-section facilitates better attachment of the piezoelectric elements with the harvester shell and worked efficiently at higher amplitudes without immediate failure.

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

microenergy harvester
piezoelectric battery


e-Business strategy and firm performance: a latent class assessment of the drivers and impediments to success Among many leading organizations, in all sectors of industry, commerce and government, there is considerable evidence of e-business being deployed to achieve strategic goals. Where this deployment has been most successful, there is a strong case that the organization has taken an integrated approach that both builds on the organization's strengths and pays careful attention to the process of change within the organization. However, in the literature most empirical work has either studied e-business strategy and performance from the perspective of strategy content - which highlights positioning and/ or unique bundles of resources - or from the perspective of strategy process - which captures human influence and e-business implementation. In this study, we integrate these two perspectives to develop a more holistic understanding of the underlying drivers of e- business performance. Further, latent class modeling techniques are used to show that the variables in our study are heavily influenced by the unobservable heterogeneity across firms. Four distinct types of firms populate our data, and the relationship between performance and its underlying determinants varies greatly between them. The implication is that a single model cannot explain the relationship between environment, structure, feasibility, managerial beliefs and performance. This is critical to our understanding of e- business as it implies that there is far less homogeneity at the individual firm level than is normally assumed in the literature.

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

e-business strategy
information technology
latent class models


Polyhedral combinatorics of the cardinality constrained quadratic knapsack problem and the quadratic selective travelling salesman problem This paper considers the Cardinality Constrained Quadratic Knapsack Problem (QKP) and the Quadratic Selective Travelling Salesman Problem (QSTSP). The QKP is a generalization of the Knapsack Problem and the QSTSP is a generalization of the Travelling Salesman Problem. Thus, both problems are NP hard. The QSTSP and the QKP can be solved using branch-and-cut methods. Good bounds can be obtained if strong constraints are used. Hence it is important to identify strong or even facet-defining constraints. This paper studies the polyhedral combinatorics of the QSTSP and the QKP, i.e. amongst others we identify facet-defining constraints for the QSTSP and the QKP, and provide mathematical proofs that they do indeed define facets.

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

quadratic knapsack
quadratic selective travelling salesman
facets


Progressive decision-based mean type filter for image noise suppression ? A novel progressive decision-based mean (PDM) filter is proposed to restore images corrupted by random-valued impulse noise. An impulse detection algorithm based on the DempsterShafer (DS) evidence theory is used before filtering. This work presents a new approach to automatically determine mass functions for the DS evidence theory using the feature information provided by the filter window. Decision rules can determine whether noise exists based on the noise-corrupted belief value. The impulse detection and the noise filtering procedures are progressively applied through several iterations. Finally, the input pixels are identified as either noise-free or noise-corrupted, and only the noise-corrupted pixels in corrupted images are replaced by the mean value of the noise-free pixels in the filter window. Extensive simulation results have demonstrated that the proposed algorithm significantly outperforms other median-based filters.

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


Atomic-layer-deposited SiO2/TiO2/SiO2 sandwiched dielectrics for metalinsulatormetal capacitor application SiO2/TiO2/SiO2 (STS) dielectrics were formed by atomic-layer-deposition for MIM capacitor. Compared with TiO2, the STS dielectrics can improve significantly the leakage characteristics. The conduction mechanisms of the STS MIM capacitor were discussed.

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

sio2/tio2/sio2
atomic-layer-deposition
metal-insulatormetal capacitor
conduction mechanism


Dynamic system identification and model-based fault diagnosis of an industrial gas turbine prototype In this paper, a model-based procedure exploiting analytical redundancy for the detection and isolation of faults on a gas turbine process is presented. The main point of the present work consists of exploiting system identification schemes in connection with observer and filter design procedures for diagnostic purpose. Linear model identification (black-box modelling) and output estimation (dynamic observers and Kalman filters) integrated approaches to fault diagnosis are in particular advantageous in terms of solution complexity and performance. This scheme is especially useful when robust solutions are considered for minimise the effects of modelling errors and noise, while maximising fault sensitivity. A model of the process under investigation is obtained by identification procedures, whilst the residual generation task is achieved by means of output observers and Kalman filters designed in both noise-free and noisy assumptions. The proposed tools have been tested on a single-shaft industrial gas turbine prototype model and they have been evaluated using non-linear simulations, based on the gas turbine data. (C) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

model-based fault diagnosis
fault detection and isolation
identification algorithms
observer and kalman filter design


Series acceleration formulas for beta values We prove generating function identities producing fast convergent series for the sequences beta(2n + 1); beta(2n + 2) and beta(2n + 3), where beta is Dirichlet's beta function. In particular, we obtain a new accelerated series for Catalan's constant convergent at a geometric rate with ratio 2(-10); which can be considered as an analog of Amdeberhan-Zeilberger's series for zeta(3)

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

dirichlet's beta function
catalan's constant
apery-like series
convergence acceleration
markov-wilf-zeilberger method
markov-wz pair


Suboptimal robust mixed H-2/H-infinity controller design for uncertain descriptor systems with distributed delays This paper is concerned with the design problem of the optimal robust mixed H-2/H-infinity controllers for descriptor systems with time-varying uncertainties and distributed delays. In our method, no decomposition of the coefficient matrix is needed. The designed controller can guarantee regularity, nonimpulsiveness, and internal stability of the closed-loop system and simultaneously minimizes an upper bound of the H-2 performance measure satisfying an H-infinity norm bound constraint. The control design problem is transformed into the solvability of a set of strict LMIs, which can be effectively solved by using interior-point algorithms. (C) 2004 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 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

descriptor system
time delay
robust control


Which factors influence the ability of a computational model to predict the in vivo deformation behaviour of skeletal muscle? Deep tissue injury (DTI) is a severe form of pressure ulcer where tissue damage starts in deep tissues underneath intact skin. Tissue deformation may play an important role in the aetiology, which can be investigated using an experimental-numerical approach. Recently, an animal-specific finite element model has been developed to simulate experiments in which muscle tissue was compressed with an indenter. In this study, the material behaviour and boundary conditions were adapted to improve the agreement between model and experiment and to investigate the influence of these adaptations on the predicted strain distribution. The use of a highly nonlinear material law and including friction between the indenter and the muscle both improved the quality of the model and considerably influenced the estimated strain distribution. With the improved model, the required sample size to detect significant differences between loading conditions can be diminished, which is clearly relevant in experiments involving animals.

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

pressure ulcers
magnetic resonance imaging
finite element modelling


A linear programming approximation to the eigenvector method in the analytic hierarchy process ? Eigenvector method (EM) is a well-known approach to deriving priorities from pairwise comparison matrices in the analytic hierarchy process (AHP), which requires the solution of a set of nonlinear eigenvalue equations. This paper proposes an approximate solution approach to the EM to facilitate its computation. We refer to the approach as a linear programming approximation to the EM, or LPAEM for short. As the name implies, the LPAEM simplifies the nonlinear eigenvalue equations as a linear programming for solution. It produces true weights for perfectly consistent pairwise comparison matrices. Numerical examples are examined to show the validity and effectiveness of the proposed LPAEM and its significant advantages over a recently developed linear programming method entitled LP-GW-AHP in rank preservation.

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 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

multiple criteria decision making
priority ranking: linear programming
rank preservation and rank reversal


Determination of locations for static transfer switches using Genetic Algorithms and fuzzy multi-objective programming Voltage sag, caused by faults, is an important power quality problem. Static transfer switches (STSes) are considered to be one of the efficient remedies for voltage sags. Determination of the installation locations for STSes in a distribution system, therefore, becomes essential for planning a system with sensitive loads. In this paper, the problem is formulated as a fuzzy multi-objective programming problem considering STS investment cost, sensitive bus voltage deviations and total voltage sags. Genetic Algorithms (GAs) using a vertex encoding/decoding are used to solve the problem. The vertex-based Prufer number is used in GAs for encoding/decoding the chromosomes (strings). The Prufer number ensures that the distribution system structure is radial in the iterations. The simulation results obtained from a 33-bus system are used to show the applicability of the proposed method.

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

static transfer switch
genetic algorithm
fuzzy multi-objective


Iteration-free clustering algorithm for nonstationary image database Image database systems must effectively and efficiently handle and retrieve images from a large collection of images. A serious problem faced by these systems is the requirement to deal with the nonstationary database. In an image database system, image features ate typically organized into an indexing structure, and updating the indexing structure involves many computations. Here, this difficult problem is converted into a constrained optimization problem, and the iteration-free clustering (IFC) algorithm based on the Lagrangian function, is presented for adapting the existing indexing structure for a nonstationary database. Experimental results concerning recall and precision indicate that the proposed method provides a binary tree that is almost optimal. Simulation results further demonstrate that the proposed algorithm can maintain 94% precision in seven-dimensional feature space, even when the number of new-coming images is one-half the number of images in the original database. Finally, our IFC algorithm outperforms other methods usually applied to image databases.

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

indexing structure
nonstationary image database


stress-based crossover operator for structure topology optimization using small population size and variable length chromosome This paper talks about genetic algorithm (GA) with a stress-based crossover operator (SX) to multi-constrained structural topology optimization. By bitstring chromosome representation, the design variables are very large that result in long computation time. Population size, as the key to cut computation time, is discussed through a number of small population sized experiments. Moreover, we introduce a variable length chromosome to further optimize the topology hierarchically.

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

genetic algorithm
variable length chromosome

structurnal topology optimization
stress-based crossover


On range and response: Dimensions of process flexibility There are two dimensions to process flexibility: range versus response. Range is the extent to which a system can adapt, while response is the rate at which the system can adapt. Although both dimensions are important, the existing literature does not analytically examine the response dimension vis-a-vis the range dimension. In this paper, we model the response dimension in terms of uniformity of production cost. We distinguish between primary and secondary production where the latter is more expensive. We examine how the range and response dimension interact to affect the performance of the process flexible structure. We provide analytical lower bounds to show that under all scenarios on response flexibility, moderate form of range flexibility (via chaining structure) still manages to accrue non-negligible benefits vis-a-vis the fully flexible structure (the bound is 29.29% when demand is normally distributed). We show further that given limited resources, upgrading system response dimension outperforms upgrading system range dimension in most cases. This confirms what most managers believe in intuitively. We observe also that improving system response can provide even more benefits when coupled with initiatives to reduce demand variability. This is in direct contrast with range flexibility, which is more valuable when the system has higher variability.

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

probability: renewal processes
production: process flexibility
facility planning: design


Usability and Navigability of an HIV/AIDS Internet Intervention for Adolescents in a Resource-Limited Setting Use of the Internet is growing in Sub-Saharan Africa. Evidence of computer and Internet effectiveness for reduction in risk behaviors associated with HIV shown in US settings has yet to be replicated in Africa. We describe the development, usability, and navigability testing of an Internet-based HIV prevention program for secondary school students in Uganda, called CyberSenga. For this work, we used four data collection activities, including observation of (a) computer skills and (b) navigation, (c) focus group discussions, and (d) field assessments to document comprehension and usability of program content. We document limited skills among students, but youth with basic computer skills were able to navigate the program after instruction. Youth were most interested in activities with more interaction. Field testing illustrated the importance of using a stand-alone electrical source during program delivery. This work suggests that delivery of Internet-based health promotion content in Africa requires attention to user preparedness and literacy, bandwidth, Internet connection, and electricity.

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

adolescent health
global health
internet-based hiv prevention
technology and hiv prevention


Iterated tabu search for the car sequencing problem This paper introduces an iterated tabu search heuristic for the daily car sequencing problem in which a set of cars must be sequenced so as to satisfy requirements from the paint shop and the assembly line. The iterated tabu search heuristic combines a classical tabu search with perturbation operators that help escape from local optima. The resulting heuristic is flexible, easy to implement, and fast. It has produced very good results on a set of test instances provided by the French car manufacturer Renault.

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


Effects of the Jacobian evaluation on Newton's solution of the Euler equations Newton's method is developed for solving the 2-D Euler equations. The Euler equations are discretized using a finite-volume method with upwind flux splitting schemes. Both analytical and numerical methods are used for Jacobian calculations. Although the numerical method has the advantage of keeping the Jacobian consistent with the numerical residual vector and avoiding extremely complex analytical differentiations, it may have accuracy problems and need longer execution time. In order to improve the accuracy of numerical Jacobians, detailed error analyses are performed. Results show that the finite-difference perturbation magnitude and computer precision are the most important parameters that affect the accuracy of numerical Jacobians. A method is developed for calculating an optimal perturbation magnitude that can minimize the error in numerical Jacobians. The accuracy of the numerical Jacobians is improved significantly by using the optimal perturbation magnitude. The effects of the accuracy of numerical Jacobians on the convergence of the flow solver are also investigated. In order to reduce the execution time for numerical Jacobian evaluation, flux vectors with perturbed flow variables are calculated only for neighbouring cells. A sparse matrix solver that is based on LU factorization is used. Effects of different flux splitting methods and higher-order discretizations on the performance of the solver are analysed. Copyright (c) 2005 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 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

2-d euler equations
newton's method
analytical jacobians
upwind flux splitting methods


Terminated RampSupport Vector Machines: A nonparametric data dependent kernel We propose a novel algorithm, Terminated RampSupport Vector Machines (TRSVM), for classification and feature ranking purposes in the family of Support Vector Machines. The main improvement relies on the fact that the kernel is automatically determined by the training examples. It is built as a function of simple classifiers, generalized terminated ramp functions, obtained by separating oppositely labeled pairs of training points. The algorithm has a meaningful geometrical interpretation, and it is derived in the framework of Tikhonov regularization theory. Its unique free parameter is the regularization one, representing a trade-off between empirical error and solution complexity. Employing the equivalence between the proposed algorithm and two-layer networks, a theoretical bound on the generalization error is also derived, together with VapnikChervonenkis dimension. Performances are tested on a number of synthetic and real data sets.

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

data-dependent kernel
two-layer networks
feature selection


MATHEMATICAL-PROGRAMMING FOR THE SCHEDULING PROBLEM WITH ALTERNATE PROCESS PLANS IN FMS The purpose of this research is to consider the operational scheduling problem and the determination of production routing with alternate process plans simultaneously such that the advantages of routing flexibility are expected. The problem is formulated by using 0-1 integer programming regarding to the performance measure of either the minimum of the absolute deviation of meeting due date or the minimum of total completion time. The approach of mathematical programming generates the optimal schedule, rather than near optimal schedule or a better schedule, to meet the selected criterion. Two mathematical formulation models developed are presented and an example is shown in this paper referring to the either one of performance criteria.

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

0-1 integer programming
heuristic
simulation
artificial intelligence


Solving linear program as linear system in polynomial time A physically concise polynomial-time iterative-cum-non-iterative algorithm is presented to solve the linear program (LP) Min c(t)chi subject to A chi = b, chi >= 0. The iterative part - a variation of Karmarkar projective transformation algorithm - is essentially due to Barnes only to the extent of detection of basic variables of the LP taking advantage of monotonic convergence. It involves much less number of iterations than those in the Karmarkar projective transformation algorithm. The shrunk linear system containing only the basic variables of the solution vector x resulting from A chi = b is then solved in the mathematically non-iterative part. The solution is then tested for optimality and is usually more accurate because of reduced computation and has less computational and storage complexity due to smaller order of the system. The computational complexity of the combination of these two parts of the algorithm is polynomial-time O(n(3)). The boundedness of the solution, multiple solutions, and no-solution (inconsistency) cases are discussed. The effect of degeneracy of the primal linear program and/or its dual on the uniqueness of the optimal solution is mentioned. The algorithm including optimality test is implemented in Matlab which is found to be useful for solving many real-world problems. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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


ENTAILMENT-BASED LINEAR SEGMENTATION IN SUMMARIZATION This paper presents some original methods for text summarization of a single source document by extraction. The methods are based on some of our own text segmentation algorithms. We denote them as logical segmentation because for all these methods (LTT, ArcInt and ArcReal) the score of a sentence is calculated starting from the number of sentences which are entailed by it. For a text (which is a sequence of sentences) the scores form a structure which indicates how the most important sentences alternate with less important ones and organizes the text according to its logical content. The second logical method, Pure Entailment also uses definition of the relation of entailment between two texts. At least to our knowledge, it is for the first time that the relation of Text Entailment between the sentences of a text is used for segmentation and summarization. The third original method applies Dynamic Programming and centering theory to the sentences logically scored as above. The obtained ranked logical segments are used in the summarization. Our methods of segmentation and summarization are applied and evaluated against a manually realized segmentation and summarization of the same text by Donald Richie, "The Koan".

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

text entailment
text summarization
text segmentation


Banknote Image Retrieval Using Rotated Quaternion Wavelet Filters A new method of banknote image retrieval is proposed by using new set of rotated quaternion wavelet filters (RQWF) and standard quaternion wavelet transform (QWT) jointly. The robust and rotationally invariant features are extracted from QWT and RQWF decomposed sub-bands of banknote image. Three different sets of databases are used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. The experimental results show that the proposed method improves the recognition rate from 78.79% to 91.22% on (16000 images) database D1, form 74.08% to 94.62% on (20000 images) database D2 and from 76.44% to 88.78% on (10000 images) database D3. The proposed method can also obtain a reasonable level of computational complexity.

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

rotated quaternion wavelet filters (rqwf)


3D CAD model retrieval with perturbed Laplacian spectra This paper presents a novel approach to the 3D CAD model retrieval, whereby the 3D models are treated and matched as undirected graphs. While there is much success made in the matching of graphs based on their spectral decomposition, most of these approaches consider smooth surfaces and are not suitable for CAD models because of their complex topology and singular structure. In the proposed approach, the models are simplified based on the piecewise flat properties of the surfaces first, and a perturbed Laplacian spectrum approach is then applied to characterize the shape. These spectral values are used as samples for spectral distribution estimation. The perturbed spectral distributions of different models are then compared by their KL-divergence for model retrieval. The proposed approach is tested with models from known 3D CAD database for verification. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

graph laplacian
perturbed graph spectrum
3d model retrieval


Preliminary test of fit in a general class of conditionally heteroscedastic nonlinear time series This article is concerned with a general class of conditionally heteroscedastic time series including possibly nonlinear and asymmetric autoregressive conditional heteroscedastic (ARCH) and generalized ARCH models. A problem of preliminary test of fit (PTF, hereafter) within the broad class under consideration is discussed. It is noted that contrary to usual tests in the literature of conditionally heteroscedastic time series, PTF does not require any specification of the conditional variance in advance. Based on the joint limit distributions of sample autocorrelations, a certain Portmanteau-type statistic for PTF is proposed, and its limit is shown to be a chi-square distribution. In addition, some simulation studies, under various innovations, are reported to support our theoretical results.

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

nonlinear time series
preliminary test of fit

conditional heteroscedasticity
nonlinear garch


Approximation algorithms for minimizing the total weighted tardiness on a single machine Given a single machine and a set of jobs with due dates, the classical NP-hard. problem of scheduling to minimize total tardiness is a well-understood one. Lawler gave a fully polynomial-time approximation scheme (FPTAS) for it some 20 years ago. If the jobs have positive weights the problem of minimizing total weighted tardiness seems to be considerably more intricate. it. In this paper, we give some of the first approximation algorithms for it. We examine first the weighted problem with a fixed number of due dates and we design a pseudopolynomial algorithm for it. We show how to transform the pseudopolynomial algorithm to an FPTAS for the case where the weights are polynomially bounded. For the case with an arbitrary number of due dates and polynomially bounded processing times, we provide a quasipolynomial algorithm which produces a schedule whose value has an additive error proportional to the weighted sum of the due dates. We also investigate the performance of algorithms for minimizing the related total weighted late work objective. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

scheduling
weighted tardiness
approximation algorithms


Model selection for RBF network via generalized degree of freedom Radial basis function (RBF) networks are considered in this study to simulate and forecast a chaotic time series. In order to evaluate the performance of the RBF networks, a new method is developed to calculate the generalized degree of freedom (GDF), which is used to obtain an unbiased estimation of variance of the fitted model error for the network. Numerical results show that the proposed estimation of GDF is more stable and faster than that obtained by the Monte Carlo method. A model selection method using GDF for a chaotic time series is then introduced and applied to four chaotic time series. The numerical results show that the network selected by the proposed method gives better prediction ability.

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

generalized degree of freedom
chaotic time series
model selection


Closed form solutions of linear difference equations in terms of symmetric products ? In this paper we show how to find a closed form solution for third order difference operators in terms of solutions of second order operators. This work is an extension of previous results on finding closed form solutions of recurrence equations and a counterpart to existing results on differential equations. As motivation and application for this work, we discuss the problem of proving positivity of sequences given merely in terms of their defining recurrence relation. The main advantage of the present approach to earlier methods attacking the same problem is that our algorithm provides human-readable and verifiable, i.e., certified proofs.

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 B O O O O O O O


A W-cycle algorithm for a weakly over-penalized interior penalty method We study a W-cycle multigrid algorithm for a weakly over-penalized interior penalty method for the two-dimensional Poisson problem on convex polygonal domains.

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

weakly over-penalized interior penalty methods


On stable social laws and qualitative equilibria This paper introduces and investigates the notion of qualitative equilibria, or stable social laws, in the context of qualitative decision making. Previous work in qualitative decision theory has used the maximin decision criterion for modelling qualitative decision making. When several decision-makers share a common environment, a corresponding notion of equilibrium can be defined. This notion can be associated with the concept of a stable social law: This paper initiates a basic study of stable social laws; in particular, it discusses the stability benefits one obtains from using social laws rather than simple conventions, the existence of stable social laws under various assumptions, the computation of stable social laws, and the representation of stable social laws in a graph-theoretic framework. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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


Parameter sensitivity analysis of stochastic models: Application to catalytic reaction networks A general numerical methodology for parametric sensitivity analysis is proposed, which allows to determine the parameters exerting the greatest influence on the output of a stochastic computational model, especially when the knowledge about the actual value of a parameter is insufficient. An application of the procedure is performed on a model of protocell, in order to detect the kinetic rates mainly affecting the capability of a catalytic reaction network enclosed in a semi-permeable membrane to retain material from its environment and to generate a variety of molecular species within its boundaries. It is shown that the former capability is scarcely sensitive to variations in the model parameters, whereas a kinetic rate responsible for profound modifications of the latter can be identified and it depends on the specific reaction network. A faster uptaking of limited resources from the environment may have represented a significant advantage from an evolutionary point of view and this result is a first indication in order to decipher which kind of structures are more suitable to achieve a viable evolution.

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 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

sensitivity coefficient
stochastic modeling


Maximisation of the crushing performance of a tubular device by shape optimisation A tapered tubular steel component to be used as an energy-absorbing device has been optimised by taking into account two design variables describing the tapering geometry. The minimisation of a load uniformity parameter evaluated as the ratio between the maximum and the average crushing loads has been considered as objective function. The optimisation process has been carried out by using a multi-point approximation scheme based on the response surface methodology. The optimisation process led to the identification of two promising geometrical configurations characterised by a quite low value of the load uniformity parameter. The two solutions have been analysed with respect to their sensitivity towards two model parameters, the sheet thickness and the Young modulus of the material.

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

multi-point approximation scheme
crash
non-linear finite element analysis
crash initiation
tapered tubular component
energy absorption


Variational collision integrator for polymer chains The numerical simulation of many-particle systems (e.g. in molecular dynamics) often involves constraints of various forms. We present a symplectic integrator for mechanical systems with holonomic (bilateral) and unilateral contact constraints, the latter being in the form of a non-penetration condition. The scheme is based on a discrete variant of Hamiltons principle in which both the discrete trajectory and the unknown collision time are varied (cf. [R. Fetecau, J. Marsden, M. Ortiz, M. West, Nonsmooth Lagrangian mechanics and variational collision integrators, SIAM J. Appl. Dyn. Syst. 2 (2003) 381416]). As a consequence, the collision event enters the discrete equations of motion as an unknown that has to be computed on-the-fly whenever a collision is imminent. The additional bilateral constraints are efficiently dealt with employing a discrete null space reduction (including a projection and a local reparametrisation step) which considerably reduces the number of unknowns and improves the condition number during each time-step as compared to a standard treatment with Lagrange multipliers. We illustrate the numerical scheme with a simple example from polymer dynamics, a linear chain of beads, and test it against other standard numerical schemes for collision problems.

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

variational integrators
collisions
holonomic constraints
discrete null space method
event-driven algorithm


store carry and forward relay aided cellular networks To support the ever increasing requirements for data services, some of the current architectural trends for future cellular networks is a reduction on the cell size and support of multi hop relaying. A significant amount of previous research work has looked at efficient multi hop relaying schemes within the cell to increase the overall capacity, while avoiding data rate starvation at the edge of the cell. In this paper we detail the benefits of a generalized multi-hop relaying scheme, where mobile relay nodes (which in this case are assumed to be vehicles) can store information and relay it to other nodes or to the base station at a later time instance when the channel conditions are more favorable.

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

store carry and forward relaying
wireless routing
load balancing


rank aggregation via nuclear norm minimization The process of rank aggregation is intimately intertwined with the structure of skew symmetric matrices. We apply recent advances in the theory and algorithms of matrix completion to skew-symmetric matrices. This combination of ideas produces a new method for ranking a set of items. The essence of our idea is that a rank aggregation describes a partially filled skew-symmetric matrix. We extend an algorithm for matrix completion to handle skew-symmetric data and use that to extract ranks for each item. Our algorithm applies to both pairwise comparison and rating data. Because it is based on matrix completion, it is robust to both noise and incomplete data. We show a formal recovery result for the noiseless case and present a detailed study of the algorithm on synthetic data and Netflix ratings.

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

rank aggregation
skew symmetric
nuclear norm


Noise peeling methods to improve boosting algorithms Boosting refers to a family of methods that combine sequences of individual classifiers into highly accurate ensemble models through weighted voting. AdaBoost, short for Adaptive Boosting, is the most well-known boosting algorithm. AdaBoost has many strengths. Among them, there is sufficient empirical evidence pointing to its performance being generally superior to that of individual classifiers. In addition, even when combining a large number of weak learners, AdaBoost can be very robust to overfitting usually with lower generalization error than other competing ensemble methodologies, such as bagging and random forests. However, AdaBoost, as most hard margin classifiers, tends to be sensitive to outliers and noisy data, since it assigns observations that have been misclassified a higher weight in subsequent iterations. It has recently been proven that for any booster with a potential convex loss function, and any nonzero random classification noise rate, there is a data set, which can be efficiently learnable by the booster if there is no noise, but cannot be learned with accuracy better than 1/2 with random classification noise present. Several techniques to identify and potentially delete (peel) noisy samples in binary classification are proposed in order to improve the performance of AdaBoost. It is found that peeling methods generally perform better than AdaBoost and other noise resistant boosters, especially when high levels of noise are present in the data.

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

ensembles
noise detection
noise filtering


success with the project-intensive model for an undergraduate software engineering course There is a tremendously increasing need for software in all areas of society (the software crisis) and hence a need for increased numbers of software engineers as well as increased productivity of the current software engineers [1]. Improving the productivity of software engineers necessitates new ways of viewing software, better procedures for creating it, and most importantly, better education of current and prospective software engineers regarding the development process [2]. Software engineering is thus rapidly being incorporated into undergraduate and graduate computer science curricula and is emerging as a separate discipline. In particular, the senior level project course has received much attention as a way to provide a software engineering experience at the undergraduate level. Project teams in such courses usually consist of two to four students. This paper describes a project-intensive software engineering course in which twenty-three students worked effectively as a single project team.

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

computer science
education
attention
software
curricula
development process
senior
project
experience
paper
model
teams

product
procedure
software engineering
student


Quality of service measures of mobile ad-hoc wireless network using energy consumption mitigation with asynchronous inactivity periods Improper power management in a wireless network can substantially degrade the Quality of Service (QoS) and increase the overall energy consumed. This can further lead to network partitioning problems, which denote inefficiency in hosting multimedia applications. Current scheduling approaches for energy conservation save energy by allowing either periodic "idling" or high latencies, which are unable to host delay-sensitive multimedia applications. Delay-sensitive applications need to have an end-to-end path with energy availability. In this paper, an on-demand scheme is proposed based on each node's self-scheduling energy management, suitable for hosting delay-sensitive traffic. A sleep history characterization for the traffic is modeled, affecting the overall idle or inactive/sleep duration in a way that enables energy conservation. Through simulation, the QoS of the proposed scheme is evaluated by using two different routing schemes. These schemes prove that the overall energy savings during delay-sensitive transmissions using asynchronous (non-periodic) sleep time is significantly higher than the synchronous (periodic). Experimental results depict the scheme's efficiency with respect to the underlying routing protocol used, to manage nodes' energy on a self-tuned mode.

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

energy consumption mitigation
energy conservation

mobile ad-hoc networks
adaptive traff ic scheme
coerced caching


A syntactic approach to foundational proof-carrying code Proof-carrying code (PCC) is a general framework for verifying the safety properties of machine-language programs. PCC proofs are usually written in a logic extended with language-specific typing rules; they certify safety but only if there is no bug in the typing rules. In foundational proof-carrying code (FPCC), on the other hand, proofs are constructed and verified by using strictly the foundations of mathematical logic, with no type-specific axioms. FPCC is more flexible and secure because it is not tied to any particular type system and it has a smaller trusted base. Foundational proofs, however, are much harder to construct. Previous efforts on FPCC all required building sophisticated semantic models for types. Furthermore, none of them can be easily extended to support mutable fields and recursive types. In this article, we present a syntactic approach to FPCC that avoids all of these difficulties. Under our new scheme, the foundational proof for a typed machine program simply consists of the typing derivation plus the formalized syntactic soundness proof for the underlying type system. The former can be readily obtained from a type-checker, while the latter is known to be much easier to construct than the semantic soundness proofs. We give a translation from a typed assembly language into FPCC and demonstrate the advantages of our new system through an implementation in the Coq proof assistant.

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

syntactic soundness proof
typed assembly language


A comparative experimental study of image feature detectors and descriptors Feature detection and matching is a fundamental problem in many computer vision applications. In the past decades, various types of feature detectors and descriptors have been proposed in the literature. Although several comparative studies on feature detectors and descriptors have been performed in the past, few studies have been carried out concerning recently proposed descriptors such as BRISK, FREAK, etc. Also, previous comparisons were either application oriented or limited in experimentation or in the number of detectors and descriptors compared. This paper provides a comprehensive review of a large number of popular feature detectors developed in the last three decades. The study makes several contributions to the development of a generic comparison of feature detectors and descriptors. First, we conduct comparisons of invariance against image transformations such as illumination changes, blurring, rotation, scaling, viewpoint changes, exposure, JPEG compression, combined scaling and rotation, and combined viewpoint changes. Second, we provide a proper distinction between detectors and descriptors using separate comparisons. Third, a few detectors have been tested on the variation of parameter values. Fourth, we conduct a statistical analysis of invariance against four popular types of transformations: viewpoint changes, blurring, scaling, and rotation. Fifth, we carry out intuitive matching between detectors and descriptors, testing on simulated and practical scenarios. Last, we conduct exhaustive experiments on several datasets for each combination of detectors and descriptors to provide a ranking that can also be weighted to suit specific applications.

O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O 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 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 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 features
feature descriptors
comparative study


Transfer of knowledge from the service phase: a case study from the oil industry This paper aims to investigate the knowledge generated during the later phases of the life cycle of a complex customised product and understand how this knowledge is transferred between projects and between different user groups. A series of four identical rigs for offshore drilling was selected as a case study, and the transfer of knowledge between the first two rigs was explored through two sets of interviews with the rig operators and the project management team. The expected knowledge transfer strategies that emerged from the first set of interviews were analysed and compared with the actual transfer mechanisms identified in the second set of interviews, and similarities and differences were investigated. It was found that the transfer of knowledge primarily occurred within the individual phases of the products life cycle, and there was poor transfer across the different phases.

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

product life cycle management
design knowledge management
information management
one-off machinery and oil industry


The USP Farmers herding team This paper describes the development steps and core ideas used by the USP Farmers herding team, that has participated in the 2010 edition of the Multi-Agent Programming Contest (MAPC 2010). This is the third year that the competitors must design a team of herding agents, whose global goal is to lead a maximum number of cows to their own corral. As this is a very complex task and requires coordination of the team, we have developed the individual agents using the Jason (Bordini et al. 2007) interpreter for AgentSpeak(L) (Rao 1996). Moreover, the coordination strategy was defined using the MOISE (+) (Hubner et al. 2002, 2007) organizational model. We have also used the idea of artifact (Ricci et al. 2007) to develop global services, available to all the agents. Moreover, it is clear that for this contest some pure procedural processing should be developed in a lower abstraction level (Hubner et al. 2008); therefore some calculation and pre-defined global decisions were implemented by Java classes.

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

multi-agent systems
bdi agents
multi-agent programming
agentspeak
organisation specification
moise(+)


Indirect adaptive tracking control of a nonholonomic mobile robot via neural networks This paper presents the design and implementation of a novel adaptive trajectory tracking controller for a nonholonomic wheeled mobile robot (WMR) with unknown parameters and uncertain dynamics. The learning ability of neural networks is used to design a robust adaptive backstepping controller that does not require the knowledge of the robot dynamics. The kinematic controller gains are tuned on-line to minimize the velocity error and improve the trajectory tracking characteristics. The performance of the proposed control algorithm is verified and compared with the classical backstepping controller through simulation and experiments on a commercial mobile robot platform.

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

neural-adaptive tracking control
backstepping control
wheeled mobile robots


A method of transferring polyhedron between the intersection-form and the sum-form A bounded polyhedron (or a polyhedral cone) can be given by either an intersection of linear inequalities, which is thus called intersection-form, or a convex combination (or nonnegative linear combination) of some given points, which is thus called sum-form. This paper first proposes a simple and effective method to transfer a bounded polyhedron or a polyhedral cone from the intersection-form to the sum-form. A new method is proposed to transfer a bounded polyhedron (or a polyhedral cone) from the sum-form to the intersection form. Both procedures can be completed in finite number of iterations. Numerical examples are given for illustration. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

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


on approximating a vertex cover for planar graphs The approximation problem for vertex cover of n-vertex planar graphs is treated. Two results are presented: (1) A linear time approximation algorithm for which the (error) performance bound is 2/3. (2) An O(n log n) time approximation scheme.

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

approximation algorithms
timing
errors
planar graph


indicator-based evolutionary algorithm with hypervolume approximation by achievement scalarizing functions Pareto dominance-based algorithms have been the main stream in the field of evolutionary multiobjective optimization (EMO) for the last two decades. It is, however, well-known that Pareto-dominance-based algorithms do not always work well on many-objective problems with more than three objectives. Currently alternative frameworks are studied in the EMO community very actively. One promising framework is the use of an indicator function to find a good solution set of a multiobjective problem. EMO algorithms with this framework are called indicator-based evolutionary algorithms (IBEAs) where the hypervolume measure is frequently used as an indicator. IBEAs with the hypervolume measure have strong theoretical support and high search ability. One practical difficult of such an IBEA is that the hypervolume calculation needs long computation time especially when we have many objectives. In this paper, we propose an idea of using a scalarizing function-based hypervolume approximation method in IBEAs. We explain how the proposed idea can be implemented in IBEAs. We also demonstrate through computational experiments that the proposed idea can drastically decrease the computation time of IBEAs without severe performance deterioration.

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