Construction of universal one-way hash functions: Tree hashing revisited We present a binary tree based parallel algorithm for extending the domain of a universal one-way hash function (UOWHF). For t?2 t ? 2 , our algorithm extends the domain from the set of all n -bit strings to the set of all ((2t-1)(n-m)+m) ( ( 2 t - 1 ) ( n - m ) + m ) -bit strings, where m is the length of the message digest. The associated increase in key length is 2m 2 m bits for t=2 t = 2 ; m(t+1) m ( t + 1 ) bits for 3?t?6 3 ? t ? 6 and m(t+?log2(t-1)?) m ( t + ? log 2 ( t - 1 ) ? ) bits for t?7 t ? 7 .

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

cryptographic hash functions
parallel computation


ASPECTGRID: ASPECT-ORIENTED FAULT-TOLERANCE IN GRID PLATFORMS Migrating traditional scientific applications to computational Grids requires programming tools that can help programmers update application behaviour to this kind of platforms. Computational Grids are particularly suited for long running scientific applications, but they are also more prone to faults than desktop machines. The Aspect Grid framework aims to develop methodologies and tools that can help Grid-enable scientific applications, particularly focusing on techniques based on aspect-oriented programming. In this paper we present the aspect-oriented approach taken in the Aspect Grid framework to address faults in computational Grids. In the proposed approach, scientific applications are enhanced with fault-tolerance capability by plugging additional modules. The proposed technique is portable across operating systems and minimises the changes required to base applications.

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

application level checkpointing
aspect oriented programing
aspect-grid framework


integration of physical phenomena into an experiment-based propagation model Ad hoc networks heavily rely on simulations to develop and test new protocols or applications. Impact of radio propagation models is often neglected. Simulated losses consequently exhibit relatively simple behaviors whereas they are in reality tied to obstacles, mobility and external interference sources. Moreover, the way losses do appear in multi-hop ad hoc networks has great and complex effects on upper layer protocols. Using characterization of losses in real world experimentations, we propose a propagation model called shadowing-pattern which aims at providing more reality-like losses. Finally we highlight the effects of our new model on multi-hop scenarios

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 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


Interactive interaction plot Design of experiments (DOE) is the study of how to vary control parameters to efficiently design and evaluate experiments. Main effects plot and interaction plot are two data views often used to explore differences between mean values and interactions between the DOE parameters but they are mostly limited to two parameters. We propose a new data view, interactive interaction plot, that supports exploration and analysis of high-dimensional interactions between parameters. The data view is integrated within a coordinated multiple views system. We describe the new data view using an Olympic medals data set. We also describe a case study dealing with initial selection of hybrid vehicle components. Very positive feedback from automotive domain experts demonstrates the usefulness of the newly proposed approach.

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

interaction plot
main effects plot
design of experiments


Biocompute 2.0: an improved collaborative workspace for data intensive bio-science The explosion of data in the biological community requires scalable and flexible portals for bioinformatics. To help address this need, we proposed characteristics needed for rigorous, reproducible, and collaborative resources for data-intensive science. Implementing a system with these characteristics exposed challenges in user interface, data distribution, and workflow description/execution. We describe ongoing responses to these and other challenges. Our Data-Action-Queue design pattern addresses user interface and system organization concepts. A dynamic data distribution mechanism lays the foundation for the management of persistent datasets. Makeflow facilitates the simple description and execution of complex multi-part jobs and forms the kernel of a module system powering diverse bioinformatics applications. Our improved web portal, Biocompute 2.0, has been in production use since the summer of 2010. Through it and its predecessor, we have provided over 56 years of CPU time through its five modules-BLAST, SSAHA, SHRIMP, BWA, and SNPEXP-to research groups at three universities. In this paper, we describe the goals and interface to the system, its architecture and performance, and the insights gained in its development. Copyright (C) 2011 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 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 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 B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O


Improving FPGA Placement with Dynamically Adaptive Stochastic Tunneling This paper develops a dynamically adaptive stochastic tunneling (DAST) algorithm to avoid the "freezing" problem commonly found when using simulated annealing for circuit placement on field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). The main objective is to reduce the placement runtime and improve the quality of final placement. We achieve this by allowing the DAST placer to tunnel energetically inaccessible regions of the potential solution space, adjusting the stochastic tunneling schedule adaptively by performing detrended fluctuation analysis, and selecting move types dynamically by a multi-modal scheme based on Gibbs sampling. A prototype annealing-based placer, called DAST, was developed as part of this paper. It targets the same computer-aided design flow as the standard versatile placement and routing (VPR) but replaces its original annealer with the DAST algorithm. Our experimental results using the benchmark suite and FPGA architecture file which comes with the Toronto VPR5 software package have shown a 18.3% reduction in runtime and a 7.2% improvement in critical-path delay over that of conventional VPR.

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

placement
simulated annealing
stochastic tunneling


Synchronisation effects on the behavioural performance and information dynamics of a simulated minimally cognitive robotic agent Oscillatory activity is ubiquitous in nervous systems, with solid evidence that synchronisation mechanisms underpin cognitive processes. Nevertheless, its informational content and relationship with behaviour are still to be fully understood. In addition, cognitive systems cannot be properly appreciated without taking into account brain-body- environment interactions. In this paper, we developed a model based on the Kuramoto Model of coupled phase oscillators to explore the role of neural synchronisation in the performance of a simulated robotic agent in two different minimally cognitive tasks. We show that there is a statistically significant difference in performance and evolvability depending on the synchronisation regime of the network. In both tasks, a combination of information flow and dynamical analyses show that networks with a definite, but not too strong, propensity for synchronisation are more able to reconfigure, to organise themselves functionally and to adapt to different behavioural conditions. The results highlight the asymmetry of information flow and its behavioural correspondence. Importantly, it also shows that neural synchronisation dynamics, when suitably flexible and reconfigurable, can generate minimally cognitive embodied behaviour.

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

evolutionary robotics
oscillatory networks
transfer entropy


simplifying concurrent algorithms by exploiting hardware transactional memory We explore the potential of hardware transactional memory (HTM) to improve concurrent algorithms. We illustrate a number of use cases in which HTM enables significantly simpler code to achieve similar or better performance than existing algorithms for conventional architectures. We use Sun's prototype multicore chip, code-named Rock, to experiment with these algorithms, and discuss ways in which its limitations prevent better results, or would prevent production use of algorithms even if they are successful. Our use cases include concurrent data structures such as double ended queues, work stealing queues and scalable non-zero indicators, as well as a scalable malloc implementation and a simulated annealing application. We believe that our paper makes a compelling case that HTM has substantial potential to make effective concurrent programming easier, and that we have made valuable contributions in guiding designers of future HTM features to exploit this potential.

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


Morphology-driven automatic segmentation of MR images of the neonatal brain The segmentation of MR images of the neonatal brain is an essential step in the study and evaluation of infant brain development. State-of-the-art methods for adult brain MRI segmentation are not applicable to the neonatal brain, due to large differences in structure and tissue properties between newborn and adult brains. Existing newborn brain MRI segmentation methods either rely on manual interaction or require the use of atlases or templates, which unavoidably introduces a bias of the results towards the population that was used to derive the atlases. We propose a different approach for the segmentation of neonatal brain MRI, based on the infusion of high-level brain morphology knowledge, regarding relative tissue location, connectivity and structure. Our method does not require manual interaction, or the use of an atlas, and the generality of its priors makes it applicable to different neonatal populations, while avoiding atlas-related bias. The proposed algorithm segments the brain both globally (intracranial cavity, cerebellum, brainstem and the two hemispheres) and at tissue level (cortical and subcortical gray matter, myelinated and unmyelinated white matter, and cerebrospinal fluid). We validate our algorithm through visual inspection by medical experts, as well as by quantitative comparisons that demonstrate good agreement with expert manual segmentations. The algorithms robustness is verified by testing on variable quality images acquired on different machines, and on subjects with variable anatomy (enlarged ventricles, preterm- vs. term-born).

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

magnetic resonance imaging
watershed segmentation
mathematical morphology


Stable haptic rendering with detailed energy-compensating control Sampled-data system nature is the main factor for a haptic system to exhibit non-passive behaviors or instabilities through "energy leaks", especially for stiff objects rendering. A detailed energy-compensating method is presented aiming to improve the haptic system's performance based on the concept of "doing work". Using an ideal continuous-time haptic system as a reference, we calculate the "work difference" between interactions in the sampled-data haptic system and the counterparts in the real world. An "energy-compensating controller" (ECC) is then designed to compensate for, in every sampling period, the "energy leaks" caused by "work difference". The "work difference" exists both in entering and leaving periods of interaction contacts, which means the ECC not only removes the unwanted "extra work" from the virtual environment to eliminate potential non-passive system behaviors, but also compensates for the "deficient Work" that should be done by the human operator to guarantee the intended rendering stiffness. The proposed method was tested and demonstrated on six human subjects with the implementation of a stiff-wall prototype haptic system via a Delta haptic device. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

energy-compensating controller
perceived stiffness
passivity theory


Application of seasonal time series model in the precipitation forecast Precipitation is an important guiding standard for agricultural production; however, it is highly difficult to forecast due to random sequential and seasonal features. In this research on the historical data of time series, it is found that rainfall has a strong autocorrelation of seasonal characteristics in time series. Utilizing seasonal periodicity with a Seasonal Autoregressive and Moving Average (SARIMA) methodology we analyze the statistical data of precipitation, which is based on Shouguang city in Shandong statistical yearbooks over the 1996: 1-2009: 12 periods. In this paper the method for time series analysis and forecasting are proposed to study the model. The experimental results could achieve good prediction fitting degree. In this sense, the model is available for actual forecast warning in precipitation. Through the comparison of the model we had found the advantages of forecasting that can make full use of natural rainfall for corresponding areas and save underground water resources. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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


A SYSTEMATIC TWO-LAYER APPROACH TO DEVELOP WEB-BASED EXPERIMENTATION ENVIRONMENTS FOR CONTROL ENGINEERING EDUCATION This paper introduces the systematic approach currently used by the Department of Computer Science and Automatic Control of the Spanish University of Distance Learning (UNED) to develop Web-based laboratories for distance learning of topics with high technical contents such as control engineering. This approach differentiates two layers in the construction of web-based laboratories: the experimentation layer and the e-learning layer. For the experimentation layer, LabVIEW and data acquisition boards from National Instruments are used to create the server-side applications and Easy Java Simulations for the client-side interfaces. For the e-learning layer, the eMersion environment is used to support the required flexible educational scheme. This paper describes the programming techniques implemented and the design considerations that justify these particular choices. As an illustrative case-study, an example of development of a web-based application is discussed, in which an electrical drive servo-motor is introduced as a convenient setup to practice with motion control applications. Other significant examples of web-based experiments developed by the authors are also reported.

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

distance learning
control engineering education

remote laboratory
interactive systems
web-based experimentation
collaborative learning


On the orbital motion of a rotating inner cylinder in annular flow In this paper, numerical calculations have been performed to analyse the influence of the orbital motion of an inner cylinder on annular flow and the forces exerted by the fluid on the inner cylinder when it is rotating eccentrically. The flow considered is fully developed laminar flow driven by axial pressure gradient. It is shown that the drag of the annular flow decreases initially and then increases with the enhancememt of orbital motion, when it has the same direction as the inner cylinder rotation. If the eccentricity and rotation speed of the inner cylinder keep unchanged (with respect to the absolute frame of reference), and the orbital motion is strong enough that the azimuthal component (with respect to the orbit of the orbital motion) of the flow-induced force on the inner cylinder goes to zero, the flow drag nearly reaches its minimum value. When only an external torque is imposed to drive the eccentric rotation of the inner cylinder, orbital motion may occur and, in general, has the same direction as the inner cylinder rotation. Under this condition, whether the inner cylinder can have a steady motion state with force equilibrium, and even what type of motion state it can have, is related to the linear density of the inner cylinder. Copyright (c) 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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

annular flow
eccentricity
orbital motion


toward real-time image guided neurosurgery using distributed and grid computing Neurosurgical resection is a therapeutic intervention in the treatment of brain tumors. Precision of the resection can be improved by utilizing Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) as an aid in decision making during Image Guided Neurosurgery (IGNS). Image registration adjusts pre-operative data according to intra-operative tissue deformation. Some of the approaches increase the registration accuracy by tracking image landmarks through the whole brain volume. High computational cost used to render these techniques inappropriate for clinical applications.In this paper we present a parallel implementation of a state of the art registration method, and a number of needed incremental improvements. Overall, we reduced the response time for registration of an average dataset from about an hour and for some cases more than an hour to less than seven minutes, which is within the time constraints imposed by neurosurgeons. For the first time in clinical practice we demonstrated, that with the help of distributed computing non-rigid MRI registration based on volume tracking can be computed intra-operatively.

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

grid computing
image registration
distributed computing


The CicchettiAllison weighting matrix is positive definite Application of Cohens weighted kappa for inter-rater agreement requires the specification of a weighting matrix. An explicit formula for the determinants of the principal minors of the weighting matrix with CicchettiAllison weights is derived. Since all determinants are strictly positive, it follows that the CicchettiAllison weighting matrix is positive definite.

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


Mining approximate temporal functional dependencies with pure temporal grouping in clinical databases We focus on dependencies over facts (e.g. diagnosis vs therapy) stored in a database. Dependencies may generally hold: deviating facts set up an approximate dependency. We group data in sets, either by temporal granules or by fixed-length sliding windows Within every set, we look for temporal approximate dependencies. We mine psychiatry and pharmacovigilance data sets and derive new knowledge.

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

approximate temporal functional dependency


Semidefinite programming in combinatorial optimization We discuss the use of semidefinite programming for combinatorial optimization problems. The main topics covered include (i) the Lovasz theta function and its applications to stable sets, perfect graphs, and coding theory, (ii) the automatic generation of strong valid inequalities, (iii) the maximum cut problem and related problems, and (iv) the embedding of finite metric spaces and its relationship to the sparsest cut problem. (C) 1997 The Mathematical Programming Society, Inc. Published by Elsevier Science B.V.

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

semidefinite programming
combinatorial optimization
maximum cut
coding theory


Global image completion with joint sparse patch selection and optimal seam synthesis This paper presented a global exemplar-based image completion method for filling large missing or unwanted regions in an image. Based on three proposed completion rules, image completion problem is formulated as a global discrete optimization problem with a well-defined energy function. The energy function can evaluate image consistency globally and is minimized with an expectation-maximization (EM) like algorithm, which considers patch matching and patch synthesis in a unified way. In the algorithm, M step and E step are achieved by sparse patch subspace searching and optimal seam synthesis respectively. The patch subspace is learned with the statistics of geometric transformation relationships of similar patches. Moreover, E step combines image patch synthesis and coherent correction simultaneously. We analyzed the proposed global energy function and optimization method in theory. Simulation comparisons with other state-of-the-art methods show the superiority of our proposed method in ensuring global coherent and avoiding image blurring.

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

image inpainting
texture synthesis
patch subspace learning
image analysis


Pricing differentiated services: A game-theoretic approach ? The goal of this paper is to study pricing of differentiated services and its impact on the choice of service priority at equilibrium. We consider both TCP connections as well as noncontrolled (real-time) connections. The performance measures (such as throughput and loss rates) are determined according to the operational parameters of a RED (Random Early Discard) buffer management. The latter is assumed to be able to give differentiated services to the applications according to their choice of service class. We consider a service differentiation for both TCP as well as real-time traffic where the quality of service (QoS) of connections is not guaranteed, but by choosing a better (more expensive) service class, the QoS parameters of a session can improve (as long as the service class of other sessions are fixed). The choice of a service class of an application will depend both on the utility as well as on the cost it has to pay. We first study the performance of the system as a function of the connections parameters and their choice of service classes. We then study the decision problem of how to choose the service classes. We model the problem as a noncooperative game. We establish conditions for an equilibrium to exist and to be uniquely defined. We further provide conditions for convergence to equilibrium from nonequilibria initial states. We finally study the pricing problem of how to choose prices so that the resulting equilibrium would maximize the network benefit.

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


Robust real-time ground plane motion compensation from a moving vehicle One method to detect obstacles from a vehicle moving on a planar road surface is the analysis of motion-compensated difference images. In this contribution, a motion compensation algorithm is presented, which computes the required image-warping parameters from an estimate of the relative motion between camera and ground plane. The proposed algorithm estimates the warping parameters from displacements at image corners and image edges. It exploits the estimated confidence of the displacements to cope robustly with outliers. Knowledge about camera calibration, measuremts from odometry, and the previous estimate are used for motion prediction and to stabilize the estimation process when there is not enough information available in the measured image displacements. The motion compensation algorithm has been integrated with modules for obstacle detection and lane tracking. This system has been integrated in experimental vehicles and runs in real time with an overall cycle of 12.5 Hz on low-cost standard hardware.

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

motion stereo
real-time image analysis
driver assistance systems


N-Point Hough transform for line detection In this paper, we introduce the N-point Hough transform for the detection of a large number of planar lines in a noisy image. The N -point Hough transform yields the randomized Hough transform and the three-point Hough transform if we set N=2 N = 2 and N=3 N = 3 , respectively. From the viewpoint of the number of sample points required for the computation of lines, the N-point Hough transform is a generalization of the usual randomized Hough transform. The three-point Hough transform is introduced to increase the speed of the randomized Hough transform; the third point is used to avoid the selection of meaningless first and second sample points, which are used for the computation of the parameters of a line. This additional sample point guarantees the accuracy and robustness of a line detected using the first and second sample points. The N -point Hough transform evaluates the accuracy and robustness of a computed line using additional (N-2) ( N - 2 ) points for each line. The evaluation in the N-point Hough transform is achieved by counting the cardinality of sample points in the neighborhood of this line as the support of the sample points for the acceptance of this line. First, to define the neighborhood of a line mathematically, in this paper we clarify the relationship between a line and a set of parameters in the voting space using geometric duality. This relationship allows us to define a metric in the voting space. The metric is used for the clustering of bins in the spherical voting space to guarantee the accurate and robust computation of lines. Finally, we evaluate the performance of the N-point Hough transform by comparing it with the randomized Hough transform, which is the two-point Hough transform in our framework of the voting method. This comparative study shows the geometric and computational advantages of the N-point Hough transform.

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

three-point hough transform
random sampling
randomized hough transform
projective geometry
spherical geometry
discrete voting space
continuous voting space


Bioenergetics and cell death Mitochondrial bioenergetic function is a key to cell life and death. Cells need energy not only to support their vital functions but also to die gracefully. Execution of an apoptotic program includes energy-dependent steps, including kinase signaling, formation of the apoptosome, and effector caspase activation. Under conditions of bioenergetic collapse, cells are diverted toward necrotic demise. Mitochondrial outer membrane permeabilization (MOMP) is a decisive event in the execution of apoptosis. It is also causally linked to a decline in bioenergetic function via different mechanisms, not merely due to cytochrome c dispersion. MOMP-induced bioenergetic deficiency is usually irreversible and commits cells to die, even when caspases are inactive. Here, we discuss the mechanisms by which MOMP impacts bioenergetics in different cell death paradigms.

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

mitochondria
external pathway of nadh oxidation


Solitonic investigation on the general fifth-order shallow water wave models For the general fifth-order shallow water wave models, we perform computerized symbolic computation to obtain two auto-Backlund transformations and four families of the bell-shaped solitonic solutions, which are exact analytic.

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

computerized symbolic computation
wave models

general fifth-order shallow water
auto-backlund transformations
bell-shaped solitonic solutions


On dynamic service integration in VNA architecture In forthcoming home network environment. computation capability will be embedded invisibly in home appliances, sensors, walls, ceilings, and floors. People will conduct various tasks using multiple devices simultaneously without consciousness of using computers. In this paper, first, we propose an application model named Virtual Network Appliance (VNA) model which simplify and expand device utilization. In the model, each device has VNA runtime system and function objects, called VNA components. running on it. A user task is defined in an application called VNA which is a logical appliance consisting of abstract function requirements and a message graph among them. Second, we propose Virtual Plug&-Play mechanism which is a dynamic service integration mechanism ill VNA model implementation. When a user conducts a task, he/she makes a VNA runtime system oil a user-side terminal load a VNA definition appropriate for the task. Virtual Plug&Play dynamically discovers required VNA components and establishes the message graph as defined. Since XML documents are used to describe a VNA. users can share and customize it easily. We call the de vice integration done by Virtual Plug&Play top-down integration, which existing middleware do not aim at. Finally, we show that Virtual Plug&Play affords practical performance for top-down integration by performance evaluation.

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

information appliances
home networks
componentware


Improvement of power supply electromagnetic compatibility by extension of chaos anticontrol Switch-mode power supplies usually emit electromagnetic interferences at the switching frequency and its harmonics. Inducing chaos in these systems has recently been suggested as a means of reducing these spectral emissions, yet at the expense of aggravating the overall magnitude of the ripple in the output voltage. We propose here a new nonlinear feedback control method, which induces chaos, and which is able at the same time to achieve low spectral emission and to maintain a small ripple in the output. The feasibility and usefulness of this new and simple method is shown here with a numerical example, which includes a comparison with the previous control 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 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

anticontrol of chaos
buck converter
power spectrum
output voltage ripple


Experimental signatures of extreme optical fluctuations in lumped Raman fiber amplifiers In this work, we experimentally investigate several temporal and spectral methods to highlight extreme fluctuations which can develop during the Raman amplification of an ultrashort pulse train. Forward and backward pumping schemes are compared to dual pass configurations.

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

fiber optics
raman amplifiers
extreme statistics


Automatic generation of redundant models for permutation constraint satisfaction problems If we have two representations of a problem as constraint satisfaction problem (CSP) models, it has been shown that combining the models using channeling constraints can increase constraint propagation in tree search CSP solvers. Handcrafting two CSP models for a problem, however, is often time-consuming. In this paper, we propose model induction, a process which generates a second CSP model from an existing model using channeling constraints, and study its theoretical properties. The generated induced model is in a different viewpoint, i.e., set of variables. It is mutually redundant to and can be combined with the input model, so that the combined model contains more redundant information, which is useful to increase constraint propagation. We also propose two methods of combining CSP models, namely model intersection and model channeling. The two methods allow combining two mutually redundant models in the same and different viewpoints respectively. We exploit the applications of model induction, intersection, and channeling and identify three new classes of combined models, which contain different amounts of redundant information. We construct combined models of permutation CSPs and show in extensive benchmark results that the combined models are more robust and efficient to solve than the single models.

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


automated detection of persistent kernel control-flow attacks This paper presents a new approach to dynamically monitoring operating system kernel integrity, based on a property called state-based control-flow integrity (SBCFI). Violations of SBCFI signal a persistent, unexpected modification of the kernel's control-flow graph. We performed a thorough analysis of 25 Linux rootkits and found that 24 (96\%) employ persistent control-flow modifications; an informal study of Windows rootkits yielded similar results. We have implemented SBCFI enforcement as part of the Xen and VMware virtual machine monitors. Our implementation detected all the control-flow modifying rootkits we could install, while imposing unnoticeable overhead for both a typical web server workload and CPU-intensive workloads when operating at 10 second intervals.

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


ONELOOP:

For

the

evaluation

of

one-loop

scalar

functions

ONELOOP

is

a

program

to

evaluate

the

one-loop

scalar

and

functions,

for

all

kinematical

configurations

relevant

for

collider-physics,

and

for

any

non-positive

imaginary

parts

of

the

internal

squared

masses.

It

deals

with

all

UV

and

IR

divergences

within

dimensional

regularization.

Furthermore,

it

provides

routines

to

evaluate

these

functions

using

straightforward

numerical

integration.

Program

summary

Program

title:

OneLOop

Catalogue

identifier:

Program

summary

URL:

Program

obtainable

from:

CPC

Program

Library,

Queen's

University.

Belfast.

N.

Ireland

Licensing

provisions:

Standard

CPC

licence,

No.

of

lines

in

distributed

program,

including

test

data,

etc.:

No.

of

bytes

in

distributed

program,

including

test

data,

etc.:

Distribution

format:

tar.gz

Programming

language:

Fortran

Computer:

Workstations

Operating

system:

Linux.

Unix

RAM:

Negligible

Classification:

Nature

of

problem:

In

order

to

reach

next-to-leading

order

precision

in

the

calculation

of

cross

sections

of

hard

scattering

processes,

one-loop

amplitudes

have

to

be

evaluated.

This

is

clone

by

expressing

them

as

linear

combination

of

one-loop

scalar

functions.

In

a

concrete

calculation,

these

functions

eventually

have

to

be

evaluated.

If

the

scattering

process

involves

unstable

particles,

consistency

requires

the

evaluation

of

these

functions

with

complex

internal

masses.

Solution

method:

Expressions

for

the

one-loop

scalar

functions

in

terms

of

single-variable

analytic

functions

existing

in

literature

have

been

implemented.

Restrictions:

The

applicability

is

restricted

to

the

kinematics

occurring

in

collider-physics.

Running

time:

The

evaluation

of

the

most

general

function

with

complex

masses

takes

about

mu

s,

and

the

evaluation

of

the

function

with

real

masses

takes

about

mu

s

on

a

GHz

Intel

Xeon

processor.

(C)

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

nlo computations
one-loop scalar functions


Linear potential proximal support vector machines for pattern classification Support vector machine (SVM) classifiers attempt to find a maximum margin hyperplane by solving a convex optimization problem. The conventional SVM approach involves the minimization of a quadratic function subject to linear inequality constraints. However, the margin is not scale invariant, and therefore a linear transformation of the data tends to affect the classification accuracy. Recently, potential SVMs attempted to address the issue of scale variance by using an appropriate scaling to improve the classification accuracy. In this paper, we propose a novel SVM formulation that is in the spirit of potential SVM, but requires a single matrix inversion to find the classifier. Experimental results bear out the efficacy of the classifier.

O O O B I I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 efficient data collection scheme through multi-path routing structures in wireless sensor networks An essential method to overcome the high loss rates of wireless communication in sensor data collection is to use multi-path routing. In this paper, we investigate the construction of multi-path routing structures and develop an enhanced scheme for sensor data collection. In constructing multi-path routing structures, we limit the number of messages that each node transmits and receives in data collection to achieve a required energy efficiency level. Then, we design and analyse an enhanced data collection scheme in which sensor nodes exploit the broadcast nature of wireless transmission to overhear their neighbours. This increases the numbers of data propagation paths from sensor nodes to the base station and improves the robustness of data collection without sacrificing the latency of data collection. Experimental results show that our methods achieve significantly better trade-offs among the robustness, latency and energy efficiency of data collection.

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

sensor network
scheduling data collection
multi-path routing
time latency


An iterative MFS approach for the detection of immersed obstacles An unknown rigid body is immersed in a fluid governed by the Stokes equations in a bounded domain. We consider the inverse problem that consists in determining the location and shape of the solid from boundary measurements on the accessible boundary of the fluid domain. We apply a quasi-Newton method combined with the method of fundamental solutions (MFS) to recover the immersed body in the two-dimensional case.

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

stokes equations
method of fundamental solutions

inverse boundary value problem
nonlinear least squares


analysis and enhancement of on-demand routing in wireless sensor networks This work includes an analysis of route initialization and route optimality in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). The design of routing protocols for WSNs has not taken full advantage of routing protocols designed for purely ad hoc networks; however, valuable applications are envisioned for WSNs that are both mobile and ad hoc. The potential value of mobile and ad hoc WSNs has motivated this work, which aims to adapt ad hoc routing protocols to WSNs having many-to-one traffic patterns. This work proposes an enhanced route initializing procedure for on-demand routing and evaluates the improvement observed under empirical testing. During route initialization, the enhancement reduced power consumption by 99.7 percent. which has great significance when considering the stringent energy constraints in WSNs. Furthermore, the proposed enhancement established routes to a central base station (BS) over one hundred times faster than standard AODV in a WSN comprising 400 sensors. In WSNs, actuation of the sensors' transceivers incurs a relatively large drain on the limited power resources. In order to reduce this drain, the proposed enhancement minimizes the routing traffic overhead, which demonstrates substantial energy savings that are vital to prolonging a WSN's lifetime.

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


A routing strategy for non-cooperation wireless multi-hop ad hoc networks Choosing routes such that the network lifetime is maximized in a wireless network with limited energy resources is a major routing problem in wireless multi-hop ad hoc networks. In this paper, we study the problem where participants are rationally selfish and non-cooperative. By selfish we designate the users who are ready to tamper with their source-routing (senders could choose intermediate nodes in the routing paths) or next hop selection strategies in order to increase the total number of packets transmitted, but do not try to harm or drop packets of the other nodes. The problem therefore amounts to a non-cooperative game. In the works [2,6,19,23], the authors show that the game admits Nash equilibria [1]. Along this line, we first show that if the cost function is linear, this game has pure-strategy equilibrium flow even though participants have different demands. However, finding a Nash equilibrium for a normal game is computationally hard [9]. In this work, inspired by mixed-strategy equilibrium, we propose a simple local routing algorithm called Mixed Path Routing protocol (MiPR). Using analysis and simulations, we show that MiPR drives the system to an equilibrium state where selfish participants do not have incentive to deviate. Moreover, MiPR significantly improves the network lifetime as compared to original routing protocols.

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

local routing
network lifetime
nash equilibrium


Simulation of spiking neural networks architectures and implementations The fast simulation of large networks of spiking neurons is a major task for the examination of biology-inspired vision systems. Networks of this type label features by synchronization of spikes and there is strong demand to simulate these effects in real world environments. As the calculations for one model neuron are complex, the digital simulation of large networks is not efficient using existing simulation systems. Consequently, it is necessary to develop special simulation techniques. This article introduces a wide range of concepts for the different parts of digital simulator systems for large vision networks and presents accelerators based on these foundations.

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 B I O O B O O O O

spiking neural networks
accelerators
vision networks


Compensation of induction heating load edge-effect by space control Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to present a calculation optimization method that is able to achieve the best induced power profile (and subsequent temperature distribution) in a disk or billet workpiece processed by induction heating. Design/methodology/approach - A volume integral method, also known as the mutually coupled circuits method, is implemented in MatLab (R) environment to solve axial-symmetrical induction systems. It is completed with an optimization procedure based on Nelder-Mead simplex algorithm, with the goal of obtaining a specified distribution of the induced power in the load. In this way, it is possible to predict current amplitudes for implementing the so-called "zone controlled induction heating" (ZCIH) process. Findings - Some examples of calculation results are given, both for disc and billet loads. By the excitation of the inductor coils with a set of currents of appropriate amplitude and phase values, it is possible to achieve an optimized profile of induced power distributions. Originality/value - This paper validates a method to predict currents and phases in a load-inductor ZCIH system, confirming the possibility of obtaining specified induced power density distributions, according to the process requirements, e.g. for compensation of the load edge-effect

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

computational electromagnetic
electroheating optimization
zone controlled induction heating
edge effect control
heat transfer
optimization techniques


Locating moving objects in car-driving sequences This paper presents a system for the search and detection of moving objects in a sequence of images previously captured by a camera installed in a conventional vehicle. The objective is the design and implementation of a software system based on optical flow analysis to detect and identify moving objects as perceived by a driver, taking into account that these objects could interfere with the drivers behavior, either through distraction or by posing an actual danger that may require an active response. The problem presents significant difficulties because the vehicle travels on conventional roads, open to normal traffic. Consequently, the scenes are recorded with natural lighting, i.e., under highly variable conditions (intensity, shadows, etc.). Furthermore, the use of a moving camera makes it difficult to properly identify static objects such as the road itself, signals, buildings, landscapes, and moving objects of the same speed, such as pedestrians or other vehicles. The proposed method consists of three stages. First, the optical flow is calculated for each image of the sequence, as a first estimate of the apparent motion. In a second step, two segmentation processes are addressed: the optical flow itself and the images of the sequence. Finally, in the last stage, the results of these two segmentation processes are combined to obtain the movement of the objects present in the sequence, identifying both their direction and magnitude. The quality of the results obtained with different sequences of real images makes this software suitable for systems to study driver behavior and to help detect danger situations, as various international traffic agencies consider in their research projects.

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

optical flow
driver behavior
natural lighting

optical flow segmentation
image segmentation
real traffic


the starfire smp interconnect The Starfire interconnect extends the envelope of Unix symmetric multiprocessor (SMP) systems in several dimensions. Interconnect: an active centerplane with four address routers and a 16x16 data crossbar provides 64 UltraSPARC processors with uniform memory access at a bandwidth of 10,667 MBps. Flexibility: Starfire can be dynamically reconfigured into multiple hardware-protected operating system domains. Robustness: Failing boards can be hot swapped without interrupting system operation. Performance: Starfire has sustained over 23 GFLOPS on out-of-core equation solving. It has set TPC-D decision-support records at both the 300 GB and 1 TB sizes.

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

domains
smp
systems
interconnect
operating system
data
bandwidth
access
multiprocessor
records

processor
activation
partitions
uma
addressing
router
memorialized
core
hardware
latency
decision support


Optimizing protocol interaction using response surface methodology Response surface methodology (RSM) is a collection of statistical design and numerical optimization techniques traditionally used to optimize industrial processes. In this paper, we demonstrate that the methodology can be successfully applied to the domain of networking. Specifically, we obtain increased throughput with a significant decrease in delay in a ns-2 simulation model of a mobile ad hoc network (MANET) by using RSM to optimize protocol interaction found by factor screening. Whether the experimentation is with a stochastic simulation model or a physical system, such as a MANET or a wireless sensor network test-bed, RSM provides a general and practical methodology to screen factors and robustly and jointly optimize responses.

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

statistical methods
experimental design
wireless networks
algorithm/protocol analysis


Fuzzy logic-based decision-making for fault diagnosis in a DC motor The uncertainty of system models, the presence of noise and the stochastic behaviour of several variables reduce the reliability and robustness of the fault diagnosis methods. To tackle these kinds of problems, this paper presents a decision-making module based on fuzzy logic for model-based fault diagnosis applications. Fuzzy rules use the concept of fault possibility and knowledge of the sensitivities of the residual equations. A fault detection and isolation system, based on the inputoutput linear model parity equations approach, and including this decision-making module, has been successfully applied in laboratory equipment, resulting in a reduction of the uncertainty due to disturbances and modelling errors. Furthermore, the experimental sensitivity values of the residual equations allow the fault size to be estimated with sufficient accuracy.

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


Robust speech detection in real acoustic backgrounds with perceptually motivated features The current study presents an analysis of the robustness of a speech detector in real background sounds. One of the most important aspects of automatic speech/nonspeech classification is robustness in the presence of strongly varying external conditions. These include variations of the signal-to-noise ratio as well as fluctuations of the background noise. These variations are systematically evaluated by choosing different mismatched conditions between training and testing of the speech/nonspeech classifiers. The detection performance of the classifier with respect to these mismatched conditions is used as a measure of robustness and generalisation. The generalisation towards un-trained SNR conditions and unknown background noises is evaluated and compared to a matched baseline condition. The classifier consists of a feature front-end, which computes amplitude modulation spectral features (AMS), and a support vector machine (SVM) back-end. The AMS features are based on Fourier decomposition over time of short-term spectrograms. Mel-frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCC) as well as relative spectral features (RASTA) based on perceptual linear prediction (PLP) serve as baseline. The results show that RASTA-filtered PLP features perform best in the matched task. In the generalisation tasks however, the AMS features emerge as more robust in most cases, while MFCC features are outperformed by both other feature types. In a second set of experiments, a hierarchical approach is analysed which employs a background classification step prior to the speech/nonspeech classifier in order to improve the robustness of the detection scores in novel backgrounds. The background sounds used are recorded in typical everyday scenarios. The hierarchy provides a benefit in overall performance if the robust AMS features are employed. The generalisation capabilities of the hierarchy towards novel backgrounds and SNRs is found to be optimal when a limited number of training backgrounds is used (compared to the inclusion of all available background data). The best backgrounds in terms of generalisation capabilities are found to be backgrounds in which some component of speech (such as unintelligible background babble) is present, which corroborates the hypothesis that the AMS features provide a decomposition of signals which is by itself very suitable for training very general speech/nonspeech detectors. This is also supported by the finding that the SVMs combined with RASTA-PLPs require nonlinear kernels to reach a similar performance as the AMS patterns with linear kernels.

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

pattern classification
amplitude modulations
fluctuating noise
real-world scenario


automatic phrase indexing for document retrieval An automatic phrase indexing method based on the term discrimination model is described, and the results of retrieval experiments on five document collections are presented. Problems related to this non-syntactic phrase construction method are discussed, and some possible solutions are proposed that make use of information about the syntactic structure of document and query texts.

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

retrieval indexing structure use method model query

experience
document retrieval
documentation
informal
collect


Improved Model- and View-Dependent Pruning of Large Botanical Scenes We present an optimized pruning algorithm that allows for considerable geometry reduction in large botanical scenes while maintaining high and coherent rendering quality. We improve upon previous techniques by applying model-specific geometry reduction functions and optimized scaling functions. For this we introduce the use of Precision and Recall (PR) as a measure of quality to rendering and show how PR-scores can be used to predict better scaling values. We conducted a user-study letting subjects adjust the scaling value, which shows that the predicted scaling matches the preferred ones. Finally, we extend the originally purely stochastic geometry prioritization for pruning to account for view-optimized geometry selection, which allows to take global scene information, such as occlusion, into consideration. We demonstrate our method for the rendering of scenes with thousands of complex tree models in real-time.

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

precision/recall
level of detail
tree rendering


An unsupervised approach to activity recognition and segmentation based on object-use fingerprints Human activity recognition is an important task which has many potential applications. In recent years, researchers from pervasive computing are interested in deploying on-body sensors to collect observations and applying machine learning techniques to model and recognize activities. Supervised machine learning techniques typically require an appropriate training process in which training data need to be labeled manually. In this paper, we propose an unsupervised approach based on object-use fingerprints to recognize activities without human labeling. We show how to build our activity models based on object-use fingerprints, which are sets of contrast patterns describing significant differences of object use between any two activity classes. We then propose a fingerprint-based algorithm to recognize activities. We also propose two heuristic algorithms based on object relevance to segment a trace and detect the boundary of any two adjacent activities. We develop a wearable RFID system and conduct a real-world trace collection done by seven volunteers in a smart home over a period of 2 weeks. We conduct comprehensive experimental evaluations and comparison study. The results show that our recognition algorithm achieves a precision of 91.4% and a recall 92.8%, and the segmentation algorithm achieves an accuracy of 93.1% on the dataset we collected.

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

human activity recognition
contrast patterns
rfid

activity trace segmentation
emerging patterns
fingerprint
object-use
web mining


Detecting ethnic residential clusters using an optimisation clustering method To understand residential clustering of contemporary immigrants and other ethnic minorities in urban areas, it is important to first identify where they are clustered. In recent years, increasing attention has been given to the use of local statistics as a tool for finding the location of racial/ethnic residential clusters. However, since many existing local statistics are primarily developed for epidemiological studies where clustering is associated with relatively rare events, its application in studies of residential segregation may not always yield satisfactory results. This article proposes an optimisation clustering method for delineating the boundaries of ethnic residential clusters. The proposed approach uses a modified greedy algorithm to find the most likely extent of clusters and employs total within-group absolute deviations as a clustering criterion. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the method, we applied it to a set of synthetic landscapes and to two empirical data sets in Auckland, New Zealand. The results show that the proposed method can detect ethnic residential clusters effectively and that it has potential for use in other disciplines as it offers an ability to detect large, arbitrarily shaped clusters.

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

segregation
residential clustering
optimisation


An XML-based quality of service enabling language for the Web In this paper, we introduce an XML-based hierarchical QoS markup language, called HQML, to enhance distributed multimedia applications on the World Wide Web (WWW) with quality of service (QoS) capability. The design of HQML is based on two observations: (1) the absence of a systematic QoS specification language, that can be used by distributed multimedia applications on the WWW to utilize the state-of-the-art QoS management technology and (2) the power and popularity of XML to deliver richly structured contents over the Web. HQML allows distributed multimedia applications to specify all kinds of application-specific QoS policies and requirements. During runtime, the HQML Executor translates the HQML file into desired data structures and cooperates with the QoS proxies that assist applications in end-to-end QoS negotiation, setup and enforcement. In order to make QoS services tailored toward user preferences and meet the challenges of uncertainty in the distributed heterogeneous environments, the design of HQML is featured as interactive and flexible. In order to allow application developers to create HQML specifications correctly and easily, we have designed and developed a unified visual QoS programming environment, called QoSTalk. In QoSTalk, we adopt a grammatical approach to perform consistency check on the visual QoS specifications and generate HQML files automatically. Finally, we introduce the distributed QoS compiler, which performs the automatic mappings between application- and resource-level QoS parameters to relieve the application developer of the burden of dealing with low-level QoS specifications. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

quality of service
xml
distributed multimedia applications


Structural topology optimization based on system condensation We present the topology optimization scheme combined with the system reduction. Design sensitivity based on the reduction system is evaluated. Proposed topology optimization scheme includes the mode tracking method.

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

topology optimization
reduction system
design sensitivity

modal assurance criterion (mac)
improved reduced system (irs)


Designing a web site for high school geoscience teaching in Iceland The need to construct an earth science teaching site on the web prompted a survey of existing sites which, in spite of containing much of value, revealed many weaknesses in basic design, particularly as regards the organisation of links to information resources. Few web sites take into consideration the particular pedagogic needs of the high school science student and there has, as yet, been little serious attempt to exploit and organise the more outstanding advantages offered by the internet to science teaching, such as accessing real-time data. A web site has been constructed which, through basic design, enables students to access relevant information resources over a wide range of subjects and topics easily and rapidly, while at the same time performing an instructional role in how to handle both on-line and off-line resources. Key elements in the design are selection and monitoring by the teacher, task oriented pages and the use of the Dewey decimal classification system. The intention is to increase gradually the extent to which most teaching tasks are carried out via the web pages, in the belief that they can become an efficient central point for all the earth science curriculum.

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

internet organisation tasks dewey pedagogic teaching iceland


A high-order Monte Carlo algorithm for the direct simulation of Boltzmann equation A high-order algorithm of the direct simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) method, H-DSMC, has been developed to simulate rarefied flow regimes. The mth order Taylor series expansion has been employed to obtain a more generalized form of the time discretization for the collision part of Boltzmann equation. In the purposed algorithm, the higher order collision terms are introduced as well as higher order terms in the time step of the probabilistic coefficients. These newly implemented higher order terms improve the accuracy and efficiency of the solution and enhance the convergence rate quite significantly. Comparison between results of the classic DSMC method and the H-DSMC method shows the promising performance of the introduced technique.

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

boltzmann equation
rarefied flow regimes
higher order collision terms

direct simulation monte carlo (dsmc) method


goal-driven adaptation of internetware Software Systems running in the Internet are facing an ever-changing environment, which requires constant monitoring and adaptation facilities to be in place, so that user's needs and system requirements are satisfied on-demand. This paper summarizes our general observation and understanding to how user and system goals can drive the adaptation mechanisms of individual software service modules, implemented as internetware components. In particular, a theoretical typology of different levels of adaptation capability is proposed. Their correspondence with the key characteristics of internetware is analyzed. A common architecture to support the run-time adaptation of internetware is also suggested in company with a development method.

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

model
run-time adaptation
requirements modeling


3D posture reconstruction and human animation from 2D feature points An optimal approach is proposed in this paper for posture reconstruction and human animation from 2D feature points extracted from the monocular images containing human motions. Biomechanical constraints are encoded in every joint of the adopted 3D skeletal human model to make sure that each state of the joints represents a physically valid posture. Size of the human model is adjusted to be consistent with the human figure represented by feature points. Energy Function is defined to represent the residuals between the extracted 2D feature points and the corresponding features resulted from projection of the 3D human model. Local Adjustment and Global Adjustment procedures are proposed to place the joints and body segments into proper locations and orientations in 3D space to create the posture with the minimum value of Energy Function. To find the optimal solution of the ill-posed recovery problem from 2D to 3D, Genetic Algorithm is employed in the high-dimensional parameter space by considering all the parameters simultaneously. Smooth and continuous changes between consecutive frames are considered in development of the human animation procedure. The proposed approach produces optimal reconstruction results of any possible human postures and movements. It is different from classical kinematics and dynamics formulations, and is an attempt to bridge the gap between computer vision and computer animation in human motion study.

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

posture reconstruction
human animation
energy function
genetic algorithm


Following the traces:: An introduction to conjoint measurement without transitivity and additivity This paper presents a self-contained introduction to a general conjoint measurement framework for the analysis of nontransitive and/or incomplete binary relations on product sets. It is based on the use of several kinds of marginal traces on coordinates induced by the binary relation. This framework leads to defining three general families of models depending on the kind of trace that they use. Contrary to most conjoint measurement models, these models do not involve an addition operation. This allows for a simple axiomatic analysis at the cost of very weak uniqueness results.

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 B I 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 analysis
decision analysis
measurement theory
nontransitive preferences


The Eras and Trends of Automatic Short Answer Grading Automatic short answer grading (ASAG) is the task of assessing short natural language responses to objective questions using computational methods. The active research in this field has increased enormously of late with over 80 papers fitting a definition of ASAG. However, the past efforts have generally been ad-hoc and non-comparable until recently, hence the need for a unified view of the whole field. The goal of this paper is to address this aim with a comprehensive review of ASAG research and systems according to history and components. Our historical analysis identifies 35 ASAG systems within 5 temporal themes that mark advancement in methodology or evaluation. In contrast, our component analysis reviews 6 common dimensions from preprocessing to effectiveness. A key conclusion is that an era of evaluation is the newest trend in ASAG research, which is paving the way for the consolidation of the field.

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

automatic grading
natural language processing


Compromise allocation in multivariate stratified surveys with stochastic quadratic cost function In many real life situations the linear cost function does not approximate the actual cost incurred adequately. The cost of traveling between the units selected in the sample within a stratum is significant, instead of linear cost function. In this paper, we have considered the problem of finding a compromise allocation for a multivariate stratified sample survey with a significant travel cost within strata is formulated as a problem of non-linear stochastic programming with multiple objective functions. The compromise solutions are obtained through Chebyshev approximation technique, D-1- distance and goal programming. A numerical example is presented to illustrate the computational details of the proposed methods.

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

compromise allocation
quadratic cost
stochastic programming
chebyshev approximation

stratified survey
optimum allocation
chance constraints
d
(1) distance and goal programming
62d05


the difference-bit cache The difference-bit cache is a two-way set-associative cache with an access time that is smaller than that of a conventional one and close or equal to that of a direct-mapped cache. This is achieved by noticing that the two tags for a set have to differ at least by one bit and by using this bit to select the way. In contrast with previous approaches that predict the way and have two types of hits (primary of one cycle and secondary of two to four cycles), all hits of the difference-bit cache are of one cycle. The evaluation of the access time of our cache organization has been performed using a recently proposed on-chip cache access model.

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

select organization cache model access evaluation predict types tags


An orthogonal predictive model-based dynamic multi-objective optimization algorithm In this paper, a new dynamic multi-objective optimization evolutionary algorithm is proposed for tracking the Pareto-optimal set of time-changing multi-objective optimization problems effectively. In the proposed algorithm, to select individuals which are best suited for a new time from the historical optimal sets, an orthogonal predictive model is presented to predict the new individuals after the environment change is detected. Also, to converge to optimal front more quickly, an modified multi-objective optimization evolutionary algorithm based on decomposition is adopted. The proposed method has been extensively compared with other three dynamic multi-objective evolutionary algorithms over several benchmark dynamic multi-objective optimization problems. The experimental results indicate that the proposed algorithm achieves competitive results.

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

dynamic environment
multi-objective optimization
forecasting model


A study of the accuracy of some FEM stress recovery schemes for 2D stress concentration problems The FEM stress recovery for plane quadrilateral isoparametric element is investigated when used in 2D geometric stress concentration problems. When there is no local mesh refinement the element at the fillet has a typical tapered shape which can be parametrically defined. An explicit expression for the determinant of the Jacobian matrix which, when approaching zero is responsible for FEM stress singularities, is presented. For a specific problem with a known theoretical solution it is shown that the 4-node and 8-node isoparametric elements can recover exactly the maximum stress at the node of stress concentration, provided the theoretical nodal displacements are used. For two typical shapes of the elements the radial and circumferential distribution of stress are compared with the theoretical ones. The performance of three stress recovery schemes is tested by a convergence study of the maximum stress at the stress concentrator when coarse mesh refinement and the 8-node isoparametric element are used. The nodal stresses in an element are calculated in three ways: 1. directly at the nodes; 2. by an extrapolation from the stresses at the 22 Gauss points; 3. by an empirical formula, using stresses computed by (1) and (2). By means of numerical examples it is shown that scheme (2), which is used in most commercial FEM programs, is much inferior compared to the other two schemes when used in stress concentration problems.

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

finite element stress recovery and accuracy


Domain of stability of ac/dc power systems The domain of stability (DOS) of a dynamic system is the sub-state space within which the system converges to a stable equilibrium state if the operating point varies because of a disturbance. The cell mapping technique has been widely used to find the DOS of second-order systems. However, there is no generic method reported in the literature for finding the DOS of any system of order greater than two, other than for ac power systems or for ac/dc power systems with do dynamics omitted. For these two systems, the DOS can be found using the transient energy function (TEF) because a TEF has been available only for ac-dynamics-only systems. The DOS for ac/dc systems with do dynamics has not been found because a TEF for do systems with do dynamics was not available until the authors recently derived one. In this paper, the existing cell mapping technique is improved to find the DOS of systems of order greater than two. This improved cell mapping technique and the recently developed TEF for do systems have been used to find the domains of stability of ac/dc systems.

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

cell mapping
domain of stability
transient energy function


Visual form processing The paper shortly describes some methods proposed for visual form processing of 2D and 3D digital objects spanning from low to high-level vision. In particular, both contour-based and medial representations are described, as well as techniques for object decomposition, description and classification. (c) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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


Over-Approximated Control Flow Graph Construction on Pure Esterel Esterel is an imperative synchronous language for control-dominant reactive systems. Regardless of imperative features of Esterel, combination of parallel execution and preemption makes it difficult to build control flow graphs (CFGs) of Esterel programs. Simple and convenient CFGs can help to analyze Esterel programs. However, previous researches are not suitable for flow analyses of imperative languages. In this work, we present a method to construct over-approximated CFGs for Pure Esterel. Generated CFCs expose invisible interferences among threads and show program structures explicitly so that they are useful for program analyses based on graph theory or control-/data- flows.

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

esterel
control flow graph
synchronous language


solving the label resolution problem in supervised video content classification Classifying video based on its content often requires learning a classifier from labeled samples. Sometimes the semantic labels available for a video refer to the class or category of the video as a whole; whereas the discriminative features that result in that categorization may only occur over a temporal subset of the video and may occur anywhere, leading to sub-optimal performance. We therefore need to simultaneously learn discriminative features and their temporal support while remaining independent of position within the video. We propose a solution to this label-resolution problem using a wavelet decomposition of frame-level feature time-series followed by learning discrimin ative extrema values over multiple time scales. We apply this approach to automatically detecting the presence of adult content in online videos with a resulting equal-error rate around 5\%.

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

multi-scale time-series
wavelet representation


Comparison of Four Commercially Available Assays for the Detection of IgM Phase II Antibodies to Coxiella burnetii in the Diagnosis of Acute Q Fever Four commercially available serological assays for the detection of IgM phase II antibodies in patients with acute Q fever infection were compared using a panel of 23 serum samples from patients with acute Q fever and 88 control sera from blood donors

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

enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay
immuno-fluorescence assay
serological diagnosis


Schema Co-evolutionary algorithm (SCEA) Simple genetic algorithm (SGA) is a population-based optimization method based on the Darwinian natural selection. The theoretical foundations of SGA are the Schema Theorem and the Building Block Hypothesis. Although SGA does well in many applications as an optimization method, it still does not guarantee the convergence of a global optimum in GA-hard problems and deceptive problems. As an alternative schema, therefore, there is a growing interest in a co-evolutionary system where two populations constantly interact and cooperate each other. In this paper we propose a schema co-evolutionary algorithm (SCEA) and show why the SCEA works better than SGA in terms of an extended schema theorem. The experimental analyses using the Walsh-Schema Transform show that the SCEA works well in GA-hard problems including deceptive problems. key words: simple genetic algorithm (SGA), schema co-evolutionary algorithm (SCEA), schema theorem, building block hypothesis, Walsh-schema transform

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

schema theorem
building block hypothesis

simple genetic algorithm (sga)
schema co-evolutionary algorithm (scea)
walsh-schema transform


multilevel integral equation methods for the extraction of substrate coupling parameters in mixed-signal ic's The extraction of substrate coupling resistances can be formulated as a first-kind integral equation, which requires only discretization of the two-dimensional contacts. However, the result is a dense matrix problem which is too expensive to store or to factor directly. Instead, we present a novel, multigrid iterative method which converges more rapidly than previously applied Krylov-subspace methods. At each level in the multigrid hierarchy, we avoid dense matrix-vector multiplication by using moment-matching approximations and a sparsification algorithm based on eigendecomposition. Results on realistic examples demonstrate that the combined approach is up to an order of magnitude faster than a Krylov-subspace method with sparsification, and orders of magnitude faster than not using sparsification at all.

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

reconstruction
visibility
functional simulation
emulation


algorithmic paradigms: examples in computational geometry We present a collection of algorithms that solve problems from the realm of computational geometry to illustrate several basic notions in algorithm design and analysis. Computational geometry is a young discipline that has much to offer both as a field of research and as a source of instruction materials. This paper aims to serve a dual purpose by (a) outlining results that might prick the interest of researchers looking for greener pastures (so to speak) for investigation; and (b) showing the pedagogic value of these results for teachers of algorithm design and analysis.

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

instruction
value
research
paper
algorithm
examples
analysis
design
computational geometry


node density independent localization This paper presents an enhanced version of a novel radio interferometric positioning technique for node localization in wireless sensor networks that provides both high accuracy and long range simultaneously. The ranging method utilizes two transmitters emitting radio signals at almost the same frequencies. The relative location is estimated by measuring the relative phase offset of the generated interference signal at two receivers. Here, we analyze how the selection of carrier frequencies affects the precision and maximum range. Furthermore, we describe how the interplay of RF multipath and ground reflections degrades the ranging accuracy. To address these problems, we introduce a technique that continuously refines the range estimates as it converges to the localization solution. Finally, we present the results of a field experiment where our prototype achieved 4~cm average localization accuracy for a quasi-random deployment of 16 COTS motes covering the area of two football fields. The maximum range measured was 170~m, four times the observed communication range. Consequently, node deployment density is no longer constrained by the localization technique, but rather by the communication range.

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

communication
multipath
sensor networks
paper
method
localization
accuracy
ranging
prototype
deployment
version
interference

measurement
precise
location-awareness
radio interferometry
affect
signaling
addressing
experience
randomization
wireless sensor network
posit
select
locatability
reflectance
relation


Dynamic Shannon coding We present the first algorithm for one-pass instantaneous coding which, given l > 0 and a string S of length m over an alphabet of size n, is guaranteed to encode S using at most (H + 1 + (1/(2l - 1)ln2)m + O(n log m) bits (H denotes the Oth-order empirical entropy of S), a proportional length of time, and no codewords longer than log n + f + 1 bits. (c) 2006 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


Stereoelectronic explanations for the mechanistic details of transimination and HF elimination reactions Density functional theory calculations are carried out. The mechanistic details of the transimination and HF elimination are studied computationally. Conformational preferences of the solution and bioactive conformers are discussed. The binding step energetics of substrates are analyzed in detail.

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

density functional calculations
transferases


plug-replaceable consistency maintenance for multiplayer games Consistency maintenance of replicated data in multiplayer games is a challenging issue due to the performance constraints of real-time interactive applications. We present an approach which separates game logic from consistency maintenance code through the use of reusable, plug-replaceable concurrency control and consistency maintenance (CCCM) modules. Using plug-replaceable consistency maintenance strategies also permits rapid comparisons of multiple approaches, which facilitates experimentation. We conduct a case study to illustrate how multiple consistency maintenance strategies can be applied without changing the original game code.

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


information and communication technologies for enterprises growth and development With the development of technology, there are causing many changes in social life and business activity. At the end of 20century, Information and Communication Technologies bring new activity method---Internet to enterprises. Enterprises activity range and method face challenge, adapting this new method and accustoming to this new environment are basic attitude for competition. This paper mainly talks about the Information and Communication Technologies effects to enterprises and its proper actions.

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


MSD crack propagation by DBEM on a repaired aeronautic panel This paper focuses on the use of the Dual Boundary Element Method (DBEM), as implemented in a commercial code (BEASY), to investigate the damage tolerance performance of a riveted repair flat aeronautic panel, realised and tested in the context of the European project IARCAS (VI framework). Such panel is assembled in such a way to simulate the in service repairs, with doublers riveted over corresponding cut-out. The panels, repair patches and rivets are modelled in a two-dimensional analysis with no allowance for out-of-plane bending, with edge-cracks initiated from some skin rivet holes and growing due to fatigue load. In the model, the layers representative of each component are overlapped but distinct, providing no allowance for the existing offset. The two-dimensional approximation for this problem is not detrimental to the accuracy of numerical-experimental correlation, so it turn out to be useful to study varying repair configurations, where reduced run times and a lean pre-processing phase are prerequisites.

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