Development of an image-based technique to examine joint congruency at the elbow Identifying joint contact in articular joints is important for both the biomechanical investigation of joint mechanics and the study of osteoarthritis. The purpose of this study is to develop a proximity mapping technique to non-invasively determine joint congruency, as a surrogate of joint contact. To illustrate the capabilities of this algorithm, a cadaveric upper extremity was positioned at varying degrees of elbow flexion. This technique was validated using a gold standard experimental casting technique. The pattern of the cast showed an excellent agreement with the generated proximity map using the inter-bone distance algorithm. The results from this study agree with the results of previous studies examining joint contact at the elbow both in the location and in the tracking of the joint contact throughout elbow flexion. Ultimately, this technique will lead to an increased understanding of the effect of malalignment and instability of the joint on contact mechanics.

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

articulation
computed tomography
joint tracking


Network dimensioning in WDM-Based all-optical networks The problem of network dimensioning, which involves optimal network designs using minimal resources for a given well-predicted traffic between individual nodes but without a pre-determined network topology, is analyzed in details in this paper. Such optimal designs are critical as the network resources are directly related to the cost of implementation. The problem complexity increases as the traffic between every node pair varies in a periodic manner. Furthermore, the presence of wavelength conflicts makes the network-dimensioning problem distinct and more complicated than that for traditional circuit-switching networks. Here, we adopt the approach based on a multi-commodity flow problem. A general cost function covering the resources of all system components is formulated, and two solution approaches are presented; one based on integer programming and one on heuristics.

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


A New Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem with Split Service for Minimizing Fleet Cost by Simulated Annealing We address a capacitated vehicle routing problem (CVRP) in which the demand of a node can be split on several vehicles celled split services by assuming heterogeneous fixed fleet. The objective is to minimize the fleet cost and total distance traveled. The fleet cost is dependent on the number of vehicles used and the total unused capacity. In most practical cases, especially in urban transportation, several vehicles transiting on a demand point occurs. Thus, the split services can aid to minimize the number of used vehicles by maximizing the capacity utilization. This paper presents a mix-integer linear model of a CVRP with split services and heterogeneous fleet. This model is then solved by using a simulated annealing (SA) method. Our analysis suggests that the proposed model enables users to establish routes to serve all given customers using the minimum number of vehicles and maximum capacity. Our proposed method can also find very good solutions in a reasonable amount of time. To illustrate these solutions further, a number of test problems in small and large sizes are solved and computational results are reported in the paper.

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

vehicle routing problem
split services
simulated annealing


The relationship between organization strategy, total quality management (TQM), and organization performancethe mediating role of TQM The study presented in this paper examines the fit of total quality management (TQM) practices in mediating the relationship between organization strategy and organization performance. By examining TQM in relation to organization strategy, the study seeks to advance the understanding of TQM in a broader context. It also resolves some controversies that appear in the literature concerning the relationship between TQM and differentiation and cost leadership strategies as well as quality and innovation performance. The empirical data for this study was drawn from a survey of 194 middle/senior managers from Australian firms. The analysis was conducted using structural equation modeling (SEM) technique by examining two competing models that represent full and partial mediation. The findings indicate that TQM is positively and significantly related to differentiation strategy, and it only partially mediates the relationship between differentiation strategy and three performance measures (product quality, product innovation, and process innovation). The implication is that TQM needs to be complemented by other resources to more effectively realize the strategy in achieving a high level of performance, particularly innovation.

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

tqm quality innovation strategy mediation


dynamic semantic location modeling in mobile enterprise applications A location model represents the inclusive objects and their relationships in a space. This paper presents a framework for dynamic semantic location modeling that is novel at three-fold: (1) Profoundly bring into the enterprise business models the location models (that underlie Location-Based Services - the killer application of M-Commerce). (2) With a novel method of dynamic semantic location modeling, enterprises effectively recognize the needs of the clients and the partners scattering in different locations, advancing existing business relationships if appropriate strategies are exerted. (3) Through the Location Model Platform of information sharing, enterprises are empowered to discover the potential business partners and estimate the values of their cooperation, enhancing their competitive advantages in a market when appropriate partnerships are formed. This proposed framework is implemented with J2EE and gives rise to certain promising evaluation results.

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

mobile enterprises
mobile commerce
location-based services
ontology


An efficient genetic algorithm for the traveling salesman problem with precedence constraints The traveling salesman problem with precedence constraints (TSPPC) is one of the most difficult combinatorial optimization problems. In this paper, an efficient genetic algorithm (GA) to solve the TSPPC is presented. The key concept of the proposed GA is a topological sort (TS), which is defined as an ordering of vertices in a directed graph. Also, a new crossover operation is developed for the proposed GA. The results of numerical experiments show that the proposed GA produces an optimal solution and shows superior performance compared to the traditional algorithms.

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


Algorithms for combining rooted triplets into a galled phylogenetic network This paper considers the problem of determining whether a given set T of rooted triplets can be merged without conflicts into a galled phylogenetic network and, if so, constructing such a network. When the input T is dense, we solve the problem in O(vertical bar T vertical bar) time, which is optimal since the size of the input is Theta(vertical bar T vertical bar). In comparison, the previously fastest algorithm for this problem runs in O(vertical bar T vertical bar(2)) time. We also develop an optimal O(vertical bar T vertical bar)-time algorithm for enumerating all simple phylogenetic networks leaf-labeled by L that are consistent with T, where L is the set of leaf labels in T, which is used by our main algorithm. Next, we prove that the problem becomes NP-hard if extended to nondense inputs, even for the special case of simple phylogenetic networks. We also show that for every positive integer n, there exists some set T of rooted triplets on n leaves such that any galled network can be consistent with at most 0.4883 center dot vertical bar T vertical bar of the rooted triplets in T. On the other hand, we provide a polynomial-time approximation algorithm that always outputs a galled network consistent with at least a factor of 5/12 (>0.4166) of the rooted triplets in T.

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

phylogenetic network
galled network
algorithm


Subordination and superordination preserving properties for generalized multiplier transformation operator We obtain subordination and superordination preserving properties for a new generalized multiplier transformation operator, defined for multivalent functions in the open unit disk. A differential sandwich-type theorem for these multivalent functions, and some consequences are also presented. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

differential subordination and superordination


A modified binary tree codification of drainage networks to support complex hydrological models A new codification method (named a modified binary tree codification method) is developed for coding drainage networks. To express the inner topological structure of a drainage basin, it is necessary to delineate and code digital drainage networks from digital elevation model datasets. In this study, the established software TOPAZ is used to delineate river reaches, and the new codification method is applied, which is based on the application of binary-tree structures and hierarchical zones. A coded drainage network can then be stored in a relational database management system to achieve efficient manipulation of data items for topological operations. The utility of the new codification method is demonstrated by an example applied to the Digital Yellow River Model. The drainage network of the Middle Yellow River in northern China has been coded and the hydrological and soil erosion processes of its sub-basin, the Chabagou River basin, are simulated. Because more details of the drainage network can be efficiently and effectively described, the new codification method can support complex hydrological models and extract more information from hydrological simulations than ever before.

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

binary-tree-based codification
digital drainage network
hierarchical zoning
complex hydrological model


Impossible measures, Contonian appearances - Interpretation of the effect of high dilutions by building the Feynman measure in the real numbers of Levy and in the Solovay theory A protocol showing the beta(-) activity of high dilutions of nitric acid is described. It is given a physical mathematical frame founded on a an approach of quantum relativistic field based on the theory of Solovay (ethers theory, remanent wave).

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

cybernetics
biocyebernetics
living organisms


Monocular vision based 6D object localization for service robots intelligent grasping Intelligent grasping is still a hard problem for home service robots. There are two major issues in the intelligent grasping, i.e. the object recognition and the pose estimation. To grasp casually placed objects, the robot needs the objects full 6 degrees of freedom pose data. To deal with the challenges such as illumination changes, cluttered background, occlusion, etc., we propose a monocular vision based object recognition and 6D pose estimation method. The SIFT feature point matching and brute-force search algorithm is used to do a tentative object recognition. The object recognition result is then verified with the homography constraint. After passing the verification, the 6D pose estimation is obtained through the decomposition of the homography matrix and the result is refined using the LevenbergMarquardt algorithm. We embed our pose estimation method in a tracking by detection framework to keep computing and refining the pose during the whole approaching procedure. To test our method, a robot arm of seven degrees of freedom was utilized for a group of grasping experiments. The experimental results showed that our approach successfully recognized and grasped a variety of household objects with decent accuracy.

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


Nonparametric classification based on local mean and class statistics The k-nearest neighbor classification rule (k-NNR) is a very simple, yet powerful nonparametric classification method. As a variant of the k-NNR, a nonparametric classification method based on the local mean vector has achieved good classification performance. In pattern classification, the sample mean and sample covariance are the most important statistics related to class discriminatory information. In this paper, a new variant of the k-NNR, a nonparametric classification method based on the local mean vector and class statistics has been proposed. Not only the local information of the k nearest neighbors of the unclassified pattern in each individual class but also the global knowledge of samples in each individual class are taken into account in this new classification method. The proposed classification method is compared with the k-NNR, and the local mean-based nonparametric classification in terms of the classification error rate on the unknown patterns. Experimental results confirm the validity of this new classification approach. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

k-nearest neighbor classification rule (k-nnr)


A fuzzy inference approach to template-based visual tracking The tracking of visual features using appearance models is a well studied but still open area of computer vision. In the absence of knowledge about the structural constraints of the tracked object, the validity of the model can be compromised if only appearance information is used. We propose a fuzzy inference scheme that can be used to selectively update a given template-based model in tracking tasks. This allows us to track moving objects under translation, rotation, and scale changes with minimal feature drift. Moreover, no rigidity constraint needs to be enforced on the moving target. Some experiments have been performed using several targets, and the results are very close to the ground truth paths. The computational cost of our approach is low enough to allow its application in real-time tracking using modest hardware requirements.

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

target tracking
deformable template
fuzzy system
real-time vision


Robust Soft-Decision Interpolation Using Weighted Least Squares Soft-decision adaptive interpolation (SAI) provides a powerful framework for image interpolation. The robustness of SAI can be further improved by using weighted least-squares estimation, instead of least-squares estimation in both of the parameter estimation and data estimation steps. To address the mismatch issue of "geometric duality" during parameter estimation, the residuals (prediction errors) are weighted according to the geometric similarity between the pixel of interest and the residuals. The robustness of data estimation can be improved by modeling the weights of residuals with the well-known bilateral filter. Experimental results show that there is a 0.25-dB increase in peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) for a sample set of natural images after the suggested improvements are incorporated into the original SAI. The proposed algorithm produces the highest quality in terms of PSNR and subjective quality among sophisticated algorithms in the literature.

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

edge-directed interpolation
soft decision
weighted least squares (wls)


A process algebra to formalize the Lyee methodology Over the last years, various methodologies and techniques have been elaborated and proposed to improve one or many aspects related to the software development life cycle. However, despite the great effort in this research field, the production of clearly understood and modifiable systems still an ambitious goal and far from reached. This is due, on one hand, to the complexity and the subtlety of software themselves and, on the other hand, to the limitations of the current methodologies. Recently, a new and very promising methodology, called Lyee, has been proposed. Intended to deal efficiently with a wide range of software problems related to different field, Lyee allows the development of software by simply defining their requirements. Nevertheless, since both the semantics of Lyee generated software together with the process of automatic generation of software from requirements are described using informal language, difficulties and confusions may arise when trying to understand and study this methodology. The main purpose of this paper is to formalize, using a process algebra, the process of automatic generation of softwares together with the semantics of Lyee generated softwares. Actually, process algebra naturally supports many concepts of the Lyee methodology and consequently formalize them simply and elegantly. It offers to the Lyee methodology an abstract machine more suitable than the Von-Newman one. In fact, this new abstract machine consider a program as chemical solution when molecules (different vectors of the lyee methodology) interact together to reach a collective goal.

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


Standardization of health informatics - Results and challenges Objectives: This review article aims to highlight the importance of standards for effective communication and provides an overview of international standardization activities. Methods: This article is based on the experience of the author of European standardization in CEN, which he leads, and the global work of ISO, where he is leading the security working group, and an overview of the work of DICOM, IEEE and HL7, partly using their web presentations. Results: Health communication is highly dependent of the general development of information technology with standards coming from ISQ/IEC ITC1, ITU and several other organizations e.g. IETE, the World Wide Web consortium and Open group. A number of standardization initiatives have been in progress for more than ten years with the aim to facilitate different aspects of the exchange of health information. Electronic record architecture, Message structures, Concept representation, Device communication including imaging and Security are the main areas. Conclusions. Important results have been achieved, and in some fields and parts of the worked, standards are widely used today. Unfortunately, we are still facing the fact that most healthcare information systems cannot exchange information with all systems for which this would be desired. Either the existing standards are not sufficiently implemented, or the required standards and necessary national implementation guidelines do not yet exist. This causes unacceptable risks to patients, inefficient use of healthcare resources, and sub optimal development of medical knowledge. Fortunately, the different bodies are now largely co-operating to achieve global consensus.

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


ASPECS: an agent-oriented software process for engineering complex systems Holonic multiagent systems (HMAS) offer a promising software engineering approach for developing complex open software systems. However the process of building Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) and HMAS is mostly different from the process of building more traditional software systems as it introduces new design and development challenges. This paper introduces an agent-oriented software process for engineering complex systems called ASPECS. ASPECS is based on a holonic organisational metamodel and provides a step-by-step guide from requirements to code allowing the modelling of a system at different levels of details using a set of refinement methods. This paper details the entire ASPECS development process and provides a set of methodological guidelines for each process activity. A complete case study is also used to illustrate the design process and the associated notations. ASPECS uses UML as a modelling language. Because of the specific needs of agents and holonic organisational design, the UML semantics and notation are used as reference points, but they have been extended by introducing new specific profiles.

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

agent oriented software engineering
software development process
design methodology
complex hierarchical systems


transferability of skills over the it career path The primary goal of this study is to help IT professionals prepare themselves for their future careers by identifying transferable skills across the three different IT jobs: programmer/analysts, systems analysts, and IT managers. By collecting and analyzing data from Fortune 500 corporate websites, this research attempts to provide IT professionals with a list of skills that they need to retain and new skills to develop for their future careers.

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


NON-MARKOVIAN DYNAMICS OF CAVITY LOSSES We provide a microscopic derivation for the non-Markovian master equation for an atom-cavity system with cavity losses and show that they can induce population trapping in the atomic excited state, when the environment outside the cavity has a non-flat spectrum. Our results apply to hybrid solid state systems and can turn out to be helpful to find the most appropriate description of leakage in the recent developments of cavity quantum electrodynamics.

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


Thermally developing flow in finned double-pipe heat exchanger A numerical solution of the convective heat transfer in the thermal entry region of the finned double-pipe is carried out for the case of hydro-dynamically fully developed flow when subjected to uniform wall temperature boundary condition. Adaptive axial grid size is used in order to cater for the variation of large solution gradients in the axial direction. It has been observed that the thermal entrance region is highly effective and there is a substantial enhancement in the heat transfer coefficient. A maximum of 76.4877% increase has been observed in the thermal entrance region as compared with the fully developed region for 24 fins and H* = 0.6 when (R) over cap = 0.25, whereas for (R) over cap = 0.5 the maximum increase is 75.0308% for the same number of fins of same height. It has been observed that no geometry consistently perform better throughout the entrance region. However, the geometries that have optimal performance in the fully developed region perform better in the developing region on average terms. Results show that the Nusselt number and the thermal entrance length are dependent upon various geometrical parameters such as ratio of radii of the inner and the outer pipe, fin height and the number of fins. The limiting case results match well with the literature results. This validates our numerical procedure and computer code. Copyright (C) 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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

heat transfer
nusselt number
entrance length
entrance region
fully developed flow
thermally developing flow


SURE-LET multichannel image denoising: Interscale orthonormal wavelet thresholding We propose a vector/matrix extension of our denoising algorithm initially developed for grayscale images, in order to efficiently process multichannel (e.g., color) images. This work follows our recently published SURE-LET approach where the denoising algorithm is parameterized as a linear expansion of thresholds (LET) and optimized using Stein's unbiased risk estimate (SURE). The proposed wavelet thresholding function is pointwise and depends on the coefficients of same location in the other channels, as well as on their parents in the coarser wavelet subband. A nonredundant, orthonormal, wavelet transform is first applied to the noisy data, followed by the (subband-dependent) vector-valued thresholding of individual multichannel wavelet coefficients which are finally brought back to the image domain by inverse wavelet transform. Extensive comparisons with the state-of-the-art multiresolution image denoising algorithms indicate that despite being nonredundant, our algorithm matches the quality of the best redundant approaches, while maintaining a high computational efficiency and a low CPU/memory consumption. An online Java demo illustrates these assertions.

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

color image denoising
interscale dependencies
nonredundant transforms
orthonormal wavelet transforms (owts)
stein's unbiased risk estimate (sure)


Improving scene attribute recognition using web-scale object detectors Humans often describe scenes by their affordances, which are suggested by objects. Object detectors trained at the web scale can improve scene attribute recognition. We experiment on a semi-supervised continuous learner and a supervised deep network. Learned models capture intuitive and useful object-scene attribute relationships.

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

scene understanding
semantic attributes
semantic features


Sparse models by iteratively reweighted feature scaling: a framework for wavelength and sample selection In the past decade, there has been an increase in the use of sparse multivariate calibration methods in chemometrics. Sparsity describes a parsimonious state of model complexity and can be defined in terms of a subset of samples or covariates (e.g., wavelengths) that are used to define the calibration model. With respect to their classical counterparts such as principal component regression or partial least squares, sparse models are more easily interpretable and have been shown to exhibit non-inferior prediction performance. However, sparse methods are still not as fast as the classical methods in spite of recent numerical advances. In addition, for many chemometricians, sparse methods are still black-box algorithms whose internal workings are not well understood. In this paper, we describe a simple framework whereby classical multivariate calibration methods can be iteratively used to generate sparse models. Moreover, this approach allows for either wavelength or sample sparsity. We demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach on two spectroscopic data sets. Copyright (c) 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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 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 B I 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

multivariate calibration
sparsity
sample selection

least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (lasso)


A New Low-Profile Inverted A-Shaped Patch Antenna for Multi-band Operations This paper presents the design and analysis of a compact modified inverted-A shape multi-band patch antenna for WiMAX and C-band telecommunication satellite applications. The proposed antenna has simple geometrical structure which consist of 20 mm x 20 mm radiating patch with slot loading and fed by 4 mm long microstrip line. The proposed antenna is designed and analyzed by using commercially available full-wave 3D high frequency electromagnetic simulator namely Ansys HFSS. The optimized design of the proposed multi-band patch antenna is fabricated on 1.6 mm thick fiberglass polymer resin dielectric material substrate with reduced ground plane by using in-house PCB fabrication machineries and antenna performances are measured in a standard far field anechoic chamber. From the experimental results it is observed that, the antenna prototype has achieved operating bandwidth (return loss \(<\)- 10dB) 360 MHz (\(2.53-2.89\) GHz) and 440 MHz (\(3.47-3.91\) GHz) for WiMAX and, 1550 MHz (\(6.28-7.83\) GHz) for C-band. The measured maximum radiation gains for the antenna are about 3.62 dBi, 3.67 dBi and 5.7 dBi at lower, middle and upper operating bands respectively. The designed antenna shows good radiation characteristics and appreciable gain over the operating bands which make it a reliable candidate for WiMAX bands and C-band 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 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

microstrip patch antenna
multiband application
anechoic measurement chamber
wimax and c band satellite


Newtons method and its use in optimization Newtons method is a basic tool in numerical analysis and numerous applications, including operations research and data mining. We survey the history of the method, its main ideas, convergence results, modifications, its global behavior. We focus on applications of the method for various classes of optimization problems, such as unconstrained minimization, equality constrained problems, convex programming and interior point methods. Some extensions (non-smooth problems, continuous analog, Smales results, etc.) are discussed briefly, while some others (e.g., versions of the method to achieve global convergence) are addressed in more details.

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

newtons method
convergence
global behavior

nonlinear programming
interior-point methods


JTAG Security System Based on Credentials JTAG (Joint Test Access Group) is a powerful tool for the embedded system development environments. The features of JTAG, however, can be exploited by malicious users as a backdoor for launching attacks, an approach which now constitutes a major threat in the domain of device hacking. To deny unauthenticated users access to the features of JTAG port, this paper proposes a novel JTAG security mechanism. The proposed solution uses authentication based on credentials to achieve improved security and usability over existing solutions. Our approach is easily applicable to all standard JTAG environments because its structure is designed to be independent from the application environment. Further, the approach has lower implementation cost than encryption/decryption-based solutions since only hash and XOR calculations are employed in its authentication protocol. The security of the proposed mechanism has been verified through analysis against all forms of expected attacks, and its functionality is demonstrated with a real-life implementation.

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


Energy-efficient, thermal-aware modeling and simulation of data centers: The CoolEmAll approach and evaluation results This paper describes the CoolEmAll project and its approach for modeling and simulating energy-efficient and thermal-aware data centers. The aim of the project was to address energy-thermal efficiency of data centers by combining the optimization of IT, cooling and workload management. This paper provides a complete data center model considering the workload profiles, the applications profiling, the power model and a cooling model. Different energy efficiency metrics are proposed and various resource management and scheduling policies are presented. The proposed strategies are validated through simulation at different levels of a data center.

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

data centers
energy efficiency
metrics
scheduling


Checkpoint Allocation and Release Out-of-order speculative processors need a bookkeeping method to recover from incorrect speculation. In recent years, several microarchitectures that employ checkpoints have been proposed, either extending the reorder buffer or entirely replacing it. This work presents an in-dept-study of checkpointing in checkpoint-based microarchitectures, from the desired content of a checkpoint, via implementation trade-offs, and to checkpoint allocation and release policies. A major contribution of the article is a novel adaptive checkpoint allocation policy that outperforms known policies. The adaptive policy controls checkpoint allocation according to dynamic events, such as second-level cache misses and rollback history. It achieves 6.8% and 2.2% speedup for the integer and floating point benchmarks, respectively, and does not require a branch confidence estimator. The results show that the proposed adaptive policy achieves most of the potential of an oracle policy whose performance improvement is 9.8% and 3.9% for the integer and floating point benchmarks, respectively. We exploit known techniques for saving leakage power by adapting and applying them to checkpoint-based microarchitectures. The proposed applications combine to reduce the leakage power of the register file to about one half of its original value.

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

design
misprediction
out-of-order execution
early register release


h-p spectral element method for elliptic problems on non-smooth domains using parallel computers We propose a new h-p spectral element method to solve elliptic boundary value problems with mixed Neumann and Dirichlet boundary conditions on non-smooth domains. The method is shown to be exponentially accurate and asymptotically faster than the standard h-p finite element method. The spectral element functions are fully non-conforming for pure Dirichlet problems and conforming only at the vertices of the elements for mixed problems, and hence, the dimension of the resulting Schur complement matrix is quite small. The method is a least-squares collocation method and the resulting normal equations are solved using preconditioned conjugate gradient method with an almost optimal preconditioner. The algorithm is suitable for a distributed memory parallel computer. The numerical results of a number of model problems are presented, which confirm the theoretical estimates.

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

spectral element method
almost optimal preconditioner

corner singularities
least-squares method
exponential accuracy


timing model extraction of hierarchical blocks by graph reduction Timing model extractor builds a timing model of a digital circuit for use with a static timing analyzer. This paper proposes a novel method of generating a gray box timing model from gate-level netlist by reducing a timing graph. Previous methods of generating timing models sacrificed accuracy and/or did not scale well with design size. The proposed method is simple, yet it provides model accuracy including arbitrary levels of latch time borrowing and capability to support timing constraints that span multiple blocks. Also, cpu and memory resources required to generate the model scale well with size of the circuit. The generated model can provide a capacity improvement in timing verification by more than two orders of magnitude.

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

use method accuracy scale extraction size design verification reduction support graph timing model paper

digitize
hierarchic
time constraint
capacities
memorialized
resource
circuits


Decompression and speckle detection for ultrasound images using the homodyned k-distribution The ultrasound envelope intensity distribution can be used for speckle detection and for measuring the distance between images by speckle decorrelation. However, this intensity signal is rarely available. Many researchers work with B-scan data which has been scan-converted and subject to nonlinear mappings to compress the dynamic range. This paper presents an approximate algorithm for recovering the intensity signal from B-scan data. It is then used as the basis of a speckle detector using the statistics of a homodyned k-distribution.

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


Target visibility enhancement for C-arm cone beam CT-fluoroscopy-guided hepatic needle placement: implementation and accuracy evaluation Fluoroscopy-guided hepatic intervention is limited by target visibility and respiratory movement. A feasible procedure for visibility enhancement of the key regions and targets in 2D fluoroscopic images is needed. A system was developed to improve targeting by integrating the forward projection of objects extracted from 3D cone beam CT (CBCT) volumes. The target matching accuracy during regular respiration was measured to evaluate the system.

O B I O O O O O 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

3d to 2d projection
c-arm cbct-fluoroscopy guidance
hepatic needle targeting


Shifting bottleneck scheduling for total weighted tardiness minimizationA computational evaluation of subproblem and re-optimization heuristics The paper presents enhanced shifting bottleneck procedures for weighted tardiness job shops. A new heuristic subproblem solution approach is developed. The impact of alternative, local search based re-optimization schemes is analyzed. The new bottleneck algorithms are successfully applied to problems involving up to 100 jobs and 20 machines.

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

job shop scheduling
shifting bottleneck procedure
decomposition
dominance rule
iterated local search


rushes video summarization by object and event understanding This paper explores a variety of visual and audio analysis techniques in selecting the most representative video clips for rushes summarization at TRECVID 2007. These techniques include object detection, camera motion estimation, keypoint matching and tracking, audio classification and speech recognition. Our system is composed of two major steps. First, based on video structuring, we filter undesirable shots and minimize theinter-shot redundancy by repetitive shot detection. Second, a representability measure is proposed to model the presence of objects and four audio-visual events: motion activity of objects, camera motion, scene changes,and speech content, in a video clip. The video clips with the highest representability scores are selected for summarization. The evaluation at TRECVID shows that our experimental results are highly encouraging, where we rank first in EA (easy to understand), second in RE (little redundancy) and third in IN (inclusion of objects and events).

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

event understanding
rushes video summarization
object detection


Properties of 50nm electroless films AgWoxygen before and after low temperature, low activation energy resistivity decay 50nm films Ag(0.31at.% W)oxygen deposited by electroless onto Pd activated SiO2/Si show fast, low activation energy decay of their electrical resistivity ? after annealing above the threshold temperature T?=9010C. The decrease in ? was attributed in our previous works to surface diffusion controlled sintering. In attempt to understand the mechanism of this interesting effect we studied further the origin of open porosity, W segregation, evolution of the tungstate phase Ag2W2O7 at the internal interfaces and temporal evolution of surface roughness in the course of annealing. A possible role of the tungstate phase transition to super ion conductive state in the diffusion mobility of Ag is speculated.

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

electrical resistivity
porosity
sintering
surface diffusion


fat-shattering and the learnability of real-valued functions We consider the problem of learning real-valued functions from random examples when the function values are corrupted with noise. With mild conditions on independent observation noise, we provide characterizations of the learnability of a real-valued function class in terms of a generalization of the Vapnik-Chervonenkis dimension, the fat shattering function, introduced by Kearns and Schapire. We show that, given some restrictions on the noise, a function class is learnable in our model if and only if its fat-shattering function is finite. With different (also quite mild) restrictions, satisfied for example by gaussian noise, we show that a function class is learnable from polynomially many examples if and only if its fat-shattering function grows polynomially. We prove analogous results in an agnostic setting, where there is no assumption of an underlying function class.

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

learning model examples noise values class

observability general characterization randomization functional


TCP Pegas: A PSO-based improvement over TCP Vegas We find that Vegas suffers from many problems due to inaccurate estimation of BaseRTT. We use PSO technique to accurate estimation of the BaseRTT in TCP Vegas. Our accurate estimation of BaseRTT solves rerouting and unfairness problem. Our algorithm decreases the number of the dropped packets. Our algorithm increases bottleneck utilization and fairness.

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

congestion control
particle swarm optimization


Inference of lexical ontologies. The LeOnI methodology In this article we present a method for semi-automatically deriving lexico-conceptual ontologies in other languages, given a lexico-conceptual ontology for one language and bilingual mapping resources. Our method uses a logistic regression model to combine mappings proposed by a set of classifiers (up to 17 in our implementation). The method is formally described and evaluated by means of two implementations for semiautomatically building Spanish and Thai WordNets using Princeton's WordNet for English and conventional English-Spanish and English-Thai bilingual dictionaries. (C) 2009 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 B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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

lexico-conceptual ontologies
automatic ontology building


Types for active objects with static deadlock prevention Process types statically ensure the acceptability of all messages sent to an object even if the set of acceptable messages changes dynamically. As proposed so far, process types do not ensure the return of answers; deadlocks may prevent objects from behaving as expected. In this article we propose an object calculus with types distinguishing between obligatory messages (that must be sent, for example, as answer to a question) and optional messages (that can, but need not be sent). A type checker enforces the sending of obligatory messages and ensures that obligatory messages are not suppressed by deadlocks. The proposed type concept supports subtyping.

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

types
subtyping
object calculus
deadlocks


Classification tree based protein structure distances for testing sequencestructure correlation A methodology for testing the correlation between the sequence and structure distances of proteins is proposed. Structure distances were derived by applying a forward growing classification tree algorithm on defined physico-chemical and geometrical properties of the structures. The structure distance for every pair of proteins was defined as the number of intermediate nodes in the tree. Sequence distances were derived using pairwise sequence alignment. Then, correlation between sequence distance matrix and sequence distance matrix was tested using a Monte Carlo permutation test. The results were compared to those when the double dynamic structure alignment method (SSAP) was applied. The methodology was applied to a data set of 74 proteins belonging to 14 families. The classification tree was able to identify the protein families (the misclassification rate was R=1.4% R = 1.4 % ) and a 7474 74 74 structure distance matrix was produced. For every pair of protein sequences a dissimilarity score was recorded and a sequence distance matrix was produced. The Monte Carlo permutation produced a correlation coefficient r=0.403 r = 0.403 (P<0.001 P < 0.001 ). The SSAP method produced similar results. The proposed methodology may assist in assessing whether protein sequence distances can be predictors of protein structure distances.

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

correlation
classification tree
protein sequence
protein structure
distance matrix
monte carlo
permutation test


Frequency analysis of strongly nonlinear generalized Duffing oscillators using Hes frequencyamplitude formulation and Hes energy balance method In this paper, Hes FrequencyAmplitude Formulation (HFAF) and Hes Energy Balance Method (HEBM) are employed to solve the generalized Duffing equation in the form of

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

generalized duffing equation
hes frequencyamplitude formulation
hes energy balance method


lattice-based computation of boolean functions This paper studies the implementation of Boolean functions with lattices of two-dimensional switches. Each switch is controlled by a Boolean literal. If the literal is 1, the switch is connected to its four neighbours; else it is not connected. Boolean functions are implemented in terms of connectivity across the lattice: a Boolean function evaluates to 1 iff there exists a top-to-bottom path. The paper addresses the following synthesis problem: how should we map literals to switches in a lattice in order to implement a given target Boolean function? We seek to minimize the number of switches. Also, we aim for an efficient algorithm -- one that does not exhaustively enumerate paths. We exploit the concept of lattice and Boolean function duality. We demonstrate a synthesis method that produces lattices with a number of switches that grows linearly with the number of product terms in the function. Our algorithm runs in time that grows polynomially.

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


High-k dielectrics by UV photo-assisted chemical vapour deposition An overview of our recent work on thin films of metal oxides deposited on silicon by a novel excimer lamp-assisted ultraviolet injection liquid source CVD (UVILS-CVD) process for advanced high-k gate dielectrics applications will be presented. Recent results on TiO2, Ta2O5, ZrO2, HfO2, and TiO2-doped Ta2O5 will be demonstrated. The physical, structural, surface and interfacial properties and electrical characterisation of the as-deposited and UV-annealed new high dielectric constant (high-k) materials, determined using ellipsometry, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, UV spectrophotometry, SEM, TEM and CV, IV measurements, showed that good quality layers could be produced. The investigation of high-k dielectrics grown by the UVILS-CVD process clearly demonstrates that low cost, high power density excimer lamp systems can provide an interesting alternative to conventional UV lamps and excimer lasers for industrial large-scale low temperature materials processing. UVILS-CVD is a promising technique for the controlled deposition of ultra-thin high-k metal-oxide dielectrics for deep sub-micron CMOS devices at temperatures as low as 350C.

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

photo-cvd
high-k gate dielectrics
metal-oxide films


Interval type-2 fuzzy neural network controller for a multivariable anesthesia system based on a hardware-in-the-loop simulation This manuscript describes the use of a hardware-in-the-loop simulation to simulate the control of a multivariable anesthesia system based on an interval type-2 fuzzy neural network (IT2FNN) controller. The IT2FNN controller consists of an interval type-2 fuzzy linguistic process as the antecedent part and an interval neural network as the consequent part. It has been proposed that the IT2FNN controller can be used for the control of a multivariable anesthesia system to minimize the effects of surgical stimulation and to overcome the uncertainty problem introduced by the large inter-individual variability of the patient parameters. The parameters of the IT2FNN controller were trained online using a back-propagation algorithm. Three experimental cases are presented. All of the experimental results show good performance for the proposed controller over a wide range of patient parameters. Additionally, the results show better performance than the type-1 fuzzy neural network (T1FNN) controller under the effect of surgical stimulation. The response of the proposed controller has a smaller settling time and a smaller overshoot compared with the T1FNN controller and the adaptive interval type-2 fuzzy logic controller (AIT2FLC). The values of the performance indices for the proposed controller are lower than those obtained for the T1FNN controller and the AIT2FLC. The IT2FNN controller is superior to the T1FNN controller for the handling of uncertain information due to the structure of type-2 fuzzy logic systems (FLSs), which are able to model and minimize the numerical and linguistic uncertainties associated with the inputs and outputs of the FLSs.

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

hardware-in-the-loop
back-propagation algorithm
interval type-2 fuzzy neural network
analgesia
muscle relaxation


Range image segmentation by an effective jump-diffusion method This paper presents an effective jump-diffusion method for segmenting a range image and its associated reflectance image in the Bayesian framework. The algorithm works on complex real-world scenes (indoor and outdoor), which consist of an unknown number of objects (or surfaces) of various sizes and types, such as planes, conics, smooth surfaces, and cluttered objects (like trees and bushes). Formulated in the Bayesian framework, the posterior probability is distributed over a solution space with a countable number of subspaces of varying dimensions. The algorithm simulates Markov chains with both reversible jumps and stochastic diffusions to traverse the solution space. The reversible jumps realize the moves between subspaces of different dimensions, such as switching surface models and changing the number of objects. The stochastic Langevin equation realizes diffusions within each subspace. To achieve effective computation, the algorithm precomputes some importance proposal probabilities over multiple scales through Hough transforms, edge detection, and data clustering. The latter are used by the Markov chains for fast mixing. The algorithm is tested on 100 1D simulated data sets for performance analysis on both accuracy and speed. Then, the algorithm is applied to three data sets of range images under the same parameter setting. The results are satisfactory in comparison with manual segmentations.

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

energy minimization
jump-diffusion
range segmentation
markov chain monte carlo
hough transform
change point detection


collaborative framework for browser games development In this paper we do a review of research in software and game development, game modding communities, open-source development and open content creation. The ideas gathered in this research used to create a conceptual model for the creation of a collaborative on-line framework for browser games development. The generated conceptual model will be used in future work to build and test the framework.

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

open-source
web
collaboration
open content


Program equivalence in linear contexts Program equivalence in linear contexts, where programs are used or executed exactly once, is an important issue in programming languages. However, existing techniques like those based on bisimulations and logical relations only target at contextual equivalence in the usual (non-linear) functional languages, and fail in capturing non-trivial equivalent programs in linear contexts, particularly when non-determinism is present. We propose the notion of linear contextual equivalence to formally characterize such program equivalence, as well as a novel and general approach to studying it in higher-order languages, based on labeled transition systems specifically designed for functional languages. We show that linear contextual equivalence indeed coincides with trace equivalence. We illustrate our technique in both deterministic (a linear version of PCF) and non-deterministic (linear PCF in Moggi's framework) functional languages.

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

linear pcf
contextual equivalence
trace equivalence


an accurate and efficient yield optimization method for analog circuits based on computing budget allocation and memetic search technique Monte-Carlo (MC) simulation is still the most commonly used technique for yield estimation of analog integrated circuits, because of its generality and accuracy. However, although some speed acceleration methods for MC simulation have been proposed, their efficiency is not high enough for MC-based yield optimization (determines optimal device sizes and optimizes yield at the same time), which requires repeated yield calculations. In this paper, a new sampling-based yield optimization approach is presented, called the Memetic Ordinal Optimization (OO)-based Hybrid Evolutionary Constrained Optimization (MOHECO) algorithm, which significantly enhances the efficiency for yield optimization while maintaining the high accuracy and generality of MC simulation. By proposing a two-stage estimation flow and introducing the OO technology in the first stage, sufficient samples are allocated to promising solutions, and repeated MC simulations of non-critical solutions are avoided. By the proposed memetic search operators, the convergence speed of the algorithm can considerably be enhanced. With the same accuracy, the resulting MOHECO algorithm can achieve yield optimization by approximately 7 times less computational effort compared to a state-of-the-art MC-based algorithm integrating the acceptance sampling (AS) plus the Latin-hypercube sampling (LHS) techniques. Experiments and comparisons in 0.35 ? m and 90nm CMOS technologies show that MOHECO presents important advantages in terms of accuracy and efficiency.

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

memetic algorithm
variation-aware analog sizing
process variation
monte-carlo


A network-based and multi-parameter model for finding influential authors KatzBonacich centrality is adopted to define the network prestige. Author's influence is measured by the change of network prestige. The model's time complexity is low. The implications of two parameters are uncovered by simulation analysis. A comprehensive application is designed to validate the model's functions.

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

evaluation techniques for scientific output


Cognitive radio-based framework and self-optimizing temporal-spectrum block scheduling for QoS provisioning in WiMAX Cognitive radio (CR) is seen as a solution to the current low-usage of the radio spectrum and the problem of the fixed spectrum allocation. Quality of service (QoS) provisioning is an important issue in the deployment of broadband wireless access networks with real-time and non-real-time traffic integration in wireless spectrum. The connection-level and packet-level scheduling scheme is essential to guarantee the QoS requirements of different service classes. WiMAX orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) system specifies the orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) symbol mapping in a rectangular area manner. The rectangular mapping problem is known to be NP-complete. In this paper, we propose a novel Cognitive Radio-based QoS support framework and Cognitive Radio-based Self-optimizing temporal-spectrum block (TSB) scheduling which is a joint sub-carrier allocation and symbol-duration scheduling cum mapping scheme in WiMAX point-to-multipoint (PMP) WirelessHUMAN OFDMA systems. The proposed solution can intelligently explore unused spectrums and spread the system to non-active spectrums to significantly improve the capacity of the system and provide guaranteed QoS to real-time traffic. Extensive simulation experiments have been carried out to evaluate the performance of our proposal. The simulation results show that our proposed solution can expand the capacity of the WiMAX system while providing QoS to real-time and non-real-time traffic.

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

qos
cognitive radio
scheduling
mapping
ofdma
wimax


Ultimate strength analysis of prestressed reinforced concrete sections under axial force and biaxial bending A secant approach is illustrated for the ultimate limit state (ULS) analysis of prestressed reinforced concrete sections subjected to axial load and biaxial bending in presence of softening stressstrain laws. The stiffness matrix and the resultant loads are evaluated analytically by a novel methodology, termed fiber-free, which represents a computationally efficient alternative to fiber approaches. Extensive computations of the ULS domains of benchmark test cases show that the robustness of the proposed algorithmic strategy is substantially unaffected by the amount of reinforcement, prestressing and softening, though localized non-convex regions have been occasionally experienced in presence of softening.

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


A self-organizing fuzzy neural network and its applications to function approximation and forecast modeling To solve the problem of conventional inputoutput space partitioning, a new learning algorithm for creating self-organizing fuzzy neural networks (SOFNN) is proposed, which automates structure and parameter identification simultaneously based on input-target samples. First, a self-organizing clustering approach is used to establish the structure of the network and obtain the initial values of its parameters, then a supervised learning method to optimize these parameters. Two specific implementations of the algorithm, including function approximation and forecast modeling of the wastewater treatment system, are developed, comprehensive comparisons are made with other approaches in both of the examples. Simulation studies demonstrate the presented algorithm is superior in terms of compact structure and learning efficiency.

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

fuzzy neural networks
wastewater treatment system


Synchronized flux corrected remapping for ALE methods A new optimization-based synchronized flux corrected conservative interpolation (remapping) of mass, momentum and energy for arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian method is developed. Fluxes of conserved variables (mass, momentum and total energy) are limited in a synchronous FCT-like way to preserve local bounds in density, velocity and specific internal energy. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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


Fuzzy DEA: a perceptual evaluation method DEA (data envelopment analysis) is a non-parametric technique for measuring and evaluating the relative efficiencies of a set of entities with common crisp inputs and outputs. In fact, in a real evaluation problem input and output data of entities evaluated often fluctuate. These fluctuating data can be represented as linguistic variables characterized by fuzzy numbers for reflecting a kind of general feeling or experience of experts. Based on the fundamental CCR model, a fuzzy DEA model is proposed to deal with the efficiency evaluation problem with the given fuzzy input and output data. Furthermore, an extension of the fuzzy DEA model to a more general form is also proposed with considering the relationship between DEA and RA (regression analysis). Using the proposed fuzzy DEA models, the crisp efficiency in CCR model is extended to be a fuzzy number to reflect the inherent uncertainty in real evaluation problems. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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

data envelopment analysis (dea)
fuzzy linear programming
goal programming


A Complex Event Processing Method Based on Pre-grouping for Radio Frequency Identification Data Streams Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology applied ubiquitously uses radio frequency waves to automatically track tagged objects and collect data. After reading tagged objects, the RFID reader generates primitive events that contain very limited semantic information. A complex event is defined to communicate with high level applications. How to efficiently generate a complex event from a large amount of primitive events is an important issue. In this paper, we propose a complex event processing method based on pre-grouping readers. Our approach effectively filters out the unrelated events to reduce the number of redundant checking events. The experimental results show that our method provides a high performance solution for the complex event processing in RFID designs.

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


Delay-dependent LMI conditions for stability and stabilization of T-S fuzzy systems with bounded time-delay This paper studies the stability and stabilization problems for time-delay nonlinear systems through Takagi-Sugeno (T-S) fuzzy model approach. The time delays are assumed to be bounded but perhaps non-smooth. Delay-dependent conditions are presented in terms of LMIs. Illustrative examples are given to show the effectiveness and merits of the present results. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

t-s fuzzy model
time-delay
fuzzy control


Extending the understanding of computerized physician order entry: Implications for professional collaboration, workflow and quality of care Objective: To describe the perceived effect of computerized physician order entry (CPOE) on professional collaboration, workflow and quality of care. Design: Semi-structured interviews with experts involved in the design, implementation and evaluation of computerized physician order systems in the United States. Measurements: The interview transcripts were analyzed using six key concepts that identify context, professional collaboration, workflow and quality of care. Results: The interviews reveal the complexity of CPOE. Although providers enter the orders, others collaborate in the decision-making process. There is a profound impact on workflow beyond that of the provider. While quality of care is the main impetus for implementation, it remains terribly difficult to measure the impact on quality. Conclusions: A proper understanding of CPOE as a collaborative effort and the transformation of the health care activities into integrated care programs requires an understanding of how orders are created and processed, how CPOE as part of an integrated system can support the workflow, and how risks affecting patient care can be identified and reduced, especially during hand-offs in the workflow.

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

hospital information systems
online systems
medical records systems
computerized physician order entry
qualitative research


Radiofrequency Identification Exploiting an Old Technology for Measuring Nurse Time and Motion A national campaign is underway to increase the amount of time staff nurses spend at the bedside of hospitalized patients through redesign of the work environment. This kind of work redesign requires robust data depicting what nurses do and how they spend their time. Historically, these kinds of data have been difficult, costly, and time consuming to collect. Wireless capture of data on the movement of humans within the work environment (ie, time and motion) is now possible through radiofrequency identification technology. When small tracking devices the size of a quarter are affixed to their clothing, the movement of nurses throughout a patient care unit can be monitored. The duration and frequency of patient interaction are captured along with the duration of time spent in other locations of interest to include nurses' station, supply room, medication room, doctors' station, electronic documentation stations, family waiting rooms, and the hallway. Patterns of nurse movement and time allocation can be efficiently identified, and the effects of staffing practices, workflows, and unit layout evaluated. Integration of radiofrequency identification time and motion data with other databases enables nurse leaders to link nursing time to important cost and quality outcomes. Nurse leaders should explore the usefulness of radiofrequency identification technology in addressing data needs for nurse time and motion.

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

nursing work environment
nursing time allocation
nursing administration
rfid


waypointing and social tagging to support program navigation As the "software space" of source code, documentation, models, and other programming artifacts continue to grow in size and complexity, programmers face the challenge of navigating this space, as well as documenting and sharing their journeys for other developers and future successors. Current navigational structures are either closely tied to the semantics of the software or are constructed in a constrained top-down fashion to match the architecture or requirements of the system. In this paper, we introduce the notion of combining waypoints from geographical positioning and social tagging from shared bookmark systems to allow programmers to create shared, tagged points in software space. We report preliminary progress on our prototype (tagSEA), and discuss our future plans.

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


Screen-parallel determination of intersection curves ? It is sometimes desirable to highlight intersection curves in order to make the shapes of penetrating surfaces more visible. Highlighting the intersection is especially helpful when the surfaces become transparent, because transparency makes the intersections less evident. This paper discusses a technique for locating intersections in screen space using only the information locally available to a pixel. The technique is designed to exploit parallelism at the pixel level and has been implemented on the Pixel-Planes 5 graphics supercomputer.

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

intersection curve
data-parallel
parallel rendering


Agents and ambient intelligence: case studies The significance that ambient intelligence (AmI) has acquired in recent years requires the development of innovative solutions. In this sense, the development of AmI-based systems requires the creation of increasingly complex and flexible applications. One of the most important aspects in AmI is the use of context-aware technologies in order to perceive stimuli from both the users and the environment. Thus, the information obtained must be managed by intelligent and self-adaptable technologies in order to provide an adequate interaction between the users and their environment. Agents and multi-agent systems are one of these technologies. The agents have characteristics such as autonomy, reasoning, reactivity, social abilities and pro-activity which make them appropriate for developing dynamic and distributed systems based on AmI, as they possess the capability of adapting themselves to the users and environmental characteristics. This paper presents several case studies where agents and context-aware technologies have been implemented to build AmI-based systems. These case studies expand the possibilities of AmI and get closer to its vision.

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

agents and multi-agent systems
distributed architectures
context-aware technologies


Monitoring method of rice seeds mass in vibrating tray for vacuum-panel precision seeder Monitoring method of seeds mass in a vibrating tray was presented. Rice seeds were modelled using triaxial ellipsoidal particles. Impact behaviour of seeds action on the tray was DEM simulated. Differential force sensors were adopted and signal processing circuit was designed. Calibration tests proved the comprehensive measurement errors were <3.5%.

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

seeds mass
monitoring method
vibrating tray


Using ROC curves to assess the efficacy of several detectors of damage-induced nonlinearities in a bolted composite structure We offer a comparison of several different detectors of damage-induced nonlinearities in assessing the connectivity of a composite-to-metal bolted joint. Each detector compares the structure's measured vibrational response to surrogate data, conforming to a general model for the healthy structure. The strength of this approach to detection is that it works in the presence of certain types of varying ambient conditions and is valid for structures excited with any stationary process. Here we employ several such detectors using dynamic strain response data collected near the joint as the structure was driven using simulated wave forcing (taken from the PiersonMoskowitz frequency distribution for wave height). In an effort to simulate in situ monitoring conditions the experiments were carried out in the presence of strongly varying temperatures. The performance of the detectors was assessed using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves, a well known method for displaying detection characteristics. The ROC curve is well suited to the problem of vibration-based structural health monitoring applications where quantifying false positive and false negative errors is essential. The results of this work indicate that using the estimated auto-bicoherence of the systems response produced the best overall detection performance when compared to features based on a nonlinear prediction scheme and another based on information theory. For roughly 10% false alarms, the bicoherence detector gives nearly 90% probability of detection (POD). Conversely, for several of the other detectors 510% false alarms leads to ?70% ? 70 % POD. While the bicoherence (and bispectrum) have been used previously in the context of damage detection, this work represents the first attempt at using them in a surrogate-based detection scheme.

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

surrogate data
bicoherence
structural health monitoring

composite bolted joint
receiver operating characteristic curve
nonlinearity detection


A new approach to similarity retrieval of 2-D graphic objects based on dominant shapes This new approach to content-based retrieval describes the contour of complex 2-D graphic object by recursively decomposing its shape into dominant and auxiliary components. One of the key ideas is extrapolation of fragments with associated primitive shapes into complete primitives in order to maximally preserve their semantics. The spatial relationships among these primitive shapes are represented via two set operators, i.e., spatial addition and subtraction. A multi-layer retrieval mechanism was devised to exploit the semantics captured in the resulting graph representation of a complex shape, thereby achieving greater efficiency and superior content-based recognition capabilities. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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

description of 2-d graphic objects
dominant shape-based decomposition
extrapolation of shape
content-based shape recognition


International Open Access Week at Small to Medium U.S. Academic Libraries: The First Five Years This research seeks to expand the body of knowledge surrounding International Open Access Week (OA Week) practices among small to medium-sized U.S. institutions, examining the rationales guiding these, and creating a baseline activity inventory which may be elaborated upon as open access continues to evolve and as OA Week matures beyond its fifth (2013) anniversary. An electronic survey with closed- and open-ended questions was used to collect data, which were analyzed for recurring themes. Of respondents whose campuses did observe OA Week, the most reported reason for doing so was related to supporting the library's educational outreach program; fewer respondents cited the library's philosophical commitment to open access. Lack of time was the most frequently given reason for OA Week non-participation, however around one quarter of non-participating respondents reported that they were unaware of OA Week, and another quarter reported that it did not figure in their strategic plan. The conditions that were found to best support celebrating OA Week included a grasp of the principles guiding OA on the part of at least one librarian, reinforced by: the educational mission of the library; adequate personnel; and sufficient time for planning. This exploratory study yields points for library- and self-assessment.

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

international open access week
open access

scholarly communication
library programming
library outreach


Data mining as a tool for research and knowledge development in nursing The ability to collect and store data has grown at a dramatic rate in all disciplines over the past two decades. Healthcare has been no exception. The shift toward evidence-based practice and outcomes research presents significant opportunities and challenges to extract meaningful information from massive amounts of clinical data to transform it into the best available knowledge to guide nursing practice. Data mining, a step in the process of Knowledge Discovery in Databases, is a method of unearthing information from large data sets. Built upon statistical analysis, artificial intelligence, and machine learning technologies, data mining can analyze massive amounts of data and provide useful and interesting information about patterns and relationships that exist within the data that might otherwise be missed. As domain experts, nurse researchers are in ideal positions to use this proven technology to transform the information that is available in existing data repositories into useful and understandable knowledge to guide nursing practice and for active interdisciplinary collaboration and research.

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


Image retrieval using histograms of uni-color and bi-color blocks and directional changes in intensity gradient In this paper, we present a new and effective image indexing technique that employs local uni-color and bi-color distributions and local directional distribution of intensity gradient. The image is divided into 4 by 4 non-overlapping blocks. Each block, based on its gradient magnitude, is classified as uniform or non-uniform. Using the average of each color component for the pixels of a uniform block, its representative color is found. Then the histogram of uni-color uniform blocks of the image, HUCUB, is constructed. To each non-uniform block, two representative colors are assigned. Then the histogram of bi-color non-uniform blocks, HBCNB, is created. To represent the shape content of the image, the histogram of directional changes in intensity gradient, HDCIG, is introduced. Experimental results on a database of 2250 images are reported. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

content-based image retrieval
color histogram


Comparing multiobjective swarm intelligence metaheuristics for DNA motif discovery In recent years, a huge number of biological problems have been successfully addressed through computational techniques, among all these computational techniques we highlight metaheuristics. Also, most of these biological problems are directly related to genomic, studying the microorganisms, plants, and animals genomes. In this work, we solve a DNA sequence analysis problem called Motif Discovery Problem (MDP) by using two novel algorithms based on swarm intelligence: Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) and Gravitational Search Algorithm (GSA). To guide the pattern search to solutions that have a better biological relevance, we have redefined the problem formulation and incorporated several biological constraints that should be satisfied by each solution. One of the most important characteristics of the problem definition is the application of multiobjective optimization (MOO), maximizing three conflicting objectives: motif length, support, and similarity. So, we have adapted our algorithms to the multiobjective context. This paper presents an exhaustive comparison of both multiobjective proposals on instances of different nature: real instances, generic instances, and instances generated according to a Markov chain. To analyze their operations we have used several indicators and statistics, comparing their results with those obtained by standard algorithms in multiobjective computation, and by 14 well-known biological methods.

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

swarm intelligence
artificial bee colony
gravitational search algorithm
motif discovery
multiobjective optimization


An observational study of undergraduate students adoption of (mobile) note-taking software Mobile learning is increasing in popularity, but not all university students have mobile devices to support it. Our study investigated cross-platform software that has the potential to allow education practitioners to provide mobile support to their students learning, while offering similar functionality to non-mobile users via more traditional computing platforms. Undergraduate students were trained in the use of multi-platform cloud-based note-taking software (Evernote), and used the software in independent study for 8weeks. Data show adoption for a range of functions, particularly gathering and managing information, organisation and planning, and the recording of ideas. Multimedia functions were also adopted innovatively by some students. Use for reflection was rare. Non-adopters were in a minority, giving low utility appraisals and difficulty in changing habits as reasons. Subjective evaluations and recommendations showed that a majority of students felt positive about the software and found it quick and easy to use. Mobile and non-mobile users only differed on the number of locations in which they used the software, and the proportion of notes classified as ideas, both being higher in mobile users. The data provide decision support for education practitioners who wish to provide mobile learning to their students alongside traditional platforms.

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

m-learning
cloud computing
note taking
portfolio
idea generation


Promoting effective e-learning practices through the constructivist pedagogy Although rapid advances in technology has allowed for the growth of collaborative e-learning experiences unconstrained by time and space, technology has not been heavily infused in the activities of teaching and learning. This article examines the theory of constructivism as well as the design of e-learning activities using constructivist principles. The manner in which constructivist theory supports e-Learning is explored, and extrapolating from this pedagogical theory, some implications are provided to model effective practices of the characteristics and capacities of this powerful learning environment.

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


Research on enhancement of TOC Simplified Drum-Buffer-Rope system using novel generic procedures The Theory of Constraints (TOC) Simplified Drum-Buffer-Rope (SDBR) system works effectively in typical job shop environments. However, according to the experiences implementing SDBR system in local companies, such environments have the following characteristics, which may block SDBR implementation: (1) capacity constraint resources (CCR) is not always located in the middle of the routing as assumed in SDBR. The CCR can be located in either the front or back end of routing; (2) multiple or interactive CCRs can exist rather than the assumption of just one CCR; (3) order insertion, including urgent orders, change in due-date (especially bringing it forward) is common. Two ways may be applied to overcome these characteristics: (1) move back to a traditional DBR; (2) address problems through the buffer management process. However, both these ways have limitations and complexities. This paper presents an alternative method enhancing SDBR system performance. With the enhancement, we expect that SDBR can be adopted by more companies, especially those that have the same characteristics.

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

simplified drum-buffer-rope
due-date performance


Artificial wavelet neural network and its application in neuro-fuzzy models In the proposed work, two types of artificial neural networks are proposed by using well-known advantages and valuable features of wavelets and sigmoidal activation functions. Two neurons are derived by adding and multiplying the outputs of the wavelet and the sigmoidal activation functions. These neurons in a feed-forward single hidden layer network result summation wavelet neural network (SWNN) and multiplication wavelet neural network (MWNN). An algorithm is introduced for structure determination of the proposed networks. Approximation properties of SWNN and MWNN have been evaluated with different wavelet functions. The above networks in the consequent part of the neuro-fuzzy model result summation wavelet neuro-fuzzy (SWNF) and multiplication wavelet neuro-fuzzy (MWNF) models. Different types of wavelet function are tested with the proposed networks and fuzzy models on four different dynamical examples. Convergence of the learning process is also guaranteed by adaptive learning rate and performing stability analysis using Lyapunov function.

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

sigmoidal activation function
wavelet activation function
wavelet network
neuro-fuzzy model