Modification of Park variable transformation for wye-connected winding without neutral wire Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to present a modification of the Park variable transformation for a three-phase wye-connected winding without neutral wire. A new physical interpretation of the winding equivalent circuit is proposed. Design/methodology/approach - An equivalent circuit representing reluctance motor stator winding is rearranged to enable easier physical interpretation of obtained voltage equation. The Park transformation and constraints resulting from Kirchhof's laws are then applied to obtain a two-axis mathematical model of the motor. Findings - A new physical two-phase interpretation of the voltage equation for a three-phase wye-connected winding without neutral wire is proposed. A novel two-axis transformation is formulated for all variables. Compared to the Park transformation, which is the same for all variables, in the proposed transformation its matrices for currents and voltages/flux linkages are different, yet strongly interconnected. Research limitations/implications - The proposed transformation is formulated for a specific type of winding connection scheme. Therefore, it is limited in its application. Practical implications - From the practical point of view, the proposed transformation could be very useful as it applies to the most popular stator winding connection scheme. Its main advantages are fewer number of trigonometric parameters in the matrices and measurability of all currents and voltages present in its voltage equations. It could be of special importance for electric machines with non-sinusoidal field distribution (e.g. Brushless DC). Originality/value - The paper presents a new type of variable transformation for three-phase electric machines with wye-connected windings without neutral wire. Proposed transformation combines different transformations for currents and voltages/flux linkages.

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

transformers
electrical connections
circuits


Power optimization of technology-dependent circuits based on symbolic computation of logic implications This paper presents a novel approach to the problem of optimizing combinational circuits for low power. The method is inspired by the fact that power analysis performed on a technology mapped network gives more realistic estimates than it would at the technology-independent level. After each node's switching activity in the circuit is determined, high-power nodes are eliminated through redundancy addition and removal. To do so, the nodes are sorted according to their switching activity, they are considered one at a time, and learning is used to identify direct and indirect logic implications inside the network. These logic implications are exploited to add gates and connections to the circuit; this may help in eliminating high-power dissipating nodes, thus reducing the total switching activity and power dissipation of the entire circuit. The process is iterative; each iteration starts with a different target node. The end result is a circuit with a decreased switching power. Besides the general optimization algorithm, we propose a new BDD-based method for computing satisfiability and observability implications in a logic network; furthermore, we present heuristic techniques to add and remove redundancy at the technology-dependent level, that is, restructure the logic in selected places without destroying the topology of the mapped circuit. Experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed technique. On average, power is reduced by 34%, and up to a 64% reduction of power is possible, with a negligible increase in the circuit delay.

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

aids
automation
design synthesis
logic design


Automated traders in commodities markets: Case of producerconsumer institution Automatizing commodities price negotiation was hard to achieve in practice, mainly because of logistical complications. The purpose of our work is to show that it is possible to automatize thoroughly commodities trading in the futures market by replacing human traders with artificial agents. As a starting step, we designed a market institution, called producerconsumer, where only an automated seller and an automated buyer can trade on behalf of the producer and consumer, respectively. The producer and consumer periodically feed their trading agents with supply and demand (S&D) forecasts. We suggested a parameterizable trading strategy, called bands and frequencies, for the agents. To measure the overall efficiency of this trading system in terms of price stability and liquidity, we made some hypotheses on the benchmark price curve and its linkages to S&D curves and other relevant market variables. Then we proposed analytical tools to measure strategy performance. Finally, we conducted some computer simulations to prove the workability of this approach.

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

benchmark price
strategy performance
futures market

automated trading
commodities e-commerce


BEM approach to protection of structures from seismic waves by a viscoelastic stratum In the context of the anti-plane problem, we study harmonic oscillations of an elastic rectangle whose base is isolated from the foundation by a viscoelastic stratum of finite thickness. Such a (viscoelastic) medium is embedded in the ground, which is simulated as a homogeneous isotropic elastic half-space. By using the fundamental representation of solution through single and double layer potentials, the problem is reduced to a set of integral equations. The main practical aspect of this investigation is connected with seismic base isolation. We thus estimate the wave attenuation, which results in the decrease of the vibration amplitude for the rectangular construction, provided by the viscoelastic stratum.

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

anti-plane problem
harmonic vibrations
seismic isolation


Analysis and design of a high performance and low cost bio-mass sensor based on the radial contour mode disk resonator A high performance and cost effective biosensor is designed based on a radial contour-mode disk resonator. Filling a dielectric material within the capacitive gap, we can achieve low motional resistance (Rx) in a cost-effective manner. The motional resistance of the new device is characterized analytically and validated using 3D-multiphysics simulation. Compared with other biosensors, the introduced biosensor may detect the smaller mass changes with mass sensitivity of ?74.68?m2/ng (?1617Hz/ng).

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

biosensor
mass sensitivity
motional resistance


The conundrum of sharing research data We must all accept that science is data and that data are science, and thus provide for, and justify the need for the support of, much-improved data curation. (Hanson, Sugden, & Alberts, 2011)

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 data sets
collaboration
information reuse
information policy
motivation


Collusion, MPEG4 compression and frame dropping resistant video watermarking We present in this article a new video watermarking which resists collusion, MPEG4 compression and frame dropping attacks. This scheme is based on video mosaicing. For that, we are going to start by describing the mosaicing technique in order to illustrate the contribution of this technique in video watermarking. In fact, mosaicing allows to select an interesting area where the mark should be embedded. The idea is to insert the same mark into the same pixels which represent the same physical point. This is exactly the information which can be provided by a mosaic image at least for the located points in the scene background. Next, we present extensive experimental simulations which prove the watermark imperceptibility and robustness against several video attacks.

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

video watermarking
mosaic image
mpeg4 compression
frame dropping


localization of credential information to address increasingly inevitable data breaches Large-scale data breaches exposing sensitive personal information are becoming commonplace. For numerous reasons, conventional personal (identification) information leaks from databases that store online and/or on-site user transaction data. Collected ID numbers and supporting personal information enable malicious parties to commit large-scale identity fraud. Gates and Slonim (NSPW 2003) proposed the owner-controlled information paradigm to address privacy violations of personal information where users are expected to maintain all their information using a personal device. Rubin and Wright (FC 2001), Molloy et al. (FC 2007), and others explored the use of one-time numbers to address credit card fraud (mostly for online use). However, several other types of ID number are at least as sensitive as credit card numbers. Our fundamental assumption is that collected personal information will eventually be breached. To combat identity fraud under this new environmental attack paradigm, we introduce a more general approach involving localized or customized ID numbers for both card-present and card-not-present transactions. We also explore four variants of the general idea to spark more discussion and further research in this area.

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

data breaches
privacy
localization
identity fraud


A computer simulation model for simulating distortion in FET resistors The power law that governs harmonic distortion states that the second harmonic, when plotted as a function of input power, will have a slope of two on a log scale, and the third harmonic will have a slope of three. This power law is fundamental to the use of intercept points by radio-frequency circuit designers to predict distortion levels from a knowledge of the input signal level. It is shown in this paper that the standard formulation of field effect transistor (FET) models violates this power law for FETs biased at V-ds = 0. The problem is shown to arise from discontinuities in the high order derivatives which occur because V-gs and V-gd are interchanged in the computer models when V-ds switches sign. A model is presented which does not switch these variables and the new model is shown to follow the correct power law.

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

gaas mesfet
mosfet
semiconductor device models


Experimental assessment of the effect of inheritance on the maintainability of object-oriented systems In this paper, we describe an empirical investigation into the modifiability and understandability of object-oriented (OO) software. A controlled experiment was conducted to establish the effects of varying levels of inheritance on understandability and modifiability. The software used in this experiment consisted of a C++ system without any inheritance and a corresponding version containing three levels of inheritance, as well as a second larger C++ system without inheritance and a corresponding version with five levels of inheritance. For both of the systems, the application modelled a database for a University personnel system. A number of statistical hypotheses were tested. Results indicated that the systems without inheritance were easier to modify than the corresponding systems containing three or five levels of inheritance. Also, it was easier to understand the system without inheritance than a corresponding version containing three levels of inheritance. Results also indicated that larger systems are equally difficult to understand whether or not they contain inheritance. The results contained in this paper highlight the need for further empirical investigations in this area, particularly into the benefits of using inheritance.

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

empirical software engineering
object-oriented system


Fourth order finite volume solution to shallow water equations and applications This study presents the fourth order accurate finite volume solution to shallow water equations. Fourth order accuracy in space was provided by using the Monotone Upstream-centered Schemes for Conservation Laws-Total Variation Diminishing scheme, whereas fourth order accurate solution in time was achieved by using the third order predictor scheme of Adams-Basforth followed by the fourth order corrector scheme of Adams-Moulton. The applicability and accuracy of the solution algorithm were explored on complex flow conditions. These flow conditions cover a theoretical well-known partial two-dimensional dam break problems and an experimental flow in a compound channel with or without a bridge. The applicability limits of the solution algorithm were discussed. The overall performance of the solution was found to be reasonably good. Copyright (c) 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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

shallow water equations
finite volume
compound channel
bridge

fourth-order accuracy
shock-capturing schemes


TOPICAL CRAWLING ON THE WEB THROUGH LOCAL SITE-SEARCHES In this paper, we investigate the feasibility of discovering topical resources by combining Web searches and local site-searches. Existing techniques of topical resource discovery consist of crawling the Web and searching the Web. The former typically analyses linkage among Web pages to estimate the relevance of an unseen document to a topic. The latter exploits the indices of generic search engines to discover documents relevant to a topic. Although the local site-search has been a simple and convenient feature of a Web site for human users to quickly locate desired information within the site that hosts tremendous number of documents, this feature has been ignored by the techniques of automatic topical resource discovery. A typical local site-search returns a list of titles, hyperlinks, and snippets of relevant documents that can be used to estimate the relevance of the documents to the topic before actually fetching the documents. We propose an operational model to make use of this simple feature, and address how this model can be realized. Experiments have shown that this simple but efficient approach can provide much more precise estimations than a sophisticated intelligent topical crawler.

B I O O O O O 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 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

topical resource discovery
topical crawling


Axial lifetime control in silicon power diodes by irradiation with protons, alphas, low- and high-energy electrons Local lifetime control by proton and alpha-particle irradiation with energies from 1.8 to 12.1MeV and doses up to 51012cm?2 was faced with two types of electron irradiation giving the different profiles of carrier lifetime: the high-energy (4MeV) resulting in a homogeneous lifetime distribution and the low-energy (500 and 460 keV) providing so-called sloping lifetime control. Deep and shallow levels introduced by irradiation were characterised by DLTS, HVCTS and CV profiling and their effect on static and dynamic parameters of irradiated diodes was measured and simulated. The advantages and drawbacks of different lifetime control techniques are compared and their application aspects are discussed, as well.

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

lifetime control
silicon
irradiation
protons
alphas
electrons
power diodes


an overview of the rialto real-time architecture The goal of the Rialto project at Microsoft Research is to build a system architecture supporting coexisting independent real-time (and non-real-time) programs. Unlike traditional embedded-systems real-time environments, where timing and resource analysis among competing tasks can be done off-line, it is our goal to allow multiple independently authored real-time applications with varying timing and resource requirements to dynamically coexist and cooperate to share the limited physical resources available to them, as well as also coexisting with non-real-time applications.This paper gives an overview of the Rialto real-time architecture as it is implemented today and reports on some of the early results obtained. In particular, it describes the use of time constraints, activities, CPU and other resource reservation, and the system resource planner, and how they work together to achieve our goal of providing a flexible, dynamic real-time computing environment.

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

requirements applications research use environments analysis dynamic architecture project physical timing paper resource

sharing
program
activation
systems
time constraint
computation
flexibility
real-time
system architecture
embedded systems


Systematic geometric rigid body error identification of 5-axis milling machines A 5-axis milling machine has 39 independent geometric error components when the machine tool is considered as a set of five rigid bodies. The identification of the deterministic component of the systematic error is very important. It permits one to improve the accuracy close to the repeatability of the machine tool. This paper gives a new way to identify and compensate all the systematic angular errors separately and then use them further to identify the systematic translational error. Identification based on a new mathematical method and a stable numerical solution method is proposed. The model explains from first principles why some error components have no effect in a first order model. The identification of the total angular systematic errors can be done independently from the translation errors. However, the total translation error depends on the angular errors and the translation errors of each machine tool slide. The main problems solved are to find enough linear independent equations and avoid numerical instability in the computation. It is important to separate numerical problems and linear dependence. The very complex equations are first analyzed in symbolic form to eliminate the linear dependencies. The total of linear independent components in the model is reduced from 30 to 26 for the position dependent errors and from 9 to 3 for the position independent components. Secondly, the large system of linear equations is broken down in many smaller systems. The model is tested first with simulated errors modeled as cubic polynomials. An artifact-based identification is proposed and implemented based on drilling holes in various locations and orientations. New ways to measure the volumetric error directly are proposed. Direct measurement of the total volumetric error requires considerably less measurement than measuring all 6 components of each machine slide especially in the case of a 5-axis machine.

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

5-axis machine tool
error compensation
inverse kinematics


A theoretical and experimental study on the construction of suffix arrays in external memory The construction of full-text indexes on very large text collections is nowadays a hot problem. The suffix array [32] is one of the most attractive full-text indexing data structures due to its simplicity, space efficiency and powerful/fast search operations supported. In this paper we analyze, both theoretically and experimentally, the I/O complexity and the working space of six algorithms for constructing large suffix arrays. Three of them are state-of-the-art, the other three algorithms are our new proposals. We perform a set of experiments based on three different data sets (English texts, amino-acid sequences and random texts) and give a precise hierarchy of these algorithms according to their working-space versus construction-time tradeoff. Given the current trends in model design [12], [32] and disk technology [29], [30], we pose particular attention to differentiate between "random' and "contiguous" disk accesses, in order to explain reasonably some practical I/O phenomena which are related to the experimental behavior of these algorithms and that would otherwise be meaningless in the light of other simpler external-memory models. We also address two other issues. The former is concerned with the problem of building word indexes; we show that our results can be successfully applied to this case too, without any loss in efficiency and without compromising the simplicity of programming to achieve a uniform, simple and efficient approach to both the two indexing models. The latter issue is related to the intriguing and apparently counterintuitive "contradiction" between the effective practical performance of the well-known Baeza-Yates Gonnet-Snider algorithm [17], verified in our experiments, and its unappealing worst-case behavior. We devise a new external-memory algorithm that follows the basic philosophy underlying that algorithm but in a significantly different manner, thus resulting in a novel approach which combines good worst-case bounds with efficient practical performance.

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

large data sets
external-memory model
text indexing
full-text and word-based models


Training of support vector machine with the use of multivariate normalization We analyze SVM (support vector machines) techniques. We propose a multivariable normalization of the inputs both during the training and classification processes. The multivariable normalization applied to a real SVM is equivalent to the use of a SVM that uses the Mahalanobis distance measure. The study confirms the improvement achieved in the classification processes.

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

support vector machines
normalization
mahalanobis distance


A Proactive Dynamic Spectrum Access Method against both Erroneous Spectrum Sensing and Asynchronous Inter-Channel Spectrum Sensing Most of the current frequency hopping (FH) based dynamic spectrum access (DSA) methods concern a reactive channel access scheme with synchronous inter-channel spectrum sensing, i.e., FH is reactively triggered by the primary user (PU)'s return reported by spectrum sensing, and the PU channel to be switched to is assumed precisely just sensed or ready to be sensed, as if the inter-channel spectrum sensing moments are synchronous. However, the inter-channel spectrum sensing moments are more likely to be asynchronous, which risks PU suffering more interference. Moreover, the spectrum sensing is usually erroneous, which renders the problem more complex. To address this problem, we propose a proactive FH based DSA method against both erroneous spectrum sensing and asynchronous inter-channel spectrum sensing (moments). We term it as proactive DSA. The optimal FH sequence is obtained by dynamic programming. The complexity is also analyzed. Finally, the simulation results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed method.

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


stratification-based keyframe cliques for removal of near-duplicates in video search results The current volume of videos available for distribution or viewing on the internet is increasing exponentially, there is an urgent need for designing effective and efficient video management systems. However, due to the tremendous amounts of video data, it is highly likely that any large scale video systems will provide query results with near-duplicates videos in the return list of videos. In this paper, we introduce our method of identification and removal of near-duplicates in video search results via matching strata of keyframes. To be exact, we detect the near duplicate keyframes in each video separately. Then we partition these keyframes into summarized groups by our quasi-clique based partition. Experiments on the Trecvid dataset confirmed our initial view that a significant number of keyframes from videos in the Trecvid corpus are near-duplicates.Based on the summarized clique representation of each video, we tested our algorithm for detection of near-duplicates in the web videos. Results show that our proposed method greatly speeds up the retrieval process, while maintaining a high detection accuracy.

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

stratification-based
web video
quasi-clique
near-duplicate


Laplacian Sparse Coding, Hypergraph Laplacian Sparse Coding, and Applications Sparse coding exhibits good performance in many computer vision applications. However, due to the overcomplete codebook and the independent coding process, the locality and the similarity among the instances to be encoded are lost. To preserve such locality and similarity information, we propose a Laplacian sparse coding (LSc) framework. By incorporating the similarity preserving term into the objective of sparse coding, our proposed Laplacian sparse coding can alleviate the instability of sparse codes. Furthermore, we propose a Hypergraph Laplacian sparse coding (HLSc), which extends our Laplacian sparse coding to the case where the similarity among the instances defined by a hypergraph. Specifically, this HLSc captures the similarity among the instances within the same hyperedge simultaneously, and also makes the sparse codes of them be similar to each other. Both Laplacian sparse coding and Hypergraph Laplacian sparse coding enhance the robustness of sparse coding. We apply the Laplacian sparse coding to feature quantization in Bag-of-Words image representation, and it outperforms sparse coding and achieves good performance in solving the image classification problem. The Hypergraph Laplacian sparse coding is also successfully used to solve the semi-auto image tagging problem. The good performance of these applications demonstrates the effectiveness of our proposed formulations in locality and similarity preservation.

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

laplacian sparse coding
image classification

hypergraph laplacian sparse coding
semi-auto image tagging
locality preserving


A simple and effective new family of time marching procedures for dynamics In this work, a new family of time-marching procedures for dynamics is introduced. The proposed algorithm is based on displacementsvelocities relations, requiring no computation of accelerations. Thus, not only it is a very simple technique, but also it is truly self-starting. Unconditionally stable implicit and conditionally stable explicit approaches are focused here, and optimized procedures are discussed for these analyses. The new technique is second-order accurate with controllable period elongation and algorithmic dissipation. Numerical results are presented, illustrating the good performance of the method. The new family is simple, efficient and highly accurate, resulting in a very effective time-marching technique.

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

time-marching
time integration methods
accuracy
stability


Flexibility of the exportins Cse1p and Xpot depicted by elastic network model Nucleocytoplasmic transport in eukaryotic cells involves many interactions between macromolecules, and has been an active area for many researchers. However, the precise mechanism still evades us and more efforts are needed to better understand it. In this study, the authors investigated exportins (Cse1p and Xpot) by elastic network interpolation (ENI) and elastic network based normal mode analysis (EN-NMA). Results of the study on Cse1p were in good agreement with the results obtained by molecular dynamics simulation in another study but with the benefit of time-efficiency. First, a formation of ring closure obtained by ENI was observed. Second, HEAT 1 to 3 and HEAT 14 to 17 had the largest values of root mean square deviation (RMSD) which indicated the flexibility of Cse1p during the transition. In the case of Xpot, a possible pathway from nuclear state to cytoplasmic state was shown, and the predicted pathway was also quantitatively analyzed in terms of RMSD. The results suggested two flexible regions of Xpot that might be important to the transporting mechanism. Moreover, the dominant mode of Xpot in the nuclear state obtained by EN-NMA not only showed the tendency to match the predicted pathway to the cytoplasmic state of Xpot, but also displayed the flexible regions of Xpot. A time-efficient computational approach was presented in this paper and the results indicated that the flexibility of tested exportins might be required to perform the biological function of transporting cargos.

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

elastic network model
nucleocytoplasmic transport


Concurrent programming constructs for parallel MPI applications The MPI threads library Concurrency and parallelism have long been viewed as important, but somewhat distinct concepts. While concurrency is extensively used to amortize latency (for example, in web- and database-servers, user interfaces, etc.), parallelism is traditionally used to enhance performance through execution on multiple functional units. Motivated by an evolving application mix and trends in hardware architecture, there has been a push toward integrating traditional programming models for concurrency and parallelism. Use of conventional threads APIs (POSIX, OpenMP) with messaging libraries (MPI), however, leads to significant programmability concerns, owing primarily to their disparate programming models. In this paper, we describe a novel API and associated runtime for concurrent programming, called MPI Threads (MPIT), which provides a portable and reliable abstraction of low-level threading facilities. We describe various design decisions in MPIT, their underlying motivation, and associated semantics. We provide performance measurements for our prototype implementation to quantify overheads associated with various operations. Finally, we discuss two real-world use cases: an asynchronous message queue and a parallel information retrieval system. We demonstrate that MPIT provides a versatile, low overhead programming model that can be leveraged to program large parallel ensembles.

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

threads
concurrent programming
performance


Global seismic damage assessment of high-rise hybrid structures Nowadays, many engineers believe that hybrid structures with reinforced concrete central core walls and perimeter steel frames offer an economical method to develop the strength and stiffness required for seismic design. As a result, a variety of such structures have recently been applied in actual construction. However, the performance-based seismic design of such structures has not been investigated systematically. In the performance-based seismic design, quantifying the seismic damage of complete structures by damage indices is one of the fundamental issues. Four damage states and the final softening index at each state for high-rise hybrid structures are suggested firstly in this paper. Based on nonlinear dynamic analysis, the relation of the maximum inter-story drift, the main structural characteristics, and the final softening index is obtained. At the same time, the relation between the maximum inter-story drift and the maximum roof displacement over the height is also acquired. A double-variable index accounting for maximum deformation and cumulative energy is put forward based on the pushover analysis. Finally, a case study is conducted on a high-rise hybrid structure model tested on shaking table before to verify the suggested quantities of damage indices.

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

global seismic damage assessment
final softening index

high-rise hybrid structures
performance-based seismic design
maximum inter-story drift
damage index with double variables


A stock recommendation system exploiting rule discovery in stock databases This paper addresses an approach that recommends investment types to stock investors by discovering useful rules from past changing patterns of stock prices in databases. First, we define a new rule model for recommending stock investment types. For a frequent pattern of stock prices, if its subsequent stock prices are matched to a condition of an investor, the model recommends a corresponding investment type for this stock. The frequent pattern is regarded as a rule head, and the subsequent part a rule body. We observed that the conditions on rule bodies are quite different depending on dispositions of investors while rule heads are independent of characteristics of investors in most cases. With this observation, we propose a new method that discovers and stores only the rule heads rather than the whole rules in a rule discovery process. This allows investors to impose various conditions on rule bodies flexibly, and also improves the performance of a rule discovery process by reducing the number of rules to be discovered. For efficient discovery and matching of rules, we propose methods for discovering frequent patterns, constructing a frequent pattern base, and its indexing. We also suggest a method that finds the rules matched to a query from a frequent pattern base, and a method that recommends an investment type by using the rules. Finally, we verify the effectiveness and the efficiency of our approach through extensive experiments with real-life stock data.

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


Improving Application Launch Performance on Solid State Drives Application launch performance is of great importance to system platform developers and vendors as it greatly affects the degree of users' satisfaction. The single most effective way to improve application launch performance is to replace a hard disk drive (HDD) with a solid state drive (SSD), which has recently become affordable and popular. A natural question is then whether or not to replace the traditional HDD-aware application launchers with a new SSD-aware optimizer. We address this question by analyzing the inefficiency of the HDD-aware application launchers on SSDs and then proposing a new SSD-aware application prefetching scheme, called the Fast Application STarter (FAST). The key idea of FAST is to overlap the computation (CPU) time with the SSD access (I/O) time during an application launch. FAST is composed of a set of user-level components and system debugging tools provided by Linux OS (operating system). Hence, FAST can be easily deployed in any recent Linux versions without kernel recompilation. We implement FAST on a desktop PC with an SSD running Linux 2.6.32 OS and evaluate it by launching a set of widely-used applications, demonstrating an average of 28% reduction of application launch time as compared to PC without a prefetcher.

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

application launch performance
solid state drive


A sequential neural network model for diabetes prediction This paper presents a neural network (NN) model to evaluate an existing Health Risk Appraisal (HRA)2 for diabetes prediction over 3 years (19961998) based on a simulated learning algorithm on individual prognostic process, using the repeatedly measured HRAs of 6142 participants. The approach uses a sequential multi-layered perceptron (SMLP) with backpropagation learning, and an explicit model of time-varying inputs along with the sequentially obtained prediction probability, which was obtained by embedding a multivariate logistic function for consecutive years. The study captures the time-sensitive feature of associating risk factors as predictors to the occurrence of diabetes in the corresponding period. This approach outperforms the baseline classification and regression models in terms of gains (average profit: 0.18) and sensitivity (86.04%) for a test data. The result enables a time-sensitive disease prevention and management program as a prospective effort.

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

multi-layered perceptron
disease prediction
hra


How to Start a Wet Forest Ablaze: Perspectives on the Question of the Origins of Human Mindedness This paper is a methodological and theoretical meditation on how some research has approached the question of the evolution of human cognitive traits. I discuss views that explicitly or implicitly endorse a view of human cognition as originating from a cause that can be singled out. Following Ross and Ladyman (2010), I suggest that this singling-out strategy correlates with a container metaphor that doesnt fit with the interactive process-ontology of modern physics (Campbell 2009). Instead, Ross and Ladyman as well as Campbell recommend the metaphor of emergence. The logic and ontology of emergent systems finds resonance with developmental systems theory in biology. I suggest in agreement with Stotz (Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 9(4), 2010) that we view the origins of human mindedness within such a framework.

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


A new approximation algorithm for the multilevel facility location problem In this paper we propose a new integer programming formulation for the multilevel facility location problem and a novel 3-approximation algorithm based on LP-rounding. The linear program that we use has a polynomial number of variables and constraints, thus being more efficient than the one commonly used in the approximation algorithms for these types of problems.

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

facility location
approximation algorithms


Abstraction of agent interaction processes: Towards large-scale multi-agent models The typically large numbers of interactions in agent-based simulations come at considerable computational costs. In this article, we present an approach to reduce the number of interactions based on behavioural patterns that recur during runtime. We employ machine learning techniques to abstract the behaviour of groups of agents to cut down computational complexity while preserving the inherent flexibility of agent-based models. The learned abstractions, which subsume the underlying model agents' interactions, are constantly tested for their validity: after all, the dynamics of a system may change over time to such an extent that previously learned patterns would not reoccur. An invalid abstraction is, therefore, removed again from the system. The creation and removal of abstractions continues throughout the course of a simulation in order to ensure an adequate adaptation to the system dynamics. Experimental results on biological agent-based simulations show that our proposed approach can successfully reduce the computational complexity during the simulation while maintaining the freedom of arbitrary interactions.

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 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

agent-based simulation
collective behaviour
optimization
online learning


geo-word centric association rule mining Association rule mining is a well known data mining technique that also applicable to spatial data. Here we systematically elaborate spatial association rule mining which focusing on the "geo-word" in order to analyze location related preferences of human users. We propose several categories of mining methodologies based on the items in the rule and rule generation process. Novel interestingness metrics are derived out of those mining methodologies to identify location specific characteristics such as local specialties and common words. An experiment on real access logs from a commercial yellowpage site is conducted to examine the effectiveness of those methodologies

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

web mining
location-dependent and sensitive
spatial databases and gis


On Mixing and Edge Expansion Properties in Randomized Broadcasting In this paper, we consider a popular randomized broadcasting algorithm called push-algorithm defined as follows. Initially, one vertex of a graph G = (V, E) owns a piece of information which is spread iteratively to all other vertices: in each timestep t = 1, 2, ... every informed vertex chooses a neighbor uniformly at random and informs it. The question is how many time steps are required until all vertices become informed (with high probability). For various graph classes, involved methods have been developed in order to show an upper bound of O(log N + diam(G)) on the runtime of the push-algorithm, where N is the number of vertices and diam(G) denotes the diameter of G. However, no asymptotically tight bound on the runtime based on the mixing time of random walks has been established. In this work we fill this gap by deriving an upper bound of O(T(mix)+ logN), where T(mix) denotes the mixing time of a certain random walk on G. After that we prove upper bounds that are based on certain edge expansion properties of G. However, for hypercubes neither the bound based on the mixing time nor the bounds based on edge expansion properties are tight. That is why we develop a general way to combine these two approaches by which we can deduce that the runtime of the push-algorithm is Theta (logN) on every Hamming graph.

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

randomized algorithm
distributed and parallel algorithm
markov chain


Asymptotic Analysis of Complex LASSO via Complex Approximate Message Passing (CAMP) Recovering a sparse signal from an undersampled set of random linear measurements is the main problem of interest in compressed sensing. In this paper, we consider the case where both the signal and the measurements are complex-valued. We study the popular recovery method of l(1)-regularized least squares or LASSO. While several studies have shown that LASSO provides desirable solutions under certain conditions, the precise asymptotic performance of this algorithm in the complex setting is not yet known. In this paper, we extend the approximate message passing (AMP) algorithm to solve the complex-valued LASSO problem and obtain the complex approximate message passing algorithm (CAMP). We then generalize the state evolution framework recently introduced for the analysis of AMP to the complex setting. Using the state evolution, we derive accurate formulas for the phase transition and noise sensitivity of both LASSO and CAMP. Our theoretical results are concerned with the case of i.i.d. Gaussian sensing matrices. Simulations confirm that our results hold for a larger class of random matrices.

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

approximate message passing (amp)
complex-valued lasso
compressed sensing (cs)
minimax analysis


designing dashboards for managing model lifecycle Data mining is being extensively used for analysis of large data collections. While there is previous work on dashboard support for visual mining of the data, there is little or no work on dashboard support for managing the lifecycle ( e.g. health) of the data mining models themselves. Issues such as quick performance decay, large scale deployments, collaborative use, and real-time business integration of models necessitate this type of support. In this paper, based on a year long study, we first describe the six stages of the model lifecycle and the preliminary design of the backend system that helps users manage mining models. Next, we discuss the three dimensions to be considered for dashboard visualization of the model lifecycle: introspection, customization , and presentation .

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

visualization
data mining models
model lifecycle
dashboards


Transcendental experiences during meditation practice This article explores transcendental experiences during meditation practice and the integration of transcendental experiences and the unfolding of higher states of consciousness with waking, dreaming, and sleeping. The subject/object relationship during transcendental experiences is characterized by the absence of time, space, and body sensethe framework that gives meaning to waking experiences. Physiologically, transcendental experiences during Transcendental Meditation practice are marked by slow inhalation, along with autonomic orientation at the onset of breath changes and heightened ?1 (810Hz) frontal coherence. The integration of transcendental experiences with waking, dreaming, and sleeping is also marked by distinct subjective and objective markers. This integrated state, called Cosmic Consciousness in the Vedic tradition, is subjectively marked by inner self-awareness coexisting with waking, sleeping, and dreaming. Physiologically, Cosmic Consciousness is marked by the coexistence of ?1 electroencephalography (EEG) with delta EEG during deep sleep, and higher brain integration, greater emotional stability, and decreased anxiety during challenging tasks. Transcendental experiences may be the engine that fosters higher human development.

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

transcending
transcendent
pure consciousness
brain coherence
enlightenment
yoga


Relaxation procedures for an iterative MFS algorithm for two-dimensional steady-state isotropic heat conduction Cauchy problems We investigate two algorithms involving the relaxation of either the given Dirichlet data (boundary temperatures) or the prescribed Neumann data (normal heat fluxes) on the over-specified boundary in the case of the alternating iterative algorithm of Kozlov et al. [26] applied to two-dimensional steady-state heat conduction Cauchy problems, i.e. Cauchy problems for the Laplace equation. The two mixed, well-posed and direct problems corresponding to each iteration of the numerical procedure are solved using a meshless method, namely the method of fundamental solutions (MFS), in conjunction with the Tikhonov regularization method. For each direct problem considered, the optimal value of the regularization parameter is chosen according to the generalized cross-validation (GCV) criterion. The iterative MFS algorithms with relaxation are tested for Cauchy problems associated with the Laplace operator in various two-dimensional geometries to confirm the numerical convergence, stability, accuracy and computational efficiency of the method.

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

iterative method of fundamental solutions (mfs)


Parallel implementation of a low order algorithm for dynamics of multibody systems on a distributed memory computing system In this paper, a new hybrid parallelisable low order algorithm, developed by the authors for multibody dynamics analysis, is implemented numerically on a distributed memory parallel computing system. The presented implementation can currently accommodate the general spatial motion of chain systems, but key issues for its extension to general tree and closed loop systems are discussed. Explicit algebraic constraints are used to increase coarse grain parallelism, and to study the influence of the dimension of system constraint load equations on the computational efficiency of the algorithm for real parallel implementation using the Message Passing Interface (MPI). The equation formulation parallelism and linear system solution strategies which are used to reduce communication overhead are addressed. Numerical results indicate that the algorithm is scalable, that significant speed-up can be obtained, and that a quasi-logarithmic relation exists between time needed for a function call and numbers of processors used. This result agrees well with theoretical performance predictions. Numerical comparisons with results obtained from independently developed analysis codes have validated the correctness of the new hybrid parallelisable low order algorithm, and demonstrated certain computational advantages.

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

distributed memory
low order algorithm
multibody dynamics
parallel computing


Energy landscape analysis for regulatory RNA finding using scalable distributed cyberinfrastructure We investigate the folding energy landscape for a given RNA sequence through Boltzmann ensemble (BE) sampling of RNA secondary structures. The ensemble of sampled structures is used to derive distributions of energies and base-pair distances between two configurations. We identify structural features that can be utilized for RNA gene finding. Characterization of the EL through BE sampling of secondary structures is computationally demanding and has multiple heterogeneous stages. We develop the Distributed Adaptive Runtime Environment to effectively address the computational requirements. Distributed Adaptive Runtime Environment is built upon an extensible and interoperable pilot-job and supports the concurrent execution of a broad range of task sizes across a range of infrastructure. It is used to investigate two RNA systems of different sizes, S-adenosyl methionine (SAM) binding RNA sequences known as SAM-I riboswitches, and the S gene of the bovine corona virus RNA genome. We demonstrate how the implementation lowers the total time to solution for increases in RNA length, the number of sequences investigated, and the number of sampled structures. The distributions of energies and base-pair distances reveal variations in folding dynamics and pathways among the SAM riboswitch sequences. Our results for BCoV RNA genome sequences also indicate sensitivity of folding to coding-neutral variations in sequence. We search for a characteristic motif from within the SAM-I consensus structure - a four-way junction, among BE sampled structures for all 2910 SAM-I sequences identified from Rfam (the curated ncRNA family database). We find that BE sampling provides insight into the variations in conformational distribution among sequences of the same ncRNA family. Therefore, BE sampling of secondary structures is a viable pre-processing or post-processing tool to complement comparative sequence analysis. The understanding gained shows how appropriately designed cyberinfrastructure can provide new insight into RNA folding and structure formation. Copyright (C) 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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

concurrent programming and distributed computing


An algebraic approach to computations with progress We unify models of sequential computations which feature progress. This covers models based on traces, real time, abstract time and Boolean time. We distinguish finite, aborting, incomplete and actually infinite executions. The unified model instantiates algebras for iteration and non-terminating executions. We introduce capped omega algebras to describe fixpoints of bounded affine functions.

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

omega algebras
sequential computations
time
traces

approximation
axiomatic program semantics
iteration algebras
non-termination
relations


Rough approximations in a general approximation space and their fundamental properties This paper presents a framework for the study of generalizing the standard notion of rough set approximation space. We propose new definitions of lower and upper approximations, which are basic concepts of the rough set theory. These definitions follow naturally from a particular property on the universe and are called general lower and upper approximations. Properties of general approximations are investigated, and their connections are examined.

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


Modelling and simulation of a wireless microsensor data acquisition system using PCM techniques This paper presents a review of developed simulated models for a wireless data acquisition system. The system reads analogue information provided by two sensors used for medical purposes. The real data have been recorded by two, pH and pressure sensors used in diagnosing conditions of the esophagus that are employed to examine the system performance. The created model contains four main simulated units using SIMULINK. The first unit contains the output signal, which is encoded to digital signal based on adapting one of the pulse coding modulation (PCM) algorithms. The second unit simulates the processor function that is responsible for framing, mixing and compressing the incoming bit streams from both sensors. The third unit, where the digital data are modulated and sent through different noisy channels, represents an efficient FSK transmitter/receiver model. At the receiver end, the signal is demodulated and processed inversely to extract the original analogue signal read by the two sensors. In this work, the performance of the systems using different PCM methods will be studied comparatively in order to control the transmission and reduce the amount of data frames sent. This will lead to a significant reduction in power consumption. In addition, the performance of the RF unit through additive White Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel was examined by estimating the average bit error rate (BER) for different carrier frequencies. The effect of the multipath fading, inband/outband interference, and adjacent channel power ratio (ACPR) has also been investigated during system assessment.

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

simulink
modelling
data acquisition
pulse coding modulation

frequency shift keying
short-range wireless


WebCT - The quasimoderating effect of perceived affective quality on an extending Technology Acceptance Model Perceived affective quality is an attractive area of research in Information System. Specifically, understanding the intrinsic and extrinsic individual factors and interaction effects that influence Information and Communications Technology (ICT) acceptance and adoption - in higher education - continues to be a focal interest in learning research. In this regard, one type of affective reactions toward ICT (in our study, the WebCT), perceived affective quality, is an essential dimension in user technology acceptance. A structural equation modelling, specifically partial least square (PLS), is proposed to assess the relationships between the constructs together with the predictive power of the research model. The results demonstrate that the research model significantly predicts the intention to use the WebCT. The results provide strong support for the proposals that (a) perceived usefulness, ease of use and flow lead the learners towards developing high intention to use the WebCT; and (b) perceived affective quality exhibits a relevant interaction effect on the model. This study, therefore, represents a "crucial test" of non-utilitarian influences on use of Web-based applications. The model and results can thus be used to assess motivational design aspects during electronic learning process. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

perceived affective quality
flow
perceived usefulness
intention

tam
perceived ease of use
partial least squares


solving project scheduling problems by maximum cut computation This paper deals with methods for solving resource-constrained project-scheduling problems. Among the project activities there can be resource conflicts due to the finite capacity of the resources. The paper aims at describing a new method for minimizing the expected makespan while all the possible resource conflicts get eliminated. The novelty of the algorithm is that it does not enumerate all the possible conflicts in advance but only those which may occur in a partial schedule. The new method has been evaluated using benchmark problems from the literature.

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

graph theorem
combinatorial optimization
algorithms


Novel design and analysis procedures for differential-based filters on silicon In this paper, we present the design and realization of active recursive filters on Silicon employing differential circuits. A noise analysis method dedicated to the optimization of differential circuits is also introduced. (C) 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

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

recursive filters
differential circuits
noise analysis


Maintaining robust decision capabilities: An integrative humansystems approach The purpose of this paper is to examine how to maintain robust and effective decision capabilities for organizations involved in critical operations. Following a multidisciplinary review of the literature, we propose an integrative and cumulative view that is articulated threefold. First, we present an operations resource management, or ORM, framework. Second, we suggest an integrative approach for decision capabilities as they rest on the interaction between humans and systems. Third, we derive a decision model. We show that careful consideration must be given to the interplay among humans, systems, and the environment in which they operate.

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

critical operations management
humansystem interaction (hsi)
information management


The Semantic Grid and chemistry: Experiences with CombeChem The CombeChem e-Science project has demonstrated the advantages of using Semantic Web technology, in particular RDF and the associated triplestores, to describe and link diverse and complex chemical information, covering the whole process of the generation of chemical knowledge from inception in the synthetic chemistry laboratory, through analysis of the materials made which generates physical measurements, computations based on this data to develop interpretations, and the subsequent dissemination of the knowledge gained. The RDF descriptions employed allow for a uniform description of chemical data in a wide variety of forms including multimedia, and of the chemical processes both in the laboratory and in model building. The project successfully adopted a strategy of capturing semantic annotations at source and establishing schema and ontologies based closely on current operational practice in order to facilitate implementation and adoption. We illustrate this in the contexts of the synthetic organic chemistry laboratory with chemists at the bench, computational chemistry for modelling data, and the linking of chemical publications to the underlying results and data to provide the appropriate provenance. The resulting Semantic Data Grid comprises tens of millions of RDF triples across multiple stores representing complex chains of derived data with associated provenance.

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

chemistry
chemical data
dissemination
triplestores

laboratory notebooks
units
research communities
publication@source


Action recognition on motion capture data using a dynemes and forward differences representation We propose a new method for action/movement recognition on motion capture data. The method involves data representation and a bag of words framework. We use a novel modified K-means clustering algorithm suitable for angular data. Our method provides very good results in a number of challenging datasets.

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

action recognition
motion capture data
dynemes
forward differences
bag of words

action representation
angular k-means
skeleton animation


Added value and pricing with information technology This study evaluates the extent to which the added value to customers from a supplier's application of information technology (IT) is manifested through premium prices of a traded good. The study demonstrates that IT can add value to an otherwise undifferentiated good and shows how these benefits accrue to customers from the adoption of IT. Analyzing a case in which the traded good is a homogeneous commodity-commercial fueling-our study shows that the critical impacts of IT are convenience and control-that is, convenience that provides improved access to fuel and control that reduces problems of delegating purchasing authority for the customer. The value of this additional service is exhibited in premium prices customers are willing to pay for the IT-enhanced traded good, relative to the same good without IT. Compared to the price without IT, statistical analysis of the supplier's pricing history demonstrates that the application of IT to commercial fuel yielded price premiums of between five and 12 percent of the retail fuel price.

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 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

economic impacts
interorganizational systems


High-performance parallel solver for 3D time-dependent Schrodinger equation for large-scale nanosystems A parallelized three-dimensional (3D) time-dependent Schrodinger equation (TDSE) solver for one-electron systems is presented in this paper. The TDSE Solver is based on the finite-difference method (FDM) in Cartesian coordinates and uses a simple and explicit leap-frog numerical scheme. The simplicity of the numerical method provides very efficient parallelization and high performance of calculations using Graphics Processing Units (GPUs). For example, calculation of 106 time-steps on the 1000?1000?1000 numerical grid (109 points) takes only 16 hours on 16Tesla M2090 GPUs. The TDSE Solver demonstrates scalability (parallel efficiency) close to 100% with some limitations on the problem size. The TDSE Solver is validated by calculation of energy eigenstates of the hydrogen atom (13.55 eV) and affinity level of H- ion (0.75 eV). The comparison with other TDSE solvers shows that a GPU-based TDSE Solver is 3 times faster for the problems of the same size and with the same cost of computational resources. The usage of a non-regular Cartesian grid or problem-specific non-Cartesian coordinates increases this benefit up to 10 times. The TDSE Solver was applied to the calculation of the resonant charge transfer (RCT) in nanosystems, including several related physical problems, such as electron capture during H+H0 collision and electron tunneling between H- ion and thin metallic island film.

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

3d tdse
gpu
high-performance calculations
resonant electron tunneling


Topology adaptive deformable surfaces for medical image volume segmentation Deformable models, which include deformable contours (the popular snakes) and deformable Surfaces, are a powerful model-based medical image analysis technique. We develop a new class of deformable models by formulating deformable surfaces in terms of an affine cell image decomposition (ACID). Our approach significantly extends standard deformable surfaces, while retaining their interactivity and other desirable properties. In particular, the ACID induces an efficient reparameterization mechanism that enables parametric deformable surfaces to evolve into complex geometries, even modifying their topology as necessary. We demonstrate that our new ACID-based deformable surfaces, dubbed T-surfaces, can effectively segment complex anatomic structures from medical volume images.

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

deformable models
deformable surfaces
segmentation


A multipurpose smart activity monitoring system for personalized health services One of the most popular types of personal health device is the activity monitor, which is attached to the users wrist or waist in order to measure physical activity data such as exercise time/duration and calorie consumption. However, for the purpose of checking the physical conditions, medical staffs may want to check remotely the movement of a patients body parts. Given that it has an activity sensor to measure the speed of a users movement, an activity monitor can also be used to track the movement of a users body part. In this paper, a multipurpose smart activity monitoring system for personalized health services is proposed. The purpose of the system is twofold. The first purpose is to perform easily smart monitoring of a users physical activity. The system proposed in this paper is referred to as smart because the personal activity monitor can be managed remotely through the management commands issued by the monitoring server. The personal data, device data or programs installed in the personal activity monitor can be updated remotely by the monitoring server or medical staffs, and error reports can be delivered to the server or the medical staffs for personalized health services. To do this, the ISO/IEEE 11073 and OMA DM communication protocols are extended and the protocol transformation between two protocols is performed. The second purpose is to perform convenient motion tracking of a users body part in order to monitor the speed of the body part, as well as its tracking path. The system is also referred as multipurpose since the activity monitor can be used in motion tracking as well as in activity monitoring. The objects in motion to be tracked remotely by medical staffs can be a human body part. To do this, in addition to the acceleration sensor, a gyro sensor is installed in the personal activity monitor and the movement data captured by the activity monitor is analyzed to show 2-way views of the movement of the body part on which the activity monitor is attached. Then medical staffs can check remotely the physical conditions of the body part in various ways.

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

personal healthcare device
remote monitoring
personalized health service


Reciprocity and the emergence of power laws in social networks Research in network science has shown that many naturally occurring and technologically constructed networks are scale free, that means a power law degree distribution emerges from a growth model in which each new node attaches to the existing network with a probability proportional to its number of links (= degree). Little is known about whether the same principles of local attachment and global properties apply to societies as well. Empirical evidence from six ethnographic case studies shows that complex social networks have significantly lower scaling exponents gamma similar to 1 than have been assumed in the past. Apparently humans do not only look for the most prominent players to play with. Moreover cooperation in humans is characterized through reciprocity, the tendency. to give to those from whom one has received in the past. Both variables - reciprocity and the scaling exponent - are negatively correlated (r = -0.767, sig = 0.075). If we include this effect in simulations of growing networks, degree distributions emerge that are much closer to those empirically observed. While the proportion of nodes with small degrees decreases drastically as we introduce reciprocity, the scaling exponent is more robust and changes only when a relatively large proportion. of attachment decisions follow this rule. If social networks are less scale free than previously assumed this has far reaching implications for policy makers, public health programs and marketing alike.

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 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 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

scale free networks
anthropology
cross cultural comparison


On control of a base-excited inverted pendulum using neural networks In this paper a neural-network-based control technique is proposed for stabilizing a base-excited inverted pendulum. The pendulum has two degrees of rotational freedom and the base-point moves freely in the three-dimensional space. The goal is to apply control torques to keep the pendulum in a prescribed position in spite of disturbing base-point movements. First, the problem of modeling such a highly nonlinear, non-autonomous system with neural networks is investigated. The model is then applied within a feedback control loop to keep the pendulum about the upright position. The stability of the control system in the presence of the approximation errors of neural networks is also analyzed. The examination of the proposed controller, through simulations, demonstrates the promise of the methodology and exhibits positive aspects, which cannot be achieved by the previously developed techniques, based on Lyapunov stability analysis. These aspects include fast, yet well-maintained damped responses with smooth control torques. The work presented here, can benefit practical problems such as the study of stable locomotion of human upper body and bipedal robots.

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


Personalized Tag Recommendation Based on Generalized Rules Tag recommendation is focused on recommending useful tags to a user who is annotating a Web resource. A relevant research issue is the recommendation of additional tags to partially annotated resources, which may be based on either personalized or collective knowledge. However, since the annotation process is usually not driven by any controlled vocabulary, the collections of user-specific and collective annotations are often very sparse. Indeed, the discovery of the most significant associations among tags becomes a challenging task. This article presents a novel personalized tag recommendation system that discovers and exploits generalized association rules, that is, tag correlations holding at different abstraction levels, to identify additional pertinent tags to suggest. The use of generalized rules relevantly improves the effectiveness of traditional rule-based systems in coping with sparse tag collections, because: (i) correlations hidden at the level of individual tags may be anyhow figured out at higher abstraction levels and (ii) low-level tag associations discovered from collective data may be exploited to specialize high-level associations discovered in the user-specific context. The effectiveness of the proposed system has been validated against other personalized approaches on real-life and benchmark collections retrieved from the popular photo-sharing system Flickr.

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

algorithms
generalized association rule mining


The Galerkin boundary element method for exterior problems of 2-D Helmholtz equation with arbitrary wavenumber Among many efforts put into the problems of eigenvalue for the Helmholtz equation with boundary integral equations, Kleinman proposed a scheme using the simultaneous equations of the Helmholtz integral equation with its boundary normal derivative equation. In this paper, the detailed formulation is given following Kleinmans scheme. In order to solve the integral equation with hypersingularity, a Galerkin boundary element method is proposed and the idea of regularization in the sense of distributions is applied to transform the hypersingular integral to a weak one. At last, a least square method is applied to solve the overdetermined linear equation system. Several numerical examples testified that the scheme presented is practical and effective for the exterior problems of the 2-D Helmholtz equation with arbitrary wavenumber.

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

galerkin boundary element method
exterior problems
helmholtz equation
hypersingular integral
least square method


security analysis and improvement of some proxy signature schemes In 1996, Mambo et al introduced the concept of proxy signature. Proxy signature can be applied to mobile agent, e-vote etc. Recently, Sun and Hsieh showed that Lee et al's strong proxy signature scheme and its application to multi-proxy signature scheme, Shum and Wei's privacy-protected strong proxy signature scheme, and Park and Lee's nominative proxy signature scheme were all insecure against the original signer's forgery attack. In this paper, we show those proxy signature schemes don't withstand public key substitution attack and give some slight but important modifications for those proxy signature schemes such that the resulting schemes are secure against the original signer's forgery attack and public key substitution attack. In addition, we show that Park and Lee's nominative proxy signature scheme don't satisfy strong nonrepudiation and strong identifiability. Improved schemes satisfy all properties of strong proxy signature scheme, and doesn't use secure channel between the original signer and the proxy signer.

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

digital signature
unforgeability
keywords cryptography


A Statistical Framework for Image Category Search from a Mental Picture Starting from a member of an image database designated the "query image," traditional image retrieval techniques, for example, search by visual similarity, allow one to locate additional instances of a target category residing in the database. However, in many cases, the query image or, more generally, the target category, resides only in the mind of the user as a set of subjective visual patterns, psychological impressions, or " mental pictures." Consequently, since image databases available today are often unstructured and lack reliable semantic annotations, it is often not obvious how to initiate a search session; this is the "page zero problem." We propose a new statistical framework based on relevance feedback to locate an instance of a semantic category in an unstructured image database with no semantic annotation. A search session is initiated from a random sample of images. At each retrieval round, the user is asked to select one image from among a set of displayed images-the one that is closest in his opinion to the target class. The matching is then "mental." Performance is measured by the number of iterations necessary to display an image which satisfies the user, at which point standard techniques can be employed to display other instances. Our core contribution is a Bayesian formulation which scales to large databases. The two key components are a response model which accounts for the user's subjective perception of similarity and a display algorithm which seeks to maximize the flow of information. Experiments with real users and two databases of 20,000 and 60,000 images demonstrate the efficiency of the search process.

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

image retrieval
relevance feedback
page zero problem

mental matching
bayesian system
statistical learning


THE ROLE OF FOCUS WORDS IN NATURAL AND IN SYNTHETIC CONTINUOUS SPEECH - ACOUSTIC ASPECTS In everyday communicative situations not all parts of the spoken message are pronounced equally clear. Especially words bearing a high load of semantic information are put in focus by the speaker. The question of how this is realized in natural spontaneous and read speech, and whether resulting knowledge can be applied in synthetic speech to improve naturalness and acceptability, is subject of this study. By introducing a ''peak-and-level'' model we examined spectral and temporal aspects in focus and non-focus words from spontaneous speech material and from the same texts, read out after orthographic transcription. Audio recordings were made of a professional male speaker, whose voice and pronunciation also served as a model for the diphone-based component of the Dutch national speech synthesis program. For a number of acoustic parameters it can be concluded that there is a clear difference, both in ''peak values'' and in ''level values'', between the two natural speech styles, but that the peak values display comparable contrasts to the level values in both styles. The results of our measurements in natural speech were compared to the data of the same texts synthesized by the Dutch diphone text-to-speech system. In a pilot experiment, varying temporal aspects in the synthesized speech, listeners were asked to judge the naturalness and intelligibility in order to determine the starting-point for future evaluation of text-to-speech synthesis including peak-and-level contrasts.

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

read aloud speech
text-to-speech diphone synthesis


On semidefinite programming relaxations of maximum \(k\)-section We derive a new semidefinite programming bound for the maximum \(k\)-section problem. For \(k=2\) (i.e. for maximum bisection), the new bound is at least as strong as a well-known bound by Poljak and Rendl (SIAM J Optim 5(3):467487, 1995). For \(k \ge 3\) the new bound dominates a bound of Karisch and Rendl (Topics in semidefinite and interior-point methods, 1998). The new bound is derived from a recent semidefinite programming bound by De Klerk and Sotirov for the more general quadratic assignment problem, but only requires the solution of a much smaller semidefinite program.

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

maximum bisection
semidefinite programming


Efficient and robust model fitting with unknown noise scale ? robust scale estimation without a breakdown point insensitive to inlier noise distribution efficient and practical application to many computer vision problems

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

robust estimation
ransac
structure from motion


Boundary element method for prediction of hardness of dentin from punch-nano-indentation test In this paper, a quadratic boundary element formulation for prediction of hardness of dentin from punch-nano-indentation test is presented. BE contact formulation is given. The initial strain formulation and von Mises yield criteria are employed to cover plastic deformation. The dentin is assumed to be isotropic, homogenous and elastic-perfectly plastic material. The load versus displacement is obtained during loading-unloading sequence for different yield strength and elastic modulus. Hardness and equivalent residual stresses are plotted for different elastic modulus depending on yield strength. BE method is shown to be an alternative accurate computational tool for simulated nano-indentation tests. (c) 2007 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

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


SYSTEMC-BASED HARDWARE/SOFTWARE CO-DESIGN OF ELLIPTIC CURVE CRYPTOGRAPHIC SYSTEM FOR NETWORK MUTUAL AUTHENTICATION This paper presents the hardware-software co-design of an elliptic curve cryptographic (ECC) system-on-chip (SoC) implementation of a mutual authentication protocol for network/data communication systems. Designing such computationally intensive cryptosystems, particularly for resource-constrained embedded applications using the conventional register transfer level (RTL) methodology leads to extended design cycles, inefficient design-space exploration, very long simulation cycles, tedious verification procedure, and sub-optimal final realization. The solution to this problem is to apply hardware-software co-simulation methods abstracted at the Electronic System Level (ESL). In the ESL modelling framework proposed in this paper, the Unified Modelling Language (UML) is used to create the design documents that describe the system static architecture and functional behaviour. SystemC is used in generating the cycle-accurate executable simulation models. A technique for design space exploration at the system level is also proposed to obtain the best hardware-software partitioning of the ECC SoC well before the final prototype is available. Experimental works with the proposed ESL co-design platform show that early system verification can be performed efficiently, and simulation speed of an ESL model is shown to be about 1000 times faster than the simulation of the equivalent RTL model. System execution time is estimated to be within 95% accuracy of its equivalent RTL.

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

electronic system level
mutual authentication protocol
systemc
unified modelling language

elliptic curve cryptography
system-on-chip


Efficient error recovery with network coding in underwater sensor networks Before the wide deployment of underwater sensor networks becomes a reality, one challenge to be met is efficient error recovery in the presence of high error probability, long propagation delays and low acoustic bandwidth. We believe that network coding is a promising technique for this purpose due to Eq. (1) the computational capability of underwater sensor nodes, and Eq. (2) the broadcast nature Of acoustic Channels. In this paper, we propose an efficient error-recovery scheme that carefully couples network coding and multiple paths. Through an analytical study, we provide guidance on how to choose parameters in Our scheme and demonstrate that the scheme is efficient in both error recovery and energy consumption. We evaluate the performance of this proposed scheme through simulation, and the simulation confirms the results from the analytical study. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

underwater sensor networks
error recovery
network coding