Active control of beam with magneto strictive layer The paper analyses the damping characteristics obtained using a distributed magnetostrictive layer bonded to an aluminum beam for different boundary conditions and coil configurations. The magnetostrictive layer produces the actuating force required to control the vibration in the beam, based on a negative velocity feedback control law. The control input is the current to the solenoid surrounding the beam. Prior formulations in the literature have assumed that the current through the coil is a function of axial distance. Even though this assumption is mathematically valid, a physical consideration of the problem limits such an assumption. In the present study, perhaps for the first time, a finite element formulation, physically consistent with the problem has been developed. Vibration reduction in the beam, by positioning the magnetostrictive layer and its current carrying actuating coil pair along the beam is investigated. Issues associated with control for different boundary condition are highlighted. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

magnetostrictive layer
active control
negative velocity feedback control


An improved approximation algorithm for the clustered traveling salesman problem Given a weighted undirected graph G = (V, E), where the vertex set V is partitioned into K clusters V1. . . . . V-K, the clustered traveling salesman problem is to compute a shortest tour so that all vertices are visited and the vertices of each cluster are visited consecutively. Supposing that no starting and ending vertices of any cluster are specified, we provide a 13/6 (approximate to 2.17)-approximation algorithm, and improve the previous approximation ratio of 2.75 due to Guttmann-Beck, Hassin, Khuller, and Raghavachari [Algorithmica 28 (2000) 422-437]. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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 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

traveling salesman problem
approximation algorithm


A schedule of join operations to reduce I/O cost in spatial database systems In this paper, we propose a graph-based cluster-sequencing method to minimize the I/O cost in spatial join processing. We first define the maximum overlapping (MO) order in a graph, proving that the problem of finding an MO order in a graph is NP-complete. Then, we propose an algorithm to find an approximation to MO order in a graph. We also prove that the approximation to MO order obtained from our method is close to the optimal result. Simulations have been conducted to demonstrate the saving of I/O cost in spatial join by using our method.

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

spatial databases
spatial joins
data partitioning
scheduling


SOM: spiral-fat-tree-based on-demand multicast protocol in a wireless ad-hoc network A mobile ad-hoc network (MANET) is characterized by multihop wireless links, in the absence of any cellular infrastructure, as well as by frequent host mobility. Existing on-demand multicasting protocols are classified into tree-based and mesh-based schemes. This paper presents a robust multicast routing protocol, called the Spiral-fat-tree-based On-demand Multicast (SOM) protocol, which is a means of dynamically establishing a special tree data structure, namely the spiral-fat-tree, in the MANET. The spiral-fat-tree is constructed by appending some backup paths to a multicast tree constructed by our scheme for the purpose of improving the robustness of the multicast tree. The contribution of the spiral-fat-tree is to maintain the stability and increase the robustness of the multicast tree. A performance study shows that our proposed scheme outperforms existing on-demand multicast protocols. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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

mobile ad-hoc network
mobile computing
wireless networks


An optimized Nash nonlinear grey Bernoulli model based on particle swarm optimization and its application in prediction for the incidence of Hepatitis B in Xinjiang, China In this paper, by using a particle swarm optimization algorithm to solve the optimal parameter estimation problem, an improved Nash nonlinear grey Bernoulli model termed PSONNGBM(1,1) is proposed. To test the forecasting performance, the optimized model is applied for forecasting the incidence of hepatitis B in Xinjiang, China. Four models, traditional GM(1,1), grey Verhulst model (GVM), original nonlinear grey Bernoulli model (NGBM(1,1)) and HoltWinters exponential smoothing method, are also established for comparison with the proposed model under the criteria of mean absolute percentage error and root mean square percent error. The prediction results show that the optimized NNGBM(1,1) model is more accurate and performs better than the traditional GM(1,1), GVM, NGBM(1,1) and HoltWinters exponential smoothing method.

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

nonlinear grey bernoulli model
particle swarm optimization
hepatitis b


RANDOM PROJECTIONS AND HOTELLING'S T-2 STATISTICS FOR CHANGE DETECTION IN HIGH-DIMENSIONAL DATA STREAMS The method of change (or anomaly) detection in high-dimensional discrete-time processes using a multivariate Hotelling chart is presented. We use normal random projections as a method of dimensionality reduction. We indicate diagnostic properties of the Hotelling control chart applied to data projected onto a random subspace of R-n. We examine the random projection method using artificial noisy image sequences as examples.

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

change detection
dimensionality reduction
random projections

multidimensional control charts
process monitoring


Robust partitional clustering by outlier and density insensitive seeding The leading partitional clustering technique, k-means, is one of the most computationally efficient clustering methods. However, it produces a local optimal solution that strongly depends on its initial seeds. Bad initial seeds can also cause the splitting or merging of natural clusters even if the clusters are well separated. In this paper, we propose, ROBIN, a novel method for initial seed selection in k-means types of algorithms. it imposes constraints on the chosen seeds that lead to better clustering when k-means converges. The constraints make the seed selection method insensitive to outliers in the data and also assist it to handle variable density or multi-scale clusters. Furthermore, they (constraints) make the method deterministic, so only one run suffices to obtain good initial seeds, as opposed to traditional random seed selection approaches that need many runs to obtain good seeds that lead to satisfactory clustering. We did a comprehensive evaluation of ROBIN against state-of-the-art seeding methods on a wide range of synthetic and real datasets. We show that ROBIN consistently outperforms existing approaches in terms of the clustering quality. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

O B I O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 manifesto for agent technology: Towards next generation computing The European Commission's eEurope initiative aims to bring every citizen, home, school, business and administration online to create a digitally literate Europe. The value lies not in the objective itself, but in its ability to facilitate the advance of Europe into new ways of living and working. Just as in the first literacy revolution, our lives will change in ways never imagined. The vision of eEurope is underpinned by a technological infrastructure that is now taken for granted. Yet it provides us with the ability to pioneer radical new ways of doing business, of undertaking science, and, of managing our everyday activities. Key to this step change is the development of appropriate mechanisms to automate and improve existing tasks, to anticipate desired actions on our behalf ( as human users) and to undertake them, while at the same time enabling us to stay involved and retain as much control as required. For many, these mechanisms are now being realised by agent technologies, which are already providing dramatic and sustained benefits in several business and industry domains, including B2B exchanges, supply chain management, car manufacturing, and so on. While there are many real successes of agent technologies to report, there is still much to be done in research and development for the full benefits to be achieved. This is especially true in the context of environments of pervasive computing devices that are envisaged in coming years. This paper describes the current state-of-the-art of agent technologies and identifies trends and challenges that will need to be addressed over the next 10 years to progress the field and realise the benefits. It offers a roadmap that is the result of discussions among participants from over 150 organisations including universities, research institutions, large multinational corporations and smaller IT start-up companies. The roadmap identifies successes and challenges, and points to future possibilities and demands; agent technologies are fundamental to the realisation of next generation computing.

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

agent technology
roadmap
trends
challenges


Evolving rule-based systems in two medical domains using genetic programming : To demonstrate and compare the application of different genetic programming (GP) based intelligent methodologies for the construction of rule-based systems in two medical domains: the diagnosis of aphasia's subtypes and the classification of pap-smear examinations. Past data representing (a) successful diagnosis of aphasia's subtypes from collaborating medical experts through a free interview per patient, and (b) correctly classified smears (images of cells) by cyto-technologists, previously stained using the Papanicolaou method. Initially a hybrid approach is proposed, which combines standard genetic programming and heuristic hierarchical crisp rule-base construction. Then, genetic programming for the production of crisp rule based systems is attempted. Finally, another hybrid intelligent model is composed by a grammar driven genetic programming system for the generation of fuzzy rule-based systems. Results denote the effectiveness of the proposed systems, while they are also compared for their efficiency, accuracy and comprehensibility, to those of an inductive machine learning approach as well as to those of a standard genetic programming symbolic expression approach. The proposed GP-based intelligent methodologies are able to produce accurate and comprehensible results for medical experts performing competitive to other intelligent approaches. The aim of the authors was the production of accurate but also sensible decision rules that could potentially help medical doctors to extract conclusions, even at the expense of a higher classification score achievement.

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

genetic programming
inductive machine learning

hybrid intelligence
grammar driven gp
genetic-fuzzy systems
medical decision making
aphasia
pap-smear test


A nonlocal energy minimization approach to brain image segmentation with simultaneous bias field estimation and denoising Image segmentation plays an important role in medical image analysis. The most widely used image segmentation algorithms, region-based methods that typically rely on the homogeneity of image intensities in the regions of interest, often fail to provide accurate segmentation results due to the existence of bias field, heavy noise and rich structures. In this paper, we incorporate nonlocal regularization mechanism in the coherent local intensity clustering formulation for brain image segmentation with simultaneously estimating bias field and denoising, specially preserving good structures. We define an energy functional with a local data fitting term, two nonlocal regularization terms for both image and membership functions, and a \(L_2\) image fidelity term. By minimizing the energy, we get good segmentation results with well preserved structures. Meanwhile, the bias estimation and noise reduction can also be achieved. Experiments performed on synthetic and clinical brain magnetic resonance imaging data and comparisons with other methods are given to demonstrate that by introducing the nonlocal regularization mechanism, we can get more regularized segmentation results.

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

bias field
image segmentation
energy functional
membership functions
nonlocal regularization


parallel evaluation of multi-join queries A number of execution strategies for parallel evaluation of multi-join queries have been proposed in the literature; their performance was evaluated by simulation. In this paper we give a comparative performance evaluation of four execution strategies by implementing all of them on the same parallel database system, PRISMA/DB. Experiments have been done up to 80 processors. The basic strategy is to first determine an execution schedule with minimum total cost and then parallelize this schedule with one of the four execution strategies. These strategies, coming from the literature, are named: Sequential Parallel, Synchronous Execution, Segmented Right-Deep, and Full Parallel. Based on the experiments clear guidelines are given when to use which strategy.

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

use strategies simulation parallel performance queries paper database cost evaluation

processor
scheduling
systems
synchronization
guideline
experience
performance evaluation


Strip line detection and thinning by RPCL-based local PCA We solve the tasks of strip line detection and thinning in image processing and pattern recognition with the help of a statistical learning technique called rival penalized competitive learning based local principal component analysis. Due to its model selection and noise resistance ability, the technique is experimentally shown to outperform conventional Hough transform and thinning algorithms. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

strip line detection
local pca
model selection


Simple linear string constraints Modern web applications often suffer from command injection attacks. Even when equipped with sanitization code, many systems can be penetrated due to software bugs. It is desirable to automatically discover such vulnerabilities, given the bytecode of a web application. One approach would be symbolically executing the target system and constructing constraints for matching path conditions and attack patterns. Solving these constraints yields an attack signature, based on which, the attack process can be replayed. Constraint solving is the key to symbolic execution. For web applications, string constraints receive most of the attention because web applications are essentially text processing programs. We present simple linear string equation (SISE), a decidable fragment of the general string constraint system. SISE models a collection of regular replacement operations (such as the greedy, reluctant, declarative, and finite replacement), which are frequently used by text processing programs. Various automata techniques are proposed for simulating procedural semantics such as left-most matching. By composing atomic transducers of a SISE, we show that a recursive algorithm can be used to compute the solution pool, which contains the value range of each variable in concrete solutions. Then a concrete variable solution can be synthesized from a solution pool. To accelerate solver performance, a symbolic representation of finite state transducer is developed. This allows the constraint solver to support a 16-bit Unicode alphabet in practice. The algorithm is implemented in a Java constraint solver called SUSHI. We compare the applicability and performance of SUSHI with Kaluza, a bounded string solver.

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


Power algorithms for inverting laplace transforms This paper investigates ways to create algorithms to invert Laplace transforms numerically within a unified framework proposed by Abate and Whitt (2006). That framework approximates the desired function value by a finite linear combination of transform values, depending on parameters called weights and nodes, which are initially left unspecified. Alternative parameter sets, and thus algorithms, are generated and evaluated here by considering power test functions. Real weights for a real-variable power algorithm are found for specified real powers and positive real nodes by solving a system of linear equations involving a generalized Vandermonde matrix, using Mathematica. The resulting power algorithms are shown to be effective, with the parameter choice being tunable to the transform being inverted. The powers can be advantageously chosen from series expansions of the transform. Experiments show that the power algorithms are robust in the nodes; it suffices to use the first n positive integers. The power test functions also provide a useful way to evaluate the performance of other algorithms.

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

laplace transforms
power test functions
power algorithms
generalized vandermonde matrix

numerical transform inversion
fourier-series method
talbot's method
gaver-stehfest algorithm
zakian's algorithm
multiprecision computing
mathematica programming language


On the security of the Digital Signature Algorithm We present a key-recovery attack against the Digital Signature Algorithm (DSA). Our method is based on the work of Coppersmith [7], and is similar in nature to the attacks of Boneh et al. [5,9] which use lattice reduction techniques to determine upper bounds on the size of an RSA decryption exponent under which it will be revealed by the attack. This work similarly determines provable upper bounds on the sizes of the two key parameters in the DSA for which the system can be broken. Specifically if about half of the total number of bits in the secret and ephemeral keys, assuming contiguous unknown bits in each key, are known, the system can be shown to be insecure. The same technique shows that if about half of the total number of bits in two ephemeral keys are known, again assumed contiguous unknown bits in each key, but with no knowledge of the secret key, the system can be shown to be insecure.

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


Cost-based,

integrated

design

optimization

Prompted

by

a

shift

in

design

philosophy

from

product

performance

to

cost-effectiveness,

the

present

work

addresses

issues

pertaining

to

the

evaluation

of

cost

during

design

and

its

subsequent

incorporation

in

the

design

optimization

process.

Various

cost

modeling

methodologies

as

applicable

to

engineering

design

are

studied.

Following

a

comparison

of

the

performance-oriented

and

cost-driven

approaches

to

design

optimization,

a

novel,

unified

approach

termed

design-for-integrated-cost-and-performance

is

developed.

Moreover,

focusing

mainly

on

structural

design,

implications

of

the

simultaneous

design

paradigm,

which

extends

the

design

process

beyond

its

conventional

boundaries,

are

highlighted

by

considering

manufacturing

and

fabrication

constraints

alongside

the

typical

structural

requirements

such

as

mass,

stiffness,

or

strength.

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

structural optimization
integrated designs


Hardware Security Device Facilitated Trusted Energy Services We report on our experiences in developing a hardware based security solution for a novel, smart-grid enabled energy services system. In this paper, we first give a background to a new energy services model and then describe how we incorporated a CSIRO developed portable trusted computing platform into a practical, prototype system which assures that all transactions between the energy service company and the consumer are trustworthy, secure and private.

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

energy services
security
trusted computing

trustworthy systems
authentication
privacy
accountability


Analyzing Th17 cell differentiation dynamics using a novel integrative modeling framework for time-course RNA sequencing data The differentiation of naive CD 4+ helper T (Th) cells into effector Th17 cells is steered by extracellular cytokines that activate and control the lineage specific transcriptional program. While the inducing cytokine signals and core transcription factors driving the differentiation towards Th17 lineage are well known, detailed mechanistic interactions between the key components are poorly understood.

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

t cell differentiation
t helper 17 cell
mathematical modeling
statistical modeling
computational statistics


Reducing and vectorizing procedures for telescoping languages At Rice University, we have undertaken a project to construct a framework for generating high-level problem solving languages that can achieve high performance on a variety of platforms. The underlying strategy, called telescoping languages, builds problem-solving systems from domain-specific libraries and scripting languages by extensively preanalyzing libraries to produce a precompiler that optimizes library calls within the scripts as if they were primitives in the underlying language. Our study of applications written in Matlab by the signal processing group at Rice University has identified a collection of old and new optimizations that show promise for this particular domain. Two promising new optimizations are procedure vectorization and procedure strength reduction. By transforming these programs, at source level, according to the strategies described in this paper, we were able to achieve speedups ranging from a factor of 1.1 to 1.6 over the entire applications-with speedups for individual functions as high as 3.3.

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

telescoping languages
matlab
vectorization


Inference for some time series models with random coefficients and infinite variance innovations Infinite variance processes have attracted growing interest in recent years due to its applications in many areas of statistics. For example, ARIMA time series models with infinite variance innovations are widely used in financial modelling. However, little attention has been paid to incorporate infinite variance innovations for time series models with random coefficients introduced by Nicholls and Quinn [1]. Estimation of model parameters for some special cases are discussed using the least absolute deviation (LAD) estimating function approach when the closed form density is available. It is also shown that these new LAD estimates are superior to some of the existing ones. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

random coefficients
least absolute deviation
estimation

stable distributions
heavy-tails
autoregressive
dispersion


Renal Effects of Oral Maillard Reaction Product Load in the Form of Bread Crusts in Healthy and Subtotally Nephrectomized Rats Abstract: The biological consequences of chronic consumption of Maillard reaction products (MRPs) on renal function in health and renal disease are still incompletely understood. We investigated the metabolic and renal effects of a diet with varying MRP content in healthy and subtotally nephrectomized rats. Male Wistar rats were subjected to sham operation (control, C, n= 12), or to 5/6 nephrectomy (5/6NX, n= 12). Both groups were randomized into subgroups and pair-fed with either a MRP-poor or -rich diet for six weeks. The diet was prepared by replacing 5% or 25% of wheat starch by bread crust (BC). In spite of pair-feeding, the rats on the 25% BC diet gained more body weight (C: 183 6 g; C + 5% BC: 197 7 g; C + 25% BC: 229 6 g [P < 0.05]; 5/6NX: 165 10 g; 5/6NX + 5% BC: 202 3 g; 5/6NX + 25% BC: 209 8 g [P < 0.05]) and had a higher organ weight (heart, liver, lung, kidney/remnant kidney). Bread crust-enriched diet induced proteinuria (C: 15 5 mg/24 h; C + 5% BC: 19 4; C + 25% BC: 26 3 [P < 0.05]; 5/6NX: 30 7 mg/24 h; 5/6NX + 5% BC: 47 9; 5/6NX + 25% BC: 87 19 [P < 0.01]) and a rise in urinary transforming growth factor ?1 excretion (C: 0.4 0.1 ng/24 h; C + 5% BC: 0.6 0.1; C + 25% BC: 1.2 0.3; 5/6NX: 0.5 0.1 ng/24 h; 5/6NX + 5% BC: 0.9 0.1; 5/6NX + 25% BC: 1.6 0.2 [P < 0.01]). Plasma creatinine or creatinine clearance were not affected significantly. In conclusion, our data suggests that long-term consumption of a diet rich in MRPs may lead to damage of the kidneys.

O O O O O O O O O O O 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 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

advanced glycation end products (ages)
maillard reaction products (mrps)
transforming growth factor-beta 1


Designing optimal mortality risk prediction scores that preserve clinical knowledge We develop a framework for the design of optimal mortality risk prediction scores. The proposed flexible model transforms raw variables using logistic functions. This overcomes variable dichotomization in additive stepwise mortality risk scores. Superior performance over existing scores is demonstrated. The novel score may be re-learned as patient population and standards of care evolve.

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

prognostic model
optimizable risk score
continuous risk score
nonlinear features
icu
prism iii
sofa


Access control: principles and solutions Access control is the process of mediating every request to resources and data maintained by a system and determining whether the request should be granted or denied. The variety and complexity of the protection requirements that may need to be imposed makes access control a far from trivial process. Expressiveness and flexibility are top requisites for an access control system together with, and usually in conflict with, simplicity and efficiency. In this paper, we discuss the main desiderata for access control systems and illustrate the main characteristics of access control solutions in some of the most popular existing systems. Copyright (C) 2003 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.

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

security principles
operating systems
dbms
internet-based solutions


Preference for newspaper size Five different standard sizes of newspaper were tested for reader preference. Preferences were determined in comfortable and cramped environments. A paired comparison method yielded scales of reading preference. In both reading environments, the Tabloid format was preferred over other sizes. Differences in preferences were greater in cramped reading environment.

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


An experimental evaluation of novelty detection methods Novelty detection is especially important for monitoring safety-critical systems in which novel conditions rarely occur and knowledge about novelty in that system is often limited or unavailable. There are a large number of studies in the area of novelty detection, but there is a lack of a comprehensive experimental evaluation of existing novelty detection methods. This paper aims to fill this void by conducting experimental evaluation of representative novelty detection methods. It presents a state-of-the-art review of novelty detection, with a focus on methods reported in the last few years. In addition, a rigorous comparative evaluation of four widely used methods, representative of different categories of novelty detectors, is carried out using 10 benchmark datasets with different scale, dimensionality and problem complexity. The experimental results demonstrate that the k-NN novelty detection method exhibits competitive overall performance to the other methods in terms of the AUC metric.

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

support vector data description
gaussian mixture
k-means clustering
k nearest neighbours


Modular natural language interfaces to logic-based policy frameworks Architecture for adding natural language interfaces to access policy frameworks A new semantic mapping for Attempto Controlled English into first-order logic Use of compositional formal semantics provides broader grammatical coverage. Automatic generation of new domain lexicons based on logical signatures Used to develop interfaces for multiple policy domains in a short period of time

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

user interface
computational semantics
controlled natural language


tabulation based 4-universal hashing with applications to second moment estimation We show that 4-universal hashing can be implemented efficiently using tabulated 4-universal hashing for characters, gaining a factor of 5 in speed over the fastest existing methods. We also consider generalization to k -universal hashing, and as a prime application, we consider the approximation of the second moment of a data stream.

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

applications hashing factor approximation

character
estimates
general
method
data streaming


On the capacity of generalized write-once memory with state transitions described by an arbitrary directed acyclic graph The generalized write-once memory introduced by Bat and Shamir is a q-ary information storage medium. Each storage cell is expected to store one of q symbols, and the legal state transitions are described by an arbitrary directed acyclic graph. This memory model can be understood as a generalization of the binary write-once memory which was introduced by Rivest and Shamir. During the process of updating information, the contents of a cell, can be changed from a 0-state to a 1-state but not vice versa. We study the problem of reusing a generalized write-once memory for T successive cycles (generations). We determine the zero-error capacity region and the maximum total number of information bits stored in the memory for T consecutive cycles for the situation where the encoder knows and the decoder does not know the previous state of the memory. These results extend the results of Wolf, Wyner, Ziv, and Korner for the binary write-once memory.

O O B 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 O 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 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 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

capacity
directed acyclic graph
information


TIDES-a new descriptor for time series oscillation behavior Sensor networks have increased the amount and variety of temporal data available, requiring the definition of new techniques for data mining. Related research typically addresses the problems of indexing, clustering, classification, summarization, and anomaly detection. There is a wide range of techniques to describe and compare time series, but they focus on series' values. This paper concentrates on a new aspect-that of describing oscillation patterns. It presents a technique for time series similarity search, and multiple temporal scales, defining a descriptor that uses the angular coefficients from a linear segmentation of the curve that represents the evolution of the analyzed series. This technique is generalized to handle co-evolution, in which several phenomena vary at the same time. Preliminary experiments with real datasets showed that our approach correctly characterizes the oscillation of single time series, for multiple time scales, and is able to compute the similarity among sets of co-evolving series.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 series similarity computation
time series descriptor
oscillation of series
series co-evolution


Higher-order time integration through smooth mesh deformation for 3D fluid-structure interaction simulations In this paper, we present a higher-order accurate in time, partitioned integration scheme (IMEX) for fluid-structure interaction. The scheme is based on a combination of an implicit, L-stable, multi-stage Runge-Kutta scheme and an explicit Runge-Kutta scheme. Fluid and structure dynamics are integrated using the implicit scheme and only the pressure loads acting on the structure are integrated explicitly. For an academic problem we show that mesh optimization functions, which are often necessary in standard mesh deformation algorithms, can have a detrimental effect on the temporal order and accuracy. We use a radial basis function (RBF) interpolation with a thin plate spline to create a smooth displacement field for the whole fluid domain, which does not affect the order of the IMEX time integration scheme. For reasonable accuracies, the IMEX schemes outperform a second-order staggered scheme by a factor of 2-3. As an example for a three-dimensional, real-world problem, a simulation of a transonic wing flutter case, the AGARD 445.6 wing, is performed. For this test case, a clear third-order time accuracy is observed for IMEX3. (c) 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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

fluid-structure interaction
partitioned coupling
higher-order time integration


Display of Munsell color values, earthquakes, and other three- and four-parameter datasets in stereo 3D ? A new version of the program 3D.BAS facilitates display of three- and four-parameter datasets, particularly earthquake distributions and Munsell color measurements, by using stereoscopic 3D scatterplots. With respect to earthquakes, hypocenters can be plotted on whole-earth spherical plots or on rectangular plots for specific regions. The program allows a series of earthquakes to be examined quake by quake, with coding of symbol shapes and/or colors for depths, magnitudes, time intervals, or individual identification. It also allows a variety of panning, zooming, slicing, rotation, projection, and stepping. It can handle datasets of 104 earthquakes, and can filter such a dataset for quakes below, between, or above specific depths or intensities, or within chosen distances on either side of an oblique line. With respect to Munsell colors, the program can plot the three constituent parameters (hue, lightness, and chroma) on a rectangular coordinate system that mimics the arrangement of a stack of pages of color chips, or on cylindrical and spherical coordinate systems (the Munsell color cylinder or color sphere).

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

stereopair graphs
3d graphic methods
data processing


Structure generation by palindromization `Palindromization' refers to an iterative process in which a starting number N0 is turned into N?0 by writing its digits in reversed order. Subsequently, N0 and N?0 are added (or subtracted), yielding N1, and the process repeated. Arranging the resulting sequences, Nn, one beneath the other and centered, assigning colors to the digits, we obtain intricate colored patterns. These patterns depend on the starting number, N0, the base g of the chosen number system and the specific kind of succession of additions and subtractions in the palindromization process, called the mode m of palindromization. Various types of structures generated by palindromization are presented: patternless and aperiodic, periodic, mixed types, quasipalindromic trapezia (Sierpinski gaskets), bent repetitive sequences, and columns of substructures looking something like hieroglyphs.

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

palindromization process
bent repetitive sequences

identical and extended reproduction of sequences


Randomized cellular automata We define and study a few properties of a class of random automata networks. While regular finite one-dimensional cellular automata are defined on periodic lattices, these automata networks, called randomized cellular automata, are defined on random directed graphs with constant out-degrees and evolve according to cellular automaton rules. For some families of rules, a few typical a priori unexpected results are presented.

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


Hardware implementation of subtractive clustering for radionuclide identification Radioactivity is the spontaneous emission of energy from unstable atoms. Radioactive sources have radionuclides. Radionuclide undergoes radioactive decay and emits gamma rays and subatomic particles, constituting the ionizing radiation. The gamma ray energy of a radionuclide is used to determine the identity of gamma emitters present in the source. This paper describes the hardware implementation of subtractive clustering algorithm to perform radionuclide identification. The hardware was proven to be effective for this task, allowing scalability to increase parallelism in the computations.

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

data classification
reconfigurable hardware


A compact high gain microstrip antenna for wireless applications In this article, we describe a novel type of defective ground surface (DGS) microstrip antenna that achieves higher gain, multi resonant frequency with compact size. The proposed antenna consists of a hexagonal shaped patch with small volume. Six triangular slots have been cut on the ground plane, just below the six corners of the hexagonal radiating patch. Antenna is circularly polarized one and it has the measured peak gain of 7.2dBi. The antenna shows multi frequency behavior and more than 57% compactness compare to the conventional hexagonal patch antenna. The simulated results are confirmed experimentally. The proposed antenna is simple in structure compared with the regular stacked or coplanar parasitic patch antennas. It is highly suitable for wireless communications.

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

microstrip antenna
defective ground surface
high gain
compactness
multi frequency


A program for individual and population optimal design for univariate and multivariate response pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic models The design of pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic experiments concerns a number of issues, among which are the number of observations and the times when they are taken. often a model is used to describe these data and the pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic behavior of a drug. Knowledge of the data analysis model at the design stage is beneficial for collecting patient data for parameter estimation. A number of criteria for model-oriented experiments, which maximize the information content of the data, are available. In this paper we present a program, Popdes, to investigate the D-optimal design of individual and population multivariate response models, such as pharmacokinetic-pharm aco dynamic, physiologically based pharmacokinetic, and parent drug and metabolites models. A pre-clinical and clinical pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic model describing the concentration-time profile and effect of an oncology compound in development is used for illustration. (c) 2007 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

d-optimal design
pharmacokinetics
pharmacodynamics


Exploring knowledge sharing in virtual communities Purpose - Knowledge sharing has played an important role in the proliferation of virtual communities. However little research has provided an integrated view of knowledge sharing for a general-purpose (non-professional) virtual community. This study aims to suggest that four driving forces, i.e. utilitarian motivation, hedonic motivation, control belief (self-efficacy) and contextual force (sharing culture), motivate users' attitudes toward knowledge sharing. Design/methodology/approach - The research participants are knowledge contributors who participate in general-purpose virtual communities. A total of 473 valid questionnaires were collected. Structural equation modelling was used to test the research hypothesis. Findings - The results show that users' attitude toward knowledge is determined by all four key forces: utilitarian motivation (reciprocity, reputation), hedonic motivation (enjoying helping), control belief (self-efficacy) and contextual force (sharing culture). Users' attitude, self-efficacy and sharing culture have an effect on continuance intention to share knowledge. Research limitations/implications - Contrary to prior studies of professional knowledge sharing, this study found that hedonic motivation is more important than utilitarian motivation in terms of intention to continue sharing knowledge. Practical implications - Virtual community service providers should provide mechanisms for users to enjoy helping others, refine utilitarian benefits by improving honour and rewards systems, support a fair and open sharing culture, and help users to gain a stronger sense of competence as successful knowledge sharers. Originality/value - This study articulates and empirically validates an integrated model of knowledge sharing. It helps researchers better understand continued knowledge sharing behaviour in virtual communities.

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

knowledge sharing
continuance intention
hedonic motivation
sharing culture
utilitarian motivation
virtual community


An efficient normalized maximum likelihood algorithm for DNA sequence compression This article presents an efficient algorithm for DNA sequence compression, which achieves the best compression ratios reported over a test set commonly used for evaluating DNA compression programs. The algorithm introduces many refinements to a compression method that combines: (1) encoding by a simple normalized maximum likelihood (NML) model for discrete regression, through reference to preceding approximate matching blocks, (2) encoding by a first order context coding and (3) representing strings in clear, to make efficient use of the redundancy sources in DNA data, under fast execution times. One of the main algorithmic features is the constraint on the matching blocks to include reasonably long contiguous, matches, which not only reduces significantly the search time, but also can be used to modify the NML model to exploit the constraint for getting smaller code lengths. The algorithm handles the changing statistics of DNA data in an adaptive way and by predictively encoding the matching pointers it is successful in compressing long approximate matches. Apart from comparison with previous DNA encoding methods, we present compression results for the recently published human genome data.

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

approximate sequence matching
normalized maximum likelihood model


The method of fundamental solutions for problems of free vibrations of plates In this paper a new boundary method for problems of free vibrations of plates is presented. The method is based on mathematically modelling of the physical response of a system to external excitation over a range of frequencies. The response amplitudes are then used to determine the resonant frequencies. So, contrary to the traditional scheme, the method described does not involve evaluation of determinants of linear systems. The method shows a high precision in simply and doubly connected domains. The results of the numerical experiments justifying the method are presented.

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

free vibrations
plates
method of fundamental solutions


improving visibility of remote gestures in distributed tabletop collaboration Collaborative distributed tabletop activities involving real objects are complicated by invisibility factors introduced into the workspace. In this paper, we propose a technique called "remote lag" to alleviate the problems caused by the invisibility of remote gestures. The technique provides people with instant playback of remote gestures to recover from the missed context of coordination. To examine the effects of the proposed technique, we studied four-person groups who engaged in two mentoring tasks using physical objects with and without remote lags. Our results show that remote lags effectively alleviated the invisibility problems, resulting in fewer questions/confirmations and redundant instructions during collaboration. The technique also decreased the overall workload of workers as well as the temporal demands for both helpers and workers.

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

remote gesture
video-mediated communication
group-to-group collaboration


Systemic modelling and computational physiology: The application of Bond Graph boundary conditions for 3D cardiovascular models This paper presents an application of Bond Graphs in physiological modelling. In this work, a Bond Graph model is utilised as boundary condition for a detailed model of an idealized mitral valve. Applications of this type fit within the framework described by the Virtual Physiological Human initiative. This supports the integration of physical, mechanical and biochemical models encompassing a range of different length and time scales to obtain predictive models of the human body. Because 3D detailed modelling and simulation is computationally intensive, a 3D computational model of a whole biological system is, by todays standards, impossible to achieve. Due to their unique multi-physics nature of internal coherence, Bond Graphs are particularly suited to biological applications and can be coupled to 3D models and lumped parameter models. A specific application in cardiovascular modelling is demonstrated by focusing on a specific example; a 3D model of the mitral valve coupled to a lumped parameter model of the left ventricle.

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

bond graphs
boundary conditions
computational physiology

cardiovascular modelling and simulation
3d modelling
lumped parameter modelling
cardiac valves modelling and simulation
biological modelling


Spacetime trellis codes for MSK Minimum shift keying (MSK) is a power/bandwidth efficient continuous phase modulation technique with constant envelope and, hence, is attractive for use in wireless systems employing inexpensive nonlinear power amplifiers. Spacetime coding provide high transmission rates, diversity and coding gains. In this paper, by combining these two techniques, full-rate full-diversity spacetime trellis codes for MSK employing two and three transmit antennas are proposed for quasi-static Rayleigh fading channels. Their frame error rate performances are evaluated by computer simulations when one and four receive antennas are used and it is shown that the proposed codes have good error performance.

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

rayleigh fading
spacetime coding
continuous phase modulation
minimum shift keying


testing visualization on the use of information systems In this study, we tested how users perceived differently between an information visualization system and a text information retrieval system. A between-subjects user-centered experiment was conducted and 32 subjects participated in this study. The CiteSpace system and the Web of Science system were compared, with the former focuses on visualization output and the latter addresses textual output. The results showed that subjects gave significantly more positive ratings in a majority of measures to the CiteSpace system than the Web of Science system. Results indicate that it would be helpful to consider different visualization techniques to represent and organize information in the design of information retrieval systems.

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

knowledge domain visualization
search performance
domain knowledge


SEXUAL REPRODUCTION IN A SIMPLE GROWTH POPULATION MODEL One of the most important characteristics in the survival of a species is related to the kind of reproduction responsible for the offspring generation. However, only in the last years the role played by sexual reproduction has been investigated. Then, for a better understanding of this kind of process we introduce, in this work, a surface reaction model that describes the role of the sexual reproduction. In our model two different elements of the species, representing male and female, can interact to reproduce a new element. The sex of this new element is chosen with a given probability and in order to take into account the mortality rate we introduce another kind of individual. The value of the spatial density of this element remains constant during the time evolution of the system. The model is studied using Monte Carlo simulations and mean field approximation. Depending on the values of the control parameters of the model, the system can attain two stationary states: In one of them the population survives and in the other it can be extinguished. Besides, accordingly to our results, the phase diagram of the model shows a discontinuous transition between these two states.

O 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


Efficient Built-In Self-Repair Techniques for Multiple Repairable Embedded RAMs In this paper, efficient built-in self-repair (BISR) techniques for multiple repairable memory cores with different sizes and divided redundancy mechanisms are proposed. Embedded memory cores are first partitioned into memory groups. For each memory group, a redundant memory module is added and divided into row blocks and column blocks. Moreover, the memory cores within a memory group are partitioned into divided arrays (consisting of row/column blocks) of the same size. The redundant memory can be shared among all memory cores within the same memory group. Therefore, unlike the traditional redundancy architectures, a row (column) block is used as the basic replacement element. Based on the proposed redundancy architecture, a heuristic heterogeneous extended spare pivoting redundancy analysis algorithm suitable for built-in implementation is also proposed. Experimental results show that the repair rate and manufacturing yield can be improved significantly due to the efficient usage of redundancy. Moreover, the area overhead of the BISR circuitry for an example memory group consisting of four memory instances of size 9.25 Mbits is only 1.12%.

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


design and analysis of bi-directional pumping silicon raman laser In this paper, a novel design of bi-directional pumping scheme is proposed and analyzed for the first time in an attempt to verify its validity as a mean for loss reduction and gain enhancement in Raman silicon laser. FCA loss is identified as the key loss contributor in silicon Raman process which is highly dependent on peak input pump power level, from the simulation results to account for various loss mechanisms in on-off gain simulation. To solve the problem of high threshold and low gain obtained in Raman silicon laser, bi-directional pumping scheme is proposed to have the effects of loss reduction by peak power limitation and Raman gain enhancement through average power increment. This is also substantiated by simulation of average and instantaneous pump power level along the silicon waveguide length. With bi-directional pumping, Raman silicon laser could improve in its threshold power and gain/slope efficiency to enable it better application credibility.

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


Modeling binding modes of angiotensin II and pseudopeptide analogues to the AT2 receptor The 3D model of the AT2 receptor has been built employing homology to the transmembrane domain of rhodopsin and a novel build-up procedure for restoring the extracellular loops. By docking a model peptide of angiotensin II in the AT2 receptor model two plausible binding modes were identified. These binding modes were in agreement with most of the suggested ligandreceptor contact points reported in the literature. Eight active and one inactive pseudopeptide angiotensin II analogue were also docked in the receptor and four of the active pseudopeptides were found to mimic the binding mode of angiotensin II. An alternative binding mode for the other four active pseudopeptides was found.

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

homology modeling
bioactive conformation


creation and validation of symbols with purposeful games and online survey This paper presents study results based on a specially designed and constructed web platform called www.sketcharoo.com. Sketcharoo uses a "Game with a Purpose" (GWAP) and a conventional survey to investigate how online participants translate text terms into drawings, and back into text. A specially developed "Simplicity Index" permits the quantification of symbol performance. The investigation of acts of cognition and translation are of great relevance for psychology, marketing, and design. This is of importance for big content providers such as Google, market researchers, psychologists, and educators. We are presenting examples of both the numerical results obtained from participant text input, as well as some of the sketches provided by participants. Our system gives good insight into, and allows for, efficient symbol creation and verification, and represents an attractive and cost efficient way to engage the web population in these efforts.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 surveys
ideograms
semiotics
visual communication
social networking
games with a purpose


Adaptive EKT method The EKT method is a recent extraction technique of periodic signals from noise. It is a method presenting a great practical interest because of its easy realization and its high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR)higher than that of the averaging method. However, it is only valid for signals of known period. Since in practice, periods are not always known with good precision, the EKT method remains limited. To enlarge its application field, we propose in this paper an adaptive EKT method, which could be applied to signals whose variation interval of the fundamental frequency is known.

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

adaptive ekt method
averaging method
ekt method


Through the interaction of neutral and adaptive mutations, evolutionary search finds a way An evolutionary system that supports the interaction of neutral and adaptive mutations is investigated. Experimental results on a Boolean function and needle-in-haystack problems show that this system enables evolutionary search to find better solutions faster. Through a novel analysis based on the ratio of neutral to adaptive mutations, we identify this interaction as an engine that automatically adjusts the relative amounts of exploration and exploitation to achieve effective search (i.e., it is self-adaptive). Moreover, a hypothesis to describe the search process in this system is proposed and investigated. Our findings lead us to counter the arguments of those who dismiss the usefulness of neutrality, We argue that the benefits of neutrality are intimately related to its implementation, so that one must be cautious about making general claims about its merits or demerits.

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

neutrality
exploration
exploitation
adaptive mutations

neutral mutations
genetic programming
self-adapintion


Segmentation of multispectral MR images through an annealed rough neural network In this paper, multispectral image segmentation using a rough neural network based on an annealed strategy with a cooling schedule is created. The main purpose is to embed an annealed cooling schedule into the rough neural network to construct a segmentation system named annealed rough neural net (ARNN). The classification system is a paradigm for the implementation of annealed reasoning and rough systems in neural network architecture. Instead of all the information in the image are fed into the neural network, the upper- and lower-bound gray level, captured from a training vector in a multispectral image, were fed into a rough neuron in the ARNN. Therefore, only 2-channel images are selected as the training samples if an N-dimensional multispectral image was used. In the simulation results, the proposed network not only reduces the consuming time but also reserves the classification performance.

O O O O O O O O B I I 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 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

rough set
annealing
multispectral images


Students' experience of component versus integrated virtual learning environments Abstract The use of virtual learning environments (VLEs) has become increasingly common in most higher education (HE) institutions. Recent developments have proposed the interoperability of software systems and content, to create component VLEs in contrast with the integrated, monolithic ones that are currently prevalent. This paper examines the student experience of two VLEs, one integrated approach and the other component. In general, students preferred the component system, although this may have been influenced by other factors such as performance. Although the study is limited to one cohort of student it makes a number of suggestions relevant to anyone deploying a VLE. These are that the component approach is a viable one from a student perspective, the broader context in which the VLE operates is important in student perception and that poor system performance may have unpredictable consequences for the learning experience.

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


Theory of granular lattices and its applications Based on the concept of components of elements of a complete lattice this paper proposed the theory of granular lattices and proved that a topological space X is Ideally connected if and only if the lattice Omega(X) of its topology is a granular lattice. Moreover, this paper discussed compactness of abstract semantics on certain granular lattices and proved that the semantics is compact if it is continuous in a natural sense, and as a corollary, the compactness of Lukasiewiczs semantics was clarified. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

granular lattice
abstract semantics
compactness

component
locally connected space
continuity
lukasiewicz's semantics


New insights on AR order selection with information theoretic criteria based on localized estimators We focus on selecting the order of autoregressions when forgetting factor least-squares algorithms are used. We analyze sequentially normalized maximum likelihood and sequentially discounting normalized maximum likelihood. Some modifications of the criteria are discussed. The implications of the modifications are evaluated. Theoretical results are illustrated by numerical examples.

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


interactive multi-party critiquing for group recommendation Group recommender systems (RS) are used to support groups in making common decisions when considering a set of alternatives. Current approaches generate group recommendations based on the users' individual preferences models. We believe that members of a group can reach an agreement more effectively by exchanging proposals suggested by a conventional RS. We propose to use a critiquing RS that has been shown to be effective in single-user recommendation. In the group recommendation context, critiquing allows each user to get new recommendations similar to the proposals made by the other group members and to communicate the rationale behind their own counterproposals. We describe a mobile application implementing the proposed approach and its evaluation in a live user experiment.

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

decision making
group recommender system


Forbidden Subgraphs for Hamiltonicity of 3-Connected Claw-Free Graphs In this article, we consider forbidden subgraphs for hamiltonicity of 3-connected claw-free graphs. Let be the graph obtained from a triangle by attaching a path of length i to one of its vertices, and let be the graph obtained from the Petersen graph by adding one pendant edge to each vertex. Lai et al. (J Graph Theory 64(1) (2010), 111) conjectured that every 3-connected -free graph G is hamiltonian unless G is the line graph of . It is shown in this article that this conjecture is true. Moreover, we investigate the set of connected graphs which satisfies that every 3-connected -free graph of sufficiently large order is hamiltonian if and only if A is a member of . We prove that, if , then G is a graph on at most 12 vertices with the following structure: (i) a path of length at most 10, (ii) a triangle with three vertex-disjoint paths of total length at most 9, or (iii) G consists of two triangles connected by a path of length 1, 3, 5, or 7. AMS classification: 05C45, 05C38, 05C75. 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Graph Theory 73: 146160, 2013

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

hamiltonian cycle
claw-free graphs
ryj?eks closure


Exact routing with search space reduction The layout problem in VLSI-design can be broken up into the subtasks partitioning, floorplanning, placement, and routing: In the routing phase, a large number of connections between the blocks and cells have to be established, while intersections lead to short circuits and, therefore, have to be avoided. We present an approach for exact routing of multiterminal nets that complements traditional routing techniques. It is particularly well suited for an application to dense problem instances and the completion of routing in subregions, which turn out to be difficult for routing tools based on heuristic methods. The exact router proposed uses symbolic methods, i.e., MDDs (Multivalued Decision Diagrams) for representation of the routing space. For the necessary computations of routing solutions, we profit considerably from the efficient basic operations on MDDs. All possible solutions to the routing problem are represented by one single MDD and, once this MDD is given, routability can be decided within constant time. To reduce the search space of possible routing solutions, so-called forced cells are computed. Experimental results are given to show the feasibility and the practicability of the 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 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O


Decision Making and Optimization in Changeable Spaces, a New Paradigm This paper proposes a new decision making/optimization paradigm, the decision making/optimization in changeable spaces (DM/OCS). The unique feature of DM/OCS is that it incorporates human psychology and its dynamics as part of the decision making process and allows the restructuring of the decision parameters. DM/OCS is based on Habitual Domain theory, the decision parameters, the concept of competence set, and the mental operators 7-8-9 principles of deep knowledge. The covering and discovering processes are formulated as DM/OCS problems. Some illustrative examples of challenging problems that cannot be solved by traditional decision making/optimization techniques are formulated as DM/OCS problems and solved. In addition, some directions of research related to innovation dynamics, management, artificial intelligence, artificial and e-economics, scientific discovery, and knowledge extraction are provided in the conclusion.

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

decision making
changeable spaces
parameters
covering
discovering
competence set

habitual domains
decision blinds
decision traps


SUSAX: Context-specific searching in XML documents using sequence alignment techniques Keyword searching while very successful in narrowing down the contents of the Web to the pertaining subset of information, has two primary drawbacks. First, the accuracy of the search is closely coupled with the choice of keywords. Second, keywords are limited in their expressibility. In particular, they fail to adequately capture the contextual information implicit in most searches done by users. In this paper we present an approach to efficiently address these drawbacks of keyword searching over XML documents. In particular, we present SUSAX a system for approximate contextual querying over XML documents wherein queries are represented as simple XPaths. A key contribution of our work is the novel algorithm used to match the XPath-like query with similar paths in the repository. The algorithm is based on sequence alignment algorithms prevalent in life sciences domain for discovering the similarity between genome and protein sequences. In this paper, we show an adaptation of the sequence alignment algorithm for now discovering and cataloging the similarity between two paths.

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

schema matching
schema integration
hybrid schema matching
xml schema matching


Heuristics for a dynamic rural postman problem ? This paper presents a very special cutting path determination problem appearing in a high precision tools factory, and provides two new heuristics for its resolution. Particular features of both the cutting process, and of the material to be cut, bring in a set of unusual constraints, when compared with other cutting processes, which confer additional complexity and originality to the problem. In particular, this is a matter of practical and economic relevance, since the solution methods are intended to be implemented in a real-life industrial environment. The concept of dynamic graph is exploited to deal with the arc routing problem under study, which is modelled as a dynamic rural postman problem. The constructive heuristics developed, the higher up vertex heuristic (HUV) and the minimum empty path heuristic (MEP) are tested with real data sets.

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

heuristics
dynamic rural postman problem

combinatorial optimization
arc routing problems


Lattice Boltzmann method for 2D flows in curvilinear coordinates In order to improve efficiency and accuracy, while maintaining an ease of modeling flows with the lattice Boltzmann approach in domains having complex geometry, a method for modeling equations of 2D flow in curvilinear coordinates has been developed. Both the transformed shallow water equations and the transformed 2D Navier-Stokes equations in the horizontal plane were synchronized with the equilibrium distribution function and the force term in the rectangular lattice. Since the solution of these equations takes place in the classical rectangular lattice environment, boundary conditions are modeled in the standard form of already existing simple methods (bounce-back), not requiring any additional functions. Owing to this and to the fact that the proposed method ensures a more accurate fitting of equations, even to domains of interest having complex geometry, the accuracy of solution is significantly increased, while the simplicity of the standard lattice Boltzmann approach is maintained. For the shallow water equations transformed in curvilinear coordinates, the proposed procedure is verified in three different hydraulic problems, all characterized by complex geometry.

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

complex geometry
curvilinear coordinates
lattice boltzmann method


Multilevel component analysis and multilevel PLS of chemical process data Principal component analysis (PCA) and partial least squares (PLS) are well-established techniques for analyzing multivariate process data. However, chemical processes often vary at different levels, due to, for instance, catalyst deactivation or fouling. In such cases, data from a time period that comprises multiple catalyst or fouling runs contain both variation within runs at the lower level and variation between runs at the higher level. In ordinary PCA and PLS models, these sources of variation are confounded. Multiway PCA and PLS are usually not appropriate either, because the runs in the data set can be very different, which means that the overall data set does not have a proper multiway structure. Multilevel component analysis (MLCA) and multilevel partial least squares (MLPLS) are proposed as better options for analyzing such process data. The models obtained with these techniques contain submodels for the different levels in the data, and thereby separate the within-run and between-run variation in the process variables W. In addition, MLPLS can use response variables (Y) to guide the projections into meaningful directions, and provide information on the sources of variation in Y and the relationship between X and Y. Extensions to more than two levels are straightforward, and can be used, for instance, for the comparison of runs from different plants. Copyright (C) 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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

multilevel data analysis
process monitoring
dynamic process variation


Investigation of the global dynamics of cellular automata using Boolean derivatives Global dynamics of a non-linear Cellular Automaton (CA), is, in general irregular, asymmetric and unpredictable as opposed to that of a linear CA, which is highly systematic and tractable. In this paper, efforts have been made to systematize non-linear CA evolutions in the light of Boolean derivatives and Jacobian matrices. A few new theorems on Hamming Distance between Boolean functions as well as on Jacobian matrices of cellular automata are proposed and proved. Moreover, a classification of Boolean functions based on the nature of deviation from linearity has been suggested with a view to grouping them together to classes/subclasses such that the members of a class/subclass satisfy certain similar properties. Next, an error vector, which cannot be captured by the Jacobian matrix, is identified and systematically classified. This leads us to the concept of modified Jacobian matrix whereby a quasi-affine representation of a non-linear cellular automaton is introduced.

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

linear and affine functions
wolframs naming scheme
algebraic normal form
error function
state transition diagram
modified jacobian matrix


Automatic hexahedral mesh generation for multi-domain composite models using a hybrid projective grid-based method This paper presents an algorithm to generate an all-hexahedral mesh of a multi-domain solid model using a hybrid grid-based approach. This is based on a projective concept during the boundary adaptation of the initial mesh. In general, the algorithm involves the generation of a grid structure, which is superimposed on the solid model. This grid structure forms an initial mesh consisting of hexahedral elements, which intersect fully or partially with the solid model. This initial mesh is then shrunk in an outside-in manner to the faces of the model through a node projection process using the closest position approach. To match the resulting mesh to the edges of the model, a minimal deformation angle method is used. Finally, to match the vertices with the nodes on the mesh, a minimal warp angle method is employed. To create the mesh of a multi-domain solid model, an outside-in and inside-in hybrid of the grid-based method is used. This hybrid method ensures that the meshes of the different domains are conforming at their common boundary. This paper also describes two methods for resolving cases of degenerate elements: a splitting technique and a wedge insertion technique.

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

multi-domain meshing
finite element method


a sampling-based approach to identify qos for web service orchestrations QoS parameters are used to describe services in terms of their behavior and can be used to rank services according to non-functional criteria. To provide an accurate characterization of the quality of a service, we propose a sampling-based technique. The proposed technique uses Adaptive and Sequential Sampling strategies to estimate the QoS parameters that satisfy the required confidence levels while the size of the sample remains small. QoS estimates are used by a hybrid composer, named PT-SAM, to identify the service compositions that satisfy a functional condition and best meet non-functional criteria of a user query. PT-SAM adapts a Petri-Net unfolding algorithm to find a desired marking from an initial state by using a utility function defined on QoS estimates and functional properties of the available services. PT-SAM uses a QoS -based utility function to guide the search into portions of good quality service compositions; thus, PT-SAM is able to scale up to large-scale search spaces of services. We report on the quality of the sampling techniques and the performance of the composer. First, we show correlation between the estimates and the real values of the QoS parameters; then, we report on the benefits of using these estimates to traverse large search spaces of service compositions (e.g., in the range of 1,000 to 100,000 services). Our experiments show that the quality of the compositions identified by our algorithm is close to the optimal solution produced by the exhaustive algorithm.

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

semantic matching
query optimization
web service composition
estimation techniques
qos estimation


Efficient parametric analysis of the chemical master equation through model order reduction Stochastic biochemical reaction networks are commonly modelled by the chemical master equation, and can be simulated as first order linear differential equations through a finite state projection. Due to the very high state space dimension of these equations, numerical simulations are computationally expensive. This is a particular problem for analysis tasks requiring repeated simulations for different parameter values. Such tasks are computationally expensive to the point of infeasibility with the chemical master equation.

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

stochastic biochemical network
model reduction
reduced basis
genetic regulatory network
computational efficiency
parameter estimation


SiGe: An attractive material for post-CMOS processing of MEMS This work gives an overview of the different developments for silicon germanium (Si1?xGex) from a MEMS post-processing perspective. First, the maximum processing temperature that does not introduce any damage or degradation into the standard characteristics of the CMOS driving electronics is specified. Then, the optimal type of silicon and germanium gas sources and deposition technique that results in an economical process are identified. Next, the selection criteria for a low thermal budget doping method and doping species are discussed. Finally, the advantage and disadvantage for the different approaches implemented for enhancing the physical properties of poly Si1?xGex at a CMOS backend compatible temperature are highlighted. It is shown that the optimal method depends on the application requirements and the CMOS technology used for realizing the driving electronics.

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

excimer laser annealing
mems post-processing


CRITICAL BEHAVIOR OF THE CONTACT PROCESS DELAYED BY INFECTION AND IMMUNIZATION PERIODS We analyze the absorbing state phase transition exhibited by two distinct unidimensional delayed contact process (CP). The first is characterized by the introduction of an infection period and the second by an immune period in the dynamics of the original model. We characterize these CP by the quantities t(d) (infection or disease period) and t(i) (immune period). The quantity td corresponds to the period interval an individual remains infected after being contaminated, while the period ti is the time interval an individual remains immune after being cured. We used Monte Carlo simulations to compute the critical parameters associated with the absorbing state phase transition exhibited by these models. We find two distinct power-law scale relations for the critical infection rate lambda(in)* proportional to t(d)(-mu d) and the critical cure rate lambda(cuc)* proportional to t(i)(-mu i). For the CP delayed by the minimum infection period we find mu(d) = 0.98, while we obtained mu(i) = 0.80 for the case of a delay due to immunity. In addition, we used a finite-size scaling analysis to estimate the critical exponents beta/nu and nu, and found that these models belong to the universality class of directed percolation irrespective to the time delay.

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

contact process
critical exponents
directed percolation


Multiple positive solutions for singular BVPs on the positive half-line In this work, we are concerned with the existence of multiple positive solutions to a second-order nonlinear singular boundary value problem set on the positive half-line. We mainly use the Krasnozelsk?i and LeggettWilliams fixed point theorems in cones to prove existence of one positive solution, two positive solutions and three positive solutions. The results complement, extend and correct some recent ones.

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

fixed point theorem
singular problem
cone
compactness
infinity interval


reconfigurable hardware solutions for the digital rights management of digital cinema This paper presents a hardware implementation of a decoder for Digital Cinema images. This decoder enables us to deal with image size of 2K with 24 frames per second and 36 bits per pixels. It is the first implementation known nowadays that perfectly fits in one single Virtex-II FPGA and includes AES decryption, JPEG 2000 decompression and fingerprinting blocks. This hardware offers therefore high-quality image processing as well as robust security.

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


Reliability-based traffic network design with advanced traveler information systems As the demands on urban transportation networks grow rapidly, problems of network design have attracted a great deal of interest because of the need to effectively handle urban transport planning using information technology. A bi-level continuous network design model is proposed in this paper to address the optimal road capacity expansion of existing links. Based on the fact that every origindestination demand is random and affected by traffic travel information, the network is subject to relatively minimal day-to-day events of stochastic link capacity variations. Therefore, the primary objective is to maximize the reliability of the total travel time, while the lower level model, utilizing the behaviors of stochastic route choice, is aimed at reducing drivers travel time uncertainty through traffic information provided by advanced traveler information systems. The Particle Swarm Optimization algorithm is used to solve the suggested model, and a numerical example using the Sioux Falls network is provided. The computation results show that travel time reliability is improved by system optimization using traffic information.

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

traffic network design
optimization
reliability
advanced traveler information systems


Why e-government projects fail? An analysis of the Healthcare.gov website Justifies the size and the importance of the e-government project failures Defines a classification model for e-government project failure reasons and sources Tests this classification model on a representative large-scale public project failure (Healthcare.gov) Suggests micro-blogging data analysis by governments as a means to manage communication during project failures Defines a typology for social media activity against project failures

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

e-government
project management
government websites
social network analysis
twitter


Security enhancement for digital signature schemes with fault tolerance in RSA Digital signature schemes with fault tolerance make it possible for error detections and corrections during the processes of data computations and transmissions. Recently, Zhang, in 1999, and Lee and Tsai, in 2003, have respectively proposed two efficient fault-tolerant schemes based on the RSA cryptosystem. Both of them can efficiently check the senders identity and keep the confidentiality of the transmitted document. Furthermore, they can detect the errors and correct them. However, these schemes have a common weakness in security, that is, different messages may easily be computed that have the same signature. Thus, a valid signature could be reused in another document. This severely violates the principles of digital signature. In this paper, we shall show that this security flaw existed in the two perviously proposed schemes and conclude that the security flaw may occur in other fault-tolerant public key cryptosystems that are similar to these schemes. Furthermore, we will improve Zhangs and Lee and Tsais schemes to eliminate the drawbacks.

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


On Ostrowski type inequalities for Stieltjes integrals with absolutely continuous integrands and integrators of bounded variation Some Ostrowski type inequalities are given for the Stieltjes integral where the integrand is absolutely continuous while the integrator is of bounded variation. The case when |f?| | f ? | is convex is explored. Applications for the mid-point rule and a generalised trapezoid type rule are also presented.

O O 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

integral inequalities
ostrowski inequality
quadrature rules
mid-point rule
trapezoidal rule
convex functions