Editorial scalability of evolutionary algorithms and other metaheuristics for large-scale continuous optimization problems This editorial note presents the motivations, objectives, and structure of the special issue on scalability of evolutionary algorithms and other metaheuristics for large-scale continuous optimization problems. In addition, it provides the link to an associated Website where complementary material to the special issue is available.

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 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


A critical reflection on optimal decision A discussion and critique of the ideological framework that led to the preponderance of the concepts of utility and optimum as critical referents of decision in the modern age. The result of this critique is an appreciation of the limits of classical operational research, which can only be overcome by adopting a constructivist perspective. In the authors view, this is the approach that will viabilise a contribution to meet the demands imposed by the civilisational process.

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

optimal decisions
constructivism
multicriteria decision aiding
technological risks


Fine power flow control by split TCSC A Thyristor controlled series capacitor (TCSC) is a device which is used to increase the transmission line capacity. The TCSC device furnishes inductive as well as capacitive reactance compensation to alter the power flow of the transmission line. A difficulty is observed on tuning the TCSC device; large change in TCSC reactance ?X at critical region (nearby resonance region) makes inconvenience for compensating any small change in dynamic demand at load end. This paper presents microtuning of line reactance by implementing split TCSC in place of single TCSC. The Newton Raphson method power flow analysis (NRPFA) is used to examine the fine microtuning of line reactance to compensate the small change in power demand. The mathematical modeling of NRPFA with single TCSC and split TCSC are studied. Comparison of power flow and power loss variation between single TCSC and split TCSC are also examined. Any violation of transmission line loading limits and voltage margin are verified and discussed while inserting TCSC in transmission line. The IEEE 14 bus system, IEEE 30 bus system and WSCC 9 bus system are considered as a case study.

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


Bimodal automatic speech segmentation based on audio and visual information fusion Bimodal automatic speech segmentation using visual information together with audio data is introduced. The accuracy of automatic segmentation directly affects the quality of speech processing systems using the segmented database. The collaboration of audio and visual data results in lower average absolute boundary error between the manual segmentation and automatic segmentation results. The information from two modalities are fused at the feature level and used in a HMM based speech segmentation system. A Turkish audiovisual speech database has been prepared and used in the experiments. The average absolute boundary error decreases up to 18% by using different audiovisual feature vectors. The benefits of incorporating visual information are discussed for different phoneme boundary types. Each audiovisual feature vector results in a different performance at different types of phoneme boundaries. The average absolute boundary error decreases by approximately 25% by using audiovisual feature vectors selectively for different boundary classes. Visual data is collected using an ordinary webcam. The proposed method is very convenient to be used in practice.

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

automatic speech segmentation
audiovisual


Computing a compact spline representation of the medial axis transform of a 2D shape We present a full pipeline for computing the medial axis transform of an arbitrary 2D shape. The instability of the medial axis transform is overcome by a pruning algorithm guided by a user-defined Hausdorff distance threshold. The stable medial axis transform is then approximated by spline curves in 3D to produce a smooth and compact representation. These spline curves are computed by minimizing the approximation error between the input shape and the shape represented by the medial axis transform. Our results on various 2D shapes suggest that our method is practical and effective, and yields faithful and compact representations of medial axis transforms of 2D shapes.

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


Checkpoints of B cell differentiation: visualizing Ig-centric processes The generation of antibody responses and B cell memory can only take place following multiple steps of differentiation. Key molecular processes during precursor B cell differentiation in bone marrow generate unique antibodies. These antibodies are further optimized via molecular modifications during immune responses in peripheral lymphoid organs. Multiple checkpoints ensure proper differentiation of precursor and mature B lymphocytes. Many of these checkpoints have been found disrupted in patients with a primary immunodeficiency. Based on studies in these patients and in mouse models, new insights have been generated in B cell differentiation and antibody responses. Still, in many patients with impaired antibody formation, it remains unclear how B cells are affected. In this perspective, we present 11 critical processes in B cell differentiation. We discuss how defects in these processes can result in impaired checkpoint selection and how they can be visualized in healthy subjects and patients with immunodeficiency or other immunological disease.

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

b cell
selection
differentiation
checkpoint


Preventive maintenance and replacement scheduling for repairable and maintainable systems using dynamic programming This paper presents mathematical models and a solution approach to determine the optimal preventive maintenance schedules for a repairable and maintainable series system of components with an increasing rate of occurrence of failure (ROCOF). The maintenance planning horizon has been divided into discrete and equally-sized periods and in each period, three possible actions for each component (maintain it, replace it, or do nothing) have been considered. The optimal decisions for each component in each period are investigated such that the objectives and the requirements of the system can be achieved. In particular, the cases of minimizing total cost subject to a constraint on system reliability, and maximizing system reliability subject to a budgetary constraint on overall cost have been modeled. As the optimization methodology, dynamic programming combined with branch-and-bound method is utilized and the effectiveness of the approach is presented through the use of a numerical example. Such a modeling approach should be useful for maintenance planners and engineers tasked with the problem of developing recommended maintenance plans for complex systems of components. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

preventive maintenance and replacement scheduling

multi-component systems
optimization model


The Gene-Duplication Problem: Near-Linear Time Algorithms for NNI-Based Local Searches The gene-duplication problem is to infer a species supertree from a collection of gene trees that are confounded by complex histories of gene-duplication events. This problem is NP-complete and thus requires efficient and effective heuristics. Existing heuristics perform a stepwise search of the tree space, where each step is guided by an exact solution to an instance of a local search problem. A classical local search problem is the NNI search problem, which is based on the nearest neighbor interchange operation. In this work, we 1) provide a novel near-linear time algorithm for the NNI search problem, 2) introduce extensions that significantly enlarge the search space of the NNI search problem, and 3) present algorithms for these extended versions that are asymptotically just as efficient as our algorithm for the NNI search problem. The exceptional speedup achieved in the extended NNI search problems makes the gene-duplication problem more tractable for large-scale phylogenetic analyses. We verify the performance of our algorithms in a comparison study using sets of large randomly generated gene trees.

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

computational phylogenetics
gene-duplication
supertrees


investigation on mechanical strength and lifetime of panda polarization-maintaining fibers fabricated by pcvd method In this paper, the brief fabricating process of PANDA polarization maintaining optical fibers by PCVD method is introduced. And the mechanical strength and employing lifetime of PCVD polarization maintaining fibers under room temperature and 125C temperature are investigated and compared. All results indicate that PANDA polarization maintaining fibers fabricated by PCVD method possess excellent mechanical properties and long-term reliability.

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

lifetime
strength
pcvd method
polarization maintaining fibers


The synchronous approach to designing reactive systems Synchronous programming is available through several formally defined languages having very different characteristics: ESTEREL is imperative, while LUSTRE and SIGNAL are declarative in style; STATECHARTS and ARGOS are graphical languages that allow one to program by constructing hierarchical automata. Our motivation for taking the synchronous design paradigm further, integrating imperative, declarative (or dataflow), and graphical programming styles, is that real systems typically have components that match each of these profiles. This paper motivates our interest in the mixed language programming of embedded software around a number of examples, and sketches the semantical foundation of the SYNCHRONIE toolset which ensures a coherent computational model. This toolset supports a design trajectory that incorporates rapid prototyping and systematic testing for early design validation, an object oriented development methodology for long term software management, and formal verification at the level of automatically generated object code.

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

embedded software
reactive systems
synchronous programming


Assessment of some parameters of corrosion initiation prediction of reinforced concrete in marine environments Chloride ion ingress is one of the major problems that affect the durability of concrete structures such as bridge decks, concrete pavements, and other structures exposed to harsh saline environments. Therefore, durability based design of concrete structures in severe condition has gained great significance in recent decades and various mathematical models for estimating the service life of rein-forced concrete have been proposed. In spite of comprehensive researches on the corrosion of rein-forced concrete, there are still various controversial concepts in quantitation of durability parameters such as chloride diffusion coefficient and surface chloride content. Effect of environment conditions on the durability of concrete structures is one of the most important issues. Hence, regional investigations are necessary for durability based design and evaluation of the models. Persian Gulf is one of the most aggressive regions of the world because of elevated temperature and humidity as well as high content of chloride ions in seawater. The aim of this study is evaluation of some parameters of durability of RC structures in marine environment from viewpoint of corrosion initiation. For this purpose, some experiments were carried out on the real RC structures and in laboratory. The result showed that various uncertainties in parameters of durability were existed.

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

concrete durability
marine conditions
durability modeling


behavior modelling during software design A modelling scheme is presented which provides a medium for the rigorous, formal and abstract specification of large-scale software system components. The scheme allows the description of component behavior without revealing or requiring the description of a component's internal operation. Both collections of sequential processes and the data objects which they share may be described. The scheme is of particular value during the early stages of software system design, when the system's modules are being delineated and their interactions designed, and when rigorous, well-defined specification of undesigned components allows formal and informal arguments concerning the design's correctness to be formulated.

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

value design informal component software systems behavior correctness data scheme

desired behavior specification
dream
event-based models
message transfer models
large-scale
intern
non-procedural specification
software design
software design analysis
collect
software design languages
object
model
argument
interaction
sharing
system design
formalism
abstraction
module
process
software system behavior modelling


An assistive environment for improving human safety utilizing advanced sound and motion data classification This paper presents the concept and an initial implementation of an assistive awareness system that may be used for human activity interpretation and emergency recognition in cases such as elder or patient falls and distress speech expressions, thus improving their safety. Awareness is achieved through collecting, analyzing and classifying motion and sound data. The latter are collected through sensors equipped with accelerometers and microphones that are attached to the human body and transmit movement and sound data wirelessly to the monitoring unit. The detection of fall incidents has been proven to be feasible by applying Short Time Fourier Transform (STFT) and spectrogram analysis on sounds. The classification of the sound and movement data is performed using a variety of advanced classification techniques. Evaluation results provide a performance comparison between the evaluated classifiers and indicate the high accuracy and the effectiveness of the proposed implementation. The system architecture is open and can be easily enhanced to include patient awareness based on additional context (e.g., physiological 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 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

patient status awareness
emergency event detection
movement and sound analysis
svm classification


Analysis of pattern recognition and dimensionality reduction techniques for odor biometrics Analysis of performance of biometric identification based on the body odor. New sensor was used to capture the odor emanated from the hands. Pattern recognition techniques applied to mass-spectrometry data. Results reveal that there exists discriminatory information in the hand odor.

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

supervised classification
feature selection
mass-spectrometry


toward a distributed terabyte text retrieval system in china-us million book digital library In China-US Million Book Digital Library, output of the digitalization process is more than one terabyte of text in OEB and PDF format. To access these data quickly and accurately, we are developing a distributed terabyte text retrieval system. With the query cache, system can search less data while maintaining acceptable retrieval accuracy. From the OEB package, we get its metadata and structural information to implement multi-scale indexing and retrieval. We are to explore some new retrieval models and text clustering approaches in the Digital Library.

O O O B I I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 research process for designing ubiquitous social experiences This paper investigates a research process focusing on the unpredictable collective and individual user behaviours which can emerge in ubiquitous social games. The fundamental premise of our research is that emergent interactions can both enrich the user experience and inform the design process of ubiquitous social applications, revealing creative opportunities. Rather than a side effect from the deployment of an innovative technology, emergence becomes the focal point of investigation of the paper. In light of the proposed design research process, we present the emergent phenomena observed in three mixed reality game applications and reflect on what we learned.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O 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-resolution semantic-based imagery retrieval using hidden Markov models and decision trees This study presents a useful method for semantic-based imagery retrieval. The experiments are made in two parts. In the first part of the experiments, the newly designed one-dimensional hidden Markov models (HMM) in terms of observation-sequence and observation-density manipulation approaches are proposed so as to evaluate the corresponding performance in imagery retrieval accuracy. For the observation-sequence manipulation method, there are totally four neighborhood systems being evaluated, while two neighborhood systems are tested in the observation density manipulation domain. In the second part of the experiments, a C4.5 decision tree is introduced and trained by the HMM likelihoods so as to discover the retrieving rules to further enhance the imagery retrieval accuracy. The test imagery all belong to real-scene military vehicles and are hierarchically pre-processed using wavelet and LAB transforms. The imagery are classified into Air-Force, Warship, Submarine, Tank, and Jeep, respectively. It is found that using HMM alone can achieve the best accuracy of 68.8%, when decision trees are implemented, the accuracy can be further enhanced up to 78%. The results evidentially show the usefulness of the method, and can be used in intelligent systems in recognizing real-scene objects.

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


Open issues for normative multi-agent systems A challenging problem currently addressed in the multi-agent systems area is the development of open systems; which are characterized by the heterogeneity of their participants and the dynamic features of both their participants and their environment. The main feature of agents in these systems is autonomy. It is this autonomy that requires regulation, and norms are a solution for this. Norms represent a tool for achieving coordination and cooperation among the members of a society. They have been employed in the field of Artificial Intelligence as a formal specification of deontic statements aimed at regulating the actions of software agents and the interactions among them. This article gives an overview of the most relevant works on norms for multi-agent systems. This review considers open multi-agent systems challenges and points out the main open questions that remain in norm representation, reasoning, creation, and implementation.

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


detachable nano-carbon chip with ultra low power This paper describes ultra-low-power chip design using nano-scale electro-mechanical switches (NEMS) with graphene. This chip is attachable and detachable onto the top of other chips due to remarkable stickiness of carbon-nanotube interconnects. New 3D-IC can be thus constructed for reconfigurable system-on-chips. Furthermore, due to a floating gate built in NEMS, their logic performance is much superior to that of NEMS-based logic in previous works, and even better than that of conventional CMOS.

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


Effective fine-grain synchronization for automatically parallelized programs using optimistic synchronization primitives This article presents our experience using optimistic synchronization to implement fine-grain atomic operations in the context of a parallelizing compiler for irregular, object-based computations. Our experience shows that the synchronization requirements of these programs differ significantly from those of traditional parallel computations, which use loop nests to access dense matrices using affine access functions. In addition to coarse-grain barrier synchronization, our irregular computations require synchronization primitives that support efficient fine-grain atomic operations. The standard implementation mechanism for atomic operations uses mutual exclusion locks. But the overhead of acquiring and releasing locks can reduce the performance. Locks can also consume significant amounts of memory. Optimisitic synchronization primitives such as load-linked/store conditional are an attractive alternative. They require no additional memory and eliminate the use of heavyweight blocking synchronization constructs. We evaluate the effectiveness of optimistic synchronization by comparing experimental results from two versions of a parallelizing compiler for irregular, object-based computations. One version generates code that uses mutual exclusion locks to make operations execute atomically. The other version uses optimistic synchronization. We used this compiler to automatically parallelize three irregular, object-based benchmark applications of interest to the scientific and engineering computation community. The presented experimental results indicate that the use of optimistic synchronization in this context can significantly reduce the memory consumption and improve the overall performance.

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

performance
atomic operations
synchronization

algorithms
experimentation
commutativity analysis
optimistic synchronization
parallel computing
parallelizing compilers


Self-adaptive regularization Often an image g(x; y) is regularized and even restored by minimizing the Mumford-Shah functional. Properties of the regularized image u(x, y) depends critically on the numerical value of the two parameters alpha and gamma controlling smoothness and fidelity. When alpha and gamma are constant over the image, small details are lost when an extensive filtering is used in order to remove noise. In this paper, it is shown how the two parameters alpha and gamma can be made self-adaptive. In fact, alpha and gamma are not constant but automatically adapt to the local scale and contrast of features in the image. In this way, edges at all scales are detected and boundaries are well-localized and preserved. In order to preserve trihedral junctions alpha and gamma become locally small and the regularized image u(x, y) maintains sharp and well-defined trihedral junctions. Images regularized by the proposed procedure are well-suited for further processing, such as image segmentation and object recognition.

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

image regularization
mumford-shah
variational methods


U-Sets as a possibilistic set theory The motivation of possibility theory is to represent the imprecision intrinsic in natural language, in particular in expressions of the form x is R. A suitable topos of presheaves, i.e. an extension of classical set theory, is presented where sets of the form {x:x is R} can be constructed with x is R having the meaning given in possibility theory. The aim of the paper is to give an explicit mathematical description of the context sensitivity of linguistic imprecision. This can be done by defining sets that vary over the possible contexts, i.e. sets in a topos of presheaves defined over a category that represents the flow of information. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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


Creating knowledge maps by exploiting dependent relationships Knowledge is an interesting concept that has attracted the attention of philosophers for thousands of years. In more recent times, researchers have investigated knowledge in a more applied way with the chief aim of bringing knowledge to life in machines. Artificial Intelligence has provided some degree of rigour to the study of knowledge and Expert Systems are able to use knowledge to solve problems and answer questions. Current business, social, political and technological pressures have forced organisations to take greater control of the knowledge asset. Software suppliers and others offering valuable solutions in this area have unfortunately clouded the issue of knowledge. Information and data control are seen as implicit knowledge management tools and many have abandoned the search for explicit knowledge management methods. Knowledge representation schemes help to identify knowledge. They allow for human understanding and machine application and they can support the automated use of knowledge in problem solving. Some of these representation methods also employ spatial techniques that add an extra dimension to human understanding. Knowledge mapping defined in this work uses learning dependency to organise the map and draws on the ideas of what knowledge is and on spatial representation structures. Knowledge maps can support metrics that provide information about the knowledge asset. Knowledge maps create a visible knowledge framework that supports the explicit management of knowledge by organisation managers and directors. Knowledge maps also offer other advantages to the organisation, the individual and to educational institutions.

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


Progressive Photon Relaxation We introduce a novel algorithm for progressively removing noise from view-independent photon maps while simultaneously minimizing residual bias. Our method refines a primal set of photons using data from multiple successive passes to estimate the incident flux local to each photon. We show how this information can be used to guide a relaxation step with the goal of enforcing a constant, per-photon flux. Using a reformulation of the radiance estimate, we demonstrate how the resulting blue noise photon distribution yields a radiance reconstruction in which error is significantly reduced. Our approach has an open-ended runtime of the same order as unbiased and asymptotically consistent rendering methods, converging over time to a stable result. We demonstrate its effectiveness at storing caustic illumination within a view-independent framework and at a fidelity visually comparable to reference images rendered using progressive photon mapping.

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

photon mapping
blue noise
photon relaxation


Image auto-annotation via tag-dependent random search over range-constrained visual neighbours The quantity setting of visual neighbours can be critical for the performance of many previously proposed visual-neighbour-based (VNB) image auto-annotation methods. And in those methods, each candidate tag of a to-be-annotated image would be better to have its own trustworthy part of visual neighbours for score prediction. Hence in this paper we propose to use a constrained range rather than an identical and fixed number of visual neighbours for VNB methods to allow more flexible choices of neighbours, and then put forward a novel tag-dependent random search process to estimate the tag-dependent trust degrees of visual neighbours for each candidate tag. We further propose an effective image auto-annotation method termed TagSearcher based on a widely-used conditional probability model for auto-annotation, considering image-dependent weights of visual neighbours, tag-dependent trust degrees of visual neighbours and votes for a candidate tag from visual neighbours. Extensive experiments conducted on both a benchmark dataset and real-world web images present that the proposed TagSearcher can yield inspiring annotation performance and also reduce the performance sensitivity to the quantity setting of visual neighbours.

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

image auto-annotation
tag-dependent random search
range-constrained visual neighbours


H-1 topological molecular lattices This paper is devoted to the study of H-1 topological molecular lattices, a generalization of the Hausdorff fuzzy topological spaces. Some primary propel-ties of such topological molecular lattices are discussed. For any complete and completely distributive lattice L, the existence and uniqueness of minimal H-1 co-topologies on L are investigated, and the characteristic theorem of minimal H-1 co-topologies on L is established. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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

minimal h-1 topological molecular lattice


NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF QUANTUM STATE REDUCTION IN BOSE-EINSTEIN CONDENSATES WITH ATTRACTIVE INTERACTIONS Following an idea first proposed by Penrose in 1996 to explain the problem of quantum state reduction as a gravitational effect, Moroz, Penrose and Tod(1) have shown that quantum state reduction due to gravitational interactions could take place in about one second for the case of 10(11) nucleons. However, keeping 10(11) nucleons together in a quantum macroscopic state does not appear to be feasible as yet. The closest physical system to such a situation is provided by Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC) with attractive interactions. We present numerical simulations of the Schrodinger-Newton equations, which show that an attractive BEC with 10(3) atoms would yield a decorrelation time of the order of 10(2) seconds. Hence, a "Penrose-like" reduction, induced by BEC attractive interaction instead of gravity, might be observable and possibly monitored in current BEC experiments with attractive interactions.

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

schrodinger-newton equations
bose-einstein condensates


Improvement of handover prediction in mobile WiMAX by using two thresholds One of the most important challenges in mobile wireless networks is to provide full mobility together with minimum degradation of quality of service. This can be ensured by handover prediction. Handover prediction means a determination of the next station that will serve a mobile station. This paper proposes a prediction technique based on monitoring the signal quality between the mobile station and all base stations in its neighborhood. The proposed technique utilizes two different thresholds for selection of the most likely target base station. Further, the potential improvement of the prediction efficiency via techniques originally proposed for minimizing the number of redundant handovers is analyzed. The efficiency of the proposed prediction technique is evaluated and compared with other prediction techniques based on channel characteristics in scenarios according to IEEE 802.16m. The proposed technique achieves a prediction hit rate of up to 93%.

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

channel characteristics
handover
mobility
wimax


low-power fpga using pre-defined dual-vdd/dual-vt fabrics Traditional FPGAs use uniform supply voltage Vdd and uniform threshold voltage Vt. We propose to use pre-defined dual-Vdd and dual-Vt fabrics to reduce FPGA power. We design FPGA circuits with dual-Vdd/dual-Vt to effectively reduce both dynamic power and leakage power, and define dual-Vdd/dual-Vt FPGA fabrics based on the profiling of benchmark circuits. We further develop CAD algorithms including power-sensitivity based voltage assignment and simulated-annealing based placement to leverage such fabrics. Compared to the conventional fabric using uniform Vdd/Vt at the same target clock frequency, our new fabric using dual Vt achieves 9\% to 20\% power reduction. However, the pre-defined FPGA fabric using both dual Vdd and dual Vt only achieves on average 2\% extra power reduction. It is because that the pre-designed dual-Vdd layout pattern introduces non-negligible performance penalty. Therefore, programmability of supply voltage is needed to achieve significant power saving for dual-Vdd FPGAs. To our best knowledge, it is the first in-depth study on applying both dual-Vdd and dual-Vt to FPGA considering circuits, fabrics and CAD algorithms.

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

power efficient
dual-vt
dual-vdd
low power


Generation of synthetic benchmark electrical load profiles using publicly available load and weather data Synthetic electrical load profiles generation for power networks is proposed. ANN training using publicly available weather and electrical demand data. ANN learning from limited datasets is improved by using Bayesian regularization. ANN prediction extrapolation by incorporation of domain knowledge is proposed. Analysis presented shows close agreement with actual real load profiles.

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

synthetic generation
load profile
artificial neural networks
public data


Formalization of organizational intelligence for multiagent system design Although there are many projects focusing on multiagent systems, there are only a few focusing on systematic design of large scale multiagent system. In this paper we formalize the knowledge representation and sharing of agents, using symbol structures, define agencies as organizations (i.e., a coalition of agents), propose a formalism to represent organizational Intelligence, devise a basic configuration for generalized agents (AG), and use them in a large scale multiagent system design. Private knowledge of an AG agent is represented by a symbol structure (SS) and AG agents can share their knowledge using combination, specialization and generalization methods that operate on the SS. Opposite to the other works, organizational knowledge, is defined as a property of at least a pair of AG agents.

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


Robot force control with an actively damped flexible end effector This paper proposes a new method for the hybrid force/position control of an industrial robot, which is equipped with an internal, high bandwidth velocity controller and with a compliant end effector, during constrained motion. The method combines force control with results from active control of flexible robots. The contact dynamics of the partially constrained end effector are modelled by a MIMO system. This system is decoupled into a set of six unconstrained or constrained vibrational modes, which are easy to control. The paper contains simulation results of a constrained motion.

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 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 B I

robot force control
flexible robots
constrained motion


Perfect periodic scheduling for three basic cycles Periodic scheduling has many attractions for wireless telecommunications. It offers energy saving where equipment can be turned off between transmissions, and high-quality reception through the elimination of jitter, caused by irregularity of reception. However, perfect periodic schedules, in which each (of \(n\)) client is serviced at regular, prespecified intervals, are notoriously difficult to construct. The problem is known to be NP-hard even when service times are identical. This paper focuses on cases of up to three distinct periodicities, with unit service times. Our contribution is to derive a \(O(n^4)\) test for the existence of a feasible schedule, and a method of constructing a feasible schedule if one exists, for the given combination of client periodicities. We also indicate why schedules with a higher number of periodicities are unlikely to be useful in practice. This methodology can be used to support perfect periodic scheduling in a wide range in real world settings, including machine maintenance service, wireless mesh networks and various other telecommunication networks transmitting packet size data.

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


Evaluation of SARs for the prediction of skin irritation/corrosion potential - structural inclusion rules in the BfR decision support system The German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) has developed a Decision Support System (DSS) to assess certain hazardous properties of pure chemicals, including skin and eye irritation/corrosion. The BfR-DSS is a rule-based system that could be used for the regulatory classification of chemicals in the European Union. The system is based on the combined use of two predictive approaches: exclusion rules based on physicochemical cut-off values to identify chemicals that do not exhibit a certain hazard (e.g., skin irritation/corrosion), and inclusion rules based on structural alerts to identify chemicals that do show a particular toxic potential. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the structural inclusion rules implemented in the BfR-DSS for the prediction of skin irritation and corrosion. The following assessments were performed: (a) a confirmation of the structural rules by rederiving them from the original training set (1358 substances), and (b) an external validation by using a test set of 200 chemicals not used in the derivation of the rules. It was found as a result that the test data set did not match the training set relative to the inclusion of structural alerts associated with skin irritation/corrosion, albeit some skin irritants were in the test set.

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

structure-activity relationship (sar)
structural alert
skin irritation/corrosion
bfr decision support system (bfr-dss)
structural inclusion rule


A novel hybrid multi-objective immune algorithm with adaptive differential evolution Differential evolution is embedded into the multi-objective immune algorithm. A suitable parent selection strategy provides a correct evolutionary direction. A novel adaptive control approach enhances the algorithmic robustness.

O O O O B I O O B I 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

multi-objective optimization
adaptive parameter control


architecture of the vpp500 parallel supercomputer The VPP500 vector parallel processor is a highly parallel, distributed memory supercomputer that has a performance range of 6.4 to 355 gigaFLOPS and a main memory capacity from 1 to 222 gigabytes. The system scalably supports between 4 and 222 processors interconnected by a high-bandwidth crossbar network.Three key aspects of the VPP500, which are in sharp contrast to current massively parallel systems, characterize its architecture. First the building block is a 1.6 gigaFLOPS vector processor that is more than an order of magnitude faster than the processors used in massively parallel processors (MPP). This high uniprocessor performance reduces the dependence on parallelism. Second the distributed memory architecture and high-bandwidth crossbar network eliminate many of the bottlenecks found in MPP systems. These allow efficient utilization of hardware and have the effect of lessening the complexity of programming parallel computers. Third the system realizes high throughput by its capability to arbitrarily partition the processing elements for flexible multiprocessing.

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

network
order
performance
building block
throughput
processor
partition
systems
parallel
architecture
supercomputer
hardware
complexity
distributed
effect

efficiency
flexibility
program
dependencies
aspect
vectorization
capacities
process
bandwidth
memorialized
parallel computation


A

database

of

rigorous

and

high-precision

periodic

orbits

of

the

Lorenz

model

A

benchmark

database

of

very

high-precision

numerical

and

validated

initial

conditions

of

periodic

orbits

for

the

Lorenz

model

is

presented.

This

database

is

a

computational

challenge

and

it

provides

the

initial

conditions

of

all

periodic

orbits

of

the

Lorenz

model

up

to

multiplicity

and

guarantees

their

existence

via

computer-assisted

proofs

methods.

The

orbits

are

computed

using

high-precision

arithmetic

and

mixing

several

techniques

resulting

in

digits

of

precision

on

the

initial

conditions

of

the

periodic

orbits,

and

intervals

of

size

that

prove

the

existence

of

each

orbit.

Program

title:

Lorenz-Database

Catalogue

identifier:

Program

summary

Program

obtainable

from:

CPC

Program

Library,

Queens

University,

Belfast,

N.

Ireland

Licensing

provisions:

Standard

CPC

licence,

No.

of

lines

in

distributed

program,

including

test

data,

etc.:

No.

of

bytes

in

distributed

program,

including

test

data,

etc.:

Distribution

format:

tar.gz

Programming

language:

Data.

Computer:

Any

computer.

Operating

system:

Any.

RAM:

Database,

no

requirements

Classification:

Nature

of

problem:

Database

of

all

periodic

orbits

of

the

Lorenz

model

up

to

multiplicity

with

precision

digits.

Solution

method:

Advanced

search

methods

for

locating

unstable

periodic

orbits

combined

with

the

Taylor

series

method

for

multiple

precision

integration

of

ODEs

and

interval

methods

for

providing

Computer-Assisted

proofs

of

the

periodic

orbits.

Unusual

features:

The

database

gives

digits

rigorously

proved

using

Computer-Assisted

techniques

and

digits

using

an

optimal

adaptive

Taylor

series

method.

Running

time:

Not

Applicable.

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

computer-assisted proof
validated numerics
high-precision


A periodic FMM for Maxwells equations in 3D and its applications to problems related to photonic crystals This paper presents an FMM (Fast Multipole Method) for periodic boundary value problems for Maxwells equations in 3D. The effect of periodicity is taken into account with the help of the periodised moment to local expansion (M2L) transformation formula, which includes lattice sums. We verify the proposed method by comparing the obtained numerical results with analytic solutions for models of the multi-layered dielectric slab. We then apply the proposed method to scattering problems for periodic two-dimensional arrays of dielectric spheres and compare the obtained energy transmittances with those from the previous studies. We also consider scattering problems for woodpile crystals, where we find a passband related to a localised mode. Through these numerical tests we conclude that the proposed method is efficient and accurate.

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

fmm
maxwells equations
photonic crystals


Energy and Time Efficient Algorithm for Cloud Offloading Using Dynamic Profiling With the advent of computationally intensive application for mobile devices there is need of time and energy efficient component offloading algorithm which involves execution of resource intensive components of an application on remote machine. Traditional solution includes offloading of entire application (no partition), offloading predetermined components (static partition) or making offloading decision at runtime for each component (01 ILP). Our proposed solution of dynamic profiling uses depth-first search (topological sorting) to calculate the offloading point at runtime. The subsequent nodes are offloaded with high probability. Experimental result demonstrates that proposed algorithm is better than 01 ILP in time domain while outperforming no-partitioning and static-partitioning in energy domain.

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


Speeding up transposition-invariant string matching Finding the longest common subsequence (LCS) of two given sequences A = a(0)a(1). . . a(m-1) and B = b(0)b(1) . . . b(n-1) is an important and well studied problem. We consider its generalization, transposition-invariant LCS (LCTS), which has recently arisen in the field of music information retrieval. In LCTS, we look for the LCS between the sequences A + t = (ao + t) (a 1 + t) . . . (a(m-1) + t) and B where t is any integer. We introduce a family of algorithms (motivated by the Hunt-Szymanski scheme for LCS), improving the currently best known complexity from 0(mn log log alpha) to O(D log log alpha + mn), where a is the alphabet size and D <= mn is the total number of dominant matches for all transpositions. Then, we demonstrate experimentally that some of our algorithms outperform the best ones from literature. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

algorithms
information retrieval
longest common subsequence

longest common transposition-invariant subsequence


A performance analysis of block ACK scheme for IEEE 802.11e networks The demand for the IEEE 802.11 wireless local-area networks (WLANs) has been drastically increasing along with many emerging applications and services over WLAN. However, the IEEE 802.11 medium access control (MAC) is known to be limited in terms of its throughput performance due to the high MAC overhead, such as interframe spaces (IFS) or per-frame based acknowledgement (ACK) frame transmissions. The IEEE 802.11e MAC introduces the block ACK scheme for improving the system efficiency of the WLAN. Using the block ACK scheme can reduce the ACK transmission overhead by integrating multiple ACKs for a number of data frames into a bitmap that is contained in a block ACK frame, thus increasing the MAC efficiency. In this paper, we mathematically analyze the throughput and delay performance of the IEEE 802.11e block ACK scheme in an erroneous channel environment. Our extensive ns-2 simulation results validate the accuracy of our analytical model and they further demonstrate that the block ACK scheme enhances the MAC throughput performance at the cost of the resequencing delay at the receiving buffer.

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


Simple and complex reaction time measurement: A preliminary evaluation of new approach and diagnostic tool Investigations of reaction time have been employed in various medical specialties as well as psychology. Although numerous tools have been employed, a universal diagnostic tool has yet to be developed in meeting the requirements of all specialties. Therefore, based on the assumptions of the test theory, we developed a new diagnostic tool, a designed program, designated as Reactor. Subsequent to its implementation in Visual Basic for application and MS Access, Reactor was initially estimated in a group of students. Preliminary evaluation of the Reactor has revealed that it is an innovative and useful diagnostic tool in compliance with the physiological model of reaction time in humans.

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

menstrual cycle dependent mental efficiency


Determining semantic similarity among entity classes from different ontologies Semantic similarity measures play an important role in information retrieval and information integration. Traditional approaches to modeling semantic similarity compute the semantic distance between definitions within a single ontology, This single ontology is either a domain-independent ontology or the result of the integration of existing ontologies. We present an approach to computing semantic similarity that relaxes the requirement of a single ontology and accounts for differences in the levels of explicitness and formalization of the different ontology specifications. A similarity function determines similar entity classes by using a matching process over synonym sets, semantic neighborhoods, and distinguishing features that are classified into parts, functions, and attributes. Experimental results with different ontologies indicate that the model gives good results when ontologies have complete and detailed representations of entity classes. While the combination of word matching and semantic neighborhood matching is adequate for detecting equivalent entity classes, feature matching allows us to discriminate among similar, but not necessarily equivalent entity classes.

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

semantic similarity
information integration

ontology integration
semantic interoperability
semantic matching


Evaluation of a Real-Time PCR Assay to Detect Coxiella burnetii We evaluated real-time PCR assays for the detection of C. burnetii which targets sequences that are present either in one (icd) or in several copies (transposase of IS1111a) on the chromosome. The assays are highly sensitive, with reproducible detection limits of approximately 10 copies per reaction, at least 100 times more sensitive than capture ELISA, when performed on infected placenta material and specific for C. burnetii. The numbers of IS1111 elements in the genomes of 75 C. burnetii isolates were quantified by real-time PCR and proved to be highly variable

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


Continuous input nonlocal games We present a family of nonlocal games in which the inputs the players receive are continuous. We study three representative members of the family. For the first two a team sharing quantum correlations (entanglement) has an advantage over any team restricted to classical correlations. We conjecture that this is true for the third member of the family as well.

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

quantum games
nonlocality
bell inequalities


Designing digital fabrication learning environments for Bildung: Implications from ten years of physical computing workshops The first programmable bricks appeared about 30 years ago, and attributed to constructionist hands-on learning. With the upcoming of FabLab initiatives and the maker movement, learning activities with digital fabrication technologies have now gained importance and spread over the world. Educational concepts that contribute not only to acquisition of skills but also to Bildung (i.e. deep and sustainable learning) are demanded more than ever. For more than a decade, we have designed, conducted and evaluated constructionist learning environments for digital fabrication with physical computing material focusing on children. In the course of our research, we identified core ideas to facilitate Bildung that are summarized as be-greifbarkeit (being graspable), imagineering and self-efficacy. In this article, we elucidate these principles and show how they occur and can be facilitated in learning environments for digital fabrication with programmable construction kits. By further applying the ideas to novel production technologies, we identify challenges and give implications for integrated educational and technology designs for young people that take into account the unique qualities of digital fabrication technologies for Bildung.

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

digital fabrication
bildung
physical computing


practical spectral characterization of trichromatic cameras Simple and effective geometric and radiometric calibration of camera devices has enabled the use of consumer digital cameras for HDR photography, for image based measurement and similar applications requiring a deeper understanding about the camera characteristics. However, to date no such practical methods for estimating the spectral response of cameras are available. Existing approaches require costly hardware and controlled acquisition conditions limiting their applicability. Consequently, even though being highly desirable for color correction and color processing purposes as well as for designing image-based measurement or photographic setups, the spectral response of a camera is rarely considered. Our objective is to close this gap. In this work a practical approach for multi-spectral characterization of trichromatic cameras is presented. Taking photographs of a color chart and measuring the average lighting using a spectrophotometer the effective spectral response of a camera can be estimated for a wide range of out-of-lab environments. By comprehensive cross validation experiments we prove that the new method performs well compared to costly reference measurements. Moreover, we show that our technique can also be used to generate ICC profiles with higher accuracy and less constrained capturing conditions compared to state-of-the-art ICC profilers.

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


Null Foley-Sammon transform In this paper, an important conclusion for linear discriminant analysis is proved: in the case of the small sample size, (number-of-classes-1) null projection directions (NPDs) do exist, on which, the within-class distance equals zero and the between-class distance is positive. The Null Foley-Sammon Transform (NFST), which is constituted by NPDs, is also proposed. Its effectiveness is evidenced by experiments on face recognition. (c) 2006 Pattern Recognition Society. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

null foley-sammon transform
feature extraction
fisher criterion
foley-sammon transform


analysis of www traffic in cambodia and ghana In this paper we present an analysis of HTTP traffic captured from Internet cafs and kiosks from two different developing countries -- Cambodia and Ghana. This paper has two main contributions. The first contribution is a analysis of the characteristics of the web trace, including the distribution and classification of the web objects requested by the users. We outline notable features of the data set which effect the performance of the web for users in developing regions. Using the trace data, we also perform several simulation analyses of cache performance, including both traditional caching and more novel off-line caching proposals. The second contribution is a set of suggestions on mechanisms to improve the user experience of the web in these regions. These mechanisms include both applications of well-known research techniques as well as offering some less well-studied suggestions based on intermittent connectivity.

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

www
trace
cambodia
classification
developing regions
http
caching
ghana

hypertext transfer protocol
redundant transfers
performance analysis
measurement
proxy
dynamic content
world wide web
delay tolerant networking


disk i/o based load balancing in vod system Video-on-Demand (VOD) has been gaining increasing popularity in recent years. Previous load balancing algorithms in video servers mainly focus on two resources: storage and network bandwidth. However, with better network and cheaper disk, disk I/O becomes more critical in reducing user-perceived latency. In this paper, we propose an algorithm for disk I/O balancing in centralized video servers. Analytically and by simulations we show that our algorithm decreases total disk I/O amount by 30\% to 50\% and provides better load balancing performance and higher cache hit ratio compared with round-robin and random selection algorithm.

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


Allocation of flexible and indivisible resources with decision postponement and demand learning ? We consider a firm that uses two perishable resources to satisfy two demand types. Resources are flexible such that each resource can be used to satisfy either demand type. Resources are also indivisible such that the entire resource must be allocated to the same demand type. This type of resource flexibility can be found in different applications such as movie theater complexes, cruise lines, and airlines. In our model, customers arrive according to independent Poisson processes, but the arrival rates are uncertain. Thus, the manager can learn about customer arrival rates from earlier demand figures and potentially increase the sales by postponing the resource allocation decision. We consider two settings, and derive the optimal resource allocation policy for one setting and develop a heuristic policy for the other. Our analysis provides managerial insights into the effectiveness of different resource allocation mechanisms for flexible and indivisible resources.

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

retailing
demand forecast
capacity allocation
perishable inventory


a large-scale behavior corpus including multi-angle video data for observing infants' long-term developmental processes We have developed a method for multimodal observation of infant development. In order to analyze development of problem solving skills by observing scenes of task achievement or communication with others, we have introduced a method for extracting detailed behavioral features expressed by gestures or eyes. We have realized an environment for recording behavior of the same infants continuously as multi-angle video. The environment has evolved into a practical infrastructure through the following four steps; (1) Establish an infant school and study the camera arrangement. (2) Obtain participants in the school who agree with the project purpose and start to hold regular classes. (3) Begin to construct a multimodal infant behavior corpus with considering observation methods. (4) Practice development process analyses using the corpus. We have constructed a support tool for observing a huge amount of video data which increases with age. The system has contributed to enrich the corpus with annotations from multimodal viewpoints about infant development. With a focus on the demonstrative expression as a fundamental human behavior, we have extracted 240 scenes from the video during 10 months and observed them. The analysis results have revealed interesting findings about the developmental changes in infants' gestures and eyes, and indicated the effectiveness of the proposed observation method.

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

multimodal behavior corpus
multi-angle video
behavior observation


Mechanisms of Pain in Arthritis Inflammation in the joint causes peripheral sensitization (increase of sensitivity of nociceptive primary afferent neurons) and central sensitization (hyperexcitability of nociceptive neurons in the central nervous system). The processes of sensitization are thought to be the basis of arthritic pain that appears as spontaneous pain (joints at rest) and hyperalgesia (augmented pain response on noxious stimulation and pain on normally nonpainful stimulation). Sensitization also facilitates efferent neuronal processes through which the nervous system influences the inflammatory process. Peripheral sensitization is produced by the action of inflammatory mediators such as bradykinin, prostaglandins, neuropeptides, and cytokines which activate corresponding receptors in proportions of nerve fibers. In addition, the expression of receptors, for example, bradykinin and neurokinin 1 receptors, is upregulated during inflammation. The development of hyperexcitability of spinal cord neurons is produced by various transmitter/receptor systems that constitute and modulate synaptic activation of the neurons. The key transmitter is glutamate that activates N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) and non-NMDA receptors on spinal cord neurons. Blockade of these receptors prevents and reduces central sensitization. Excitatory neuropeptides (substance P and calcitonin gene-related peptide) further central sensitization. Central sensitization also is facilitated by mediators that have complex actions (e.g., prostaglandin E2). Spinal PGE2 binds to receptors at presynaptic endings of primary afferent neurons (thus influencing synaptic release) and to receptors on postsynaptic spinal cord neurons. The administration of PGE2 to the spinal cord surface produces changes of responsiveness of spinal neurons similar to peripheral inflammation, and spinal indomethacin to the spinal cord attenuates development of hyperexcitability significantly.

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

arthritic pain
peripheral sensitization
central sensitization
spinal cord neurons
prostaglandins

nociception
antigen-induced arthritis
dorsal root ganglion neurons
neuropeptide receptors


An integrated approach for the design of multi-product assembly systems This paper addresses integration issues in multi-product assembly system design. It describes the main features of an integrated approach to support the design of families of products and assembly systems. Design development is considered as a hierarchical progression in both product and process domains. At each product design step, partial assembly plans are generated and the consequences of the design decisions are evaluated. Therefore, non-promising assembly strategies can be discarded from early stages and constraints concerning assembly processes can be established in order to orient product design. Along with the classical design criteria associated with the assembly complexity, we have proposed a new criterion for multi-product assembly system design called, 'required flexibility minimization'. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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

integrated design
product family
web grammar


Efficient elliptic curve scalar multiplication algorithms resistant to power analysis This paper presents four algorithms for securing elliptic curve scalar multiplication against power analysis. The highest-weight binary form (HBF) of scalars and randomization are applied to resist power analysis. By using a special method to recode the scalars, the proposed algorithms do not suffer from simple power analysis (SPA). With the randomization of the secret scalar or base point, three of the four algorithms are secure against differential power analysis (DPA), refined power analysis (RPA) and zero-value point attacks (ZPA). The countermeasures are also immune to the doubling attack. Fast Shamir's method is used in order to improve the efficiency of parallel scalar multiplication. Compared with previous countermeasures, the new countermeasures achieve higher security and do not impact overall performance. (C) 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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

cryptography
elliptic curve cryptosystems
highest-weight binary form


State estimation for discrete-time delayed neural networks with fractional uncertainties and sensor saturations ? In this paper, the state estimation problem is investigated for a new class of discrete-time delayed neural networks with fractional uncertainties and sensor saturations. The activation functions are described by the sector-like nonlinearities that are more general than the commonly used Lipschitz ones. The purpose of the addressed problem is to design a state estimator to estimate the network states through available output measurements such that the dynamics of the estimation error is globally exponentially stable. An optimization method is employed to deal with the fractional uncertainties presented in the neural networks. The estimator is expected to be robust against parameter uncertainties and tolerant against the sensor saturations. It is shown that the estimator gains can be derived in terms of the delay bounds, uncertainty structures and saturation levels. The desired state estimator is designed via the semi-definite programme method that can be easily implemented by using available software. Finally, a numerical example is applied to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed state estimation approach.

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

sensor saturation
fractional uncertainty
exponential stability
time-varying delays


A new approximation algorithm for sorting of signed permutations Sequence comparison leads to a combinatorial optimization problem of sorting permutations by reversals and transpositions. Namely, given any two permutations, find the shortest distance between them. This problem is related with genome rearrangement. The sorting of signed permutations is studied. Because in genome rearrangement, genes are oriented in DNA sequences. The transpositions which have been studied in the literature can be viewed as operations working on two consecutive segments of the genome. In this paper, a new kind of transposition which can work on two arbitrary segments of the genome is proposed, and the sorting of signed permutations by reversals and this new kind of transpositions are studied. After establishing a lower bound on the number of operations needed, a 2-approximation algorithm is presented for this problem and an example is given to show that the performance ratio of the algorithm cannot be improved.

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

genome rearrangement
approximation algorithm


An efficient implementation of tree-based multicast routing for distributed shared-memory multiprocessors This paper presents an efficient routing and flow control mechanism to implement multidestination message passing in wormhole networks. The mechanism is a variation of tree-based multicast with pruning to recover from deadlocks and it is well suited for distributed shared-memory multiprocessors (DSMs) with hardware cache coherence. It does not require any preprocessing of multicast messages reducing notably the software overhead required to send a multicast message. Also, it allows messages to use any deadlock-free routing function. The new scheme has been evaluated by simulation using synthetic loads. It achieves multicast latency reductions of 30% on average. Also it was compared with other multicast mechanisms proving its benefits. Finally, it can be easily implemented in hardware with minimal changes to existing unicast wormhole routers. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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


Robust Text Detection in Natural Scenes Using Text Geometry and Visual Appearance This paper proposes a new two-phase approach to robust text detection by integrating the visual appearance and the geometric reasoning rules. In the first phase, geometric rules are used to achieve a higher recall rate. Specifically, a robust stroke width transform (RSWT) feature is proposed to better recover the stroke width by additionally considering the cross of two strokes and the continuousness of the letter border. In the second phase, a classification scheme based on visual appearance features is used to reject the false alarms while keeping the recall rate. To learn a better classifier from multiple visual appearance features, a novel classification method called double soft multiple kernel learning (DS-MKL) is proposed. DS-MKL is motivated by a novel kernel margin perspective for multiple kernel learning and can effectively suppress the influence of noisy base kernels. Comprehensive experiments on the benchmark ICDAR2005 competition dataset demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed two-phase text detection approach over the state-of-the-art approaches by a performance gain up to 4.4% in terms of F-measure.

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

geometric rule
stroke width transform (swt)
support vector machine (svm)
multiple kernel learning (mkl)


A joint optimisation model for inventory replenishment, product assortment, shelf space and display area allocation decisions In this paper, we propose an optimisation model to determine the product assortment, inventory replenishment, display area and shelf space allocation decisions that jointly maximize the retailers profit under shelf space and backroom storage constraints. The variety of products to be displayed in the retail store, their display locations within the store, their ordering quantities, and the allocated shelf space in each display area are considered as decision variables to be determined by the proposed integrated model. In the model formulation, we include the inventory investment costs, which are proportional to the average inventory, and storage and display costs as components of the inventory costs and make a clear distinction between showroom and backroom inventories. We also consider the effect of the display area location on the item demand. The developed model is a mixed integer non-linear program that we solved using LINGO software. Numerical examples are used to illustrate the developed model.

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 B 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

inventory replenishment
assortment
space allocation


The impact of false alarm mitigation on surface landmine detection in MWIR imagery Surface landmine and minefield detection from airborne imagery is a difficult problem. As part of the minefield detection process, anomaly detection is performed to identify potential landmines in individual airborne images. Post-processing is performed on the initial landmines identified to reduce the number of false alarms, referred to as false alarm mitigation. In this research, a circular harmonics transform image processing approach (the CHT method) and a constant false alarm rate technique (the RX approach) are investigated for surface landmine detection and false alarm mitigation in medium wave infrared (MWIR) image data. The false alarm mitigation approach integrates the CHT and RX methods to identify candidate landmine locations with one technique at a given false alarm rate and applies the other technique to confirm landmine locations and eliminate potential false alarms. Individual detector and false alarm mitigation experimental results are presented for 31 daytime and 43 nighttime MWIR images containing 76 and 142 landmines, respectively. At a 0.9 desired probability of landmine detection, experimental results show that false alarm mitigation reduces the false alarm rate by as much as 84.3% and 13.7% for daytime and nighttime images, respectively, maintaining the probability of detection at 0.85 and 0.90, respectively.

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

airborne
circular harmonics
false alarm mitigation
image processing
landmine
rx
transform


Globally Reliable Variation-Aware Sizing of Analog Integrated Circuits via Response Surfaces and Structural Homotopy This paper presents SANGRIA, a tool for automated globally reliable variation-aware sizing of analog integrated circuits. Its keys to efficient search are adaptive response surface modeling, and a new concept, structural homotopy. Structural homotopy embeds homotopy-style objective function tightening into the search state's structure, not dynamics. Searches at several different levels are conducted simultaneously: The loosest level does nominal dc simulation, and tighter levels add more analyses and {process, environmental} corners. New randomly generated designs are continually fed into the lowest (cheapest) level, always trying new regions to avoid premature convergence. For further efficiency, SANGRIA adaptively constructs response surface models, from which new candidate designs are optimally chosen according to both yield optimality on model and model prediction uncertainty. The stochastic gradient boosting models support arbitrary nonlinearities, and have linear scaling with input dimension and sample size. SANGRIA uses SPICE in the loop, supports accurate/complex statistical SPICE models, and does not make assumptions about the convexity or differentiability of the objective function. SANGRIA is demonstrated on four different analog circuits having from 10 to 50 devices and up to 444 design/process/environmental variables.

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

design automation
integrated circuit
process variation


A semi-automatic method for burn scar delineation using a modified ChanVese model We propose a novel semi-automatic method for burn scar delineation from Landsat imagery using a modified ChanVese model. Burn scars appear reddish-brown in band 742 false-colour composite of Landsat 7 images. This property is used in our algorithm to delineate burn scars. Firstly, we visually choose sample pixels from the burn scar. From these pixels, a discrimination function for burn scars is determined by the principal component analysis and interval estimation. Then we define a modified ChanVese functional. The minimizer of the functional corresponds to the boundary of the burn scar. In order to minimize this functional, the corresponding contour evolution equation is given. We use the discrimination function to locate an initial contour that is near the boundary of the burn scar. The evolving curve then efficiently converges to the desired boundary. A Landsat image over Russia is used to examine our algorithm. The result shows that the algorithm is effective.

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

interior and exterior boundary
level set
objects of interest


applications of relational data structure models in man-machine systems A character string manipulation language has been created, on a pilot study basis, in order to investigate the use of associative data structures in man-machine communication. The data structure, implemented by hash coding, is used to model the environment in which communication is carried out. Examples are given which indicate that much more flexible man-machine systems can be achieved through use of such models.

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

associative
relational
models
data structure

programming language
interactive communication


protecting tcp services from denial of service attacks In this paper, we present a scheme that protects legitimate traffic from the large volume of attackers packets during a DDoS attack. Legitimate packets can be recognized by the tokens they carry in the IP header. Obtaining a token does not require protocol additions or changes, rather it is automatically obtained when a TCP connection is established. We believe that the Implicit Token Scheme (ITS) has numerous advantages: (1) It is totally transparent to clients. (2) No new protocols or modification of existing ones is needed to implement ITS. (3) Operations required by intermediate routers are computationally not more intensive than a couple of addition operations which could be easily done at wire-speed. (4) Does not lead to false positives. (5) Can sustain server availability even during attacks involving hundreds of thousands of attackers.

ddos defense
syn cookie
path identificatio


CATRA: Interactive Measuring and Modeling of Cataracts We introduce an interactive method to assess cataracts in the human eye by crafting an optical solution that measures the perceptual impact of forward scattering on the foveal region. Current solutions rely on highly-trained clinicians to check the back scattering in the crystallin lens and test their predictions on visual acuity tests. Close-range parallax barriers create collimated beams of light to scan through sub-apertures, scattering light as it strikes a cataract. User feedback generates maps for opacity, attenuation, contrast and sub-aperture point-spread functions. The goal is to allow a general audience to operate a portable high-contrast light-field display to gain a meaningful understanding of their own visual conditions. User evaluations and validation with modified camera optics are performed. Compiled data is used to reconstruct the individual's cataract-affected view, offering a novel approach for capturing information for screening, diagnostic, and clinical analysis.

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


Entropy and correlations in lattice-gas automata without detailed balance We consider lattice-gas automata where the lack of semi-detailed balance results from node occupation redistribution ruled by distant configurations; such models with nonlocal interactions are interesting because they exhibit non-ideal gas properties and can undergo phase transitions. For this class of automata, mean-field theory provides a correct evaluation of properties such as compressibility and viscosity (away from the phase transition), despite the fact that no H-theorem strictly holds. We introduce the notion of locality - necessary to define quantities accessible to measurements - by treating the coupling between nonlocal bits as a perturbation. Then if we define operationally ''local'' states of the automaton - whether the system is in a homogeneous or in an inhomogeneous state - we can compute an estimator of the entropy and measure the local channel occupation correlations. These considerations are applied to a simple model with nonlocal interactions.

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


Restoring subsampled color images In some capturing devices, such as digital cameras, there is only one color sensor at each pixel. Usually, 50% of the pixels have only a green sensor, 25% only a red sensor, and 25% only a blue sensor. The problem is then to restore the two missing colors at each pixel - this is called "demosaicing", because the original samples are usually arranged in a mosaic pattern. In this short paper, a few demosaicing algorithms are developed and compared. They all incorporate a notion of "smoothness in chroma space", by imposing conditions not only on the behavior of each color channel separately, but also on the correlation between the three channels.

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


On two-queue Markovian polling systems with exhaustive service We consider a class of two-queue polling systems with exhaustive service, where the order in which the server visits the queues is governed by a discrete-time Markov chain. For this model, we derive an expression for the probability generating function of the joint queue length distribution at polling epochs. Based on these results, we obtain explicit expressions for the LaplaceStieltjes transforms of the waiting-time distributions and the probability generating function of the joint queue length distribution at an arbitrary point in time. We also study the heavy-traffic behaviour of properly scaled versions of these distributions, which results in compact and closed-form expressions for the distribution functions themselves. The heavy-traffic behaviour turns out to be similar to that of cyclic polling models, provides insights into the main effects of the model parameters when the system is heavily loaded, and can be used to derive closed-form approximations for the waiting-time distribution or the queue length distribution.

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


Sensor network design and upgrade for plant parameter estimation This work concentrates on the comparison of two approaches for the design of sensor networks with parameter estimation purposes. After extending a Maximum Precision Model recently published to multiple parameter estimation and binary variables, its equivalence with the Minimum Cost Model is presented. Industrial heat exchanger units are used to illustrate the results.

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 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

sensor network design
parameter estimation


Ontology-driven slope modeling for disaster management service These days, with the development of information technology, new paradigms have been created through academical and technological convergence in various areas. The IT convergence draws much attention as the next generation technology for disaster prevention and management in the construction and transportation area. Along with global warming, global climate changes and unusual weather occur around the world, and consequently disasters become more huge. IT convergence based disaster management service makes it possible to quickly respond to unexpected disasters in the ubiquitous environment and mitigate the disasters. Although research on disaster prevention and management has constantly been conducted, it is relatively slow to develop the technology for disaster prediction and prevention. For efficient safety and disaster prevention and management in the next generation IT convergence, it is essential to establish a systematic disaster prevention technology and a disaster prevention information system. In this paper, we proposed ontology-driven slope modeling for disaster management service through the convergence of construction, transportation technology and IT. User profile, environment information, location information, weather index, slope stability, disaster, statistics and analysis of disasters, and forest fire disaster index are used to build internal context information, external context information, and service context information. Ontology-based context awareness modeling of the landslides and disasters generated is constructed, and relevant rules are generated by inference engine. Based on the ontology of external and internal context awareness, the rules of service inference derived by inference engine are produced using protg 5.0. According to the service inference rules, disaster control services best fitting for users environment is provided. By addressing the social issues related to disaster prevention and response and judging the potential risk of disasters, the proposed method can contribute to improving the safety of the public and the quality of their life. Social consensus on the necessity of prevention of urban climate disasters can be formed easily, and a ripple effect is expected on the situational response to natural disaster.

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

disaster management
ontology
it convergence
slope modeling
context awareness