Sculpturing on discrete displacement fields A displacement field can be defined by a vector field and a height field on an orientable surface S, describing the direction and the amount of displacement to be applied to S in order to get a surface represented by the displacement field. S together with the vector field can also be considered as a representation of a volume by a "surface crust". The crust allows the application of sculpturing operations for designing detailed structure. For conventional height fields over the plane, sculpturing can be reduced to the task of finding the minimum or maximum of the height values of a surface and the height values stored. Over the plane, depth-buffering with parallel projection has been used for calculation. For displacement fields over curved surfaces the projection is more complicated. In this contribution, an efficient solution is presented for displacement fields over triangular meshes. The central task is to insert a triangle in space into the curved depth-buffer represented by the displacement field.

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


Multiple color texture map fusion for 3D models A commonly encountered problem when creating 3D models of large real scenes is unnatural color texture fusion. Due to variations in lighting and camera settings (both manual and automatic), captured color texture maps of the same 3D structures can have very different appearances. When fusing multiple texture maps to create larger models, this color variation leads to poor appearance with patchwork color tilings on homogeneous surfaces. This paper extends previous research on pairwise global color correction to multiple overlapping texture map images. The central idea is to estimate a set of blending transformations that minimize the overall global color discrepancy between the texture maps, thus spreading residual color errors, rather than letting them accumulate.

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

virtual models
color consistency
texture mapping
color matching


Design guidelines for wireless sensor networks: communication, clustering and aggregation When sensor nodes are organized in clusters, they could use either single hop or multi-hop mode of communication to send their data to their respective cluster heads. We present a systematic cost-based analysis of both the modes, and provide results that could serve as guidelines to decide which mode should be used for given settings. We determine closed form expressions for the required number of cluster heads and the required battery energy of nodes for both the modes. We also propose a hybrid communication mode which is a combination of single hop and multi-hop modes, and which is more cost-effective than either of the two modes. Our problem formulation also allows for the application to be taken into account in the overall design problem through a data aggregation model.

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

wireless sensor networks
clustering
data aggregation


Security approaches in e-cognocracy E-cognocracy is a democratic model focussed on the joint creation of Social Wisdom through the Internet by means of the extraction and diffusion of knowledge related with the scientific resolution of highly complex problems associated with public decision making. To this end, e-cognocracy allows for the consideration of several rounds during the resolution process. The linkability of votes, the intensity of preferences and the identification of the arguments that support choices, among other matters, require the design of a specific e-voting process the e-cognocracy, e-cognising. This paper presents various implementations of the technology, commencing with an initial proof of concept and going on to the use of smart cards to permit remote use of the system and influence the level of perceived confidence among users, eliminating the role of one of the confidence authorities formerly required to ensure appropriate system security.

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

e-cognocracy
e-voting
cryptography primitives
smart-cards
trusted third parties


Data Mining techniques for the detection of fraudulent financial statements This paper explores the effectiveness of Data Mining (DM) classification techniques in detecting firms that issue fraudulent financial statements (FFS) and deals with the identification of factors associated to FFS. In accomplishing the task of management fraud detection, auditors could be facilitated in their work by using Data Mining techniques. This study investigates the usefulness of Decision Trees, Neural Networks and Bayesian Belief Networks in the identification of fraudulent financial statements. The input vector is composed of ratios derived from financial statements. The three models are compared in terms of their performances.

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

fraudulent financial statements
management fraud
data mining


Ordered domain algebras We give a finite axiomatisation to representable ordered domain algebras and show that finite algebras are representable on finite bases. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

domain algebra
finite representation
relation
cayley representation


dimensions of software engineering course design A vast variety of topics relate to the field of Software Engineering. Some universities implement curricula covering all aspects of Software Engineering. A number of other courses cover detailed aspects, e.g. programming, usability and security issues, analysis, architecture, design, and quality. Other universities offer general curricula considering Software Engineering in few or single course only. In each case, a course set has to be defined which directly relates to a specific student outcome. This work provides a method for categorizing and analyzing a course set within abstract dimensions for course design. We subsequently show the results of applying the dimensions to the course degree scheme in use. The course design dimensions can also be related to the student outcomes defined in SE2004 CC Section 3.2 [10].

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

software engineering education
course design framework
course design evaluation
outcome case studies


an evaluation of tcp-based rate-control algorithms for adaptive internet streaming of h.264/svc Recent work in TCP video streaming indicates that multimedia streaming via TCP provides satisfactory performance when the achievable TCP throughput is approximately twice the media bit rate. However, these conditions may not be achievable on the Internet, e.g., when the delivery path offers insufficient bandwidth or becomes congested due to competing traffic. Therefore, adaptive streaming for videos over TCP is required and a number of rate-control algorithms for video streaming have been proposed and evaluated in the literature.\\ In this paper, we evaluate and compare three existing rate-control algorithms for TCP streaming in terms of the (PSNR) quality of the delivered video and in terms of the timeliness of delivery. The contribution of the paper is that, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first evaluation of TCP-based streaming in an Internet-like setting making use of the scalability features of the H.264/SVC video codec. Two simple bandwidth estimation algorithms and a priority-/deadline-driven approach are described to adapt the bit rates of, and transmit, the H.264/SVC video in a rate-distortion optimal manner. The results indicate that the three algorithms perform robustly in terms of video quality and timely delivery, both on under-provisioned links and in case of competing TCP flows. The priority-/deadline-driven technique is even more stable in terms of packet delays and jitter; thus, client buffers can be dimensioned more easily.

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

h.264/svc
tcp fairness
adaptive video streaming
rate control


Providing QoS to TCP and real time connections in the Internet We consider a system where streaming and/or real time applications, using the UDP protocol pass through a bottleneck router. Several persistent and non persistent TCP connections may also be passing through that router. Using the rate control at the UDP sources and choosing the RED parameters appropriately, we obtain pre-specified delays, little delay jitter, no packet loss, 100% channel efficiency, pre-specified throughput for the TCP and UDP streams and little rate fluctuation. We verify our control scheme by extensive simulations. Results are extended to a tandem of queues.

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

internet
real time applications
qos
rate control


Screening for the Metabolic Basis of Neurodegeneration Metabolism is controlled by a complex system of transcriptional events and posttranslational modifications stimulated by substrate and metabolite availability. It is becoming clear that neurodegenerative diseases are a symptom of a deficiency in the regulation or execution of metabolic reactions. Mitochondria, as the central organelles in metabolic regulation as well as the chief generators of reactive species, clearly have a role to play in the etiology of neurodegenerative conditions. We are developing antibody-based capture arrays to determine multiple parameters of key mitochondrial proteins. Parameters include enzyme activity, quantity, oxidative modification (including nitrative and oxidative stress), and regulation (phosphorylation and acetylation). At this time the core of this array focuses on the enzymes of oxidative phosphorylation. We continue to expand this array as antibodies for enzyme isolation and modification detection become available. Here we demonstrate the use of this array by analyzing the proteomic differences in oxidative phosphorylation enzymes between human heart and liver tissues, cells grown in media promoting aerobic versus anaerobic metabolism, and the catalytic/proteomic effects of mitochondria exposed to oxidative stress.

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

mitochondria
oxidative stress
modification
neurodegeneration
metabolism


Architecture Optimization of Application-Specific Implicit Instructions Dynamic configuration of application-specific implicit instructions has been proposed to better exploit the available parallelism at the instruction level in pipelined processors. The support of such implicit instruction issue-requires the pipeline to be extended with a trigger table that describes the instruction implicitly issued as a response to a value written into a triggering register by a triggering instruction (which may be an add or sub instruction). In this article, we explore the design optimization of the trigger table to maximize the number of instructions that can be implicitly issued while keeping the limited size of the trigger table. The concept of implicitly issued instruction has been formally defined by considering the inter-basic block analysis of control and data dependencies. A compilation tool chain has been developed to automatically identify the optimization opportunities, taking into account the constraints imposed by control and data dependencies as well as by architectural limitations. The proposed solutions have been applied to the case of a baseline scalar MIPS processor where, for the selected set of benchmarks (DSPStone and Mibench/automotive), we obtained an average speedup of 17%.

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

performances
pipeline architecture
implicit instruction issue


An auction-based dynamic bandwidth allocation with sensitivity in a wireless networked control system Applications of control systems on wireless networks have been widely utilized due to their mobility. However, the performances of these networked control systems (NCS) could be degraded and become unstable by network-induced delays. Existing dynamic bandwidth allocation methods for NCS assign bandwidth to each system with respect to different priorities in an ascending order. However, these NCS may not be given bandwidths at equilibrium such that each of these NCS is satisfied with respect to bandwidth requests of other NCS. Therefore, some NCS may always consume most of given bandwidths, while others may never be given satisfied bandwidths. This paper proposes a dynamic bandwidth allocation methodology that controls bandwidths given to open-loop NCS to be at Nash equilibrium. In this paper, the average sensitivities of NCS are used in utility functions in order to evaluate the effects of network-induced delays for NCS. Then, a control center or an access point will use the proposed methodology to allocate bandwidths for all NCS based on Nash equilibrium. Simulations and experiments were setup from a set of DC motors controlled over a wireless network. Simulation and experimental results show good performances of the proposed methodology compared with three other methods. (c) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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


Aerodynamic effects of the early three-dimensional instabilities in the flow over one and two circular cylinders in tandem predicted by the lattice Boltzmann method The aerodynamic effects due to the development of 3D flow structures in the flow over one and two cylinders in tandem were studied numerically, using the lattice Boltzmann method. 2D and 3D simulations were conducted for one and two cylinders with cylinder spacings in the range of 1.5d-8d, at Reynolds numbers in the range of 160-220. The presence of Mode A instabilities were confirmed for cylinder spacings larger than 4d, as well as the T3 modes at a cylinder spacing of 3d. It was found that the 3D structures resulting from the Mode A instabilities have significant effects on the Strouhal number and forces acting on the cylinders. However, for the Reynolds numbers studied, the forces acting on the upstream cylinder were less affected by the 3D instabilities than in the single cylinder case. It was also found that the T3 mode has a different effect on the force coefficients than the Mode A instabilities. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

lattice boltzmann method
mode a instabilities

flow past two tandem cylinders
vortex shedding
transition to three-dimensional flow


ON COMMON FIXED POINT THEOREMS WITHOUT COMMUTING CONDITIONS IN TVS-CONE METRIC SPACES In this manuscript, some common fixed point theorems without any commuting conditions investigated in TVS-valued metric spaces.

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 O

non-commuting mapping
tvs-valued metric spaces


Towards creating assistive software by employing human behavior models Assistive software becomes more and more important part of our everyday life. As it is not straightforward to create such a system, the engineering of assistive systems is a topic of current research with different applications in healthcare, education and industry. In this paper we introduce three contributions to this field of research. Whereas most assistive systems use approaches for intention recognition based on training data applicable to specific environments and applications, we introduce a training-free approach. We do that by showing that it is possible to generate probabilistic inference systems from causal models for human behavior. Additionally, we collect a list of requirements for context aware assistive software and human behavior modeling for intention recognition and showed that our system satisfies them. We then introduce a software architecture for assistive systems that provides support for this kind of modeling. In addition to introducing the modeling approach and the architecture we show in an experimental way that our approach is suited for smart environments. The collected list of requirements could help a software engineer create a robust and easily adaptable to changes in the environment assistive software.

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

assistive software
smart environments
human behavior modeling


Comparison of three strategies of trunk support during asymmetric two-handed reach in standing No trunk support (NTS) was compared to a lower trunk support (LTS) of leaning against a worktable and a dynamic upper trunk support (UTS) using postural kinematics, trunk extensor muscle activity and subjective rating of both comfort and effort. Ten females completed 3 repetitions where they lifted 0 and 5kg load from a symmetrical position at hip-height to a 45 asymmetric position at: i) hip-height and ii)shoulder-height. Human motion capture showed trunk flexion decreased by 1210 with trunk support with hip-height reach. The table blocked axial rotation of the pelvis which was compensated by an additional 86 rotation of the thoracic segment. Surface EMG of the lumbar erector spinae, contralateral to reach, showed the UTS to be almost twice as effective as the LTS with shoulder-height reach with a 30%18 reduction. With hip-height reach, UTS resulted in a smaller reduction equal to 23%27 while the LTS had no effect. Further investigation is needed to determine optimal performance parameters for trunk support with complex, dynamic trunk postures and whether altered kinematics arising from LTS have higher risk of upper back discomfort.

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

standing work
low back
ergonomics
assistive device


Counting inequivalent monotone Boolean functions Monotone Boolean functions (MBFs) are Boolean functions f:{0,1}n?{0,1} f : { 0 , 1 } n ? { 0 , 1 } satisfying the monotonicity condition x?y?f(x)?f(y) x ? y ? f ( x ) ? f ( y ) for any x,y?{0,1}n x , y ? { 0 , 1 } n . The number of MBFs in n n variables is known as the n n th Dedekind number. It is a longstanding computational challenge to determine these numbers exactly: these values are only known for n n at most 8. Two monotone Boolean functions are equivalent if one can be obtained from the other by permuting the variables. The number of inequivalent MBFs in n n variables was known only for up to n=6 n = 6 . In this paper we propose a strategy to count inequivalent MBFs by breaking the calculation into parts based on the profiles of these functions. As a result we are able to compute the number of inequivalent MBFs in 7 variables. The number obtained is 490013148.

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

dedekind numbers
isotone boolean functions
inequivalent monotone boolean functions


performance evaluation of a generalized energy efficient time based protocol under different applications Many Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) protocols show different performance under different applications. Therefore, a WSN protocol designer must be aware of the intended applications. In this paper, we study the effect of the inter arrival time between events on the performance of some WSN routing protocols. We observe that the investigated protocols show different performance under different applications. We compare the performance of the investigated protocols in terms of delay, network lifetime, throughput and percentage of detected events.

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


Using temporal bursts for query modeling We present an approach to query modeling that leverages the temporal distribution of documents in an initially retrieved set of documents. In news-related document collections such distributions tend to exhibit bursts. Here, we define a burst to be a time period where unusually many documents are published. In our approach we detect bursts in result lists returned for a query. We then model the term distributions of the bursts using a reduced result list and select its most descriptive terms. Finally, we merge the sets of terms obtained in this manner so as to arrive at a reformulation of the original query. For query sets that consist of both temporal and non-temporal queries, our query modeling approach incorporates an effective selection method of terms. We consistently and significantly improve over various baselines, such as relevance models, on both news collections and a collection of blog posts.

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

information retrieval
temporal information retrieval


issues in next generation wireless networks and services for developing regions The paper deals with three important aspects of the deployment of next generation wireless networks and services in developing countries. A framework to support the growth of innovative and locally relevant mobile services from the different stake-holder's perspective is developed. The framework consists of three pillars of thought composed of next generation technology migration strategy, development of local content and service provider sector, and a mobile laboratory for service localization and usability studies.

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

localization
next generation wireless networks

usability lab
policy
mobile innovative services


Reconstruction of three-dimensional objects through matching of their parts The problem of reassembling an object from its parts or fragments has never been addressed with a unified computational approach, which depends on the pure geometric form of the parts and not application-specific features. We propose a method for the automatic reconstruction of a model based on the geometry of its parts, which may be computer-gene rated models or range-scanned models. The matching process can benefit from any other external constraint imposed by the specific application.

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

object reconstruction
complementary matching
depth buffer
virtual assemblage


trim range limited by noise in bandgap voltage references To mitigate the impact of fabrication process in the performance of Bandgap Voltage References (BGR) usually a trim circuit is included. This technique results in more die area and longer test times. Reducing the trim range reduces the area overhead and test time. Other factor that can also limit the performance of BGR circuits is the output noise, generated by integrated devices or from the supply voltage. This work studies how the output noise and variability due to process variations can impact the design and applicability of the trim circuit. For this proposal, three BGR 's were designed in a commercial 0.35 m CMOS technology. Results show that in high-order BGR's, where the output noise is more relevant, the output noise must be properly accounted for in the design of the BGR and trim circuit. This leads to reduced trim range and proper prediction of the maximum precision that can be achieved.

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


optimizing i/o-intensive transactions in highly interactive applications The performance provided by an interactive online database system is typically measured in terms of meeting certain pre-specified Service Level Agreements (SLAs), with expected transaction latency being the most commonly used type of SLA. This form of SLA acts as a soft deadline for each transaction, and user satisfaction can be measured in terms of minimizing tardiness, that is, the deviation from SLA. This objective is further complicated for I/O-intensive transactions, where the storage system becomes the performance bottleneck. Moreover, common I/O scheduling policies employed by the Operating System with a goal of improving I/O throughput or average latency may run counter to optimizing per-transaction performance since the Operating System is typically oblivious to the application high-level SLA specifications. In this paper, we propose a new SLA-aware policy for scheduling I/O requests of database transactions. Our proposed policy synergistically combines novel deadline-aware scheduling policies for database transactions with features of Operating System scheduling policies designed for improving I/O throughput. This enables our proposed policy to dynamically adapt to workload and consistently provide the best performance.

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

i/o scheduling
database systems
transaction processing


Equivalence between priority queues and sorting We present a general deterministic linear space reduction from priority queues to sorting implying that if we can sort up to n keys in S( n) time per key, then there is a priority queue supporting delete and insert in O( S( n)) time and find-min in constant time. Conversely, a priority queue can trivially be used for sorting: first insert all keys to be sorted, then extract them in sorted order by repeatedly deleting the minimum. Asymptotically, this settles the complexity of priority queues in terms of that of sorting. Previously, at SODA' 96, such a result was presented by the author for the special case of monotone priority queues where the minimum is not allowed to decrease. Besides nailing down the complexity of priority queues to that of sorting, and vice versa, our result yields several improved bounds for linear space integer priority queues with find-min in constant time: Deterministically. We get O( log log n) update time using a sorting algorithm of Han from STOC' 02. This improves the O(( log log n)( log log log n)) update time of Han from SODA'01. Randomized. We get O(root log log n) expected update time using a randomized sorting algorithm of Han and Thorup from FOCS'02. This improves the O( log log n) expected update time of Thorup from SODA'96. Deterministically in AC(0) ( without multiplication). For any epsilon > 0, we get O((log log n)(1+ epsilon)) update time using an AC(0) sorting algorithm of Han and Thorup from FOCS' 02. This improves the O(( log log n)(2)) update time of Thorup from SODA'98. Randomized in AC(0). We get O( log log n) expected update time using a randomized AC(0) sorting algorithm of Thorup from SODA'97. This improves the O(( log log n)(1+ epsilon)) expected update time of Thorup also from SODA'97. The above bounds assume that each integer is stored in a single word and that word operations take unit time as in the word RAM.

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


Stability of CauchyJensen type functional equation in generalized fuzzy normed spaces In this paper, we establish some stability results concerning the CauchyJensen functional equation in generalized fuzzy normed spaces. The results of the present paper improve and extend some recent results.

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

non-archimedean fuzzy ? ? -normed space ? ? ? ? ?


Multi-period traffic routing in satellite networks ? We introduce a traffic routing problem over an extended planning horizon that appears in geosynchronous satellite networks. Unlike terrestrial (e.g., fiber optic) networks, routing on a satellite network is not transparent to the customers. As a result, a route change is associated with significant monetary penalties that are usually in the form of discounts (up to 40%) offered by the satellite provider to the customer that is affected. The notion of these rerouting penalties requires the network planners to explicitly consider these penalties in their routing decisions over multiple time periods and introduces novel challenges that have not been considered previously in the literature. We develop a branch-and-price-and-cut procedure to solve this problem and describe an algorithm for the associated pricing problem. Our computational work demonstrates that the use of a multi-period optimization procedure as opposed to a myopic period-by-period approach can result in cost reductions up to 13% depending on problem characteristics and network size considered. These cost reductions correspond to potential savings of several hundred million dollars for large satellite providers.

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

or in telecommunications
integer programming
large scale optimization
branch-and-price-and-cut


Combinatorial foundation for logical formulation in process network synthesis A rigorous foundation is given for the logical formulation of process network synthesis on the basis of the combinatorial axioms of feasible processing networks. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

logical formulation
process network synthesis
combinatorial axioms


scalable high speed ip routing lookups Internet address lookup is a challenging problem because of increasing routing table sizes, increased traffic, higher speed links, and the migration to 128 bit IPv6 addresses. IP routing lookup requires computing the best matching prefix, for which standard solutions like hashing were believed to be inapplicable. The best existing solution we know of, BSD radix tries, scales badly as IP moves to 128 bit addresses. Our paper describes a new algorithm for best matching prefix using binary search on hash tables organized by prefix lengths. Our scheme scales very well as address and routing table sizes increase: independent of the table size, it requires a worst case time of log 2 ( address bits ) hash lookups. Thus only 5 hash lookups are needed for IPv4 and 7 for IPv6. We also introduce Mutating Binary Search and other optimizations that, for a typical IPv4 backbone router with over 33,000 entries, considerably reduce the average number of hashes to less than 2, of which one hash can be simplified to an indexed array access. We expect similar average case behavior for IPv6.

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

hashing behavior size matching router routing links case internet access paper algorithm traffic search scheme

optimality
scalability
computation
arrays
addressing
standardization
timing
hash table


Compact Code Generation for Tightly-Coupled Processor Arrays In this paper, we consider programmable tightly-coupled processor arrays consisting of interconnected small light-weight VLIW cores, which can exploit both loop-level parallelism and instruction-level parallelism. These arrays are well suited for compute-intensive nested loop applications often providing a higher power and area efficiency compared with commercial off-the-shelf processors. They are ideal candidates for accelerating the computation of nested loop programs in future heterogeneous systems, where energy efficiency is one of the most important design goals for overall system-on-chip design. In this context, we present a novel design methodology for the mapping of nested loop programs onto such processor arrays. Key features of our approach are: (1) Design entry in form of a functional programming language and loop parallelization in the polyhedron model, (2) support of zero-overhead looping not only for innermost loops but also for arbitrarily nested loops. Processors of such arrays are often limited in instruction memory size to reduce the area and power consumption. Hence, (3) we present methods for code compaction and code generation, and integrated these methods into a design tool. Finally, (4) we evaluated selected benchmarks by comparing our code generator with the Trimaran and VEX compiler frameworks. As the results show, our approach can reduce the size of the generated processor codes up to 64 % (Trimaran) and 55 % (VEX) while at the same time achieving a significant higher throughput.

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


A PD-type Multi Input Single Output SSSC damping controller design employing hybrid improved differential evolution-pattern search approach A novel PD type MISO controller is proposed for SSSC based damping controller. Hybrid improved DE and PS approach is proposed to optimize the controller parameters. In improved DE, control parameters F and CR are varied during optimization runs. Both single machine infinite bus and multi-machine power systems are considered. Comparative results are provided to show the superiority of the proposed design approach.

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

static synchronous series compensator (sssc)

improved differential evolution algorithm


A high performance embedded wavelet video coder This paper describes a highly performance scalable video coder. Wavelet transform is employed to decompose the video frame into different resolutions. Novel features of this coder are 1) a highly efficient multi-resolution motion estimation that requires minimum compuation and overhead motion information is embedded in this scheme; 2) the wavelet coefficients are organized in an extended zero tree (EZT) which is much more efficient than the simple zerotree. We show with experimental results that this video coder achieves good performances both in processing time and compression ratio when applied to typical test video sequences.

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

wavelet transform
zerotree
multiresolution
motion estimation


3D registration of laser range scenes by coincidence of coarse binary cubes Scene registration of a pair of three-dimensional (3D) range images is a 6D optimization problem usually required in mobile robotics. This problem is different from object registration, since all scan directions and depths may contain relevant data, and because farther regions are sampled with lower densities. The paper proposes an efficient scene matching method based on the concept of coarse binary cubes. An integer objective function is defined as the number of coincident cubes between both scans. This is a metric of the degree of overlap that does not employ point distances. Its value is obtained without actually using any 3D grid data structure, with a computational complexity of order O(n), where n represents the number of laser points. This objective function is optimized with a globalized version of the downhill Simplex algorithm to avoid local minima. Experimental results are presented from indoor and outdoor environments with different degrees of structuring. The effect of cube size and the number of vertices on registration performance has been analyzed. Besides, experiments show that the proposed method achieves similar accuracy as iterative closest points (ICP) and normal distribution transform (NDT), while it improves both computation time and robustness against initial misalignments.

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

3d measurement system
laser ranging
point matching


Radial snakes: Comparison of segmentation methods in synthetic noisy images To perform a comparative study of methods based on radial active contour methods. To evaluate the new method pSnakes. To apply at the segmentation of noisy image with different levels of noise. To apply Hilbert transform to calculate the external energy used on radial snakes.

O O O O O 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

digital image processing
active contours
radial active contours


Detecting misbehaving units on computational grids Computational grids are characterized by the collaborative work among environment devices. Further, grid applications have been built based on reputation solutions. However, those applications can suffer due to attacks from malicious nodes. These nodes may not only corrupt the result from processed jobs, but also intentionally acquire a good reputation so as to obtain privileges to damage other nodes. In order to detect and isolate these malicious nodes (known as intelligent cheating nodes) from a P2P grid computing, this work proposes a system-level diagnosis model, using a strategy based on voting and honeypots. The model is evaluated by means of scenarios that take into account different percentages of malicious and cheating nodes. Achieved results show the robustness and efficiency of our diagnosis model, once all cheating nodes can be detected, with an accuracy of 99.4% of jobs being correctly processed. Furthermore, a graphical user interface is implemented for visualizing the simulations. Copyright (C) 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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


Decision process modeling across Internet and real world by double helical model of chance discovery A case is presented for the double helical processing of chance discovery - human and an automated data mining system co-work, each progressing spirally toward the creative reconstruction of ideas. Especially, the discovery of what we call chances, significant novel events, is realized in this process. The example shown here is an application to questionnaire analysis for understanding new behaviors of Internet users. Internet users are born and bred with face-to-face human relations in the real world, but their interactions with WWW are distilling new value-criteria, keeping personal real-world senses of rationality, empathy, ethics, etc. In our method for aiding the discovery based on the double-helix model, the in-depth interaction of the Internet, the fundamental (i.e., common both in the Internet and in the real world) characters and the behaviors of people are discussed with revealing unnoticed value-criteria.

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

human-computer interaction
analysis of the internet users


FO(ID) as an extension of DL with rules There are many interesting Knowledge Representation questions surrounding rule languages for the Semantic Web. The most basic one is of course: which kind of rules should be used and how do they integrate with existing Description Logics? Similar questions have already been addressed in the field of Logic Programming, where one particular answer has been provided by the language of FO(ID). FO(ID) is an extension of first-order logic with a rule-based representation for inductive definitions. By offering a general integration of first-order logic and Logic Programs, it also induces a particular way of extending Description Logics with rules. The goal of this paper is to investigate this integration and discover whether there are interesting extensions of DL with rules that can be arrived at by imposing appropriate restrictions on the highly expressive FO(ID).

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

description logics
logic programming
knowledge representation


Estimating quantiles under sampling on two occasions with arbitrary sample designs A practical problem related to the estimation of quantiles in double sampling with arbitrary sampling designs in each of the two phases is investigated. In practice, this scheme is commonly used for official surveys, in which quantile estimation is often required when the investigation deals with variables such as income or expenditure. A class of estimators for quantiles is proposed and some important properties, such as asymptotic unbiasedness and asymptotic variance, are established. The optimal estimator, in the sense of minimizing the asymptotic variance, is also presented. The proposed class contains several known types of estimators, such as ratio and regression estimators, which are of practical application and are therefore derived. Assuming several populations, the proposed estimators are compared with the direct estimator via an empirical study. Results show that a gain in efficiency can be obtained.

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

successive sampling
auxiliary information
monte carlo simulation


A cross-layer diversity technique for multicarrier OFDM multimedia networks Diversity can be used to combat multipath fading and improve the performance of wireless multimedia communication systems. In this work, by considering transmission of an embedded bitstream over an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) system in a slowly varying Rayleigh faded environment, we develop a cross-layer diversity technique which takes advantage of both multiple description coding and frequency diversity techniques. More specifically, assuming a frequency-selective channel, we study the packet loss behavior of an OFDM system and construct multiple independent descriptions using an FEC-based strategy. We provide some analysis of this cross-layer approach and demonstrate its superior performance using the set partitioning in hierarchical trees image coder.

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

orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (ofdm)


Feasibility and impact of a computerised clinical decision support system on investigation and initial management of new onset chest pain: a mixed methods study Clinical decision support systems (CDSS) can modify clinician behaviour, yet the factors influencing their effect remain poorly understood. This study assesses the feasibility and acceptability of a CDSS supporting diagnostic and treatment decisions for patients with suspected stable angina.

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 B

diagnosis
computerised decision support system
qualitative
clinical guideline


Optimal trajectory planning for trains A pseudospectral method and a mixed integer linear programming approach The optimal trajectory planning problem for train operations under constraints and fixed arrival time is considered. The varying line resistance, variable speed restrictions, and varying maximum traction force are included in the problem definition. The objective function is a trade-off between the energy consumption and the riding comfort. Two approaches are proposed to solve this optimal control problem. First, we propose to use the pseudospectral method, a state-of-the-art method for optimal control problems, which has not used for train optimal control before. In the pseudospectral method, the optimal trajectory planning problem is recast into a multiple-phase optimal control problem, which is then transformed into a nonlinear programming problem. However, the calculation time for the pseudospectral method is too long for the real-time application in an automatic train operation system. To shorten the computation time, the optimal trajectory planning problem is reformulated as a mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) problem by approximating the nonlinear terms in the problem by piecewise affine functions. The MILP problem can be solved efficiently by existing solvers that guarantee to return the global optimum for the proposed MILP problem. Simulation results comparing the pseudospectral method, the new MILP approach, and a discrete dynamic programming approach show that the pseudospectral method has the best control performance, but that if the required computation time is also take into consideration, the MILP approach yields the best overall performance. More specifically, for the given case study the control performance of the pseudospectral approach is about 10% better than that of the MILP approach, and the computation time of the MILP approach is two to three orders of magnitude smaller than that of the pseudospectral method and the discrete dynamic programming approach.

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

trajectory planning
train operation
milp
pseudospectral method


Improving clinical decisions and outcomes with information: a review The clinical information available to clinicians is expanding rapidly. It can enhance clinical decision-making, but it can also confuse the process. To be most useful, information should be available at the time and place it is needed and be specific to the task at hand. In the new paradigm of medicine, one based on continuous quality improvement, useful information must be relevant to both the processes and outcomes of care. Clinical practice guidelines have become increasingly popular for improving the quality of health care. The field of medical informatics can bring cogent information to the point where decisions are being made to augment quality improvement activities in general, and practice guidelines in particular. However, such innovations are dependent on the type, quantity, and quality of information available. This article discusses when guidelines can enhance the quality and outcomes of care and how medical informatics can help achieve these goals. In particular, the barriers to the broad implementation of electronic medical records in a variety of health care settings are explored.

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


The minimum firing time of the generalized firing squad synchronization problem for squares For almost all variations of the firing squad synchronization problem for elementary geometric figures such as lines, rings, squares, rectangles, and cubes, minimal-time solutions are known. However, in 2012 Umeo and Kubo introduced a very simple variation of this type and pointed out that its minimal-time solutions are unknown. In that variation, a problem instance is a square array of n columns and n rows and the position of the general is arbitrary. For this variation they constructed a solution that fires at time 2n?2 2 n ? 2 for any position of the general and wrote that it is not known whether this solution is minimal-time or not. We determine the exact value of the minimum firing time of this variation. For some problem instances this value is smaller than 2n?2 2 n ? 2 and hence the 2n?2 2 n ? 2 time solution is not minimal-time. Our result does not solve the problem of existence or non-existence of minimal-time solutions of the variation. However the result gives one necessary condition for solutions to be minimal-time.

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

cellular automata
automata theory
distributed computing


Awaking and sleeping of a complex network A network with a logistic-like local dynamics is considered. We implement a mean-field multiplicative coupling among first-neighbor nodes. When the coupling parameter is small, the dynamics is dissipated and there is no activity: the network is turned off. For a critical value of the coupling, a non-null stable synchronized state, which represents a turned on network, emerges. This global bifurcation is independent of the network topology. We characterize the bistability of the system by studying how to perform the transition, which is now topology dependent, from the active state to that with no activity, for the particular case of a scale-free network. This could be a naive model for the wakening and sleeping of a brain-like system, i.e., a multi-component system with two different dynamical behaviors.

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

complex networks
neuronal models
brain-like systems
logistic coupling


Algorithm 803: A simpler macro processor Macro processors have been in the computing tool chest since the late 1950's. Their use, though perhaps not what it was in the heyday of assembly language programming, is still widespread. In the past, producing a full-featured macro processor has required significant effort, similar to that required to implement the front-end to a compiler augmented by appropriate text substitution capabilities. The tool described here adopts a different approach. The text containing macro definitions and substitutions is, in a sense, "compiled" to produce a program, and this program must then be executed to produce the final output.

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


Game matching number of graphs We study a competitive optimization version of ??(G) ? ? ( G ) , the maximum size of a matching in a graph G G . Players alternate adding edges of G G to a matching until it becomes a maximal matching. One player (Max) wants the final matching to be large; the other (Min) wants it to be small. The resulting sizes under optimal play when Max or Min starts are denoted ? g ? ( G ) and ? g ? ( G ) , respectively. We show that always | ? g ? ( G ) ? ? g ? ( G ) | ? 1 . We obtain a sufficient condition for ? g ? ( G ) = ? ? ( G ) . Always ? g ? ( G ) ? 2 3 ? ? ( G ) , with equality for many split graphs, while ? g ? ( G ) ? 3 4 ? ? ( G ) when G G is a forest. Whenever G G is a 3 3 -regular n n -vertex connected graph, ? g ? ( G ) ? n / 3 , and such graphs exist with ? g ? ( G ) < 7 n / 18 . For an n n -vertex path or cycle, the value is roughly n/7 n / 7 .

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

maximum matching
game parameter
cubic graph


Concatenation-based greedy heuristics for the Euclidean Steiner tree problem We present a class of O (n log n) heuristics for the Steiner tree problem in the Euclidean plane. These heuristics identify a small number of subsets with few, geometrically close, terminals using minimum spanning trees and other well-known structures from computational geometry: Delaunay triangulations, Gabriel graphs, relative neighborhood graphs, and higher-order Voronoi diagrams. Full Steiner trees of all these subsets are sorted according to some appropriately chosen measure of quality. A tree spanning all terminals is constructed using greedy concatenation. New heuristics are compared with each other and with heuristics from the literature by performing extensive computational experiments on both randomly generated and library problem instances.

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


Design and Estimation of Coded Exposure Point Spread Functions We address the problem of motion deblurring using coded exposure. This approach allows for accurate estimation of a sharp latent image via well-posed deconvolution and avoids lost image content that cannot be recovered from images acquired with a traditional shutter. Previous work in this area has used either manual user input or alpha matting approaches to estimate the coded exposure Point Spread Function (PSF) from the captured image. In order to automate deblurring and to avoid the limitations of matting approaches, we propose a Fourier-domain statistical approach to coded exposure PSF estimation that allows us to estimate the latent image in cases of constant velocity, constant acceleration, and harmonic motion. We further demonstrate that previously used criteria to choose a coded exposure PSF do not produce one with optimal reconstruction error, and that an additional 30 percent reduction in Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE) of the latent image estimate can be achieved by incorporating natural image statistics.

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

blur estimation
computational photography


Biomechanical evaluation of bCheneau-Toulouse-Munster brace in the treatment of scoliosis using optimisation approach and finite element method The aim of the study was to investigate the mechanisms of the Cheneau-Toulouse-Munster (CTM) brace in the correction of scoliotic curves, at night in the supine position. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and Computer tomography (CT) acquisitions were performed in vivo on eight girls having an idiopathic scoliosis and being treated for the first time using a personalised CTM brace. Personalised 3D finite element models of the spine were developed for each patient, and an optimisation approach was used to quantify the forces generated by each brace on each scoliotic spine. A sensitivity study was undertaken to test the assumptions about intervertebral behaviour and load transmission from the brace to the spine. The computed CTM brace forces were 9-216N in the coronal plane and 2-72N in the sagittal plane. Personalised spinal stiffness properties should be included in spine models because, in this study, partial correction resulted from the application of higher estimated forces than for total correction. Partially reduced spines should be stiffer than totally reduced spines. The sensitivity study showed that the computed brace forces were proportional to the intervertebral Young's modulus and should be analysed as estimated data. Better knowledge of brace forces should be helpful in brace design to achieve the best correction of first scoliotic deformities.

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


Potential impact of rapid diagnostic tests on improving antimicrobial use Antimicrobial stewardship programs promote optimal antimicrobial use in the individual patient and reductions in inappropriate antimicrobial use in health care to limit the selective pressures that contribute to the development and spread of multidrug-resistant organisms. These efforts presume that the antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) data provided by the microbiology laboratory, which serve as the basis for clinical decision making, are accurate and delivered in a timely fashion. However, routine AST data are often not available until two to three days after the clinical specimen for culture has been collected from the patient. Nucleic acid amplification methods can provide data on the presence of antimicrobial-resistant microorganisms directly from clinical specimens often in less than 1 hour. Organisms causing sepsis, respiratory tract infections, and sexually transmitted diseases are all amenable to rapid detection. Several commercial molecular diagnostic assays are already in use in microbiology laboratories worldwide; however, physician acceptance of the rapid methods is often slow. Data on the presence of resistant bacteria in a clinical sample in less than one hour should improve the effectiveness of antimicrobial stewardship programs.

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

nucleic acid amplification
susceptibility testing

pcr
molecular diagnostics
antimicrobial agent


Combined medical quality assessment using the evidential reasoning approach A multiple criteria medical quality assessment framework is proposed. The evidential reasoning approach is applied to combined medical quality assessment. A method for converting numerical indicators to qualitative grades is proposed. A case study of the quality assessment framework and methodology is presented.

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

medical quality assessment
the evidential reasoning approach

quality indicator
expert judgment
patient feedback


Theoretical studies on reaction mechanism of H-2 with COS The reaction mechanisms of H-2 with OCS have been investigated theoretically by using density function theory method. Three possible pathways leading to major products CO and H2S, as well as two possible pathways leading to by-product CH4 have been proposed and discussed. For these reaction pathways, the structure parameters, vibrational frequencies and energies for each stationary point have been calculated, and the corresponding reaction mechanism has been given by the potential energy surface, which is drawn according to the relative energies. The calculated results show that the corresponding major products CO and H2S as well as by-product CH4 are in agreement with experimental findings, which provided a new illustration and guidance for the reaction of H-2 with OCS.

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


Nonlinear finite element analysis of four-pile caps supporting columns subjected to generic loading The paper presents the development of an adaptable strut-and-tie model that can be applied to the design or analysis of four-pile caps that support axial compression and biaxial flexure from a supported rectangular column. Due to an absence of relevant test data, the model is validated using non-linear finite element analyses (NLFEA). The results indicate that the use of the proposed model would lead to safe and economical designs. The proposed model can be easily extended to any number of piles, providing a rational procedure for the design of wide range of pile caps.

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

strut-and-tie models
flexure strength
shear strength
concrete design


Managing the exchange of engineering product data to support through life ship design An approach for managing the exchange of engineering product data between geographically distributed designers and analysts using a heterogeneous tool set for the through-life design of a ship is described. The approach was developed within a pan-European maritime project called VRShips-ROPAX 2000 that demonstrated how information technology could be integrated into the design process. This paper describes the development of a common model containing neutral ship product data through a bottom-up consideration of the requirements of the tools to be integrated, as well as a top-down consideration of the data requirements for through life design. This common model was supported within an Integrated Design Environment (IDE) that co-ordinated design activity distributed across Europe. The IDE ensured that the users were provided with the right data in the right form at the right time to do the right task, i.e., that the design activity was timely and appropriate. The strengths and weaknesses of the approach are highlighted.

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

engineering product data exchange
neutral data
tool integration


An open platform to build, evaluate and simulate integrated models of farming and agro-ecosystems Due to significant changes in agro-ecological contexts, farmers need new solutions to produce goods. Modelling complements field experiments in the design of new farming systems. French researchers involved in such design issues developed a specific modelling platform to help model, simulate and evaluate cropping systems. After testing several existing environments, the RECORD platform was developed under the VLE environment, allowing the design of atomic and coupled models. It integrates different time steps and spatial scales and proposes some standard formalisms used to model agro-ecosystems (e.g. difference equations, differential equations, state charts ... ). A graphic user interface was designed to simplify coding tasks. A variety of research projects already use this platform. Examples are given showing the ability to recode simple models, encapsulate more complex models, link with GIS and databases, and use the R statistical package to run models and analyse simulation outputs. The option to use web interfaces enables application by non-scientist end-users. As the models follow a given standard, they can be placed in a repository and used by other researchers. Linking RECORD to other international platforms is now a compelling issue. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

agro-ecological systems
integrated modelling platform
cropping system design
simulation-based design


A real-time routing protocol with load distribution in wireless sensor networks Wireless sensor network (WSN) is a wireless ad hoc network that consists of very large number of tiny sensor nodes communicating with each other with limited power and memory constrain. WSN demands real-time forwarding which means messages in the network are delivered according to their end-to-end deadlines (packet lifetime). This paper proposes a novel real-time routing protocol with load distribution (RTLD) that ensures high packet throughput with minimized packet overhead and prolongs the lifetime of WSN. The routing depends on optimal forwarding decision that takes into account of the link quality, packet delay time and the remaining power of next hop sensor nodes. The proposed mechanism has been successfully studied and verified through simulation and real test bed implementation. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

end-to-end delay
packet reception rate
packet velocity
delivery ratio


Solving an assignmentselection problem with verbal information and using genetic algorithms1 The assignmentselection problems deal with finding the best one-to-one match for each of the given number of candidates to positions. Different benefits or costs are involved in each match and the goal is to minimise the total expense. In this paper we propose the use of verbal information for representing the vague knowledge available. Doing it, natural linguistic labels allow the problem to be recognised as it is in real life. This paper is an attempt to supply a satisfactory solution to real assignmentselection problems with verbal information and using genetic algorithms, showing the application of this model to the staff selection problem.

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

assignment problems
selection problems
relationships
linguistic variables
fuzzy numbers


Information and communications technologies for elderly ubiquitous healthcare in a smart home Over the past century, in most countries, there has been a continual increase in life expectancy primarily due to improvements in public health, nutrition, personal hygiene and medicine. However, these improvements are now coupled with aging population demographics and falling birth rates, which, when combined, are expected to significantly burden the socioeconomic well-being of many of these countries. In fact, never before in human history have we been confronted with such a large aging population, nor have we developed solid, cost-effective solutions for the well-being, healthcare and social needs of the elderly. One efficient and cost-effective solution to the problem of elderly/patient care is remote healthcare monitoring so they can continue to live at home rather than in nursing homes or hospitals that are very expensive and with limited spaces. These remote monitoring systems will allow medical personnel to keep track of important physiological signs with reduced human resources, at less cost and in real time. This paper introduces several low-cost, noninvasive, user-friendly sensing and actuating systems using information and communication technologies. Such systems can be used to create engineering solutions to some of the pressing healthcare problems in our society, especially as it pertains to the elderly. One example is the integration of sensors, wireless communications, low-power electronics and intelligent computing to determine health-related information using signals from walking patterns. Such a sensing system will be suitable for prolonged use in a home environment. It will be wearable, noninvasive and non-intrusive, similar to smart socks, smart wrist-bands or smart belts. Other examples such as a smart joint monitor and a smart sleeping environment will be discussed, and future perspectives and research challenges in smart home technologies will be described.

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

smart home
ubiquitous healthcare
smart joint monitor

smart medical home
smart home technology
elderly healthcare
walking age analyzer
smart knee monitor
smart sleep environment
sensor fusion
information modeling
data security


Classification of whist tournaments with up to 12 players A v-player whist tournament Wh(v) is a schedule of games, each involving two players opposing two others. Every round, the players are partitioned into games, with at most one player left over. Each player partners every other player exactly once and opposes every other player exactly twice during the tournament. Directed whist tournaments DWh(v), and triplewhist tournaments TWh(v), are Wh(v) with certain additional requirements. In this work the nonisomorphic Wh(v), DWh(v), and TWh(v) are enumerated for v?12. We find an apparently new Wh(9) and establish that there exists no DWh(12)and thereby no (12,4,1)-RPMDnor a TWh(12).

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


A reference model for dynamic web service composition systems Web services have become an emerging and promising technology to design and build complex business applications out of atomic web-based software components. To enforce extensive software reuse and dynamic adaptation, dynamic service composition has experienced an increasing interest in research efforts. Together, the lack of a general conceptual reference model for dynamic web service composition systems and the widespread use of these systems in service-enabled applications constitute a problem of management for these systems. To capture the requirements and challenges of these composition systems, a survey of a representative set of these systems is presented. In this paper, we develop a reference model for describing the functional structure and evaluating the performance of dynamic web service composition systems based on existing dynamic web service composition platforms and prototypes. To the best of our knowledge there has been no such model in the literature.

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

composition techniques
dynamic composition
classification
algorithms
measurement
experimentation


Synchronization criteria and pinning control for complex networks with multiple delays By linearizing complex networks with multiple coupling delays to some time-delayed subsystems, for the first time, some new criterions are given to ensure the global synchronization of the system with multiple delays. Then, based on the proposed criterions and Lyapunov stability theory, pinning control schemes for this system are developed to achieve global synchronization. The obtained conditions are expressed within the framework of linear matrix inequalities and can be easily checked in practice. Finally, several numerical examples are provided to show the effectiveness of the proposed results.

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

complex networks
synchronization
multiple delays
pinning control


A parallel hybrid greedy branch and bound scheme for the maximum distance-2 matching problem We present a new highly parallel algorithm for fast determination of near-optimal solutions to the NP-hard problem of identifying a maximum distance-2 matching in arbitrary graphs. This problem, known as D2EMIS, has important applications such as determining the maximum capacity of the media access (MAC) layer in wireless ad-hoc networks [1]. It can also be seen as a maximum 2-packing problem [2] on the edge-to-vertex dual graph of the original graph. Our algorithm extends the GRASP [3] philosophy in that partial solutions are constructed by adding in a greedy adaptive manner the best nodes that can be found; however, when there are multiple alternatives that can be selected in an iteration, the algorithm branches into as many paths as there are (greedy) alternatives. The algorithm, using appropriate bounds to prune partial solutions that cannot be optimal, produces very fast near-optimal solutions that compare very well against other distributed algorithms and random greedy heuristics proposed before or variants thereof, or exact methods (Integer Programming or Maximum Satisfiability state-of-the-art solvers).

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

maximum distance-2 matching
optimization methods
parallel algorithms
wireless ad-hoc networks


Empirical evaluation of a decision support model for adopting software product line engineering The software product line engineering (SPLE) community has provided several different approaches for assessing the feasibility of SPLE adoption and selecting transition strategies. These approaches usually include many rules and guidelines which are very often implicit or scattered over different publications. Hence, for the practitioners it is not always easy to select and use these rules to support the decision making process. Even in case the rules are known, the lack of automated support for storing and executing the rules seriously impedes the decision making process. We aim to evaluate the impact of a decision support system (DSS) on decision-making in SPLE adoption. In alignment with this goal, we provide a decision support model (DSM) and the corresponding DSS. First, we apply a systematic literature review (SLR) on the existing primary studies that discuss and present approaches for analyzing the feasibility of SPLE adoption and transition strategies. Second, based on the data extraction and synthesis activities of the SLR, the required questions and rules are derived and implemented in the DSS. Third, for validation of the approach we conduct multiple case studies. In the course of the SLR, 31 primary studies were identified from which we could construct 25 aspects, 39 questions and 312 rules. We have developed the DSS tool Transit-PL that embodies these elements. The multiple case study validation showed that the adoption of the developed DSS tool is justified to support the decision making process in SPLE adoption.

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

software product line engineering
decision support system
systematic literature review

software product line transition strategies

software product line engineering feasibility analysis


Dynamical model and analysis of cascading failures on the complex power grids Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to study the failures spread in complex power grids, and what topology of power grids is best for preventing or reducing blackouts. Design/methodology/approach - Based on the study of cascading failure models of complex power networks, an extended dynamical cascading failure model is proposed. Based on this model, two representatives of the complex power grids, the small-world network and the scale-free network, were simulated for line cascading failure. The power loss caused by cascading failures and the spreading speed of cascading failure are discussed. Findings - Power loss caused by cascading failures in the small-world network is much larger than that in the scale-free network, and the speed of cascading failure propagation in the small-world network is much faster than that in the scale-free network. Research limitations/implications - The establishment of the dynamical cascading failure model considering other protection devices needs further study. Practical implications The results of this study can be beneficial in system planning and upgrading. Originality/value - An extended dynamical cascading failure model is proposed and cascading failures in different topology of power grid are discussed.

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

cybernetics
power transmission systems
failure modes and effects analysis


A fast method to approximately train hard support vector regression The hard support vector regression (HSVR) usually has a risk of suffering from overfitting due to the presence of noise. The main reason is that it does not utilize the regularization technique to set an upper bound on the Lagrange multipliers so they can be magnified infinitely. Hence, we propose a greedy stagewise based algorithm to approximately train HSVR. At each iteration, the sample which has the maximal predicted discrepancy is selected and its weight is updated only once so as to avoid being excessively magnified. Actually, this early stopping rule can implicitly control the capacity of the regression machine, which is equivalent to a regularization technique. In addition, compared with the well-known software LIBSVM2.82, our algorithm to a certain extent has advantages in both the training time and the number of support vectors. Finally, experimental results on the synthetic and real-world benchmark data sets also corroborate the efficacy of the proposed algorithm.

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

support vector regression
regularization technique


a nondeterministic model for controlling the dramatization of interactive stories This paper presents a new model to control the dramatization of interactive stories, which are dynamically generated and presented in a 3D animation format. This new model gives the possibility of variation in the representation of stories and allows some interference of the user over the story throughout the play, while assuring coherence and a smooth flow of the narrative. Moreover, the model guarantees that the events finish in the expected way and at the right time. The model is based on the representation of events by nondeterministic automata, which gives some autonomy to the actors in their micro-actions. In order to control the dramatization, policies are generated using an automated planning technique based on model checking. To validate the model, a prototype has been implemented to be incorporated into the interactive storytelling system Logtell

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

interactive storytelling
planning
model checking


binary partitions with applications to hidden surface removal and solid modelling We consider schemes for recursively dividing a set of geometric objects by hyperplanes until all objects are separated. Such a binary partition is naturally considered as a binary tree where each internal node corresponds to a division and the leaves correspond to the resulting fragments of objects. The goal is to choose the hyperplanes properly so that the size of the binary partition, i.e., the number of resulting fragments of the objects, is minimized. We construct binary partitions of size &Ogr; ( n log n ) for n edges in the plane, and of size &Ogr; ( n ) if the edges are orthogonal. In three dimensions, we obtain binary partitions of size &Ogr; ( n 2 ) for n planar facets, and prove a lower bound of &OHgr;( n 3/2 ). Two applications of efficient binary partitions are given. The first is an &Ogr; ( n 2 )-sized data structure for implementing a hidden-surface removal scheme of Fuchs, Kedem and Naylor [5]. The second application is in solid modelling: given a polyhedron described by its n faces, we show how to generate an &Ogr; ( n 2 )-sized CSG ( constructive-solid-geometry ) formula whose literals correspond to half-spaces supporting the faces of the polyhedron (see Peterson [9] and Dobkin et al. [3]). The best previous results for both of these problems were &Ogr; ( n 3 ).

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

partition
tree
applications
lower bound
log
size
scheme
surface

fragmentation
efficiency
space
solid modeling
intern
data structures
object


Optimization of friction stir welding using space mapping and manifold mapping-an initial study of thermal aspects The aim of this paper is to optimize a thermal model of a friction stir welding process by finding optimal welding parameters. The optimization is performed using space mapping and manifold mapping techniques in which a coarse model is used along with the fine model to be optimized. Different coarse models are applied and the results and computation time are compared to gradient based optimization using the full model. It is found that the use of space and manifold mapping reduces the computational cost significantly due to the fact that fewer function evaluations and no fine model gradient information is required.

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

friction stir welding
space mapping
manifold mapping


Efficient softwarehardware 3D heat equation solver with applications on the non-destructive evaluation of minefields This paper targets the efficient computational solution of the heat transfer processes that take place in the soil and at the soilair interface and its use in non-destructive evaluation (NDE) techniques. In particular, the problem of the detection of plastic antipersonnel mines is considered. To this aim we projected a 3D finite-difference (FD) thermal model of the soil on a FPGA platform using Handel-C and VHDL. A speedup factor of 34 over a purely software solution is achieved, obtaining processing times that permit the use of the system on the field.

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

application accelerator
finite-difference (fd) method
field programmable gate array (fpga)
hardware accelerator
integer arithmetic
non-destructive evaluation (nde)
infrared (ir) thermography


A computer system for interpreting blood glucose data This paper presents an overview on the design and implementation of a computer system for the interpretation of home monitoring data of diabetic patients. The comprehensive methodology covers the major information processing steps leading from raw data to a concise summary of what has happened between two subsequent visits. It includes techniques for summarising and interpreting data, checking for inconsistency, identifying and diagnosing metabolic problems and learning from patient data. Data interpretation focuses on extracting trend patterns and classifying/clustering daily blood glucose (BG) profiles. The software helps clinicians to explore data recorded before the main meals and bedtime, and to identify problems in the patients metabolic control which should be addressed either by educating the patient and/or adjusting the current management regimen.

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

diabetes mellitus
intelligent data analysis
patient-specific model


message family propagation for ising mean field based on iteration tree Ising mean field is a basic variational inference method for Ising model, which can provide an effective approximate solution for large-scale inference problem. The main idea is to transform a probabilistic inference problem into a functional extremum problem by variational calculus, and solve the functional extremum problem to obtain approximate marginal distributions. The process of solving the functional extremum is an important step and a computational core for variational inference. But the traditional full variational iteration methods make the variable information intercross with each other deeply. From the view of incomplete variational iterations, we propose a message family propagation method for Ising mean field to compute a marginal distribution family of object variable. First we define the concepts of iteration tree and pruning iteration tree to describe the iteration computation process of Ising mean field inference. Then we design the message family propagation method based on the iteration trees. The method propagates mean field message families and belief message families from bottom to top of the iteration tree, and presents a marginal distribution family of variable in root node. Finally we prove the marginal distribution bound theorem, which shows that the marginal distribution family computed by the method in the pruning iteration tree contains the exact marginal stribution. Theoretical and experimental results illustrate that the message family propagation method is valid and the marginal distribution bounds are tight.

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

message family propagation
iteration tree
ising mean field


efficient stable sorting with minimal extra space In his chapter on sorting, Knuth [1]@@@@ describes the open problem of stable sorting with no more than 0(log 2 N) bits of extra space and less than 0(N 2 ) computation time. In this paper we define the concept of a contiguent and show that a contiguent forming algorithm may be used as the basis for a stable sort. A class of such contiguent forming algorithm may be used as the basis for a stable sort. A class of such contiguent forming algorithms is described, the most naive of which requires 0(log N) bits of extra space and 0(N log 2 N) computation time. We also describe a stable merging algorithm which requires 0(N) time and 0(log N) bits of extra space, but which is not applicable to all cases. It is shown, however, that this merge may be combined with a contiguent compilation algorithm to yield a generally applicable stable sorting algorithm. One such combination provides the basis for a stable sorting algorithm which requires 0(N.logN.G(N)) time and 0(log N) bits of extra space. Another such combination provides the basis for a stable sorting algorithm which requires 0(N log N) time and 0(log 2 N) bits of extra space.

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

yield merging sorting space log computation concept compilation paper algorithm minimal class


A Simple Improved Distributed Algorithm for Minimum CDS in Unit Disk Graphs Several routing schemes in ad hoc networks first establish a virtual backbone and then route messages via backbone nodes. One common way of constructing such a backbone is based on the construction of a connected dominating set (CDS). In this article we present a very simple distributed algorithm for computing a small CDS. Our algorithm has an approximation factor of at most 6.91, improving upon the previous best-known approximation factor of 8 due to Wan et al. [2002]. The improvement relies on a refined analysis of the relationship between the size of a maximal independent set and a minimum CDS in a unit disk graph. This subresult also implies improved approximation factors for many existing algorithm.

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 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

connected dominating set
unit disk graphs


Multicriteria optimal stopping of a fuzzy and stochastic system A multicriteria optimal stopping model is discussed in a stochastic and fuzzy environment. The randomness and fuzziness are evaluated by expectations and scalarization functions, respectively. Pareto optimal stopping times are given for the model, by using lambda -optimal stopping times. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

multicriteria optimal stopping
optimal stopping