Conversations with a virtual human: Synthetic emotions and human responses We investigated the human responses to the synthetic emotions of a virtual human. Synthetic emotions of a virtual human can affect human emotions. Synthetic emotions in speaking phase have more effect than in listening phase. Humans with less speaking confidence experience a conversation as less positive. Inconsistency emotion of a virtual human has a negative effect on the conversation.

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

virtual reality
dialogue experience
social anxiety


Eternal Inflation The basic workings of inflationary models are summarized, along with the arguments that strongly suggest that our universe is the product of inflation. It is argued that essentially all inflationary models lead to (future-)eternal inflation, which implies that an infinite number of pocket universes are produced. Although the other pocket universes are unobservable, their existence nonetheless has consequences for the way that we evaluate theories and extract consequences from them. The question of whether the universe had a beginning is discussed but not definitively answered. It appears likely, however, that eternally inflating universes do require a beginning.

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

cosmology
inflationary cosmology
origin of universe


The importance of individual preferences when evaluating the associations between working hours and indicators of health and well-being Previous studies indicate that the effect of a given shift schedule may depend on individual factors. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether a misfit between individual preferences and actual working hours affected the association between working hours and self-reported indicators of health and well-being. The study population consisted of 173 female eldercare workers who mainly worked day or evening shifts. We combined self-reported questionnaire data on preferences with actual work schedules during a four-week period. The study showed that a misfit between preferences on one hand and non-day work, weekend work or only a few consecutive days off on the other hand was associated with an increased dissatisfaction with working hours and/or an increase in the intention to leave the workplace due to one's working hours.

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


Exploiting community feedback for information retrieval in DHT networks In this paper, we propose CYBER, a CommunitY Based sEaRch engine, for information retrieval utilizing community feedback information in a DHT network. In CYBER, each user is associated with a set of user profiles that capture his/her interests. Likewise, a document is associated with a set of profilesone for each indexed term. A document profile is updated by users who query on the term and consider the document as a relevant answer. Thus, the profile acts as a consolidation of users feedback from the same community, and reflects their interests. In this way, as one user finds a document to be relevant, another user in the same community issuing a similar query will benefit from the feedback provided by the earlier user. Hence, the search quality in terms of both precision and recall is improved. Moreover, we further improve the effectiveness of CYBER by introducing an index tuning technique. By choosing the indexing terms more carefully, community-based relevance feedback is utilized in both building/refining indices and re-evaluating queries. We first propose a naive scheme, CYBER+, which involves an index tuning technique based on past queries only, and then re-evaluates queries in a separate step. We then propose a more complex scheme, CYBER+?+, which refines its index based on both past queries and relevance feedback. As the index is built with more selective and accurate terms, the search performance is further improved. We conduct a comprehensive experimental study and the results show the effectiveness of our schemes.

O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 B I O O O O O O O O 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
relevance feedback


Style adaptive contour tracking of human gait using explicit manifold models In the domain of human motion analysis, the observed contours of the body contain rich information about the body configuration, the motion performed, the person's identity, and even the emotional states of the person. In this paper, we introduce a framework for Bayesian tracking of the dynamic contours of the articulated human motion. We propose a factorized generative model for walking shape contour sequences that separates the dynamic deformation due to a motion, from the static variability due to the appearance of the person performing that motion. This results in an efficient tracking of gait sequence with a low-dimensional representation of body configuration and simultaneous adaptation to highly nonlinear static and dynamic shape deformations. Experimental results using the CMU Mobo, the University of Southampton (UoS), and M. Black's walking sequence, show accurate contour tracking of a person walking by dynamic body configuration estimation on a low-dimensional manifold space and personal style estimation to fit the contour to the individual characteristics. In addition, the estimated shape style provides a good descriptors for human identification from gait.

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

shape models
gait recognition
biometrics


hypertext challenges in the auditing domain Auditing is the process by which an opinion is formed on the financial statements of a company by a group of outside professional accountants. Large numbers of documents pertaining to the company's business are examined and many more are produced during an audit in order to arrive at and provide a basis for this opinion. These documents contain a wide variety of interrelated information. Capturing these interrelationships is essential to performing an effective audit. Currently, this is accomplished by using a highly-structured, manual hypertext system. While quite effective, the system is difficult and time-consuming to maintain, and can become unwieldy when conducting an audit for a very large company. We are in the process of developing an electronic system to meet the needs of this complex task. The complexity of the referencing system challenges current hypertext and user interface technology. At the same time, the structure of the domain affords an interesting application area within which to explore and more fully develop hypertext techniques. During the course of this project, we are exploring automatic generation of links, automatic generation of documents, hypertext path creation and access, creation of a typed-link topology for the domain, referencing of individual points and regions within documents, linking bodies of hypertext, and many other issues.

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

hypertext
task
order
generation
project
links
group
access
business
linking
structure
process
user interface
audit
complexity

challenge point applications maintainability topologies timing informal exploration systems technologies region documentation effect


An expert system for the evaluation of EDSS in multiple sclerosis Multiple sclerosis is a disease of unknown aetiology. Despite several advances in therapy in recent years, some problems such as the prognostic criteria are imperfectly understood. Several experimental trials of therapy in multiple sclerosis are in course in order to discover a successful treatment. Most of these research studies use a clinical rating scale named Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS) as an evaluation tool for the effects of drugs. This scale is defined by a set of rules written in English which provide a numerical quantification of the neurological examination. Although EDSS has been widely used for almost 20 years, its application still depends on the interpretation of the neurologist who performs the neurological examination, and many applications of the scale performed by different neurologist on the same patient can give different results. This is a serious problem for international trials because they lack of a reliable measure of the effects of drugs. Here, we present an expert system for the automatic evaluation of EDSS in multiple sclerosis, which has been developed to overcome this problem. The expert system exploits an explicit representation of EDSS rules, it is able to explain its conclusions and it provides a revision tool to support the user if no satisfying solution can be reached. Using this expert system, clinical trials based on EDSS can benefit of a more reliable evaluation tool providing more valuable results.

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

multiple sclerosis
expanded disability status scale
edss
expert system


A Game-Theoretic Framework for Landmark-Based Image Segmentation A novel game-theoretic framework for landmark-based image segmentation is presented. Landmark detection is formulated as a game, in which landmarks are players, landmark candidate points are strategies, and likelihoods that candidate points represent landmarks are payoffs, determined according to the similarity of image intensities and spatial relationships between the candidate points in the target image and their corresponding landmarks in images from the training set. The solution of the formulated game-theoretic problem is the equilibrium of candidate points that represent landmarks in the target image and is obtained by a novel iterative scheme that solves the segmentation problem in polynomial time. The object boundaries are finally extracted by applying dynamic programming to the optimal path searching problem between the obtained adjacent landmarks. The performance of the proposed framework was evaluated for segmentation of lung fields from chest radiographs and heart ventricles from cardiac magnetic resonance cross sections. The comparison to other landmark-based segmentation techniques shows that the results obtained by the proposed game-theoretic framework are highly accurate and precise in terms of mean boundary distance and area overlap. Moreover, the framework overcomes several shortcomings of the existing techniques, such as sensitivity to initialization and convergence to local optima.

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

game theory
landmark-based segmentation
supervised segmentation


Automatic energy efficiency management of data center resources by load-dependent server activation and sleep modes The operation of large Data Centers (DC) with thousands of servers is very costly in terms of energy consumption and cooling requirements. Currently, major efforts can be observed for server virtualization and consolidation to approach a proportionality between computation amount and energy consumption. In this contribution, a generalized model is presented which allows an automatic server consolidation by a load-dependent control of server activations using multi-parallel hysteresis thresholds, cold and hot server stand-by, and Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling (DVFS). For the energy-efficiency and performance analysis, a multi-server queuing model is defined which is controlled by a Finite State Machine (FSM). The parameters of the queuing model are defined such that Service Level Agreements (SLA, e.g. as mean or percentiles of response times) are guaranteed except for overload conditions. The queuing model can be exactly analyzed under Markovian process assumptions from which all relevant quality of service (QoS) and energy efficiency (EE) metrics are derived. Numerical results are provided which demonstrate the applicability of the proposed model for the DC management, in particular to theoretically quantify the tradeoff between the conflicting aims of EE and QoS.

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

data center server consolidation
resource management
service level agreement (sla)
fsm-controlled queuing model
performance evaluation


Low redundancy in static dictionaries with constant query time A static dictionary is a data structure storing subsets of a finite universe U, answering membership queries. We show that on a unit cost RAM with word size Theta (log |U|), a static dictionary for n-element sets with constant worst case query time can be obtained using B+O ( log log |U|) + o(n) bits of storage, where B = inverted right perpendicular log(2)((|U|)(n))inverted left perpendicular is the minimum number of bits needed to represent all n-element subsets of U.

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

information retrieval
hashing
compression


Integrating Service-Oriented Mobile Units to support collaboration in ad-hoc scenarios Advances in wireless communication and mobile computing extend collaboration scenarios. Mobile workers using computing devices are currently able to collaborate in order to carry out productive, educational or social activities. Typically, collaborative applications intended to support mobile workers involve some type of centralized data or services, because they are designed to work on infrastructure supported wireless networks. This centralization constrains the collaboration capabilities in ad-hoc communication cases. This paper introduces the concept of Service-Oriented Mobile Unit (SOMU) in order to reduce such limitation. SOMU is an autonomous software infrastructure running on a computing device; it is able to be integrated to ad-hoc networks and it can interoperate with other mobile units in ad-hoc collaboration scenarios. In addition, the paper presents the challenges faced when designing and implementing the SOMU platform. It also describes an application developed on SOMU.

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

service-oriented mobile units
web services platform
middleware for mobile groupware
ad-hoc collaboration scenarios


Simulation of the ball lightning phenomenon Rendering images of outdoor scenes capturing the magnificence of the natural world is a challenging task for computer graphics. One natural phenomenon that has received no attention in the field of computer graphics and scarce attention in physics is ball lightning. A computer simulation would greatly improve animated sequences of thunderstorms where this rare feature most often occurs. A physical model of ball lightning may also aid physicists in discovering its true nature. This paper describes the first computer graphics simulation of ball lightning. It is based on observations and physical theories which have attempted to describe its properties. None of the theories presented so far can explain all the manifestations of ball lightning reported in the literature. Consequently, it was not possible to develop a purely physical simulation; however, an attempt was made to include as many of the reported manifestations as possible. Common computer graphics techniques that are efficient and easy to implement are used to approximate the shape and visual appearance, as well as the deformations of a ball lightning as it passes through a small opening. An emphasis is placed on clearly defining a set of parameters that affect the visual qualities of the animation. In this way, the final output can be adjusted to suit the variety of observations that have been documented. Since ball lightning research is new to the field of computer graphics, an introduction and survey of the current state of ball lightning research is included.

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

object modeling
physically based modeling


on the recognition of information with a digital computer There exists a vast discrepancy in the power of discrimination exercised by a digital computer and in that of a human being. The recognition of information or data patterns is a simple task for the least experienced human clerk. Most people possess sufficiently sophisticated recognition capabilities so that a variation in the pattern of the data under scrutiny will not cause undue difficulty in the discrimination process. The recognition powers of a digital computer, however, are best demonstrated in an elementary table lookup operation, wherein the subject information is required to match exactly with a portion of the master list in order to be recognized. Machine recognition of data which is allowed to vary from the predetermined digital pattern is a vastly more complex problem. Since digital computers are inherently devices which are capable of only YES or NO answers, all MAYBE or PERHAPS responses are obtained only through painstaking effort. If the variations in the subject data are allowed a reasonable range in both position and type, there is no complete solution of the recognition problem available with present techniques and equipments. This paper will outline the general recognition problem in terms of a set of definitions and a mathematical model. I believe that a useful formulation of the problem, and a comprehension of the difficulties involved in discrimination, are prerequisites to any effort at obtaining a complete solution to the problem of data recognition.

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


Automatic provision of personalized e-commerce services in Digital TV scenarios with impermanent connectivity ? Digital TV (DTV) bears much potential for e-commerce, but most of it remains underexploited due to the lack of systematic approaches to the provision of interactive applications. Working on top of an existing recommender system, this paper presents mechanisms to automatically compose applications that provide personalized commercial functionalities to the users. The proposal addresses specific concerns of DTV environments, with special attention to achieving good personalization quality and furnishing useful interactions when there is no return channel permanently available for bidirectional communication. Preliminary experiments reveal good acceptance of the concept among real users.

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

interactive digital tv
recommender systems
e-commerce
mashups


On quantile quantile plots for generalized linear models The distributional assumption for a generalized linear model is often checked by plotting the ordered deviance residuals against the quantiles of a standard normal distribution. Such plots can be difficult to interpret, because even when the model is correct, the plot often deviates substantially from a straight line. To rectify this problem Ben and Yohai (2004) proposed plotting the deviance residuals against their theoretical quantiles, under the assumption that the model is correct. Such plots are closer to a straight line, when the model is correct, making them much more useful for model checking. However the quantile computation proposed in Ben and Yohai is, in general, relatively complicated to implement and computationally expensive, so that general purpose software for these plots is only available for the Poisson and binary cases in the R package robust. As an alternative the theoretical quantiles can efficiently and simply be estimated by repeatedly simulating new response data from the fitted model and computing the corresponding residuals. This method also provides reference bands for judging the significance of departures of QQ-plots from ideal straight line form. A second alternative is to estimate the quantiles using quantiles of the response variable distribution according to the estimated model. This latter alternative generally has lower computational cost than the first, but does not yield QQ-plot reference bands. In simulations the quantiles produced by the new methods give results indistinguishable from the original Ben and Yohai quantile computations, but the scaling of computational cost with sample size is much improved so that a 500 fold reduction in computation time was observed at sample size 50,000. Application of the methods to generalized linear models fitted to prostate cancer incidence data suggest that they are particularly useful in large dataset cases that might otherwise be incorrectly viewed as zero-inflated. The new approaches are simple enough to implement for any exponential family distribution and for several alternative types of residual, and this has been done for all the families available for use with generalized linear models in the basic distribution of R.

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


LBM based flow simulation using GPU computing processor Graphics Processing Units (GPUs), originally developed for computer games, now provide computational power for scientific applications. In this paper, we develop a general purpose Lattice Boltzmann code that runs entirely on a single GPU. The results show that: (1) simple precision floating point arithmetic is sufficient for LBM computation in comparison to double precision; (2) the implementation of LBM on GPUs allows us to achieve up to about one billion lattice update per second using single precision floating point; (3) GPUs provide an inexpensive alternative to large clusters for fluid dynamics prediction.

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

lattice boltzmann method
graphics processing unit
fluid flow
multi-threaded architecture


virtual dl poster sessions in second life In Second Life (SL), a popular general-purpose 3D virtual world, we are supporting the Digital Library community in a variety of ways, including through virtual poster sessions. This brings together the interests of those involved in JCDL 2009, IEEE-TCDL, and NSF-supported work in SL aimed to assist education, training, and dissemination in the digital preservation area.

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

3d
digital preservation
virtual world
second life


Understanding management data systems for enterprise performance management Purpose - Managing enterprise performance is an important, yet a difficult process due to its complexity. The process involves monitoring the strategic focus of an enterprise, whose performance is measured from the analysis of data generated from a wide range of interrelated business activities performed at different levels within the enterprise. This study aims to investigate management data systems technologies in terms of how they are used and the issues that are related to their effective management within the broader context of enterprise performance management (EPM). Design/methodology/approach - A range of recently published research literature on data warehousing, online analytic processing and EPM is reviewed to explore their current state, issues and challenges learned from their practice. Findings - The findings of the study are reported in two parts. The first part discusses the current business practices of these technologies, and the second part identifies and discusses the issues and challenges the business managers dealing with these technologies face for gaining competitive advantage for their businesses. Originality/value - The study findings are intended to assist the business managers to effectively understand the issues and technologies behind EPM implementation.

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

data handling
storage
online databases
business performance


Prediction of human epileptic seizures based on optimization and phase changes of brain electrical activity The phenomenon of epilepsy, one of the most common neurological disorders, constitutes a unique opportunity to study the dynamics of spatiotemporal state transitions in real, complex, nonlinear dynamical systems. We previously demonstrated that measures of chaos and angular frequency obtained from electroencephalographic (EEG) signals generated by critical sites in the cerebral cortex converge progressively (dynamical entrainment) from the asymptomatic interictal state to the ictal state (seizure) [L.D. Iasemidis, P. Pardalos, J.C. Sackellares and D.-S. Shiau (2001). Quadratic binary programming and dynamical system approach to determine the predictability of epileptic seizures. J. Combinatorial Optimization , 5 , 9-26; L.D. Iasemidis, D.-S. Shiau, P.M. Pardalos and J.C. Sackellares (2002). Phase entrainment and predictability of epileptic seizures. In: P.M. Pardalos and J. Principe (Eds.), Biocomputing , pp. 59-84. Kluwer Academic Publishers]. This observation suggests the possibility of developing algorithms to predict seizures. One of the central points of those investigations was the application of optimization theory, specifically quadratic zero-one programming, for the selection of the cortical sites that exhibit preictal dynamical entrainment. In this study we present results from the application of this methodology to the prediction of epileptic seizures. Analysis of continuous, long-term (18-140 h), multielectrode EEG recordings from 5 patients resulted in the prediction of 88% of the impending 50 seizures, on average about 83 min prior to seizure onset, with an average false warning rate of one every 5.26 h. These results suggest that this seizure prediction algorithm performs well enough to be used in diagnostic and therapeutic applications in epileptic patients. Similar algorithms may be useful for certain spatiotemporal state transitions in other physical and biological systems.

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

global optimization
phase change
t-index
automated seizure warning algorithm


Using context information in structured document retrieval: an approach based on influence diagrams ? In this paper we present an Information Retrieval System (IRS) which is able to work with structured document collections. The model is based on the influence diagrams formalism: a generalization of Bayesian Networks that provides a visual representation of a decision problem. These offer an intuitive way to identify and display the essential elements of the domain (the structured document components and their usefulness) and also how these are related to each other. They have also associated quantitative knowledge that measures the strength of the interactions. By means of this approach, we shall present structured retrieval as a decision-making problem. Two different models have been designed: SID (Simple Influence Diagram) and CID (Context-based Influence Diagram). The main difference between these two models is that the latter also takes into account influences provided by the context in which each structural component is located.

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

structured documents
retrieval model
decision theory


Tablet PC Technology for the Enhancement of Synchronous Distributed Education In this paper, we describe how Tablet PCs are being used at Georgia Tech Savannah (GTS) to improve student learning in a distributed classroom environment. The Tablet PC is an attractive technology for use in synchronous distributed learning environments because of its mobility, and its ability to not only serve as an effective note taking device but also as a high-resolution course content viewing device and a tool for interactive assessments. The research questions addressed here are: 1) "What impact does the Tablet PC have on student perceptions of their engagement in a distributed learning environment?" and 2) "Can the Tablet PC be used to improve student learning in a distributed learning environment?" In this project, the instructor and students were given a Tablet PC to use during the semester, and surveys were administered to evaluate student attitudes about the use of Tablet PC technology as a means of receiving, processing, and learning course material. The significance of this work is that it serves as a case study on the use of Tablet PCs as an effective technology for implementing established educational practices in distributed education environments.

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

engineering education
distance learning
digital ink technology
active learning


Low-complexity girth-8 high-rate moderate length QC LDPC codes A low-complexity method for constructing a large class of high-rate girth-8 quasi-cyclic low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes with moderate length 1000 < n < 10 000 is presented. This method is based on combining configurations with incidence matrices composed of cyclic permutation matrices and Tanner graph girth at least 8. Shortened lattice codes of length n<380 n < 380 and girth 8 are employed as component codes. From the performance perspective, the resulting codes are comparable to their counterparts such as random-like and shortened array LDPC codes.

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


Optimizing modulo scheduling to achieve reuse and concurrency for stream processors Both reuse and concurrency are performance-critical for stream processors. When applying loop unrolling and software pipelining separately to stream-level loops, either reuse or concurrency or both may be inadequately exploited. In this paper, we optimize modulo scheduling to maximize stream reuse and improve concurrency for stream-level loops. The key insight is that an unrolled and software-pipelined stream-level loop could be described by a set of reuse equations. Guided by reuse equations, a reuse-aware modulo scheduling algorithm is developed to simultaneously optimize the two performance objectives, reuse, and concurrency, for a loop in a unified framework. Moreover, we describe a code generation algorithm to automatically produce the optimized loop from a given loop. The experimental results obtained on FT64 and by simulation demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

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

stream processor
stream programming model
stream register file


Die-casting feature recognition for automated parting direction and parting line determination Determining parting direction and parting line for die-cast parts is a nontrivial task that not only depends upon shape and topology of the part, but also on many process related factors. Normally, a die-casting expert decides parting direction and parting line, intutively taking into account a large number of factors, and this process can be time consuming and cumbersome in many cases. This study addresses automated determination of parting direction and parting line for a die-cast part from part CAD model. The proposed methodology takes STEP file of the part as input for extracting die-casting features, which consists of protrusion or depression regions of the part. These features are classified into those with single, double, or multiple withdrawal directions. Geometric reasoning is used for feature recognition, which includes nested and interacting features. Global visibility instead of local visibility is used for planning withdrawal direction, which makes the decision arrived by present system closer to industrial practice. Parting line is determined based on selected candidate parting direction considering process constraints and priorities. The contribution of this paper is in terms of development of an automated parting direction and parting line determination system, which is more comprehensive and overcomes limitations of the previous work. Results of this system have been validated with those arrived at by experts from the die-casting industry.

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

feature recognition
withdrawal direction
parting direction
parting line


Five qualitative research methods to make iTV applications universally accessible Television is a powerful media with a strong influence on the lives of the individuals and their behaviour. As new interactive technologies are being developed and marketed with the home as the main market, this creates an effect on domestic activities. This paper is a description of five qualitative research methods applied to the field of interactive television (iTV) application design and evaluation. Overall, the reported work is unique in the young field of iTV, due to the range and variety of the applied methods, some of which are quite novel. The aim of the conducted research was to find techniques to meet TV viewers future needs and to provide examples of future product concepts. Several techniques were used, including user study based on the cultural probes method, interviews, focus groups, design sessions, usability testing, and storytelling. The methods have been applied to average users not concentrating on specific user groups such as the children or the elderly, but these same methods when applied to specific user groups can help finding out about accessibility problems in the quest to achieve universally accessible iTV applications. There are also valuable results from including a group of TV producers in the design sessions to find new concepts of iTV programs. The implications of this paper for the HCI community concern gathering the user data and transforming the results into new product concepts.

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

user research
concept design
qualitative methods


building mashups by example Creating a Mashup, a web application that integrates data from multiple web sources to provide a unique service, involves solving multiple problems, such as extracting data from multiple web sources, cleaning it, and combining it together. Existing work relies on a widget paradigm where users address those problems during a Mashup building process by selecting, customizing, and connecting widgets together. While these systems claim that their users do not have to write a single line of code, merely abstracting programming methods into widgets has several disadvantages. First, as the number of widgets increases to support more operations, locating the right widget for the task can be confusing and time consuming. Second, customizing and connecting these widgets usually requires users to understand programming concepts. In this paper, we present a Mashup building approach that (a) combines most problem areas in Mashup building into a unified interactive framework that requires no widgets, and (b) allows users with no programming background to easily create Mashups by example.

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 B O O

information integration
programming by demonstration


Choice modeling and the brain: A study on the Electroencephalogram (EEG) of preferences Choice conjures the idea of a directed selection of a desirable action or object, motivated by internal likes and dislikes, or other such preferences. However, such internal processes are simply the domain of our human physiology. Understanding the physiological processes of decision making across a variety of contexts is a central aim in decision science as it has a great potential to further progress decision research. As a pilot study in this field, this paper explores the nature of decision making by examining the associated brain activity, Electroencephalogram (EEG), of people to understand how the brain responds while undertaking choices designed to elicit the subjects preferences. To facilitate such a study, the Tobii-Studio eye tracker system was utilized to capture the participants choice based preferences when they were observing seventy-two sets of objects. These choice sets were composed of three images offering potential personal computer backgrounds. Choice based preferences were identified by having the respondent click on their preferred one. In addition, a brain computer interface (BCI) represented by the commercial Emotiv EPOC wireless EEG headset with 14 channels was utilized to capture the associated brain activity during the period of the experiments. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was utilized to preprocess the EEG data before analyzing it with the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) to observe the changes in the main principal frequency bands, delta (0.54Hz), theta (47Hz), alpha (812Hz), beta (1330Hz), and gamma (3040Hz). A mutual information (MI) measure was then used to study left-to-right hemisphere differences as well as front-to-back difference. Eighteen participants were recruited to perform the experiments with the average results showing clear and significant change in the spectral activity in the frontal (F3 and F4), parietal (P7 and P8) and occipital (O1 and O2) areas while the participants were indicating their preferences. The results show that, when considering the amount of information exchange between the left and right hemispheres, theta bands exhibited minimal redundancy and maximum relevance to the task at hand when extracted from symmetric frontal, parietal, and occipital regions while alpha dominated in the frontal and parietal regions and beta dominating mainly in the occipital and temporal regions.

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

electroencephalogram (eeg)
user preferences


Cache-to-Cache: Could ISPs Cooperate to Decrease Peer-to-Peer Content Distribution Costs? We consider whether cooperative caching may reduce the transit traffic costs of Internet service providers (ISPs) due to peer-to-peer (P2P) content distribution systems. We formulate two game-theoretic models for cooperative caching, one in which ISPs follow their selfish interests, and one in which they act altruistically. We show the existence of pure strategy Nash equilibria for both games, and evaluate the gains of cooperation on various network topologies, among them the AS level map of Northern Europe, using measured traces of P2P content popularity. We find that cooperation can lead to significant improvements of the cache efficiency with little communication overhead even if ISPs follow their selfish interests.

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


Numerical analysis on magnetic levitation of liquid metals, using a spectral finite difference scheme A spectral finite difference method is applied to analysis on magnetic levitation as a major unsteady-state problem in magnetohydrodynamics. Vorticity-stream function formulation is introduced in conjunction with Maxwells equations, and the non-linear term of Ohms law for a liquid metal is included. For the purpose of analysis treated is a liquid metal occupying a volume such that no shear stresses and no normal velocity components on the free surface are used as dynamic boundary conditions. Externally applied electromagnetic fields consist of no electromagnetic field at infinity and fields produced by circular coils placed horizontally near the liquid metal. Presented are lift force, magnetic fields and flow fields for several parameters. Numerical data for high viscosity on dimensionless force with the dimensionless vertical coil position are qualitatively in good agreement with experimental data for a solid metal [J. Appl. Phys. 23 (1952) 545]. The effects of the Reynolds number, the Strouhal number and the number of the external coil(s) on levitation force, the magnetic field and the flow field are clarified.

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

finite difference
magnetic levitation
levitation force


Unifying statistical texture classification frameworks The objective of this paper is to examine statistical approaches to the classification of textured materials from a single image obtained under unknown viewpoint and illumination. The approaches investigated here are based on the joint probability distribution of filter responses. We review previous work based on this formulation and make two observations. First, we show that there is a correspondence between the two common representations of filter outputstextons and binned histograms. Second, we show that two classification methodologies, nearest neighbour matching and Bayesian classification, are equivalent for particular choices of the distance measure. We describe the pros and cons of these alternative representations and distance measures, and illustrate the discussion by classifying all the materials in the Columbia-Utrecht (CUReT) texture database. These equivalences allow us to perform direct comparisons between the texton frequency matching framework, best exemplified by the classifiers of Leung and Malik [Int. J. Comput. Vis. 43 (2001) 29], Cula and Dana [Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (2001) 1041], and Varma and Zisserman [Proceedings of the Seventh European Conference on Computer Vision 3 (2002) 255], and the Bayesian framework most closely represented by the work of Konishi and Yuille [Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (2000) 125].

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


a first step towards user assisted online social networks The current Online Social Networks' infrastructure is composed by thousands of servers distributed across data-centers spread over several geographical locations. These servers store all the users' information (profile, contacts, contents, etc). Such an infrastructure incurs high operational and maintenance costs. Furthermore, this may threaten the scalability, the reliability, the availability and the privacy of the offered service. On the other hand this centralized approach gives to the OSN provider full control over a huge amount of valuable information. This information constitutes the basis of the OSN provider's business. Most of the storage capacity is dedicated to store the user's content (e.g. photos, videos, etc). We believe that OSN provider does not have strong incentive to dedicate a large part of its infrastructure to store majority part of this content. In this position paper we introduce the concept of user assisted Online Social Network (uaOSN). This novel architecture seeks to distribute the storage load associated to the content (e.g. photos, videos, etc) among the OSN's users. Thus the OSN provider keeps the control on the relevant information while reducing the operational and maintenance costs. We discuss the benefits that this proposal may produce for both, the OSN provider and the users. We also discuss the technical aspects to be considered and compare this solution to other distributed approaches.

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


Bi-objective scheduling for reentrant hybrid flow shop using Pareto genetic algorithm This paper deals with a scheduling problem for reentrant hybrid flowshop with serial stages where each stage consists of identical parallel machines. In a reentrant flowshop, a job may revisit any stage several times. Local-search based Pareto genetic algorithms with Minkowski distance-based crossover operator is proposed to approximate the Pareto optimal solutions for the minimization of makespan and total tardiness in a reentrant hybrid flowshop. The Pareto genetic algorithms are compared with existing multi-objective genetic algorithm, NSGA-II in terms of the convergence to optimal solution, the diversity of solution and the dominance of solution. Experimental results show that the proposed crossover operator and local search are effective and the proposed algorithm outperforms NSGA-II by statistical analysis. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

pareto genetic algorithm
reentrant hybrid flowshop


Certainty-based active learning for sampling imbalanced datasets ? Our method solves the imbalanced data classification problem in active learning. We utilize local behaviors in specific areas to identify queried samples. The query probability of a sample is determined within the explored neighborhood. Each neighborhood incrementally explored without defining its size in advance.

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

active learning
imbalanced data classification

neighborhood exploration
certainty-based neighborhood
local classification behavior


Eco-innovative design method for process engineering Due to the environmental issues, innovation is one way to challenge eco-friendly technologies, create new process options which are needed to meet the increasing demands for sustainable production. To accelerate and improve eco-innovative design, there is a need for the computer aided eco-innovation tools to support engineers in the preliminary design phase. Currently, several computer aided innovation tools with a clear focus on specific innovation tasks exist but very few of them deal with the eco-innovation issues. Therefore the purpose of this paper is to present the development of a computer aided model based preliminary design methodology focused on technological eco-innovation for chemical engineering. This methodology is based on modified tools of the structured TRIZ theory. The general systematic framework gives the same level of importance, to the technological and environmental requirements during the conceptual design phase. Integrating environment oriented design approach at the earliest, in the design phase, is essential for product effectiveness and future development. The methodology employs a decomposition based solution approach in hierarchical steps by analysing the problem faced, formulation of the problem and the generation of possible and feasible ideas. At each step, various methods and tools will be needed. In this paper some existing tools are adapted to chemical engineering and some tools of the structured TRIZ theory are modified and improved to build a specific methodology oriented towards the increasing technological complexity and environmental issues of current designs. Undoubtedly, the selection of materials and substances for a particular generated concept, mainly affects the structure, mechanical factors (processability and dimensions) and the environmental impact. In order to deal with these environmental criteria, the resources and their impacts are considered in the upstream phase of the design process and are introduced as constraints in our model. To highlight its capabilities, the methodology is illustrated through a case study dedicated to tars and ashes issues in biomass gasification. (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 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 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 B O O O O O O O O

eco-innovation design
csp
multi contradiction


?1-Adrenergic Activation Upregulates Expression of Relaxin Receptor RXFP1 in Cardiomyocytes Cardiac RXFP1 was upregulated upon activation of the ?1-adrenergic receptor (AR) through signal pathways involving protein kinase A and C and ERK. In contrast, ?1-AR activation downregulated expression of cardiac RXFP1 and it further counteracted the ?1-AR-mediated RXFP1 upregulation.

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


Numerical simulation of high-speed planar mixing layer In this paper gas-kinetic BGK scheme is applied to simulate 2-D supersonic mixing layer with free-stream Mach numbers ranging from 1.1 to 1.9 on one side and 2.3 to 3.1 on the other. The convective Mach number M-c falls in the range 0.2-1.0. The numerical results provide the flow-field structure, the characteristic of velocity fluctuation, the self-similarity profiles of the mean velocity, Reynolds stresses and high-order moments of velocity fluctuation. The mean velocity field and the normalized growth rate agree well with experimental results. Due to 2-D limitations the velocity fluctuation intensities and shear stress are overpredicted, especially in cases with high M-c. The pairings of large structures in high M-c mixing layers still exist, although compressibility restrains their development. Present study reveals the good property of the BGK scheme in the simulation of compressible flows that ensures its wide applications. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

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


Blind identification of transfer function model This paper is concerned with blind identification of a nonminimum phase transfer function model. By over sampling the output at a higher rate than the input, it is shown that its input-output relation can be described by a single input multiple output model (SIMO) with a common denominator polynomial. Based on the model expression, we present an algorithm to estimate numerator polynomials and common denominator polynomial in a blind manner. Furthermore, identifiability of the proposed scheme is clarified, and some numerical results are given for demonstrating its effectiveness.

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

blind identification
transfer function model
identifiability


The virtual element method for discrete fracture network simulations ? In this work, an optimization based approach presented in Berrone etal. (2013, 2014) [1012] for Discrete Fracture Network simulations is coupled with the Virtual Element Method (VEM) for the space discretization of the underlying Darcy law. The great flexibility of the VEM in handling rather general polygonal elements allows, in a natural way, for an effective description of irregular solutions starting from an arbitrary triangulation, which is built independently of the mesh on other fractures. Only partial conformity is in fact obtained with this approach. Numerical results performed on several DFN configurations confirm the viability and efficiency of the resulting method.

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


a novel diversification strategy for multi-objective evolutionary algorithms Diversity plays an important role in evolutionary multi-objective optimization. Because of this, the development of mechanisms which provide and maintain diversity to multi-objective evolutionary algorithms (MOEAs) have been studied since their inception. Fitness sharing and niching are probably the most popular density estimator used with non-elitist MOEAs. However, the main downside of these techniques is the need to define the niche radius, which is a critical parameter that is not trivial to set. In recent years, the use of external archives to store the non-dominated solutions found by elitist MOEAs has become a popular choice. This has triggered more effective and simple diversity maintenance techniques for MOEAs. In this paper, we introduce a new archiving strategy based on the Convex Hull of Individual Minima (CHIM), which is intended to maintain a well-distributed set of non-dominated solutions. Our proposed approach is compared with NSGA-II using standard test problems and performance measures taken from the specialized literature.

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

multi-objective optimization
archiving strategies


Automated targeting technique for concentration- and property-based total resource conservation network Resource conservation networks (RCNs) are among the most effective systems for reducing the consumption of fresh materials and the discharge of waste streams. A typical RCN involves multiple elements of resource pre-treatment, material reuse/recycle, regeneration/interception, and waste treatment for final discharge. Due to the close interactions among these individual elements, simultaneous synthesis of a total RCN is necessary. This paper presents an optimisation-based procedure known as automated targeting technique to locate the minimum resource usage or total cost of a concentration- or property-based total RCNs. This optimisation-based approach provides the same benefits as conventional pinch analysis techniques in yielding various network targets prior to detailed design. Additionally, this approach offers more advantages than the conventional pinch-based techniques through its flexibility in setting an objective function and the ability to handle different impurities/properties for reuse/recycle and waste treatment networks. Furthermore, the concentration-based RCN is treated as the special case of property integration, and solved by the same model. Literature examples are solved to illustrate the proposed approach. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

resource conservation
automated targeting
property integration

process integration
waste minimisation
optimisation


SimScience: Interactive educational modules based on large simulations SimScience is a collaboration between Cornell University and Syracuse University. It comprises four interactive educational modules on crack propagation, crackling noise, fluid how, and membranes. Computer simulations are at the forefront of current research in all of these topics. Our aim is explain some elements of each subject and to show the relevance of computer simulations. The crack propagation module explores the mechanisms of dam failure. The crackling noise module uses everyday sounds to illustrate types of noise, and links this to noise created by jumps in magnetization processes. The fluid how module describes various properties of Rows and explains phenomena such as a curve ball in baseball. The membranes module leverages everyday experience with membranes such as soap bubbles to help explain biological membranes and the relevance of membranes to theories of gravity. We have used Java not only to produce small-scale versions of research simulations but also to provide models illustrating simpler concepts underlying the main subject matter. Web technology allows us to deliver SimScience both over the Internet and on CD-ROM. To accommodate a target audience spanning K-12 and university general science students, we have created three levels for each module. Efforts are underway to assess the SimScience modules with the help of teachers and students. (C) 2000 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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


Technology enhanced assessment in complex collaborative settings Building upon discussions by the Assessment Working Group at EDUsummIT 2013, this article reviews recent developments in technology enabled assessments of collaborative problem solving in order to point out where computerised assessments are particularly useful (and where non-computerised assessments need to be retained or developed) while assuring that the purposes and designs are transparent and empowering for teachers and learners. Technology enabled assessments of higher order critical thinking in a collaborative social context can provide data about the actions, communications and products created by a learner in a designed task space. Principled assessment design is required in order for such a space to provide trustworthy evidence of learning, and the design must incorporate and take account of the engagement of the audiences for the assessment as well as vary with the purposes and contexts of the assessment. Technology enhanced assessment enables in-depth unobtrusive documentation or quiet assessment of the many layers and dynamics of authentic performance and allows greater flexibility and dynamic interactions in and among the design features. Most important for assessment FOR learning, are interactive features that allow the learner to turn up or down the intensity, amount and sharpness of the information needed for self-absorption and adoption of the feedback. Most important in assessment OF learning, are features that compare the learner with external standards of performance. Most important in assessment AS learning, are features that allow multiple performances and a wide array of affordances for authentic action, communication and the production of artefacts.

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

collaborative learning
assessment for learning
assessment of learning
assessment as learning
quiet assessment


Generation of self-similar processes for simulation studies of telecommunication networks It is generally accepted that self-similar processes may provide better models for tele-traffic in modern telecommunication networks than Poisson processes. If stochastic self-similarity of teletraffic is not taken into account, it can lead to inaccurate conclusions about the performance of networks. Thus, an important requirement for conducting simulation studies of networks is the ability to generate long synthetic self-similar sequences of incremental processes, to transform them into interevent time intervals, and to do this accurately and quickly. A fast generator for count processes based on wavelets is described. Then a method for transformation of count processes into interevent processes proposed by Leroux and Hassan [1] and an alternative method, that is, inverting the empirical distribution directly, are studied. A case study is discussed to show how long sequences axe needed in the steady-state simulation of queueing models with self-similar input processes. This is compared with simulation run lengths of the same queueing models fed by Poisson processes. (C) 2003 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 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

self-similar process
teletraffic generation
interarrival process
exponential and inverse transformations
hurst parameter
steady-state simulation


Data Matching to Allocate Doctors to Patients in a Microsimulation Model of the Primary Care Process in New Zealand The authors aimed to use existing data to create a microsimulation model of the primary care process in New Zealand, including realistically simulating the allocation of general practitioners (GPs) to a population sample. This is important because GP behavior is likely to be a major determinant of future cost and service outcomes. Two nationally representative data sets were matched: a sample of GPs and their patients from the National Primary Medical Care Survey (NPMCS) and a population sample from the New Zealand Health Survey (NZHS). Matching involved first dividing the data sets into cells based on common variables. Further variables were then included in a distance function to guide matching within cells. A transportation optimization algorithm allocated GPs based on these-on similarities in patients' attributes. Statistical matching performed well with high correlations for patient attributes and reduced average absolute rank differences on proportions of patients among GPs compared to random matching. Low Kullback-Leibler (K-L) divergences confirmed that our method of statistical matching had allocated GPs realistically. Models of primary care too frequently omit the role of the practitioner in driving health service outcomes. The authors developed a method to impute characteristics of GPs to a population-based microsimulation model of primary care.

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

data matching
microsimulation
primary care


Application of the Random Forest Classification Algorithm to a SELDI-TOF Proteomics Study in the Setting of a Cancer Prevention Trial A thorough discussion of the random forest (RF) algorithm as it relates to a SELDI-TOF proteomics study is presented, with special emphasis on its application for cancer prevention

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 O O O O B B

random forest (rf) algorithm
seldi-tof
classifier
classification tree (ct)
detection
mdm
statistic


What makes consumers use VoIP over mobile phones? Free riding or consumerization of new service Consumer acceptance of technological innovations is crucial to marketing strategy and policy development. This study analyzes consumer behaviors in mobile voice over Internet protocol (mVoIP), focusing on the antecedents of consumers' intentions. Using a context-specific extension of the Technology Acceptance Model, mVoIP acceptance was investigated based on the salient belief of perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and facilitating factors. The results show that quality factors of mVoIP significantly influence the usefulness and ease of use, which subsequently affect the adoption of the technology. Call and service quality were found to be significant factors, followed by mobility and coverage. The policy and managerial implications of mVoIP are discussed based on the model. In conclusion, this study provides in-depth analysis and heuristic data on the consumer drivers, market dynamics, and policy implication within the mVoIP ecosystem.

O O O 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 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 B O O O O O

mobile voip
consumer behavior
convergence services


proposing a hybrid-intelligent framework to secure e-government web applications One of the essential needs to implement a successful e-Government web application is security. Web application firewalls (WAF) are the most important tool to secure web applications against the increasing number of web application attacks nowadays. WAFs work in different modes depending on the web traffic filtering approach used, such as positive security mode, negative security mode, session-based mode, or mixed modes. The proposed WAF, which is called (HiWAF), is a web application firewall that works in three modes: positive, negative and session based security modes. The new approach that distinguishes this WAF among other WAFs is that it utilizes the concepts of Artificial Intelligence (AI) instead of regular expressions or other traditional pattern matching techniques as its filtering engine. Both artificial neural networks and fuzzy logic concepts will be used to implement a hybrid intelligent web application firewall that works in three security modes.

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

web application
neural networks
fuzzy logic

positive logic based filtering
negative logic based filtering
blacklist
whitelist
e-government
session based filtering
web application firewalls


Distributed k-connected fault-tolerant topology control algorithms with PSO in future autonomic sensor systems Fault-tolerant topology control in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) has drawn a significant amount of research interest and become a hot point. In this paper, we first propose a centralised k-connected fault-tolerant topology control algorithm with Particle Swarm Optimisation (PSO) called CKFTC-PSO. In CKFTC-PSO, we take both issues of node failure and power efficiency into consideration and give the mathematical model of k-connected fault-tolerant topology control problem. Inspired by physics of Genetic Algorithm (GA), the principles of mutation and crossover operator in GA are incorporated into the proposed CKFTC-PSO algorithm to achieve a better diversity and break away from local optima. Based on CKFTC-Pso, we then propose a distributed k-connected fault-tolerant topology control algorithm with PSO called DKFTC-PSO. DICFIC-PSO has better performance than CKFTC-PSO in power-efficiency while preserve k-connectivity. Simulation results are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms.

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

wireless sensor networks
topology control
particle swarm optimisation


studying (non-planar) road networks through an algorithmic lens This paper studies real-world road networks from an algorithmic perspective, focusing on empirical studies that yield useful properties of road networks that can be exploited in the design of fast algorithms that deal with geographic data. Unlike previous approaches, our study is not based on the assumption that road networks are planar graphs. Indeed, based on the a number of experiments we have performed on the road networks of the 50 United States and District of Columbia, we provide strong empirical evidence that road networks are quite non-planar. Our approach therefore instead is directed at finding algorithmically-motivated properties of road networks as non-planar geometric graphs, focusing on alternative properties of road networks that can still lead to efficient algorithms for such problems as shortest paths and Voronoi diagrams. In particular, we study road networks as multiscale-dispersed graphs, which is a concept we formalize in terms of disk neighborhood systems. This approach allows us to develop fast algorithms for road networks without making any additional assumptions about the distribution of edge weights. In fact, our algorithms can allow for non-metric weights.

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

road networks
voronoi diagrams
algorithmic lens
disk neighborhood systems
shortest paths

multiscale-dispersed graphs
circle arrangements


a case for the coexistence of heterogeneous wireless networks As the ISM spectrum becomes crowded by various network devices, such as WiFi and ZigBee, the coexistence between them poses a critical challenge, due to their heterogeneous MAC/PHY layers. Recent measurement studies have shown moderate to high WiFi traffic to severely impair coexisting ZigBee's performance. We propose a new mechanism, called cooperative busy tone (CBT), that exploits the inherent cooperation among ZigBee nodes to harmonize their coexistence with WiFi devices. CBT employs a separate ZigBee node to emit a busy-tone concurrently with the desired data transmission, thereby improving the visibility of ZigBee devices to WiFi. It adopts an innovative way to concurrently schedule the busy-tone and a data packet without causing interference between them. To optimize CBT, we establish a theoretical framework that models the performance of coexisting ZigBee and WiFi networks, and analyzes the impact of key design parameters in CBT. Our analytical results and testbed implementation demonstrate CBT's significant throughput improvement over the legacy ZigBee protocol, with negligible performance loss to WiFi.

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

zigbee (802.15.4) and wifi (802.11)
coexistence of heterogeneous networks
busy-tone


Query-oriented evidence extraction to support evidence-based medicine practice We present an approach for query-focused extractive summarisation of medical text. Our approach is data-centric and utilises a specialised annotated corpus. We introduce target-sentence-specific summarisation to improve summarisation. We incorporate query information and domain-specific knowledge in various ways. Our approach performs significantly better than existing benchmark approaches.

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

automatic text summarisation
query-focused text summarisation
medical text processing
evidence-based medicine


A network flow model of group technology It has long been recognized that productivity in manufacturing plants can often be increased by producing similar products in cells. This involves (i) assigning parts to individual machines, and (ii) forming machines into cells. These two activities have traditionally been carried out separately. However, most solution procedures for (i) above utilize a solution to (ii), and vice versa. Here we present a unified approach that deals with (i) and (ii) simultaneously. The approach is based on a multicommodity circulation minimum cost network flow model with side constraints. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

flexible manufacturing systems
network flow models


A new data envelopment analysis method for priority determination and group decision making in the analytic hierarchy process ? The DEAHP method for weight deviation and aggregation in the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) has been found flawed and sometimes produces counterintuitive priority vectors for inconsistent pairwise comparison matrices, which makes its application very restrictive. This paper proposes a new data envelopment analysis (DEA) method for priority determination in the AHP and extends it to the group AHP situation. In this new DEA methodology, two specially constructed DEA models that differ from the DEAHP model are used to derive the best local priorities from a pairwise comparison matrix or a group of pairwise comparison matrices no matter whether they are perfectly consistent or inconsistent. The new DEA method produces true weights for perfectly consistent pairwise comparison matrices and the best local priorities that are logical and consistent with decision makers (DMs) subjective judgments for inconsistent pairwise comparison matrices. In hierarchical structures, the new DEA method utilizes the simple additive weighting (SAW) method for aggregation of the best local priorities without the need of normalization. Numerical examples are examined throughout the paper to show the advantages of the new DEA methodology and its potential applications in both the AHP and group decision making.

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

data envelopment analysis
analytic hierarchy process
deahp
group decision making


testing delay faults in asynchronous handshake circuits As a class of asynchronous circuits, handshake circuits are designed to tolerate variation of gate delays. However, certain timing constraints, such as the bundled data assumption, are exploited in the single-rail implementation of these circuits in order to simplify them. Therefore, any delay fault in the circuit may cause one of two problems, namely performance degradation or logic errors. To address the challenges incurred by the autonomous behavior of handshake circuits during at-speed test, we propose test methods for both types of delay faults based on a DFT strategy which greatly simplifies the complexity of test generation. The efficiency of the proposed methodology is demonstrated through experimental results on several handshake circuits.

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

delay faults
test generation
handshake circuits
asynchronous circuits


Biclustering Sparse Binary Genomic Data Genomic datasets often consist of large, binary, sparse data matrices. In such a dataset, one is often interested in finding contiguous blocks that (mostly) contain ones. This is a biclustering problem, and while many algorithms have been proposed to deal with gene expression data, only two algorithms have been proposed that specifically deal with binary matrices. None of the gene expression biclustering algorithms can handle the large number of zeros in sparse binary matrices. The two proposed binary algorithms failed to produce meaningful results. In this article, we present a new algorithm that is able to extract biclusters from sparse, binary datasets. A powerful feature is that biclusters with different numbers of rows and columns can be detected, varying from many rows to few columns and few rows to many columns. It allows the user to guide the search towards biclusters of specific dimensions. When applying our algorithm to an input matrix derived from TRANSFAC, we find transcription factors with distinctly dissimilar binding motifs, but a clear set of common targets that are significantly enriched for GO categories.

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

binary data
transcription factor binding


searching for liveness property violations in concurrent systems with aco Liveness properties in concurrent systems are, informally, those properties that stipulate that something good eventually happens during execution. In order to prove that a given system satisfies a liveness property, model checking techniques are utilized. However, most of the model checkers found in the literature use exhaustive deterministic algorithms that require huge amounts of memory if the concurrent system is large. Here we propose the use of an algorithm based on ACOhg, a new kind of Ant Colony Optimization algorithm, for searching for liveness property violations in concurrent systems. We also take into account the structure of the liveness property in order to improve the efficacy and efficiency of the search. The results state that our algorithmic proposal, called ACOhg-live, is able to obtain very short error trails in faulty concurrent systems using a low amount of resources, outperforming by far the results of Nested-DFS and Improved-Nested-DFS, two algorithms used in the literature for this task in the model checking community. This fact makes ACOhg-live a very suitable algorithm for finding liveness errors in large faulty concurrent systems, in which traditional techniques fail because of the model size.

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 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

ant colony optimization
liveness properties


Application of learning pallets for real-time scheduling by the use of radial basis function network The expansion of the scope and scale of products in the current business environments causes a continuous increase in complexity of logistics activities. In order to deal with this challenge in planning and control of logistics activities, several solutions have been introduced. One of the most latest one is the application of autonomy. The paradigm of autonomy in inbound logistics, can be reflected in decisions for real-time scheduling and control of material flows. Integration of autonomous control with material carrier objects can realize the expected advantages of this alternative into shop-floors. Since pallets (bins, fixtures, etc.) are some common used carrier objects in logistics, they have the potential to undertake the responsibility of real-time jobs dispatching to machines in the shop-floor scheduling problem. Hence, the current paper covers the problem of real-time scheduling in a stochastic and complex shop-floor environment, by means of autonomy. Indeed, the sustainment's advantage of pallets in manufacturing systems has inspired the idea of developing learning pallets (Lpallets) with the capability of autonomous control in complex and uncertain logistics environment with abrupt changes. Among some intelligent techniques, the artificial neural network (ANN) and, specially, the radial basis function network (RBFN) is selected to transmit the abilities of intelligent decision-making as well as learning to Lpallets in a distributed manner. Some variants in training and RBFN application alternatives are considered to evaluate the competency of RBFN for Lpallets. An Lpallet makes its dispatching and control decision based on its own experience and intelligence about the entire system and local situations in an exemplary hybrid flow-open shop problem. To prove the claimed application of RBFN in autonomous Lpallets a discrete-event simulation model is developed for the assembly scenario.

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

radial basis function network
inbound logistics


Anatomical structure modeling from medical images Some clinical applications, such as surgical planning, require volumetric models of anatomical structures represented as a set of tetrahedra. A practical method of constructing anatomical models from medical images is presented. The method starts with a set of contours segmented from the medical images by a clinician and produces a model that has high fidelity with the contours. Unlike most modeling methods, the contours are not restricted to lie on parallel planes. The main steps are a 3D Delaunay tetrahedralization, culling of non-object tetrahedra, and refinement of the tetrahedral mesh. The result is a high-quality set of tetrahedra whose surface points are guaranteed to match the original contours. The key is to use the distance map and bit volume structures that were created along with the contours. The method is demonstrated on computed tomography, MRI and 3D ultrasound data. Models of 170,000 tetrahedra are constructed on a standard workstation in approximately 10s. A comparison with related methods is also provided.

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

3d reconstruction
tetrahedral mesh generation
volumetric modeling


A minimum Sobolev norm technique for the numerical discretization of PDEs Partial differential equations (PDEs) are discretized into an under-determined system of equations and a minimum Sobolev norm solution is shown to be efficient to compute and converge under very generic conditions. Numerical results of a single code, that can handle PDEs in first-order form on complicated polygonal geometries, are shown for a variety of PDEs: variable coefficient divcurl, scalar elliptic PDEs, elasticity equation, stationary linearized NavierStokes, scalar fourth-order elliptic PDEs, telegrapher's equations, singular PDEs, etc.

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 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


interfaces, protocols, and the semi-automatic construction of software adaptors In this paper we show how to augment object-oriented application interfaces with enhanced specifications that include sequencing constraints called protocols . Protocols make explicit the relationship between messages (methods) supported by the application. These relationships are usually only given implicitly, either in the code or in textual comments. We define notions of interface compatibility based upon protocols and show how compatibility can be checked, discovering a class of errors that cannot be discovered via the type system alone. We then define software adaptors that can be used to bridge the difference between object-oriented applications that have functionally compatible but type incompatible interfaces. We discuss what it means for an adaptor to be well-formed . Leveraging the information provided by protocols, we show how adaptors can be automatically generated from a high-level description, called an interface mapping .

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

type system
software
applications
relationships
code
interfaces
paper
compatibility
errors
class

method message constraint object-oriented informal sequence


Motor imaginary-based brain-machine interface design using programmable logic controllers for the disabled Aiming at the implementation of brain-machine interfaces (BMI) for the aid of disabled people, this paper presents a system design for real-time communication between the BMI and programmable logic controllers (PLCs) to control an electrical actuator that could be used in devices to help the disabled. Motor imaginary signals extracted from the brain's motor cortex using an electroencephalogram (EEG) were used as a control signal. The EEG signals were pre-processed by means of adaptive recursive band-pass filtrations (ARBF) and classified using simplified fuzzy adaptive resonance theory mapping (ARTMAP) in which the classified signals are then translated into control signals used for machine control via the PLC. A real-time test system was designed using MATLAB for signal processing, KEP-Ware V4 OLE for process control (OPC), a wireless local area network router, an Omron Sysmac CPM1 PLC and a 5V/0.3A motor. This paper explains the signal processing techniques, the PLC's hardware configuration, OPC configuration and real-time data exchange between MATLAB and PLC using the MATLAB OPC toolbox. The test results indicate that the function of exchanging real-time data can be attained between the BMI and PLC through OPC server and proves that it is an effective and feasible method to be applied to devices such as wheelchairs or electronic equipment.

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


Coupled effects in stability analysis of pile-slope systems A numerical comparison of predictions by limit equilibrium analysis and 3D numerical analysis is presented for a slope-pile system. Special attention is given to the coupled analysis based on the explicit-finite-difference code, FLAC 3D. To this end, an internal routine (FISH) was developed to calculate a factor of safety for a pile-reinforced slope according to a shear strength reduction technique. Coupled analyses were performed for stabilizing piles in a slope, in which the pile response and slope stability are considered simultaneously and subsequently the factors of safety are compared to a solution for a homogeneous slope using an uncoupled analysis (limit equilibrium analysis). Based on a limited parametric study, it is shown that the factor of safety for the slope is less conservative for a coupled analysis than for an uncoupled analysis and thus represents a definitely larger safety factor when the piles are installed in the middle of the slopes and the pile heads are restrained. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

limit equilibrium analysis
3d numerical analysis
shear strength reduction technique
homogeneous slope
factor of safety

pile-slope system
coupled/uncoupled analysis