Sequential Monte Carlo EM for multivariate probit models Multivariate probit models have the appealing feature of capturing some of the dependence structure between the components of multidimensional binary responses. The key for the dependence modelling is the covariance matrix of an underlying latent multivariate Gaussian. Most approaches to maximum likelihood estimation in multivariate probit regression rely on Monte Carlo EM algorithms to avoid computationally intensive evaluations of multivariate normal orthant probabilities. As an alternative to the much used Gibbs sampler a new sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) sampler for truncated multivariate normals is proposed. The algorithm proceeds in two stages where samples are first drawn from truncated multivariate Student t distributions and then further evolved towards a Gaussian. The sampler is then embedded in a Monte Carlo EM algorithm. The sequential nature of SMC methods can be exploited to design a fully sequential version of the EM, where the samples are simply updated from one iteration to the next rather than resampled from scratch. Recycling the samples in this manner significantly reduces the computational cost. An alternative view of the standard conditional maximisation step provides the basis for an iterative procedure to fully perform the maximisation needed in the EM algorithm. The identifiability of multivariate probit models is also thoroughly discussed. In particular, the likelihood invariance can be embedded in the EM algorithm to ensure that constrained and unconstrairied maximisations are equivalent. A simple iterative procedure is then derived for either maximisation which takes effectively no computational time. The method is validated by applying it to the widely analysed Six Cities dataset and on a higher dimensional simulated example. Previous approaches to the Six Cities dataset overly restrict the parameter space but, by considering the correct invariance, the maximum likelihood is quite naturally improved when treating the full unrestricted model. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

maximum likelihood
multivariate probit
monte carlo em


Rigorous analysis of uniaxial bi-anisotropic dielectric resonators by the mode matching method Rigorous analysis of uniaxial bi-anisotropic dielectric resonators is carried out by the mode matching method. To validate our numerical model, results are satisfactorily compared with the literature for a uniaxial electric anisotropic dielectric resonator (DR). Then bi-anisotropy effects of DRs dielectric materials on their resonant frequencies are studied in detail. (C) 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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


dynamic power management using adaptive learning tree Dynamic Power Management (DPM) is a technique to reduce power consumption of electronic systems by selectively shutting down idle components. The quality of the shutdown control algorithm (power management policy) mostly depends on the knowledge of user behavior, which in many in many cases is initially unknown or non-stationary. For this reason, DPM policies should be capable of adapting to changes in user behavior. In this paper, we present a novel DPM scheme based on idle period clustering and adaptive learning trees. We also provide a design guide for applying our technique to components with multiple sleep states. Experimental results show that our technique outperforms other advanced DPM schemes as well as simple time-out policies. The proposed approach shows little deviation of efficiency for various workloads having different characteristics, while other policies show that their efficiency changes drastically depending on the trace data characteristics. Furthermore, experimental evidence indicates that our workload learning algorithm is stable and has fast convergence.

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

tree
quality
policy
user behavior
efficiency
design
trees
evidence
knowledge
paper
control
convergence
systems
power consumption
workload
data
learning
algorithm
dynamic power management
scheme

traces timing change component adapt experimentation power-management cluster


Efficient loop partitioning for parallel codes of irregular scientific computations In most cases of distributed memory computations, node programs are executed on processors according to the owner computes rule. However, owner computes rule is not best suited for irregular application codes. In irregular application codes, use of indirection in accessing left hand side array makes it difficult to partition the loop iterations, and because of use of indirection in accessing right hand side elements, we may reduce total communication by using heuristics other than owner computes rule. In this paper, we propose a communication cost reduction computes rule for irregular loop partitioning, called least communication computes rule. We partition a loop iteration to a processor on which the minimal communication cost is ensured when executing that iteration. Then, after all iterations are partitioned into various processors, we give global vs. local data transformation rule, indirection arrays remapping and communication optimization methods. The experimental results show that, in most cases, our approaches achieved better performance than other loop partitioning rules.

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

communication optimization
owner computes rule
loop partitioning

parallelizing compilers
irregular scientific application
distributed memory multicomputers


Effect of Oxidative Stress Induced by L-Dopa on Endogenous Antioxidants in PC-12 Cells The mechanism of action of many drugs of abuse involves the dopaminergic pathway. One method of increasing dopamine in brain is by ingestion of L-dopa (3,4-dihydroxy-L-phenylalanine). Interestingly, both dopamine and L-dopa cause oxidative stress which is also a factor in drug-induced damage. Oxidative stress can be reduced by the antioxidant activities of vitamins C (ascorbate) and E (tocopherols). However, the interactions between L-dopa and tocopherols and ascorbate are not well understood. In this article, PC-12 cells (as models of neurons) were cultured for 21 hours with ascorbate (400 ?M) and/or alpha tocopherol (25 ?M) and in the presence or absence of L-dopa (250 ?M). After incubation, cells were harvested and analyzed for the various biochemical components by HPLC. As expected, the addition of L-dopa resulted in an almost threefold increase in cellular dopamine content. Addition of alpha tocopherol resulted in marked increase in cellular tocopherol. Similarly, addition of ascorbate substantially increased its cellular concentration. These increases were strongly attenuated by the presence of L-dopa in the medium. The data indicate tha

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 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 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


Extracting polygonal building footprints from digital surface models: A fully-automatic global optimization framework This paper presents a fully automatic framework to extract building footprints from a Digital Surface Model (DSM). The proposed approach may be decomposed in two steps, each of them relying on a global optimization solver. The first step aims to extract rectangular building footprints directly from the DSM using a Marked Point Process (MPP) of rectangles. We introduce an energy that prevents overlapping rectangles and aligns rectangle edges with DSM discontinuities. This energy is then embedded in a RJMCMC sampler coupled with a simulated annealing to find its global optimum. Then, the second step of our framework refines these extracted rectangles into polygonal building footprints. We first create an arrangement of line segments supporting the rectangle edges. The dual graph of this arrangement is then considered in a maximum flow optimization scheme to remove edges in the arrangement which do not correspond to building edges in the DSM. Finally, 3D results illustrate a fully automatic process to build a 3D city model from a DSM only.

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

urban modeling geometry analysis dem/dtm


Some induced ordered weighted averaging operators and their use for solving group decision-making problems based on fuzzy preference relations In [R.R. Yager, D.P. Filev, Operations for granular computing: Mixing words and numbers, in: Proceedings of the FUZZ-IEEE World Congress on Computational Intelligence, Anchorage, 1998, pp. 123128] Yager and Filev introduced the Induced Ordered Weighted Averaging (IOWA) operator. In this paper, we provide some IOWA operators to aggregate fuzzy preference relations in group decision-making (GDM) problems. These IOWA operators when guided by fuzzy linguistic quantifiers allow the introduction of some semantics or meaning in the aggregation, and therefore allow for a better control over the aggregation stage developed in the resolution process of the GDM problems. In particular, we present the Importance IOWA (I-IOWA) operator, which applies the ordering of the argument values based upon the importance of the information sources; the Consistency IOWA (C-IOWA) operator, which applies the ordering of the argument values based upon the consistency of the information sources; and the Preference IOWA (P-IOWA) operator, which applies the ordering of the argument values based upon the relative preference values associated to each one of them. We provide a procedure to deal with ties in respect to the ordering induced by the application of one of these IOWA operators; it consists of a sequential application of the above IOWA operators. We also present a selection process for GDM problems based on the concept of fuzzy majority and the above three IOWA operators. Finally, we analyse the reciprocity and consistency properties of the collective fuzzy preference relations obtained using IOWA operators.

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

fuzzy linguistic quantifier
group decision-making
owa operator


Axial stress-strain relation of encapsulated granular column The axial stress-strain relations of embedded granular columns encapsulated with flexible reinforcement were evaluated using an analytical procedure based on the cavity expansion method. This proposed method has firstly been verified through an experimental triaxial test on a reinforced sand specimen. A normalized relation was established between the volumetric change and the axial strain of soil to enable the analysis of granular material behavior under a continuous increase in lateral pressure. The analytical results show that the reinforced granular columns embedded in clay behave differently from granular columns subjected only to a constant confining pressure. It is found that reinforcing a column with a sleeve at the top portion will be adequate to prevent the column from bulging and also improve its load carrying capacity. The optimum skirting length that a sleeve call deter a granular column from bulging depends oil the characteristics of the in situ soil and the stiffness and yield strength of the sleeve. (C) 2008 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 B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 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

granular column
reinforced
cavity expansion
skirting length


JANUS: A Framework for Scalable and Secure Routing in Hybrid Wireless Networks Hybrid networks consisting of cellular and Wi-Fi networks were proposed as a high-throughput architecture for cellular services. In such networks, devices equipped with cellular and Wi-Fi network cards access Internet services through the cellular base station. The Wi-Fi interface is used to provide a better service to clients that are far away from the base station, via multihop ad hoc paths. The modified trust model of hybrid networks generates a set of new security challenges as clients rely on intermediate nodes to participate effectively in the resource reservation process and data forwarding. In this paper, we introduce JANUS, a framework for scalable, secure, and efficient routing for hybrid cellular and Wi-Fi networks. JANUS uses a scalable routing algorithm with multiple channel access, for improved network throughput. In addition, it provides protection against selfish nodes through a secure crediting protocol and protection against malicious nodes through secure route establishment and data forwarding mechanisms. We evaluate JANUS experimentally and show that its performance is 85 percent of the optimum algorithm, improving with a factor greater than 50 percent over previous work. We evaluate the security overhead of JANUS against two types of attacks: less aggressive, but sufficient for some applications, selfish attacks and purely malicious attacks.

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

security and protection
wireless communication
routing protocols


Locally geometric semantic crossover: a study on the roles of semantics and homology in recombination operators This study presents an extensive account of Locally Geometric Semantic Crossover (LGX), a semantically-aware recombination operator for genetic programming (GP). LGX is designed to exploit the semantic properties of programs and subprograms, in particular the geometry of semantic space that results from distance-based fitness functions used predominantly in GP. When applied to a pair of parents, LGX picks in them at random a structurally common (homologous) locus, calculates the semantics of subprograms located at that locus, finds a procedure that is semantically medial with respect to these subprograms, and replaces them with that procedure. The library of procedures is prepared prior to the evolutionary run and indexed by a multidimensional structure (kd-tree) allowing for efficient search. The paper presents the rationale for LGX design and an extensive computational experiment concerning performance, computational cost, impact on program size, and capability of generalization. LGX is compared with six other operators, including conventional tree-swapping crossover, semantic-aware operators proposed in previous studies, and control methods designed to verify the importance of homology and geometry of the semantic space. The overall conclusion is that LGX, thanks to combination of the semantically medial operation with homology, improves the efficiency of evolutionary search, lowers the variance of performance, and tends to be more resistant to overfitting.

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

geometric crossover
spatial index
kd-tree


Simultaneous inductive and deductive modeling of ecological systems via evolutionary computation and information theory The addition of two emerging technologies (evolutionary computation and ecoinformatics) to computational ecology can advance our ability to build better ecological models and thus deepen our understanding of the mechanistic complexity of ecological systems. This article describes one feasible approach toward this goal-the combining of inductive and deductive modeling techniques with the optimizing power of simple algorithms of Darwinian evolution that include information-theoretic model selection methods. Specifically, the author shows a way to extend classic genetic algorithms beyond typical parameter fitting of a single, previously chosen model to a more flexible technique that can work with a suite of possible models. Inclusion of the Akaike information-theoretic model selection method within an evolutionary algorithm makes it possible to accomplish simultaneous parameter fitting and parsimonious model selection. Experiments with synthetic data show the feasibility of this approach, and experiments with time-series field data of the zebra mussel invasion of Lake Champlain (United States) result in a model of the invasion dynamics that is consistent with the known hydrodynamic features of the lake and the motile life history stage of this invasive species. The author also describes a way to extend this approach with a modified genetic programming algorithm.

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

computational ecology
ecological models
evolutionary computation
information theory
model selection
genetic algorithms
genetic programming


Performance enhancement of low-cost, high-accuracy, state estimation for vehicle collision prevention system using ANFIS Performance enhancement of low-cost, high-accuracy, state estimation for vehicle collision prevention system using ANFIS. INS/GPS integration using EKF approach. INS/GPS Integration using IDANFIS architecture. Experimental validation. Comparison and discussion.

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

adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (anfis)


genetic algorithms are suitable for driving microbial ecosystems in desirable directions The behavior of natural, biological ecosystems is for a large part determined by environmental conditions. It should therefore be possible to experimentally manipulate such conditions to drive ecosystems in desirable directions. When a set of environmental conditions can be manipulated to be either present or absent, such an exercise becomes a typical combinatorial optimization problem, and one for which a genetic algorithm should be very suitable. In this work, four exhaustive experimental datasets were assembled, containing growth levels of different natural microbial ecosystem as influenced by all possible combinations of a set of five chemical supplements. The ability of a genetic algorithm to search these datasets for combinations of supplements driving the ecosystems to high levels of growth was compared to that of a random search, a local search, and a hill-climbing algorithm. The results indicate that a genetic algorithm is very suitable for driving microbial ecosystems in desirable directions, which opens opportunities for both applied and fundamental ecology.

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

ecosystem design
biological application
microbial ecology
ecosystem function


Interactive image data labeling using self-organizing maps in an augmented reality scenario We present an approach for the convenient labeling of image patches gathered from an unrestricted environment. The system is employed for a mobile Augmented Reality (AR) gear: while the user walks around with the head-mounted AR-gear, context-free modules for focus-of-attention permanently sample the most interesting image patches. After this acquisition phase, a Self-Organizing Map (SOM) is trained on the complete set of patches, using combinations of MPEG-7 features as a data representation. The SOM allows visualization of the sampled patches and an easy manual sorting into categories. With very little effort, the user can compose a training set for a classifier, thus, unknown objects can be made known to the system. We evaluate the system for COIL-imagery and demonstrate that a user can reach satisfying categorization within few steps, even for image data sampled from walking in an office environment. (An abbreviated version of some portions of this article appeared in [Bekel, H., Heidemann, G., & Ritter, H. (2005). SOM Based Image Data Structuring in an Augmented Reality Scenario. In Proceedings of the International Joint Conference on Neural Networks, Montreal, Canada.], as part of the IJCNN 2005 conference proceedings, published under the IEEE copyright).

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

mobile computing
human-machine-interaction
learning
object recognition
self organizing maps
computer vision


A shortly connected mesh topology for high performance and energy efficient network-on-chip architectures Network-on-chip-based communication schemes represent a promising solution to the increasing complexity of system-on-chip problems. In this paper, we propose a new mesh-like topology called the shortly connected mesh technology (ScMesh), which is based on the traditional mesh topology, to exploit the graph symmetry properties of interconnection networks. This proposed topology not only enhances network performance by reducing the network diameter, but also provides a lower area/energy solution for interconnection network scenarios. This study analyzes and compares the performance of ScMesh to some newly improved topologies, including the WK-recursive, extended-butterfly fat tree, and diametrical mesh topologies. The experiment results indicate that ScMesh outperforms the other topologies, with throughput increases of 47.71, 33.45, and 18.64% as well as latency decreases of 45.71, 35.84, and 14.58% compared to the extended-butterfly fat tree, WK-recursive and diametrical mesh topologies, respectively. In addition, ScMesh achieves 41.22, 32.23, and 15.01% lower energy consumption and 38.96, 27.43, and 18.21% lower area overhead than the extended-butterfly fat tree, WK-recursive, and diametrical mesh topologies, respectively.

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

network-on-chip
system-on-chip
extended-butterfly fat tree


A fast and robust image registration method based on an early consensus paradigm This paper presents a fast and extremely robust feature-based method for planar registration of partly overlapping images; it uses a two-stage robust fitting approach comprising a fast estimation of a transformation hypothesis (that we show is highly likely to be correct) followed by a confirmation and refinement stage. The method is particularly suited for automatic stitching of oversize documents scanned in two or more parts. We show simulations, also supported by practical experiments, that prove both the robustness and computational efficiency of the approach.

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


Remarks on environmental data archives and their use in monitoring the US/Mexican border area Lo Presti and O'Brien described the use and limitations of the EPA's toxic release inventory data in monitoring the US Mexican border area. Efforts like theirs are critical in assessing the environmental impact of industrialization along the border. Their report serves as a model for archive-based environmental studies of other geographic regions.

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


OverCourt: DDoS mitigation through credit-based traffic segregation and path migration Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks have become one of the most serious threats to the Internet. To mitigate DDoS attacks, much progress has been made in developing currency-based solutions, where a sender is required to spend resources such as computational cost, bandwidth, prior knowledge, and human actions to purchase her legitimacy before sending packets. In this paper, we propose an innovative overlay-based DDoS mitigation architecture by introducing a credit-based accounting mechanism, where a sender can send packets based on her credit points earned by her legitimate communication behaviors instead of expending resources in advance. Since the credit points given to a sender is designed to be measured based on her history of communication patterns, a well-behaving sender can gain her credit points while an ill-behaving one will lose her credit points. We propose an architecture of such a credit-based system, named OverCourt, where a well-behaving client may dynamically migrate to a protected channel when her credit points exceed a threshold while an ill-behaving client will be blocked after her credit points have been exhausted. The analysis and simulation results show that OverCourt can mitigate DDoS attacks under various DDoS attack scenarios. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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 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 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 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


Cross-partition clustering: revealing corresponding themes across related datasets This article studies the task of discovering correspondences across related domains based on real-world data collections. We address this task through a designated extension of distributional data-clustering methods. The method is empirically demonstrated on synthetic data as well as on texts addressing different religions, where the goal is to identify commonalities shared by all religions. This article generalises and demonstrates the empirical improvement relative to our previous studies on this subject, as well as to other comparable methods.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 clustering
analogy
structure mapping
text mining
natural language processing
information theory


formac an experimental formula manipulation compiler FORMAC, (FORmula MAnipulation Compiler), is an experimental programming system which can assist scientists in the manipulation of mathematical expressions. It is an extension of FORTRAN IV, thus providing the capability of performing both numeric and non-numeric computations and manipulations in the same program.

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

compilation extensibility systems experimentation express


Modified Hausdorff distance for model-based 3-D object recognition from a single view In this paper, we consider the problem of recognizing 3-D object from a single 2-D intensity image, obtained from unknown position and orientation. We propose the feature set based correspondence algorithm between 3-D model features and 2-D image features, in contrast to the conventional approaches which use a single local feature or fixed number of local features. We describe the model and the image as the set of the feature sets, which are then used as a basic unit to compare the similarity. As a measure of the similarity between features, the Hausdorff distance with explicit paring (HDEP) is proposed and extended to the partial HDEP, using the notion of the partial distance to cope with the problems which occur when there are backgrounds and some of image features are missing or severely deviated from the original. The proposed correspondence algorithm employing the partial HDEP is the generalized form which is able to vary the number of local relations to be considered flexibly from a single local relation to set of local relations. The probabilistic measure which reflects the view variation of the projected features is used to measure the similarity between the elements of the feature set. The 3-D object recognition system with hypothesis-verification scheme is implemented and tested on real images with backgrounds and occlusion.

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

object recognition
hausdorff distance
single view


Optimal composite morphological supervised filter for image denoising using genetic programming: Application to magnetic resonance images Composite filters based on mathematical morphological operators (MMO) are getting considerable attraction in image denoising. Most of such approaches depend on pre-fixed combination of MMO. In this paper, we proposed a genetic programming (GP) based approach for denoising magnetic resonance images (MRI) that evolves an optimal composite morphological supervised filter (FOCMSF) by combining the gray-scale MMO. The proposed method is divided into three modules: preprocessing module, GP module, and evaluation module. In preprocessing module, the required components for the development of the proposed GP based filter are prepared. In GP module, FOCMSF is evolved through evaluating the fitness of several individuals over certain number of generations. Finally, the evaluation module provides the mechanism for testing and evaluating the performance of the evolved filter. The proposed method does not need any prior information about the noise variance. The improved performance of the developed filter is investigated using the standard MRI datasets and its performance is compared with previously proposed methods. Comparative analysis demonstrates the superiority of the proposed GP based scheme over the existing approaches.

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

rician noise
magnetic resonance imaging
mathematical morphology
image restoration


Register-machine based processes We study extensions of the process algebra axiom system ACP with two recursive operations: the binary Kleene star *, which is defined by x*y = x(x*y) + y, and the push-down operation $, defined by x($)y = x((x($)y)(x($)y)) + y. In this setting it is easy to represent register machine computation, and an equational theory results that is not decidable. In order to increase the expressive power, abstraction is then added: with rooted branching bisimulation equivalence each computable process can be expressed, and with rooted tau-bisimilarity each semi-computable process that initially is finitely branching can be expressed. Moreover, with abstraction and a finite number of auxiliary actions these results can be obtained without binary Kleene star. Finally, we consider two alternatives for the push-down operation. Each of these gives rise to similar results.

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

theory
bisimulation equivalence
kleene star
process algebra

computability
concurrency
expressivity
iteration
push-down operation


EMBEDDED FINGERPRINT MATCHING ON SMART CARD This paper describes an embedded minutia-based matching algorithm using the reference point neighborhoods minutiae. The proposed matching algorithm is implemented in restricted environments such as smart card devices requiring careful monitoring of both memory and processing time usage. The proposed algorithm uses a circular tessellation to encode fingerprint features in neighborhood minutia localization binary codes. The objective of the present study is the development of a new matching approach which reduces both computing time and required space memory for fingerprint matching on Java Card. The main advantage of our approach is avoiding the implicit alignment of fingerprint images during the matching process while improving the fingerprint verification accuracy. Tests carried out on the public fingerprint databases DB1-a and DB2-a of FVC2002 have shown the effectiveness of our approach.

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

fingercode extraction
javacard implementation


SVD lossy adaptive encoding of 3D digital images for ROI progressive transmission In this paper, we propose an algorithm for lossy adaptive encoding of digital three-dimensional (3D) images based on singular value decomposition (SVD). This encoding allows us to design algorithms for progressive transmission and reconstruction of the 3D image, for one or several selected regions of interest (ROI) avoiding redundancy in data transmission. The main characteristic of the proposed algorithms is that the ROIs can be selected during the transmission process and it is not necessary to re-encode the image again to transmit the data corresponding to the selected ROI. An example with a data set of a CT scan consisting of 93 parallel slices where we added an implanted tumor (the ROI in this example) and a comparative with JPEC2000 are given. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

singular value decomposition encoding
lossy progressive transmission
region of interest (roi) transmission


An approach for extracting non-manifold mid-surfaces of thin-wall solids using chordal axis transform This paper proposes an approach for extracting non-manifold mid-surfaces of thin-wall solids using the chordal axis transform (CAT) (Prasad in CNLS NewsletterCenter for Nonlinear Studies, Los Alamos National Laboratory, vol 139, 1997). There is great demand for extracting mid-surfaces as it is used in dimension reduction. Quadros and Shimada previously used CAT in extracting 2-manifold mid-surfaces of a particular type of thin-wall solids. The proposed approach is an extension of the previous approach (Quadros and Shimada in 11th international meshing roundtable, 2002) in order to extract non-manifold mid-surfaces of general thin-wall solids. The three steps involved in extracting the mid-surface of a thin-wall solid are: (1) generating a tet mesh of a thin-wall solid without inserting interior nodes; (2) generating a raw mid-surface by smart cutting of tets; and (3) remeshing the raw mid-surface via smart clean-up. In the proposed approach, a discrete model (i.e., a tet mesh without any interior nodes) is used instead of working directly on a CAD model. The smart cutting of tets using CAT yields correct topology at the non-manifold region in the raw mid-surface. As the raw mid-surface is not directly suitable for engineering purposes, it is trimmed using a smart clean-up procedure and then remeshed. The proposed approach has been implemented using C++ in commercial ALGOR finite element analysis software. The proposed approach is computationally efficient and has shown effective results on industrial models.

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

medial axis transform
mid-surface extraction
midplane mesh generation


Tunable mode converter using electromagnet-induced long-period grating in two-mode fiber The fiber mode converter that is variable in conversion efficiency and wavelength. Electrically-controlling the mode conversion between the LP01 and LP11 core modes in a two-mode fiber. Conversion efficiency is tuned by the voltage applied to the electromagnet under the fiber. Phase-matching wavelength is tuned by expanding the nonmagnetic spring on the fiber.

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


Compact slotline fed enhanced gain dipole antenna for 5.2 GHz/5.8-GHz applications A high-efficiency and high-gain slotline fed directive dipole antenna is developed for microwave applications. The antenna offers an average gain of 7.9 dBi with a front to back ratio better than 20 dB and a cross polar level better than ?20 dB. Design equations of the antenna are developed and validated on different substrates. The simulation and experimental results show that the proposed antenna exhibits high gain and robust radiation patterns in the entire frequency band. 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE, 2013.

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

transmission line reflector
uniplanar dipole antenna


Influence of the scale function on wavelet transformation of the surface electromyographic signal The scale function in wavelet transformation (WT) determines wavelet dilation and optimises the processing of a given signal. Here, the objective was to determine the influence of the scale function on the WT of 160 surface electromyograms using second-degree polynomial (WTpoly) and exponential (WTexp) scale functions. For each WT, a mean frequency (MNF) was calculated from the original wavelet spectrum and from the cubic spline interpolated wavelet spectrum, and these were compared with the MNF obtained from a fast Fourier transform (FFT). The total intensity (Tp) for each WT was compared with the root mean square (RMS). The MNFs computed from the original wavelet spectra were significantly (P < 0.05) lower and higher when computed from the reconstructed wavelet spectra than those from the FFT. The Tp computed from WTpoly showed significantly higher agreement with the RMS than the Tp from WTexp. Finally, the WTpoly may serve as a reference in electromyography.

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

spectral domain analysis
time domain analysis
wavelet transforms


A computational study of solution approaches for the resource constrained elementary shortest path problem We present the results of a computational investigation of solution approaches for the resource constrained elementary shortest path problem (\(\mathcal{RCESPP}\)). In particular, the best known algorithms are tested on several problem instances taken from literature. The main aims are to provide a detailed state of the art and to evaluate methods that turn out to be the most promising for solving the problem under investigation. This work represents the first attempt to computationally compare solution approaches for the \(\mathcal{RCESPP}\).

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

resource constraints
dynamic programming


Construction of mixed-level supersaturated designs and comparison of their performance: Application to a gas chromatographic method A supersaturated design is a design for which there are fewer runs than effects to be estimated. Although two-level supersaturated designs are becoming increasingly popular, mixed-level designs are scarcely used. Mixed-level designs are needed when the response is based on a polynomial response surface model or in situations where factors are nominal variables (with more than two modalities). The aim of this study is to explore the construction of mixed-level supersaturated designs and to evaluate their performance from the analysis of peppermint oil using a gas chromatographic method as application. This experimental setup requires the study of seven factors at two levels and five factors at three levels. Different building methods are tested from asymmetric or symmetric supersaturated designs. The mixed-level supersaturated designs obtained are compared from the point of view of a priori criteria with the aim of evaluating which criteria are better suited to judge the quality and fitness for purpose of these experimental designs. Finally, the results of the supersaturated designs are compared to the complete classical design. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

mixed-level supersaturated design
screening
gas chromatography
experimental design


a survey into the rigor of uml use and its perceived impact on quality and productivity The UML (Unified Modeling Language) has become the de facto standard for software modeling in the software industry. Despite its wide acceptance, little is known about how UML is used in practice, let alone the challenges and difficulties faced by engineers who work with this modeling notation. In this paper, we provide empirical findings from a survey on the use of UML amongst 80 professional software engineers. We explore software engineers' opinions on common styles of using UML and how they perceive the impact of using UML on productivity and quality in software development. One of the results reveals that the impact of using the UML on productivity is perceived mostly in the design, analysis, and implementation phases.

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

level of detail
consistency
completeness
correspondence


A method for member selection of R&D teams using the individual and collaborative information The member selection is an important decision problem in the formation of R&D teams. Selecting suitable members will facilitate the success of R&D projects. In the existing methods for partner selection, the individual information to measure the individual performance of members is mostly used, while the collaborative information to measure the collaborative performance between members is seldom considered. Therefore, this paper proposes a method for member selection of R&D teams, in which both the individual information of members and the collaborative information between members are considered. In order to select desired members, a bi-objective 0-1 programming model is built using the individual and collaborative information. To solve the model, a muiti-objective genetic algorithm is developed since the model is NP-hard. A practical example followed by simulation experiment is used to illustrate the applicability of the proposed method. Additionally, the experimental results show that the proposed method can support satisfactory and high quality member selection. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

member selection
collaborative information
individual information

multi-objective genetic algorithm (moga)


quantifying group problem solving with stochastic analysis Quantifying the relationship between group dynamics and group performance is a key issue of increasing group performance. In this paper, we will discuss how group performance is related to several heuristics about group dynamics in performing several typical tasks. We will also give our novel stochastic modeling in learning the structure of group dynamics. Our performance estimators account for between 40 and 60\% of the variance across range of group problem solving tasks.

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

human dynamics
speech communication
interaction process analysis


Fixed-Complexity Sphere Encoder for Multi-User MIMO Systems In this paper, we propose a fixed-complexity sphere encoder (FSE) for multi-user multi-input multi-output (MU-MIMO) systems. The proposed FSE accomplishes a scalable tradeoff between performance and complexity. Also, because it has a parallel tree-search structure, the proposed encoder can be easily pipelined, leading to a tremendous reduction in the precoding latency. The complexity of the proposed encoder is also analyzed, and we propose two techniques that reduce it. Simulation and analytical results demonstrate that in a 4 x 4 MU-MIMO system, the proposed FSE requires only 11.5% of the computational complexity needed by the conventional QR decomposition with M-algorithm encoder (QRDM-E). Also, the encoding throughput of the proposed encoder is 7.5 times that of the QRDM-E with tolerable degradation in the BER performance, while achieving the optimum diversity order.

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

multi-user multi-input multi-output (mu-mimo) systems

qr decomposition with m-algorithm encoder (qrdm-e)


Image decomposition via learning the morphological diversity Image decomposition aims to separate different features in images. Based on dictionary learning (DL) techniques, this letter discusses two new algorithms for image decomposing into a linear combination of morphological components. The proposed algorithms can be viewed as the extensions of DL-based image denoising algorithm. Experiments show that the learned dictionaries by the proposed algorithms can describe the different components of image effectively and leads to high quality image decomposition performance.

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

morphological component analysis
sparse representation


Moving closer to the fabric of organizing visions: The case of a trade show This paper examines the fabric of authorized discourses about Information Technology (IT), i.e. of organizing visions (OVs), through the investigation of the discourses, practices, and sociomaterial contexts that make up their micro-social underpinnings. The case of a trade show allows us to explore the production of everyday discourses and practices about IT by gathering many of the parties involved in the fabric of organizing visions. Through a combination of direct observations, interviews, pictures, documents and a survey, we identify and analyze a number of micro-social practices related to the fabric of IT discourses. The trade show we studied was not a context in which new IT buzzwords and concepts emerged, but, rather, it was a setting where existing discourses about IT were repeated, refreshed, and materialized. Our three main findings reveal intriguing relationships between practices, discourses, and sociomaterial contexts: (1) practices and artifacts contribute to enclose the production of discourses; (2) practices and discourses aim at refining and updating an existing discourse about IT; and (3) many actors in the trade shows engage in discourses and practices that materialize the IT artifact. This research adds to the conceptualization of the dynamics of OVs through a better understanding of how they are affected by the relationships between the discourses and practices of multiple actors and by the sociomaterial context in which they take place. It draws several strategic implications concerning the dynamics of OVs at the industry level, how actors influence the fabric of OVs, as well as the roles and combination of artifacts, discourses and practices to build OVs.

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

it
practices
discourses
artifacts
trade show
industry


Feature fusion for basic behavior unit segmentation from video sequences It has become increasingly popular to study animal behaviors with the assistance of video recordings. An automated video processing and behavior analysis system is desired to replace the traditional manual annotation. We propose a framework for automatic video based behavior analysis systems, which consists of four major modules: behavior modeling, feature extraction from video sequences, basic behavior unit (BBU) discovery and complex behavior recognition. BBU discovery is performed based on features extracted from video sequences, hence the fusion of multiple dimensional features is very important. In this paper, we explore the application of feature fusion techniques to BBU discovery with one and multiple cameras. We applied the vector fusion (SBP) method, a multi-variate vector visualization technique, in fusing the features obtained from a single camera. This technique reduces the multiple dimensional data into two dimensional (SBP) space, and the spatial and temporal analysis in SBP space can help discover the underlying data groups. Then we present a simple feature fusion technique for BBU discovery from multiple cameras with the affinity graph method. Finally, we present encouraging results on a physical system and a synthetic mouse-in-a-cage scenario from one, two, and three cameras. The feature fusion methods in this paper are simple yet effective.

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

vector fusion
affinity graph
basic behavior unit
feature extraction
multiple cameras


Automatic adaptation of a bond graph model to transfer function specifications This study proposes a methodology that extends the structures of linear bond graph models in order to allow them to reproduce observed behaviour of higher order. The procedure can help identify physical considerations that are initially overlooked. The general algorithm is applied to an initial model of an electro-hydraulic actuator which cannot produce a known transfer function. The same approach is used in the case of a hand held medical instrument inconsistent with users specifications.

O B 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 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

reconstruction
junction structure
tympanometer


Technical Optimization of RhD Zygosity Determination by Real-Time Quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction We have recently reported the development of a multiplex, real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay for RhD zygosity determination based on the coamplification and quantification of RHD-specific sequences in relation to a reference gene, albumin. This paper discusses the optimization procedure and technical parameters of this multiplex assay.

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


An approximation algorithm for multidimensional assignment problems minimizing the sum of squared errors Given a complete k k -partite graph G=(V1,V2,,Vk;E) G = ( V 1 , V 2 , , V k ; E ) satisfying |V1|=|V2|=?=|Vk|=n | V 1 | = | V 2 | = ? = | V k | = n and weights of all k k -cliques of G G , the k k -dimensional assignment problem finds a partition of vertices of G G into a set of (pairwise disjoint) n n k k -cliques that minimizes the sum total of weights of the chosen cliques. In this paper, we consider a case in which the weight of a clique is defined by the sum of given weights of edges induced by the clique. Additionally, we assume that vertices of G G are embedded in the d d -dimensional space Qd Q d and a weight of an edge is defined by the square of the Euclidean distance between its two endpoints. We describe that these problem instances arise from a multidimensional Gaussian model of a data-association problem. We propose a second-order cone programming relaxation of the problem and a polynomial time randomized rounding procedure. We show that the expected objective value obtained by our algorithm is bounded by (5/2?3/k) ( 5 / 2 ? 3 / k ) times the optimal value. Our result improves the previously known bound (4?6/k) ( 4 ? 6 / k ) of the approximation ratio.

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

multidimensional assignment problem
second-order cone programming
data-association problem
data fusion


Computational issues in a stochastic finite horizon one product recovery inventory model Inderfurth [OR Spektrum 19 (1997) 111] and Simpson [Operations Research 26 (1978) 270] have shown how the optimal decision rules in a stochastic one product recovery system with equal leadtimes can be characterized. Using these results we provide in this paper a method for the exact computation of the parameters which determine the optimal periodic policy. Since exact computation is, especially in case of dynamic demands and returns, quite time consuming, we also provide two different approximations. One is based on an approximation of the value-function in the dynamic programming problem while the other approximation is based on a deterministic model. By means of numerical examples we compare our results and discuss the performance of the approximations.

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


activities of the acm two-year college education committee This poster presentation showcases the accomplishments of the Two-Year College Education Committee (TYCEC), highlights the 2005 - 2006 curricular activities, and illustrates a typical two-year college education model in North America.

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


Fast dynamic grid deformation based on Delaunay graph mapping A simple and efficient dynamic grid deformation technique is proposed for computing unsteady flow problems with geometrical deformation, relative body movement or shape changes due to aerodynamic optimisation and fluidstructure interaction. A Delaunay graph of the solution domain is first generated, which can be moved easily during the geometric dynamic deformation, even for very large distortion. A one to one mapping between the Delaunay graph and the computational grid is maintained during the movement. Therefore the new computational grid after the dynamic movement can be generated efficiently through the mapping while maintaining the primary qualities of the grid. While most dynamic grid deformation techniques are iterative based on the spring analogy, the present method is non-iterative and much more efficient. On the other hand, in comparison with dynamic grid techniques based on transfinite interpolation for structured grids, it offers both geometric and cell topology flexibility, which is crucial for many unsteady flow problems involving geometric deformation and relative motions. The method is demonstrated through some typical unsteady flow test cases, including a pitching aerofoil in a fixed domain boundary, relative movement between multi-element aerofoils due to flap deployment for high lift, a deformable sphere in a fixed cube, and a three-dimensional flexible wing with large deformation.

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


Hybrid optimization for QoS control in IP Virtual Private Networks A multiservice IP Virtual Private Network is considered, where Quality of Service is maintained by a DiffServ paradigm, in a domain that is supervised by a Bandwidth Broker (BB). The traffic in the network belongs to three basic categories: Expedited Forwarding (EF), Assured Forwarding (AF) and Best Effort (BE). Consistently with the DiffServ environment, the Service Providers Core Routers (CRs) only treat aggregate flows; on the other hand, the users Edge Routers (ERs) keep per-flow information and convey it to the BB. The latter knows at each time instant the number (and the bandwidth requirements) of flows in progress within the domain for both EF and AF traffic categories. A global strategy for admission control, bandwidth allocation and routing within the domain is introduced and discussed in the paper. The aim is to minimize blocking of the guaranteed flows (EF and AF), while at the same time providing some resources also to BE traffic. In order to apply such control actions on-line, a computational structure is sought, which allows a relatively fast implementation of the overall strategy. In particular, a mix of analytical and simulation tools is applied jointly, by alternating local decisions, based on analytical models, with flow-level simulation that determine the effect of the decisions on the whole system and provide feedback information. The convergence of the scheme (under a fixed traffic pattern) is investigated and the results of its application under different traffic loads are studied by simulation on three test networks.

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

vpn
ip diffserv
qos-ip
resource allocation


Realization of dynamic walking and running of the quadruped using neural oscillator In the present study we attempt to induce a quadruped robot to walk dynamically on irregular terrain and run on flat terrain by using a nervous system model. For dynamic walking on irregular terrain, we employ a control system involving a neural oscillator network, a stretch reflex and a flexor reflex. Stable dynamic walking when obstructions to swinging legs are present is made possible by the flexor reflex and the crossed extension reflex. A modification of the single driving input to the neural oscillator network makes it possible for the robot to walk up a step. For running on flat terrain, we combine a spring mechanism and the neural oscillator network. It became clear in this study that the matching of two oscillations by the spring-mass system and the neural oscillator network is important in order to keep jumping in a pronk gait. The present study also shows that entrainment between neural oscillators causes the running gait to change from pronk to bound. This finding renders running fairly easy to attain in a bound gait. It must be noticed that the flexible and robust dynamic walking on irregular terrain and the transition of the running gait are realized by the modification of a few parameters in the neural oscillator network.

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

quadruped robot
neural oscillator
walking on irregular terrain

reflex mechanism
gait transition in running


Flash vertexing algorithms for trigger applications Flash-algorithm vertex-reconstruction routines can increase speed by a few orders of magnitude over iterative routines and allow the design of dedicated triggers for b- and charm-physics. The idea behind the algorithms is to perform fits analytically for straight tracks, and then add a correction corresponding to OIII O I I I helix local expansions of the tracks. From the point of view of the resolution this is satisfactory for all current HEP experiments.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 nonredundant ternary CAM circuit for network search engines An optimized Ternary CAM concept is introduced for the hardware search engines in high-speed Internet routers. Our design employs w + 1 RAM bits to store a word of size w, whereas a conventional TCAM needs 2w RAM bits for the same word size. Based on this concept an 8-bit cluster is designed out of 9 SRAM bits, used as the basic building block of our Prefix-CAM (PCAM) structure. Four such clusters merge to store a 32-bit IPv4 prefix, thus, configuring a PCAM suitable for Internet packet forwarding. This PCAM module employs 48% less SRAM cells and a total of 22% less transistors plus 50% less address decode interconnects compared to a conventional TCAM, for equal storage size and equal functionality. We show that PCAM can be employed for multifield packet classification. Other factors, such as lookup speed and power dissipation, are not adversely affected.

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

forwarding engine
prefix-cam
route lookup table
ternary content addressable memory


A comparison of fuzzy and annotated logic programming The aim of this paper is to contribute to the study of relationships between different formalism for handling uncertainty in logic programming, knowledge-based systems and deductive databases. Generalized annotated programs with restricted semantics (RGA-programs) are well suited to fit real-world data. We show that RGA-programs with constant annotations in body are equivalent to programs with left discontinuous annotation and with possibly non-computable semantics. Our model of fuzzy logic programming (FLP) can well handle recursive programs. We show that FLP has the same expressive power as RGA-programs without constant annotations in body of rules. We introduce several syntactical transformations of programs and study their models and production operators. We introduce a new efficient procedural semantics for RGA-programs and show connections between different sorts of computed answers. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

fuzzy logic programming
generalized annotated programs

continuous semantics and computable fixpoint


Chaos control of performance measure approach for evaluation of probabilistic constraints Performance measure approach (PMA) is a recently proposed method for evaluation of probabilistic constraints in reliability-based design optimization of structure. The advanced mean-value (AMV) method is well suitable for PMA due to its simplicity and efficiency. However, when the AMV iterative scheme is applied to search for the minimum performance target point for some nonlinear performance functions, the iterative sequences could fall into the periodic oscillation and even chaos. In the present paper, the phenomena of numerical instabilities of AMV iterative solutions are illustrated firstly. And the chaotic dynamics analysis on the iterative procedure of AMV method is performed. Then, the stability transformation method of chaos feedback control is suggested for the convergence control of AMV procedure in the parameter interval in which the iterative scheme fails. Numerical results of several nonlinear performance functions demonstrate that the control of periodic oscillation, bifurcation and chaos for AMV iterative procedure is achieved, and the stable convergence solutions are obtained.

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

performance measure approach
amv iterative procedure
numerical instabilities
chaotic dynamics
stability transformation method


Method and system for Multi-Attribute Market Value Assessment in analysis of construction and retrofit projects Multi-Attribute Decision-Making (MADM) methods prioritize the alternatives of comparative projects quite accurately. Problems arise when there is a need to determine the utility degrees and market values of the project alternatives. This becomes especially important for establishing the market value of real estate property in tender offers. However, the available MADM methods cannot accomplish this. Thus the authors of this article developed the MAMVA method, which permits determining the utility degrees and market values of project alternatives, and also developed a system on the basis of this developed method. This article presents the proposed Multi-Attribute Market Value Assessment (MAMVA) Method and the Decision Support System for Construction and Retrofit Projects (DSS-CRP). It also presents a case study to demonstrate the effectiveness of this method and system. The application of the MAMVA Method and DSS-CRP System for prioritizing and for determining the utility degrees and market values of construction and retrofit projects under consideration for financing by the European Economic Area (EEA) and Norway Financial Mechanism Grant made it possible to decrease the amount of requested support. This article also presents the analysis and comprehensive assessment of the noted construction and retrofit projects. These were performed in consideration of the entire life cycle of a project and of needs satisfaction relevant to all the groups interested in a project. The developed MAMVA Method and DSS-CRP System permit assessing the appropriateness of projects under analysis in conceptual and qualitative forms. This method and system automatically submit the values of the project alternatives.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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-attribute market value assessment (mamva)

decision support system for construction and retrofit projects (dss-crp)


Monotonic decrease of the non-Gaussianness of the sum of independent random variables: A simple proof Artstein, Ball, Barthe, and Naor have recently shown that the non-Gaussianness (divergence with respect to a Gaussian random variable with identical first and second moments) of the sum of independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) random variables is monotonically nonincreasing. We give a simplified proof using the relationship between non-Gaussianness and minimum mean-square error (MMSE) in Gaussian channels. As Artstein et at., we also deal with the more general setting of nonidentically distributed random variables.

O O O 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

central limit theorem
differential entropy
entropy power inequality
minimum mean-square error (mmse)
non-gaussianness
relative entropy


learning to summarise xml documents using content and structure Documents formatted in eXtensible Markup Language (XML) are becoming increasingly available in collections of various document types. In this paper, we present an approach for the summarisation of XML documents. The novelty of this approach lies in that it is based on features not only from the content of documents, but also from their logical structure. We follow a machine learning like, sentence extraction-based summarisation technique. To find which features are more effective for producing summaries this approach views sentence extraction as an ordering task. We evaluated our summarisation model using the INEX dataset. The results demonstrate that the inclusion of features from the logical structure of documents increases the effectiveness of the summariser, and that the learnable system is also effective and well-suited to the task of summarisation in the context of XML documents.

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

machine learning
summarisation
xml documents

ranking algorithms
content and structure features


Evaluation of alternative standardized terminologies for medical conditions within a network of observational healthcare databases ? Large electronic databases of health care information, such as administrative claims and electronic health records, are available and are being used in a number of public health settings, including drug safety surveillance. However, because of a lack of standardization, clinical terminologies may differ across databases. With the aid of existing resources and expert coders, we have developed mapping tables to convert ICD-9-CM diagnosis codes used in some existing databases to SNOMED-CT and MedDRA. In addition, previously developed definitions for specific health outcomes of interest were mapped to the same standardized vocabularies. We evaluated how vocabulary mapping affected (1) the retention of clinical data from two test databases, (2) the semantic space of outcome definitions, (3) the prevalence of each outcome in the test databases, and (4) the reliability of analytic methods designed to detect drug-outcome associations in the test databases. Although vocabulary mapping affected the semantic space of some outcome definitions, as well as the prevalence of some outcomes in the test databases, it had only minor effects on the analysis of drug-outcome associations. Furthermore, both SNOMED-CT and MedDRA were viable for use as standardized vocabularies in systems designed to perform active medical product surveillance using disparate sources of observational data.

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

terminology standards
coding scheme
taxonomy
icd-9-cm


multiagent argumentation for cooperative planning in delp-pop This contribution proposes a model for argumentation-based multi-agent planning, with a focus on cooperative scenarios. It consists in a multi-agent extension of DeLP-POP, partial order planning on top of argumentation-based defeasible logic programming. In DeLP-POP, actions and arguments (combinations of rules and facts) may be used to enforce some goal, if their conditions (are known to) apply and arguments are not defeated by other arguments applying. In a cooperative planning problem a team of agents share a set of goals but have diverse abilities and beliefs. In order to plan for these goals, agents start a stepwise dialogue consisting of exchanges of plan proposals, plus arguments against them. Since these dialogues instantiate an A * search algorithm, these agents will find a solution if some solution exists, and moreover, it will be provably optimal (according to their knowledge).

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


Gaussian and Laplacian of Gaussian weighting functions for robust feature based tracking Object tracking algorithms found extensively in the computer vision literature either are inhibited by various assumptions such as simplicity of motion and shape characteristics of objects or are overly sensitive to noise. We propose and successfully test two new weighting functions for a feature-based object-tracking algorithm to achieve superior performance in tracking motion of non-rigid objects under noisy conditions. We present the implications of using the weighting functions in real and synthetic image sequences to overcome the noise produced at acquisition source (charge coupled device-CCD), or in the background environment. We also present a mechanism for determining the optimal weighting function based on image parameters, more specifically the edge characteristics of objects in the image. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

feature based tracking
weighting functions

gaussian function
kanade-lucas-tomasi (klt) tracking
laplacian of gaussian function


laboratory

for

emulation

and

study

of

integrated

and

coordinated

media

communication

In

future

telecommunications

networks,

understanding

the

issues

of

user-network

control,

Customer

Premise

Equipment

(CPE)

technologies,

services

and

user

applications

is

as

important

as

the

classical

network

problems

of

channel

structure,

switching,

and

transmission.

This

paper

discusses

a

Bell

Communications

Research

facility,

the

Integrated

Media

Architecture

Laboratory

(IMAL),

designed

to

flexibly

emulate

a

wide

range

of

current

and

future

network

and

CPE

environments

with

a

focus

on

multiple

media

communications.

IMAL

combines

off-the-shelf

technologies

to

create

an

easily

clonable

emulation

environment

for

studying,

planning,

demonstrating,

and

checking

the

feasibility

of

integrated

media

communications.

The

IMAL

project

has

assembled

workstations

which

feature

speech-synthesis/sampled-audio/telephony

capabilities,

local

MIP

computation

capacity,

and

a

high-resolution

color

display

integrating

text/graphics/image/video

under

an

expanded

X

Window

display

management

system.

(X

Windows

is

an

emerging

windowing

standard

to

provide

high

performance

device-independent

graphics.)

The

workstations

may

be

augmented

as

needed

by

local

image

digitizers,

video

cameras,

and

color

image

printers

producing

paper

and

viewgraph

hardcopies.

Also,

the

workstations

are

interconnected

with

switches

permitting

access

to

one

another

as

well

as

shared

databases,

temporary

storage,

intelligence,

and

information

processing/conversion

resources.

Communications

services

are

implemented

under

a

distributed,

real-time

service

primitive

control

scheme.

This

multiple-media

service

primitives

scheme

employs

a

threaded/dataflow-type

architecture

to

support

user-defined,

network-defined,

and

vendor-defined

services

while

including

a

wealth

of

flexible

features

for

the

study

of

network

architecture,

protocol,

network

management,

and

billing

functions.

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

network media applications project graphics paper access control user research capabilities environments support image windows scheme communication color video intelligence computation service management emulation structure technologies architecture storage distributed feature laboratory future

camera
flexibility
real-time
informal
audio
locality
sharing
custom
capacities
process
conversation
resource
integrability
network management
understandability
speech synthesis
plan
network architecture
high-performance
standardization
systems
device
text
switch
dataflow
telecommunication
database


On selective unboundedness of VASS Numerous properties of vector addition systems with states amount to checking the (un)boundedness of some selective feature (e.g., number of reversals, counter values, run lengths). Some of these features can be checked in exponential space by using Rackoff's proof or its variants, combined with Savitch's Theorem. However, the question is still open for many others, e.g., regularity detection problem and reversal-boundedness detection problem. In the paper, we introduce the class of generalized unboundedness properties that can be verified in exponential space by extending Rackoff's technique, sometimes in an unorthodox way. We obtain new optimal upper bounds, for example for place boundedness problem, reversal-boundedness detection (several variants are present in the paper), strong promptness detection problem and regularity detection. Our analysis is sufficiently refined so as to obtain a polynomial-space bound when the dimension is fixed. (C) 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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

vector addition systems with states
place boundedness problem
regularity detection problem
exponential space


An efficient traffic control scheme for TCP over ATM GFR services In ATM networks, the guaranteed frame rate (GFR) service category has been defined to support user applications which are neither able to specify the range of traffic parameter values, nor able to comply with the behavior rules. It provides a packet-level rate guarantee with a given maximum packet size. The service specifies that the excessive traffic from a user should share the available resource fairly. In this paper, we investigate TCP/IP packet transmission over ATM by using a selective packet-discard strategy with tracking of the available buffer space and a packet push-out buffering scheme to accommodate the GFR service. The simulation results show that our proposed method fulfills the requirements of GFR service as well as improves the TCP throughput under the common FIFO scheduling. A feasible implementation approach is also addressed.

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

selective packet-discard
packet push-out buffering


A lower bound for testing juntas We show an Omega (m) lower bound on the number of queries required to test whether a Boolean function depends on at most m out of its n variables. This improves a previously known lower bound for testing this property. Our proof is simple and uses only elementary techniques. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

property testing
boolean functions
computational complexity
randomized algorithms


Planar location of the simulative acoustic source based on fiber optic sensor array A fiber optic sensor array which is structured by four Sagnac fiber optic sensors is proposed to detect and locate a simulative source of acoustic emission (AE). The sensing loops of Sagnac interferometer (SI) are regarded as point sensors as their small size. Based on the derived output light intensity expression of SI, the optimum work condition of the Sagnac fiber optic sensor is discussed through the simulation of MATLAB. Four sensors are respectively placed on a steel plate to structure the sensor array and the location algorithms are expatiated. When an impact is generated by an artificial AE source at any position of the plate, the AE signal will be detected by four sensors at different times. With the help of a single chip microcomputer (SCM) which can calculate the position of the AE source and display it on LED, we have implemented an intelligent detection and location.

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

fiber optic sensor
sensor array
sagnac interferometer

acoustic emission (ae)
location of ae source


A ZVS/ZCS solution to crossover distortion in boost PFC rectifier Several ZVS/ZCS (zero voltage switching/zero current switching) snubbers have been proposed in the past to minimize the losses and EMI in boost PFC. In these topologies, the commutation energies are reflected to the load or source to achieve energy conservation. However, this energy can also be utilized in a way to further improve the performance of the PFC and this paper is a first step in this direction. Here, we will propose a new topology to minimize the crossover distortion in boost rectifier. The main characteristic of the proposed topology besides ZCS/ZVS switching is that it also improves the crossover distortion. A prototype system was built and tested to verify the proposed topology.

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

power factor correction rectifier
ac/dc converters
zero voltage switching


Performance modelling and analysis of Deficit Round Robin scheduling scheme with self-similar traffic The provisioning of fairness to various network applications is an important Quality-of-Service demand and has thus become a challenging research issue in contemporary communication networks. Deficit Round Robin (DRR) is a promising fair scheduling mechanism owing to its low complexity and excellent ability of achieving a good degree of fairness in terms of throughput. On the other hand, self-similar traffic was found to be pervasively present in communication networks and has great impact on the performance of scheduling systems. However, to the best of our knowledge, there has not been any analytical model reported in the open literature for the DRR mechanism in the presence of self-similar traffic. To fill this gap, this paper analytically investigates the queueing performance of DRR and develops a new analytical model for deriving the upper and lower bounds of the queue length distributions of individual traffic flows in DRR scheduling systems subject to self-similar traffic. Extensive comparison between simulation and analytical results validates the accuracy of the developed model. To demonstrate its applications, the analytical model is used to investigate the effects of packet size on the performance of the queueing system. The developed model is further applied to study the configuration of weights of individual traffic flows. Copyright (C) 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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

performance modelling
deficit round robin


Disjunction property and complexity of substructural logics We systematically identify a large class of substructural logics that satisfy the disjunction property (DP), and show that every consistent substructural logic with the DP is PSPACE-hard. Our results are obtained by using algebraic techniques. PSPACE-completeness for many of these logics is furthermore established by proof theoretic arguments. (c) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

substructural logics
disjunction property


Localizing the Accessory Pathway in Ventricular Preexcitation Patients Using a Score Based Algorithm Objectives: Clinical data was analyzed to find an efficient way to localize the accessory pathway in patients with ventricular preexcitation. Methods: The delta wave morphologies and ablation sites of 186 patients who underwent catheter ablation were analyzed and an algorithm ("locAP") to localize the accessory pathway was developed from the 84 data sets with a PQ interval = 0.12 s. Fifty additional patients were included for a prospective validation. The locAP algorithm ranks 13 locations according to the likelihood that the accessory pathway is localized there. The algorithm is based on the locAP score which uses the standardized residuals of the available data sets. Results: The locAP algorithm's accuracy is 0.54 for 13 locations, with a sensitivity of 0.84, a specificity of 0.97, and a positive likelihood ratio of 24.94. If the two most likely locations are regarded, the accuracy rises to 0.79, for the three most likely locations combined the accuracy is 0.82. This new algorithm performs better than Milstein's, Fitzpatrick's, and Arruda's algorithm both in the original study population as well as in a prospective study. Conclusions: The locAP algorithm is a valid and valuable tool for clinical practice in a cardiac electrophysiology laboratory. It could be shown that use of the locAP algorithm is favorable over the localizing algorithms that are in clinical use today.

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


Exploring the influence of reference situations and reference pricing on mobile service user behaviour Despite widespread proliferation of mobile devices providing access to a variety of advanced and data-rich services, adoption of those services remains low in most of the Western world. Thus, research related to the acceptance and use of mobile technology and services continues to develop. Traditional research in this domain has been useful for exploring adoption and use related to individual technologies or novel services. However, our research efforts indicate that users often reflect on former experiences with similar technologies or services when choosing mobile services. This suggests that when exploring mobile service usage decisions, focus cannot be placed on mobile services alone. Through two longitudinal field studies conducted in Denmark during 2004 and 2005, this article further explores the manner in which users' choices of mobile services are influenced by their reference situations and reference prices. The article suggests that users cognitive referencing is an influential factor that must be considered when exploring their usage behaviour in the mobile services market.

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

user behaviour
mobile services
cognitive referencing


An integrated manufacturing systems design environment Manufacturing systems design includes the determination of the, manufacturing operations, operation sequence, spatial layout, and part routings required to make a part. Currently, manufacturing systems design is done by a team of experts. Such an approach is prone to errors. Also, unfortunately, during this process there is usually no documentation of the decision making criteria; this makes successful designs hard to reproduce, especially by different experts. The work reported in this paper shows a technical approach to an Integrated Manufacturing Systems Design Workstation which uses software techniques to collect and organize the data, develop the manufacturing system design and validate the design using discrete event simulation. The workstation is composed of commercially available tools integrated together into a single seamless package. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.

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

manufacturing systems
design
layout
simulation