Formal workflow design analytics using data flow modeling Workflow design has become a critical function in enterprise information management. However, only scant research attention has been paid to formal workflow design methodologies. As a result, existing design methods in business process management remain a manual and experiential effort and result in inefficiency in design tasks and potential errors in workflow models. Considering that there are hundreds and thousands of business processes in organizations worldwide, overcoming this deficiency will have an enormous technical and economic impact on enterprise information management. In this paper, we investigate the possibility of incorporating formal analytics into workflow design, thus alleviating the intellectual challenge faced by business analysts when creating workflow models. The workflow design analytics we propose helps construct a workflow model based on information about the relevant activities and their associated data. In addition, our workflow design approach also helps determine whether the given information is sufficient for generating a workflow model and ensures the avoidance of certain workflow anomalies. The significance of our study is to enable the transformation of workflow design from a manual and experiential effort into a more systematic and rigorous approach.

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

data dependency
activity dependency
activity relations
business process automation


Mobile application to provide personalized sightseeing tours Tourist recommendation systems have been growing over the last few years, mainly because of the use of mobile devices to obtain user context. This work discusses some of the most relevant systems on the field and presents PSiS Mobile, which is a mobile recommendation and planning application designed to support a tourist during his vacations. It provides recommendations about points of interest to visit based on tourist preferences and on user and sight context. Also, it suggests a visit planning which can be dynamically adapted based on current user and sight context. This tool works also like a journey dairy since it records the tourist moves and tasks to help him remember how the trip was like. To conclude, some field experiences will be presented.

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

mobile applications
pervasive computing
ubiquitous computing
decision support
recommendation system
planning system
sight information provider
context-aware
android


Normality and Nondegeneracy for Optimal Control Problems with State Constraints In this paper, we investigate normal and nondegenerate forms of the maximum principle for optimal control problems with state constraints. We propose new constraint qualifications guaranteeing nondegeneracy and normality that have to be checked on smaller sets of points of an optimal trajectory than those in known sufficient conditions. In fact, the constraint qualifications proposed impose the existence of an inward pointing velocity just on the instants of time for which the optimal trajectory has an outward pointing velocity.

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

optimal control
maximum principle
state constraints
constraint qualifications
normality

degeneracy
nonsmooth analysis
oriented distance
49k15


LOTUS: composing a multi-user interactive tiled display virtual environment Recent development of advanced visualization technologies enables bringing virtual reality applications to a more cost-effective, scalable, high-resolution tiled display. This paper introduces a novel interactive tiled display framework called LOTUS, which allows designers to easily compose a multi-user interactive virtual environment using XML scripts for the cluster-based tiled display system. LOTUS supports more flexible multi-user interaction within multiple virtual environments on a tiled display through the use of a mobile interface coupled with the tiled display application controller. This paper describes the design and implementation of the LOTUS framework architecture, and its use in constructing various LOTUS applications and user interaction scenarios. It then concludes with suggestions for some improvements.

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

virtual reality
tiled display
mobile interface


In Vivo Potentialities of EWS-Fli-1 Targeted Antisense Oligonucleotides-Nanospheres Complexes The EWS/FLI-1 fusion gene, resulting from a t(11;22) translocation, plays a key role in the pathogenesis of Ewing sarcoma. Previously, we have shown that antisense oligonucleotides designed against EWS-Fli-1 inhibited tumor growth in nude mice provided they were delivered intratumorally by nanocapsules or by CTAB-coated nanospheres. In this study, we have used two types of nanospheres (designated as type 1 and type 2 nanospheres) stabilized with chitosan for both intratumoral and systemic administration of oligonucleotides. Inhibition of the tumor growth in vivo was found to be dependent on the carrier type as well as on antisense oligonucleotide modification. Indeed, whereas both types of nanospheres were efficient in reducing tumor growth after intratumoral injection, we have obtained only with type 2 nanospheres an antitumoral effect after intravenous injection in a preliminary experiment. Additionally, the anticancer efficacy of a localized modification of the EWS-Fli-1 phosphodiester/phosphorothioate chimeric antisense oligonucleotide was demonstrated. In cell culture the oligonucleotides inhibit cell growth by their antisense activity. Further investigations are needed in vivo to learn the mechanism of action of the complexes.

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

chitosan
nanospheres
ewing sarcoma
antisense oligonucleotide
antitumoral effect


The fractional frequency synthesizer with coincidence mixer In this paper, a fractional frequency synthesizer architecture is proposed, employing a new mixer based on signal coincidence, which achieves fast-settling, and high resolution compared with the direct frequency synthesizer based on diophantine equations. This new coincidence mixer, using digital error correction techniques, requires no output filters where sum and difference of input signal frequencies are obtained directly by separated outputs. Besides some examples, related to synthesizers the simulations are performed by using Matlab. The new coincidence mixer is also realized and the measuring results are also given.

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

diophantine equations
frequency synthesizer
coincidence mixer

direct digital synthesis
phase locked loop
fractional synthesis


condition graphs for high-quality behavioral synthesis Identifying mutual exclusiveness between operators during behavioral synthesis is important in order to reduce the required number of control steps or hardware resources. To improve the quality of the synthesis result, we propose a representation, the Condition Graph , and an algorithm for identification of mutually exclusive operators. Previous research efforts have concentrated on identifying mutual exclusiveness by examining language constructs such as IF-THEN-ELSE statements. Thus, their results heavily depend on the description styles. The proposed approach can produce results independent of description styles and identify more mutually exclusive operators than any previous approaches. The Condition Graph and the proposed algorithm can be used in any scheduling or binding algorithms. Experimental results on several benchmarks have shown the efficiency of the proposed representation and algorithm.

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

scheduling
order
research
quality
efficiency
behavioral synthesis
language
identification
graph
binding
hardware
synthesis
representation
algorithm
control

experimentation benchmark operability resource


A new computer-controlled surface-scanning device for measurement of fracture surface roughness ? This paper introduces the design of a new computer-controlled fracture surface mapping system. The system consists of a mechanical scanning device, a circuit, a PC and software to control the unit automatically. The system is especially suited for scanning small core-size samples and capable of collecting data on a 5454mm area with maximum 1mm resolution in the xy direction and 0.1mm in the z direction. A full description of the system units and the software are given. The 3-D images and contour maps of synthetic and natural fracture surfaces are also provided. The fractal analysis of data reveals that the surface data acquired are suitable for quantitative analyses.

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


Cross-validation and bootstrapping are unreliable in small sample classification The interest in statistical classification for critical applications such as diagnoses of patient samples based on supervised learning is rapidly growing. To gain acceptance in applications where the subsequent decisions have serious consequences, e.g. choice of cancer therapy, any such decision support system must come with a reliable performance estimate. Tailored for small sample problems, cross-validation (CV) and bootstrapping (BTS) have been the most commonly used methods to determine such estimates in virtually all branches of science for the last 20 years. Here, we address the often overlooked fact that the uncertainty in a point estimate obtained with CV and BTS is unknown and quite large for small sample classification problems encountered in biomedical applications and elsewhere. To avoid this fundamental problem of employing CV and BTS, until improved alternatives have been established, we suggest that the final classification performance always should be reported in the form of a Bayesian confidence interval obtained from a simple holdout test or using some other method that yields conservative measures of the uncertainty.

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

supervised classification
performance estimation


Approximation algorithms for single vehicle scheduling problems with release and service times on a tree or cycle We consider the single vehicle scheduling problem in which the customers are located at the vertices of a tree or a cycle, and have release and service time requirements. The objective is to minimize the makespan. In the tour-version the makespan means the time when the vehicle returns to its initial location after serving all customers. While in the path-version the makespan refers to the maximum completion time of all customers. For the problem on a tree, we present a 9/5-approximation algorithm for the tour-version and a 27/14-approximation algorithm for the path-version. For the problem on a cycle, we present 12/7-approximation algorithms for both versions. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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


No unbiased estimator of the variance of K-fold cross-validation Most machine learning researchers perform quantitative experiments to estimate generalization error and compare the performance of different algorithms ( in particular, their proposed algorithm). In order to be able to draw statistically convincing conclusions, it is important to estimate the uncertainty of such estimates. This paper studies the very commonly used K-fold cross-validation estimator of generalization performance. The main theorem shows that there exists no universal ( valid under all distributions) unbiased estimator of the variance of K-fold cross-validation. The analysis that accompanies this result is based on the eigen-decomposition of the covariance matrix of errors, which has only three different eigenvalues corresponding to three degrees of freedom of the matrix and three components of the total variance. This analysis helps to better understand the nature of the problem and how it can make naive estimators ( that don't take into account the error correlations due to the overlap between training and test sets) grossly underestimate variance. This is confirmed by numerical experiments in which the three components of the variance are compared when the difficulty of the learning problem and the number of folds are varied.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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-validation
variance estimators
k-fold cross-validation
statistical comparisons of algorithms


Analysis and synthesis of reconfigurable robotic systems Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems (RMSs) offer a key technology for the realization of mass customization. Compared with integral systems, RMS may provide system configurations to satisfy a wide range of Functional Requirements (FRs). An important issue for RMS is configuration design, the determination of a configuration from all of feasible configurations to meet FRs. Configuration design of strongly coupled RMS, such as reconfigurable robotic system, has particular challenges due to special characteristics compared with dedicated systems. In this research, a methodology for the design of Reconfigurable Robotic Systems (RRSs) is described. The proposed methodology can be generalized to other reconfigurable manufacturing systems having similar features.

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

mass customization
reconfigurable manufacturing systems
analysis and synthesis
configuration design

system architecture
reconfigurable robots


Dye-sensitized solar cells with PVAKIECPC gel electrolytes Gel polymer electrolytes consisting of PVAECPCKI have been studied in this work. The highest room temperature (298K) conductivity of 12.92mScm\(^{-1}\) is obtained for PVA-based gel polymer electrolyte (GPE) with composition 14.5 PVA-21.7 EC-28.7 PC-30.4 KI-4.7 \(\text{ I }_{2}\) (in wt%). The high conductivity is due to the highest number density of mobile ions in the electrolyte. The conductivitytemperature dependence follows the VogelTammanFulcher (VTF) relationship. The trend of pseudoactivation energy \((E_{a})\) with salt concentration is contrary to that of conductivity. PVA-based GPEs with 5 to 35wt% KI were used as a medium in ruthenium 535 (N719) dye-sensitized solar cells. The efficiency (\(\eta \)) of the solar cells increased as the composition of KI salt in the electrolyte increased. The highest power conversion efficiency of 2.74% is obtained for solar cells fabricated with electrolyte containing 35wt% KI. The variation of efficiency follows the same trend as short circuit current density \((J_{sc})\). The increase in \(J_{sc}\) is influenced by the increase in iodide ion concentration in the electrolyte that assists the redox process and helps electron to shuttle between ionized dye and counter electrode.

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

pva-based gel electrolyte
solar cell efficiency


Comparison of efficient random walk strategies for wireless multi-hop networks Wireless multi-hop networks have drawn great attention from research and business communities, since they suit well diverse application scenarios, such as environmental monitoring, military support in hostile environments and emergency applications. However, this challenging communication paradigm requires solutions able to fit specific requirements in terms of resource constrains, node mobility and quality of service. Random Walks (RWs) are probabilistic approaches to perform distributed operations, such as data search and retrieval. They are effective and have relatively small overhead compared to classic schemes, such as flooding. To further improve performance of RWs, hybrid solutions may be employed. Such strategies increase system performance at the cost of additional energy consumption. In this work, we propose two novel schemes that exploit local topological information in order to increase the hybrid RW protocols performance. Through simulations, we compare hybrid protocols with a traditional RW solution, studying their performance in static and mobile scenarios. An analysis of the trade-off between the number of node revisits and energy consumption allows to identify the more fitting protocols for different application scenarios in wireless multi-hop networks. Advantages and drawbacks of different RW strategies are highlighted, along with research challenges that need to be investigated in the future. (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 B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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

hybrid random walks
topology awareness
mobile multi-hop networks
cover time


Hybrid Model for Cascading Outage in a Power System: A Numerical Study Analysis of cascading outages in power systems is important for understanding why large blackouts emerge and how to prevent them. Cascading outages are complex dynamics of power systems, and One cause of them is the interaction between swing, dynamics of synchronous machines and protection operation of relays and circuit breakers. This paper uses hybrid dynamical systems as a mathematical model for cascading outages caused by the interaction. Hybrid dynamical systems can combine families of flows describing swing dynamics with switching rules that are based on protection operation. This paper refers to data on a cascading outage in the September 2003 blackout in Italy and shows a hybrid dynamical system by which propagation of outages reproduced is consistent with the data. This result Suggests that hybrid dynamical systems can provide an effective model for the analysis of cascading outage, in power systems.

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

power system
cascading outage
hybrid dynamical system


Experience with performance testing of software systems: Issues, an approach, and case study An approach to software performance testing is discussed. A case study describing the experience of using this approach for testing the performance of a system used as a gateway in a large industrial client/server transaction processing application is presented.

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

software performance testing
performance testing


Semiparametric estimation in perturbed long memory series The estimation of the memory parameter in perturbed long memory (LM) series has recently attracted attention. This has been mainly motivated by the adequacy of LM signal plus noise processes to model the behaviour of many financial and economic time series. In this context frequency domain semiparametric techniques are natural choices for the estimation of the memory parameter of the persistent signal. A new extension of the log periodogram regression that explicitly accounts for the added noise is proposed and its properties are compared with other existing techniques. A reduction of the asymptotic bias and a faster convergence are achieved because a larger bandwidth is permitted. Monte Carlo results confirm the bias reduction in finite samples. An application to a series of returns of the Spanish Ibex35 stock index is finally included.

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

perturbed long memory
semiparametric estimation


Uplink carrier frequency offset estimation for WiMAX OFDMA-based ranging Ranging is one of the most important processes in the mobile worldwide interoperability for microwave access (WiMAX) standard, for resolving the uplink synchronization and near/far problems. In this paper, we focus on the multi-user carrier frequency offset (CFO) estimation in both initial ranging and periodic ranging. After the analysis of some existing ranging methods, we propose two algorithms based on the correlation properties of pseudo noise (PN) sequences in time domain and frequency domain respectively. The root mean square error (RMSE) performance is evaluated in both additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel and multi-path fading channel. Simulation results show that the proposed frequency-domain cross-correlation method performs better than the proposed time-domain cross-correlation method, and is more robust to multi-user interference and residual timing offset. Copyright (C) 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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


Multiple sensor fault diagnosis by evolving data-driven approach Sensors are indispensable components of modern plants and processes and their reliability is vital to ensure reliable and safe operation of complex systems. In this paper, the problem of design and development of a data-driven Multiple Sensor Fault Detection and Isolation (MSFDI) algorithm for nonlinear processes is investigated. The proposed scheme is based on an evolving multi-Takagi Sugeno framework in which each sensor output is estimated using a model derived from the available input/output measurement data. Our proposed MSFDI algorithm is applied to Continuous-Flow Stirred-Tank Reactor (CFSTR). Simulation results demonstrate and validate the performance capabilities of our proposed MSFDI algorithm.

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


In lieu of swap: Analyzing compressed RAM in Mac OS X and Linux The forensics community is increasingly embracing the use of memory analysis to enhance traditional storage-based forensics techniques, because memory analysis yields a wealth of information not available on non-volatile storage. Memory analysis involves capture of a system's physical memory so that the live state of a system can be investigated, including executing and terminated processes, application data, network connections, and more. One aspect of memory analysis that remains elusive is investigation of the system's swap file, which is a backing store for the operating system's virtual memory system. Swap files are a potentially interesting source of forensic evidence, but traditionally, most swap file analysis has consisted of string searches and scans for small binary structures, which may in some cases be revelatory, but are also fraught with provenance issues. Unfortunately, more sophisticated swap file analysis is complicated by the difficulty of capturing mutually consistent memory dumps and swap files, the increasing use of swap file encryption, and other issues. Fortunately, compressed RAM facilities, such as those in Mac OS X Mavericks and recent versions of the Linux kernel, attempt to reduce or eliminate swapping to disk through compression. The storage of compressed pages in RAM both increases performance and offers an opportunity to gather digital evidence which in the past would have been swapped out. This paper discusses the difficulty of analyzing swap files in more detail, the compressed RAM facilities in Mac OS X and Linux, and our new tools for analysis of compressed RAM. These tools are integrated into the open-source Volatility framework.

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

memory analysis
compressed ram
virtual memory


Visualizing properties of comprehensive SAGBI bases - Two examples This note presents two examples for the visualization of finiteness and size properties of lexicographical comprehensive SAGBI bases for polynomial invariants of conjugates of the alternating and symmetric group in three variables.

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

algorithmic invariant theory
alternating and symmetric groups
conjugation


Fatigue life and resistance analysis of COG assemblies under hygrothermal aging The coupling loads of temperatureelectrichygrothermal stress for COG assembly were built. Different hygrothermal aging time seriously influences the relative resistance change. Fatigue life decreases with aging time under loads of temperatureelectrichygrothermal stress. The relation of hygrothermal aging time and the damage factor was obtained.

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

cog assemblies
hygrothermal aging
fatigue life


A noise reduction system based on hybrid noise estimation technique and post-filtering in arbitrary noise environments In this paper, we propose a novel noise reduction system, using a hybrid noise estimation technique and post-filtering, to suppress both localized noises and non-localized noise simultaneously in arbitrary noise environments. To estimate localized noises, we present a hybrid noise estimation technique which combines a multi-channel estimation approach we previously proposed and a soft-decision single-channel estimation approach. Final estimation accuracy for localized noises is significantly improved by incorporating a robust and accurate speech absence probability (RA-SAP) estimator, which considers the strong correlation of SAPs between adjacent frequency bins and consecutive frames and makes full use of the high estimation accuracy of the multi-channel approach. The estimated spectra of localized noises are reduced from those of noisy observations by spectral subtraction. Non-localized noise is further reduced by a multi-channel post-filter which is based on the optimally modified log-spectral amplitude (OM-LSA) estimator. With the assumption of a diffuse noise field, we propose an estimator for the a priori SAP based on the coherence characteristic of the noise field at spectral subtraction output, high coherence at low frequencies and low coherence at high frequencies, improving the spectral enhancement of the desired speech signal. Experimental results demonstrates the effectiveness and superiorities of the proposed noise estimation/reduction methods in terms of objective and subjective measures in various noise conditions.

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

post-filtering
coherence function
speech presence uncertainty


perception-guided power minimization for color sequential displays This paper presents an algorithm for minimizing power consumption of backlights in color sequential displays. The proposed algorithm reduces power consumption by scaling the luminous intensity of the red, green, and blue backlights independently according to the image histograms of each color field. The algorithm consists of two phases. The first phase, chromaticity scaling, finds the optimal ratios of red, green, and blue backlights subject to a perceived color difference constraint. The second phase, luminance scaling, finds the optimal dimming factor subject to a perceived lightness difference constraint. The perceived color and lightness differences are measured by the CIELAB Color Difference Equation ? E * ab , a standard metric for measuring color variation. The proposed method can be applied to RGB LED-backlit LCDs as well. Within limited perceivable difference ? E * ab ? 2, up to 64\% of power consumption can be reduced for the benchmark images.

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

backlight scaling
color sequential display
chromaticity-luminance scaling
visual perception


implications of ceiling effects in defect predictors Context: There are many methods that input static code features and output a predictor for faulty code modules. These data mining methods have hit a "performance ceiling"; i.e., some inherent upper bound on the amount of information offered by, say, static code features when identifying modules which contain faults. Objective: We seek an explanation for this ceiling effect. Perhaps static code features have "limited information content"; i.e. their information can be quickly and completely discovered by even simple learners. Method:An initial literature review documents the ceiling effect in other work. Next, using three sub-sampling techniques (under-, over-, and micro-sampling), we look for the lower useful bound on the number of training instances. Results: Using micro-sampling, we find that as few as 50 instances yield as much information as larger training sets. Conclusions: We have found much evidence for the limited information hypothesis. Further progress in learning defect predictors may not come from better algorithms. Rather, we need to be improving the information content of the training data, perhaps with case-based reasoning 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 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

naive bayes
under-sampling
over-sampling
defect prediction


Increasing network lifetime in an energy-constrained wireless sensor network Energy in wireless sensor networks is a scarce resource, therefore an energy-efficient mechanism is required to increase the network lifetime. In this paper, we study the problem of optimal power allocation, taking into account the estimation of the total signal-to-noise ratio at the fusion centre (FC). We consider that nodes transmit their data to the fusion centre over quasistatic Rayleigh fading channels. In order to analyse our approach, we first investigate the orthogonal channel case and then the non-orthogonal one introducing a virtual MISO framework communication scheme. We consider in both cases that the nodes have channel state information. Simulations show that the new algorithm introduced provides a network extension lifetime of more than 80% in comparison with other traditional methods.

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

network lifetime
virtual miso
sensor networks

cooperative communication
qsrc
convex optimisation


An analogue test response compaction technique using deltasigma modulation An analogue and mixed-signal Built-In-Self-Test (BIST) scheme suitable for detecting manufacturing defects in embedded linear macros is presented. The BIST scheme uses a deltasigma (??) modulator and a binary counter to perform an analogue test response compaction technique. This technique produces a signature for a circuit under test, which relates to the amplitude and frequency of the analogue response. Fault simulations performed on a two-stage CMOS operational amplifier and a continuous-time state variable filter have shown that a fault coverage (>80%) is attainable. These simulation results suggest that the probability of any fault masking occurring using the proposed compression technique is insignificant.

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

built-in-self-test
analogue response compaction
mixed-signal test


Event identification in movement recordings by means of qualitative patterns We present a pattern-matching technique for detecting events in movement recordings. The events are defined as sequences of qualitative changes in the speed and/or the higher order derivatives (e.g., in a speed peak, the acceleration changes from positive to negative). The technique uses qualitative patterns that are sequences of qualitative states (e.g., negative, infinitesimal, positive...) of the speed and the higher order derivatives. A fast pattern-matching algorithm is presented. Its sensitivity can be tuned by means of a filtering parameter, and a multiscale analysis method is proposed for detecting events of different amplitudes and durations. An application to the assessment of the irregularity of rapid movement in Parkinson's disease is presented.

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

movement analysis
event detection
pattern matching


Fuzzy relational equations: Bridging theory, methodology and practice This study delivers a general overview of the theory and practice of fuzzy relational equations. We discuss various methods leading to the solutions of these equations starting from analytical approaches, moving through semi-analytic methods and finally elaborating on the neural-like style of finding solutions to relational constructs. The paper addresses important aspects of knowledge representation worked out by these equations and proposes a number of structural enhancements of the existing relational architectures.

B I I 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

solutions to equations
approximate solutions
representation problem
optimization


AUTO CITY: A SYSTEM FOR GENERATING 3D VIRTUAL CITIES FOR SIMULATION SYSTEMS ON GIS MAPS 3D Virtual Reality (VR) platforms developed on computers can prevent users from possible risks of real physical environments. We are developing hardware and software based training system, in which training of driver candidates is possible. As a part of the system, virtual city generation is essential. We devised an algorithmic system which automatically generates virtual cities supporting several different map formats (i.e. DTED, HTF, SRTM, and DEM). Depending on the conditions submitted, the system generates different layouts for the cities even on the same geographical site. The current mechanism is based on Height Tile File (HTF) maps and initially The New York city model has been successfully implemented and real time 3D navigation in the city using a standard Intel P4 based PC is possible.

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

simulation systems
virtual city generation
virtual reality


SMOOTH WEAK SOLUTIONS BY MEANS OF THE WAVELET TRANSFORM The continuous wavelet transform with respect to an admissible function which is radially symmetric, is used to study regularity of weak solutions for non-homogeneous equations involving differential operators of pure order with constant coefficients.

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


Disjointness of random sequence sets with respect to distinct probability measures It is shown that the set of deterministic random sequences (of symbols from a finite alphabet) with respect to a computable probability measure mu, in Martin-Lof's sense, and the set of deterministic random sequences with respect to another computable probability measure nu are disjoint if mu and nu are different and the measures are either i.i.d. or homogeneous finite-order irreducible Markov measures.

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 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

disjointness
probability measure
random sequence

kullback-leibler information
mth-order composition (type)
stochastic typicality


Estimation of degraded laminate composite properties using acoustic wave propagation model and a reduction-prediction network Purpose - To develop a new method for estimation of damage configuration in composite laminate structure using acoustic wave propagation signal and a reduction-prediction neural network to deal with high dimensional spectral data. Design/methodology/approach - A reduction-prediction network, which is a combination of an independent component analysis (ICA) and a multi-layer perceptron (MLP) neural network, is proposed to quantify the damage state related to transverse matrix cracking in composite laminates using acoustic wave propagation model. Given the Fourier spectral response of the damaged structure under frequency band-selective excitation, the problem is posed as a parameter estimation problem. The parameters are the stiffness degradation factors, location and approximate size of the stiffness-degraded zone. A micro-mechanics model based on damage evolution criteria is incorporated in a spectral finite element model (SFEM) for beam type structure to study the effect of transverse matrix crack density on the acoustic wave response. Spectral data generated by using this model is used in training and testing the network. The ICA network called as the reduction network, reduces the dimensionality of the broad-band spectral data for training and testing and sends its output as input to the MLP network. The MLP network, in turn, predicts the damage parameters. Findings - Numerical demonstration shows that the developed network can efficiently handle high dimensional spectral data and estimate the damage state, damage location and size accurately. Research limitations/implications - Only numerical validation based on a damage model is reported in absence of experimental data. Uncertainties during actual online health monitoring may produce errors in the network output. Fault-tolerance issues are not attempted. The method needs to be tested using measured spectral data using multiple sensors and wide variety of damages. Practical implications - The developed network and estimation methodology can be employed in practical structural monitoring system, such as for monitoring critical composite structure components in aircrafts, spacecrafts and marine vehicles. Originality/value - A new method is reported in the paper, which employs the previous works of the authors on SFEM and neural network. The paper addresses the important problem of high data dimensionality, which is of significant importance from practical engineering application viewpoint.

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

acoustic waves
finite element analysis
neural nets


A novel semantic quantitative description method based on possibilistic logic This paper focuses on the application of possibilistic logic in the extension of ontology for uncertain knowledge description. It proposes an uncertain semantic relationship description method based on possibilistic logic and probabilistic statistics. This novel method combines the advantages of subjective valuation and objective statistics, which makes the representation and inference of uncertainty in ontologies more flexible and reasonable. Finally, we apply this quantitative measurement to describe incomplete (uncertain) knowledge and imprecise (vague) information of uncertain knowledge in ontology knowledgebase.

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

uncertain knowledge description
quantitative measurement
possibilistic logic
probabilistic statistics


Localized level crossing random walk test robust to the presence of structural breaks ? A modified version of the nonparametric level crossing random walk test is proposed, in which the crossing level is determined locally. This modification results in a test that is robust to unknown multiple structural breaks in the level and slope of the trend function under both the null and alternative hypotheses. No knowledge regarding the number or timing of the breaks is required. An algorithm is proposed to select the degree of localization in order to maximize bootstrapped power in a proximate model. A computational procedure is then developed to adjust the critical values for the effect of this selection procedure by replicating it under the null hypothesis. The test is applied to Canadian nominal inflation and nominal interest rate series with implications for the Fisher hypothesis.

O B I B I O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O B I B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 crossing
random walk
structural breaks


On spanning cycles, paths and trees Let G G be a simple connected graph with minimum degree ? ? . Then G G is Hamiltonian if it contains a spanning cycle and traceable if it contains a spanning path. The leaf number L(G) L ( G ) of G G is defined as the maximum number of end vertices contained in a spanning tree of G G . We prove a sufficient condition, depending on L(G) L ( G ) and ? ? , for G G to be Hamiltonian or traceable. Our results, apart from providing a new sufficient condition for Hamiltonicity, settle completely a conjecture of the computer program, Graffiti.pc, instructed by DeLaVia.

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

leaf number
hamiltonicity
minimum degree

centralized terminal network
traceability


A lattice Boltzmann method for a binary miscible fluid mixture and its application to a heat-transfer problem A lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) for an isothermal binary, miscible fluid mixture is proposed. The binary miscible fluid mixture is assumed to be composed of A and B species where the fraction of B species is much smaller than that of A species. The asymptotic theory proposed by Sone [in Rarefied Gas Dynamics, edited by D. Dim (Editrice Tecnico Scientifica, Pisa, 1971), Vol. 2. p. 7371 is applied to the present LBM model and the convection-diffusion equation for component B is obtained. A diffusion problem is calculated and the validity of the proposed model is shown, Also, the present method can be applied to thermal fluid systems, in which the concentration field of component B is regarded as the temperature field of component A. and a buoyancy force proportional to the temperature difference is included. Rayleigh-Benard convection is numerically simulated. The results indicate that the present LBM is useful for the simulation of fluid flows with heat transfer as well as mass transfer. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science (USA).

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

binary miscible fluid mixture
heat transfer
mass transfer

lattice boltzmann method (lbm)
asymptotic analysis
rayleigh-benard convection


The Role of Methallothioneins in Experimental Autoimmune Encephalomyelitis and Multiple Sclerosis Abstract: Multiple sclerosis is a chronic inflammatory and demyelinating disease of the central nervous system (CNS) in which oxidative stress plays a pathogenic role. Metallothioneins are antioxidant proteins induced in the CNS under conditions where oxidative stress has taken place, such as tissue injury, stress, and some neurodegenerative diseases, which have been postulated to play a neuroprotective role. In this review we summarize recent progress in understanding the regulation and function of methallothioneins during experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis and multiple sclerosis.

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


Balanced decomposition of a vertex-colored graph A balanced vertex-coloring of a graph G G is a function c c from V(G) V ( G ) to {?1,0,1} { ? 1 , 0 , 1 } such that ?{c(v):v?V(G)}=0 ? { c ( v ) : v ? V ( G ) } = 0 . A subset U U of V(G) V ( G ) is called a balanced set if U U induces a connected subgraph and ?{c(v):v?U}=0 ? { c ( v ) : v ? U } = 0 . A decomposition V(G)=V1???Vr V ( G ) = V 1 ? ? ? V r is called a balanced decomposition if Vi V i is a balanced set for 1?i?r 1 ? i ? r . In this paper, the balanced decomposition number f(G) f ( G ) of G G is introduced; f(G) f ( G ) is the smallest integer s s such that for any balanced vertex-coloring c c of G G , there exists a balanced decomposition V(G)=V1???Vr V ( G ) = V 1 ? ? ? V r with |Vi|?s | V i | ? s for 1?i?r 1 ? i ? r . Balanced decomposition numbers of some basic families of graphs such as complete graphs, trees, complete bipartite graphs, cycles, 2-connected graphs are studied.

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


the reign of catz & dogz at chi 2009 Despite the enormous commercial successes of products such as Nintendogs, very little is known about people's interactions with artificial representations of animals. However there is an increasing body of research in different disciplines which could be used to better understand such interactions. The Reign of Catz & Dogz at CHI 2009 is a one day workshop which will bring together researchers in an inter-disciplinary, international and multi-cultural setting to explore the relevant issues surrounding interactions with virtual creatures and the role such creatures will play in the future.

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

virtual pets
human robot interaction
companionship


On the difference between traditional and deductive fuzzy logic In three case studies on notions of fuzzy logic and fuzzy set theory (Dubois-Prade's gradual elements, the entropy of a fuzzy set, and aggregation operators), the paper exemplifies methodological differences between traditional and deductive fuzzy logic. While traditional fuzzy logic admits various interpretations of membership degrees, deductive fuzzy logic always interprets them as degrees of truth preserved under inference. The latter fact imposes several constraints on systems of deductive fuzzy logic, which need not be followed by mainstream fuzzy logic. That makes deductive fuzzy logic a specific area of research that can be characterized both methodologically (by constraints on meaningful definitions) and formally (as a specific class of logical systems). An analysis of the relationship between deductive and traditional fuzzy logic is offered. (c) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

deductive fuzzy logic
aggregation
membership degrees

fuzzy elements
gradual sets
entropy of fuzzy sets
methodology of fuzzy mathematics


understanding web browsing behaviors through weibull analysis of dwell time Dwell time on Web pages has been extensively used for various information retrieval tasks. However, some basic yet important questions have not been sufficiently addressed, eg, what distribution is appropriate to model the distribution of dwell times on a Web page, and furthermore, what the distribution tells us about the underlying browsing behaviors. In this paper, we draw an analogy between abandoning a page during Web browsing and a system failure in reliability analysis, and propose to model the dwell time using the Weibull distribution. Using this distribution provides better goodness-of-fit to real world data, and it uncovers some interesting patterns of user browsing behaviors not previously reported. For example, our analysis reveals that Web browsing in general exhibits a significant "negative aging" phenomenon, which means that some initial screening has to be passed before a page is examined in detail, giving rise to the browsing behavior that we call "screen-and-glean." In addition, we demonstrate that dwell time distributions can be reasonably predicted purely based on low-level page features, which broadens the possible applications of this study to situations where log data may be unavailable.

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

web browsing
dwell time
weibull analysis


Parallel relevance feedback for 3D model retrieval based on fast weighted-center particle swarm optimization In this study, we present a parallel approach to relevance feedback based on similarity field modification that simultaneously considers all factors affecting the similarity field for 3D model retrieval. First, we present a novel unified mathematical model which formalizes the problem as an optimization problem with multiple objectives and constraints. Secondly, our approach optimizes all the parameters synchronously by treating all the modification operations of the similarity field equally. Thirdly, we improved the standard particle swarm optimization in two different ways. Finally, we present several experiments that show the advantages of our method over existing serial ones.

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

relevance feedback
3d model retrieval
particle swarm optimization


Inferring microbial interaction network from microbiome data using RMN algorithm Microbial interactions are ubiquitous in nature. Recently, many similarity-based approaches have been developed to study the interaction in microbial ecosystems. These approaches can only explain the non-directional interactions yet a more complete view on how microbes regulate each other remains elusive. In addition, the strength of microbial interactions is difficult to be quantified by only using correlation analysis.

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

cooperative and competitive relationship


Modem system of mathematics and a pair of hidden contradictions in its foundation Purpose - The paper's aim is to show a pair of deeply hidden contradictions in the system of mathematics. Design/methodology/approach - The paper takes a conceptual approach to the problem. Findings - It is indicated that it is an intrinsic attribute of modem mathematics and its theoretical foundation to mix up the intensions and methods of two different thoughts of infinities, which provides the basis of legality for using the methods of analysis, produced by combining the two kinds of infinities, in the study of the modem mathematical system. In this paper, by exactly employing the method of analysis of mixing up potential and actual infinities, we card the logical and non-logical axiomatic systems for modem mathematics. The outcome of our carding implies that in modem mathematics and its theoretical foundation, some axioms implicitly assume the convention that each potential infinity equals an actual infinity, while some other axioms implicitly apply the belief that "each potential infinity is different of any actual infinity." Originality/value - By using the concepts of potential and actual infinities, the authors uncover two contradictory thinking logics widely employed in the study of mathematics.

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


On the oscillation of fourth order strongly superlinear and strongly sublinear dynamic equations We establish some new criteria for the oscillation of fourth order nonlinear dynamic equations on a time scale. We investigate the case of strongly superlinear and the case of strongly sublinear equations subject to various conditions. Some examples are given here to illustrate our main results.

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

oscillation
strongly superlinear
strongly sublinear
dynamic equations


detecting motion synchrony by video tubes Motion synchrony, i.e., the coordinated motion of a group of individuals, is an interesting phenomenon in nature or daily life. Fish swim in schools, birds fly in flocks, soldiers march in platoons, etc. Our goal is to detect motion synchrony that may be present in the video data, and to track the group of moving objects as a whole. This opens the door to novel algorithms and applications. To this end, we model individual motions as video tubes in space-time, define motion synchrony by the geometric relation among video tubes, and track a whole set of tubes by dynamic programming. The resulting algorithm is highly efficient in practice. Given a video clip of T frames of resolution XxY, we show that finding the K spatially correlated video tubes and determining the presence of synchrony can be solved optimally in O(XYTK) time. Preliminary experiments show that our method is both effective and efficient. Typical running times are 30 - 100 VGA-resolution frames per second after feature extraction, and the accuracy for the detection of synchrony is more than 90\% as evaluated in our annotated data set.

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


Algorithms on ensemble quantum computers In ensemble (or bulk) quantum computation, all computations are performed on an ensemble of computers rather than on a single computer. Measurements of qubits in an individual computer cannot be performed; instead, only expectation values (over the complete ensemble of computers) can be measured. As a result of this limitation on the model of computation, many algorithms cannot be processed directly on such computers, and must be modified, as the common strategy of delaying the measurements usually does not resolve this ensemble-measurement problem. Here we present several new strategies for resolving this problem. Based on these strategies we provide new versions of some of the most important quantum algorithms, versions that are suitable for implementing on ensemble quantum computers, e.g., on liquid NMR quantum computers. These algorithms are Shors factorization algorithm, Grovers search algorithm (with several marked items), and an algorithm for quantum fault-tolerant computation. The first two algorithms are simply modified using a randomizing and a sorting strategies. For the last algorithm, we develop a classical-quantum hybrid strategy for removing measurements. We use it to present a novel quantum fault-tolerant scheme. More explicitly, we present schemes for fault-tolerant measurement-free implementation of Toffoli and \(\sigma_{z}^{1/4},\) as these operations cannot be implemented bitwise, and their standard fault-tolerant implementations require measurement.

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

ensemble (bulk) quantum computers
fault tolerance computing


infinite order lorenz dominance for fair multiagent optimization This paper deals with fair assignment problems in decision contexts involving multiple agents. In such problems, each agent has its own evaluation of costs and we want to find a fair compromise solution between individual point of views. Lorenz dominance is a standard decision model used in Economics to refine Pareto dominance while favoring solutions that fairly share happiness among agents. In order to enhance the discrimination possibilities offered by Lorenz dominance, we introduce here a new model called infinite order Lorenz dominance . We establish a representation result for this model using an ordered weighted average with decreasing weights. Hence we exhibit some properties of infinite order Lorenz dominance that explain how fairness is achieved in the aggregation of individual preferences. Then we explain how to solve fair assignment problems of m items to n agents, using infinite order Lorenz dominance and other models used for measuring inequalities. We show that this problem can be reformulated as a 0--1 non-linear optimization problems that can be solved, after a linearization step, by standard LP solvers. We provide numerical results showing the efficiency of the proposed approach on various instances of the paper assignment problem.

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 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


Two-zero four-pole building block for microwave waveguide filters using all-resonant modes at their cutoff frequency This article describes a basic building block for microwave waveguide filters. It uses a new coupling scheme where all resonant modes are used at their cutoff frequency. It is composed of a cascade of basic nonloaded rectangular cavities where the modes are alternately single mode and dual mode. These cavities are coupled directly, without any iris. Neither coupling nor tuning screws are needed. The analysis of the discontinuities is performed by the method of moments (MoM). The synthesis makes use of an optimization method based on the genetic algorithm. Prototypes have been realized and measurements are shown to confirm the analysis results. (C) 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

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

dual-mode microwave filters
coupling mode
compact structure
sensitivity


Importance sampling to compute likelihoods of noise-corrupted speech ? One way of making speech recognisers more robust to noise is model compensation. Rather than enhancing the incoming observations, model compensation techniques modify a recogniser's state-conditional distributions so they model the speech in the target environment. Because the interaction between speech and noise is non-linear, even for Gaussian speech and noise the corrupted speech distribution has no closed form. Thus, model compensation methods approximate it with a parametric distribution, such as a Gaussian or a mixture of Gaussians. The impact of this approximation has never been quantified. This paper therefore introduces a non-parametric method to compute the likelihood of a corrupted speech observation. It uses sampling and, given speech and noise distributions and a mismatch function, is exact in the limit. It therefore gives a theoretical bound for model compensation. Though computing the likelihood is computationally expensive, the novel method enables a performance comparison based on the criterion that model compensation methods aim to minimise: the KL divergence to the ideal compensation. It gives the point where the KullbackLeibler (KL) divergence is zero. This paper examines the performance of various compensation methods, such as vector Taylor series (VTS) and data-driven parallel model combination (DPMC). It shows that more accurate modelling than Gaussian-for-Gaussian compensation improves the performance of speech recognition.

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


Driving behaviour at traffic light intersections To develop a driver assistance system with the goal to increase driving efficiency, we aimed at understanding unassisted driving behaviour. With this knowledge, we will then be able to estimate the potential of the assistance system to support drivers in avoiding unnecessary deceleration and acceleration when approaching traffic lights and to estimate the amount of influence the driver assistance system could have on normal driving. Efficient driving was defined as driving behaviour that leads to reduced fuel consumption and emissions. In a driving simulator experiment with twelve participants and a within-subjects design, drivers approached intersections while the traffic light was either solid green or solid red, or changed from red to green or from green to red during the approach. In addition, we varied whether there was a lead vehicle present and manipulated visibility through the presence or absence of fog. Driving speed, acceleration and pedal usage were analysed and interpreted due to their relation with fuel consumptions and emissions, which is well known from the literature. Participants avoided strong accelerations and decelerations when approaching a solid green traffic light compared to a changing red to green traffic light. Speed was reduced earlier, when the traffic light was solid red compared to when the traffic light changed from green to red. Higher visibility in the non-fog conditions compared to the fog condition was only an advantage in terms of more efficient driving behaviour when the traffic light phase did not change during the approach. The potential for improvements in driving efficiency was higher when drivers were in free driving compared to when following a lead vehicle. We propose that approaching traffic light intersections takes place in three phases: an orientation, a preparation and a realisation phase. A driver assistance system is expected to improve drivers anticipation of the driving scene and could recommend efficient driving behaviour in all three phases.

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

signal change
driver assistance systems
driving simulation


Weighted matchings for dense stereo correspondence ? The calculation of matches between pixels, points, or other features in stereo images is known as the correspondence problem. This problem is ill-posed due to occlusions; not every pixel, point or feature in one stereo image has a match in the other. Minimization of a cost function over some local region and dynamic programming algorithms are two well-known strategies for computing dense correspondences. However the former approach fails in regions of low texture, while the latter imposes an ordering constraint which is not always satisfied in stereo images. In this study, we present two new techniques for computing dense stereo correspondence. The new methods are based on combinatorial optimization techniques which require polynomial computation time. The first method casts the selection of matches as the assignment problem, solved efficiently by finding a maximum weighted matching on a bipartite graph. The second is a greedy algorithm which computes suboptimal weighted matchings on the bipartite graphs. Both methods use occlusion nodes when no matches exist. The resulting disparity maps have desirable properties such as dense correspondence, while avoiding the drawbacks associated with ordering constraints. Three existing matching approaches are also reviewed for comparative purposes. We test all five techniques on real and synthetic stereo images using performance criteria which specifically measure occlusion detection.

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

dynamic programming
bipartite graph
weighted matching

stereo vision
matching algorithms
greedy matching


Web mining based on Growing Hierarchical Self-Organizing Maps: Analysis of a real citizen web portal This work is focused on the usage analysis of a citizen web portal, Infoville XXI (http://www.infoville.es) by means of Self-Organizing Maps (SOM). In this paper, a variant of the classical SOM has been used, the so-called Growing Hierarchical SOM (GHSOM). The GHSOM is able to find an optimal architecture of the SOM in a few iterations. There are also other variants which allow to find an optimal architecture, but they tend to need a long time for training, especially in the case of complex data sets. Another relevant contribution of the paper is the new visualization of the patterns in the hierarchical structure. Results show that GHSOM is a powerful and versatile tool to extract relevant and straightforward knowledge from the vast amount of information involved in a real citizen web portal. (c) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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 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 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 I I O O O O O O O

growing hierarchical self-organizing map


Improvement of capacity utilization in a subcontracting small scale manufacturing company In this study, a goal programming model is proposed for the improvement of capacity utilization in a subcontracting small scale manufacturing company. This is a suburban Istanbul manufacturing company that produces certain final and intermediate products for a few large scale animal health companies. The company operates two production lines and produces different kinds of veterinary drugs and feed additives. Because this is a small scale company, it has the flexibility of reducing production costs as low as possible and also operating at a low profitability level. The utilization of production capacity is low. The company aims to increase profitability by increasing the production capacity to higher utilization levels. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

small manufacturing
linear goal programming


Probing the structural, electronic and magnetic properties of multicenter Fe2S2 (0/-), Fe3S4 (0/-) and Fe4S4 (0/-) clusters The structural, electronic and magnetic properties of neutral and anion Fe2S2, Fe3S4 and Fe4S4 have been investigated with the aid of previous photoelectron spectroscopy and density functional theory calculations. Theoretical electron detachment energies (both vertical and adiabatic) of anion clusters for the lowest energy structure were computed and compared with the experimental results to verify the ground states. The optimized structures show that the ground state structures of Fe2S2 (0/-), Fe3S4 (0/-) and Fe4S4 (0/-) favor high spin state and are similar to their structures in proteins. The electron delocalization pattern for all the clusters and the nature of bonding between Fe and S atoms were studied by analyzing molecular orbitals. Natural population analysis demonstrates that Fe atoms act as an electron donor in all clusters, and the electron density difference map clearly shows the direction of the electron flow over the whole complex. Furthermore, the investigated magnetism shows that the Fe atoms carried most of the magnetic moments, which is due mainly to the 3d state, while only very small magnetic moments are found on S atoms.

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

photoelectron spectroscopy
density functional theory
magnetic properties


Improved sensitivity analysis by a coupled FE-EFG method In this paper, we modify the sensitivity Analysis of a structural optimization process by using a coupled finite element-element-free Galerkin method. The aim is to improve the sensitivity analysis and to avoid a mesh degradation that can occur when the design variables are perturbed while using classical finite element method. The idea is to replace the finite element mesh by EFGM nodes in areas where the sensitivities of the structural responses have to be computed. The proposed methodology is illustrated by a realistic numerical example for which the finite element method cannot give correct results. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

structural optimization
sensitivity analysis

element-free galerkin method
meshless method


Collective Algorithms for Sub-communicators Collective communication over a group of processors is an integral and time consuming component in many HPC applications. Many modern day supercomputers are based on torus interconnects. On such systems, for an irregular communicator comprising of a subset of processors, the algorithms developed so far are not contention free in general and hence non-optimal. In this paper, we present a novel contention-free algorithm to perform collective operations over a subset of processors in a torus network. We also extend previous work on regular communicators to handle special cases of irregular communicators that occur frequently in parallel scientific applications. For the generic case where multiple node disjoint sub-communicators communicate simultaneously in a loosely synchronous fashion, we propose a novel cooperative approach to route the data for individual sub-communicators without contention. Empirical results demonstrate that our algorithms outperform the optimized MPI collective implementation on IBM's Blue Gene/P supercomputer for large data sizes and random node distributions.

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


PolarityRank: Finding an equilibrium between followers and contraries in a network In this paper we present the relevance ranking algorithm named PolarityRank. This algorithm is inspired in PageRank, the webpage relevance calculus method used by Google, and generalizes it to deal with graphs having not only positive but also negative weighted arcs. Besides the definition of our algorithm, this paper includes the algebraic justification, the convergence demonstration and an empirical study in which PolarityRank is applied to two unrelated tasks where a graph with positive and negative weights can be built: the calculation of word semantic orientation and instance selection from a learning dataset.

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

ranking algorithms
relevance computing
sentiment analysis
data mining


creativity in software development in an academic research lab We review the creative activity in the software development process of the ROSS (Responsive Objects, Surfaces, and Spaces) API. The ROSS API is a tangible toolkit that allows designers and developers to easily build applications for many different tangible platforms while still accommodating the continued evolution of the underlying sensing technologies. This paper describes the ROSS API specification, identifies its originality and relevance to creativity, discusses the challenges of the API development process, and summarizes the lessons learned.

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

toolkits
tangible user interface
software creativity


Finite element analysis of idealised unit cell cancellous structure based on morphological indices of cancellous bone Human bones can be categorised into one of two typesthe compact cortical and the porous cancellous. Whilst the cortical is a solid structure macroscopically, the structure of cancellous bone is highly complex with plate-like and strut-like structures of various sizes and shapes depending on the anatomical site. Reconstructing the actual structure of cancellous bone for defect filling is highly unfeasible. However, the complex structure can be simplified into an idealised structure with similar properties. In this study, two idealised architectures were developed based on morphological indices of cancellous bone: the tetrakaidecahedral and the prismatic. The two architectures were further subdivided into two types of microstructure, the first consists of struts only and the second consists of a combination of plates and struts. The microstructures were transformed into finite element models and displacement boundary condition was applied to all four idealised cancellous models with periodic boundary conditions. Eight unit cells extracted from the actual cancellous bone obtained from micro-computed tomography were also analysed with the same boundary conditions. Youngs modulus values were calculated and comparison was made between the idealised and real cancellous structures. Results showed that all models with a combination of plates and struts have higher rigidity compared to the one with struts only. Values of Youngs modulus from eight unit cells of cancellous bone varied from 42 to 479MPa with an average of 234MPa. The prismatic architecture with plates and rods closely resemble the average stiffness of a unit cell of cancellous bone.

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

idealised architecture
finite element analyses


Wrapper filtering criteria via linear neuron and kernel approaches Objective: The problem of marker selection in DNA microarray analysis has been addressed so far by two basic types of approaches, the so-called filter and wrapper methods. Wrapper methods operate in a recursive fashion where feature (gene) weights are re-evaluated and dynamically changing from iteration to iteration, while in filter methods feature weights remain fixed. Our objective in this study is to show that the application of filter criteria in a recursive fashion, where weights are potentially adjusted from cycle to cycle, produces noticeable improvement on the generalization performance measured on independent test sets. Methods and materials: Toward this direction we explore the behavior of two well known and broadly accepted pattern recognition approaches namely the support vector machines (SVM) and a single linear neuron (LN), properly adapted to the problem of marker selection. Within this context we also show how the kernel ability of SVM could be employed in a practical manner to provide alternative ways to approach the problem of reliable marker selection. Results: We explore how the proposed approaches behave in two application domains (breast cancer and leukemia), achieving comparable or even better results than those reported in the related bibliography. An important advantage of these approaches is their ability to derive stable performance without deteriorating due to the complexity of the application domain. Validation is performed using internal leave one out (ILOO) and 10-fold cross validation as well as independent test set evaluation. Conclusions: Results show that the proposed methodologies achieve remarkable performance and indicate that applying filter criteria in a wrapper fashion (wrapper filtering criteria) provides a useful tool for marker selection. The contribution of this study is threefold. First it provides a methodology to apply filter criteria in a wrapper way (which is a new approach), second it introduces a fundamental pattern recognition component namely the single neuron (which is a linear estimator) and explores its behavior on marker selection and third it demonstrates an approach to exploit the kernel ability of SVMs in a practical and effective manner.

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

marker selection
wrapper methods
dna microarray analysis

dna-microarray
gene expression
rfe methods


Accelerating sequential programs on commodity multi-core processors We propose an efficient pipeline technique for commodity multi-core processors. We propose a clustered inter-core communication mechanism for low overhead. We give a clusteredQueue algorithm and find a regular overhead reduction pattern. We evaluate the technique on a commodity machine and conclude the effectiveness.

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

commodity multi-core processors
pipeline parallelism
clustered communication mechanism


EmoPlayer: A media player for video clips with affective annotations The development of multimedia annotation technique provides the possibility to redesign the interfaces of widely used media players, and EmoPlayer is such a media player that can be used to play video clips with affective annotations. A user can select a character in a video clip and view the distribution of his/her emotions along the video timeline through a colour bar based interface. Two experiments were conducted to evaluate the efficiency of affective annotation. The results of these experiments indicate that affective annotation is effective in both improving the speed of locating a specific scene within a video clip and helping comprehend a video clip in a limited viewing time period. Based on the analysis of recorded operations of participants, the strategies employed by participants and the factors that might influence the utilization of affective annotation are also highlighted. (C) 2007 Published by Elsevier B.V.

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


Cluster ZTP in the recovery of an image Cluster ZTP (zero-temperature process) is proposed as a method of image recovery and examined for 8-valued images. The cluster ZTP is an iterative algorithm for the search of an approximately optimal solution of an energy minimization problem.

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

image restoration
mean-field annealing
iterated conditional mode


Factors contributing to teachers' successful implementation of IT Abstract It has become increasingly important for educators to examine successful ICT implementations with the aim of understanding precisely what makes them successful in teaching and learning. In this study, an analysis of data from qualitative case studies of four Canadian schools illuminates factors that facilitate successful ICT implementation. Findings suggest that informal ICT education, such as just-in-time learning, is most influential. Furthermore, supportive and collaborative relationships among teachers, a commitment to pedagogically sound implementation of new technologies, and Principals who encourage teachers to engage in their own learning are viewed as highly useful factors.

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

canada
case study
computer
collaboration
constructivist
ict-use
innovation
pedagogy
primary
secondary


Matrix rearrangement approach for the entangling power with hybrid qudit systems We extend the former matrix rearrangement approach of the entangling power to the general cases, without requirement of same dimensions of the subsystems. The entangling power of a unitary operator is completely determined by its realignment and partial transposition. As applications. we calculate the entangling power for the using interaction and the isotropic Heisenberg interaction in the hybrid qudit d(1) x d(2) systems.

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 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


Blind Separation Using Second Order Statistics for Non-stationary Signals In the signal processing area, blind source separation (BSS) is a method aiming to recover independent sources from their linear instantaneous mixtures without resorting to any prior knowledge, such as mixing matrices and sources. There have been increased attentions given to blind source separation in many areas, including wireless communication, biomedical imaging processing, multi-microphone array processing, and so on in recent years. In this paper, we propose a new simple BSS technique that exploits second order statistics for non-stationary sources. Our technique utilizes the algebraic structure of the signal model and the subspace structures so as to efficiently recover sources with interference of noise. Computer simulations have demonstrated that, in comparison with other existent methods, our method has better performance in the regimes of low and medium SNRs. For high SNRs, our method is not as promising methods such as the method called AC ("alternating columns")-DC ("diagonal centers") algorithm, but it gives reasonable performance.

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computer simulation
signal to noise ratio


Design and implementation of adaptive web application Web applications are now widely used for diffusing and processing information over the network. Methodological guidelines which assist web application developers in their task must take into account users' preferences to generate adaptable web interfaces. This paper presents MCSD-case, a generator of adaptive web application, which addresses the issue of designing and automatically deploying such application. MCSD-case's target is to facilitate the automatic execution of the design and the automatic generation of adaptable web interface. Using MCSD-case, designers can specify, at a conceptual level, the features of the web application to be generated. These features are made operational by instantiating different models dedicated to the description of the expected functionalities, the users and some features concerning adaptation. The implementation of MCSD-case is based on HTML and Java Servlets to instantiate the models which are translated in XML files then XSL files to generate the HTML page corresponding to the user aims.

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Using Cultural-Historical Activity Theory to design and evaluate an educational game in science education The aim of this paper is to describe a methodology for using Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) at the initial stages of the design process of an educational game, by exploring how the theory can be used as a framework for producing not only usable but also useful computer tools. The research also aimed to investigate how the theory could be used for designing computer tools for learning science. Although CHAT and specifically the concepts of activity system and contradictions were used as the basis for the design and development of the educational game, subsidiary design guidelines also contributed significantly to this process. These derived from the research fields of Human Computer Interaction and Science Education and from students' everyday experiences when playing video games at home. The educational game produced was concerned with the teaching and learning of Expansion and Contraction of Air in primary science, a subject that existing research suggests is conceptually difficult for students. As far as the main outcomes of the study are concerned, it was revealed through the implementation of the game that contradictions could be adequately resolved, while stakeholders' needs and motives could be appropriately addressed.

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

activity system
contradictions
educational game
expansion and contraction of air
science education


patterns of temporal variation in online media Online content exhibits rich temporal dynamics, and diverse realtime user generated content further intensifies this process. However, temporal patterns by which online content grows and fades over time, and by which different pieces of content compete for attention remain largely unexplored. We study temporal patterns associated with online content and how the content's popularity grows and fades over time. The attention that content receives on the Web varies depending on many factors and occurs on very different time scales and at different resolutions. In order to uncover the temporal dynamics of online content we formulate a time series clustering problem using a similarity metric that is invariant to scaling and shifting. We develop the K-Spectral Centroid ( K-SC ) clustering algorithm that effectively finds cluster centroids with our similarity measure. By applying an adaptive wavelet-based incremental approach to clustering, we scale K-SC to large data sets. We demonstrate our approach on two massive datasets: a set of 580 million Tweets, and a set of 170 million blog posts and news media articles. We find that K-SC outperforms the K-means clustering algorithm in finding distinct shapes of time series. Our analysis shows that there are six main temporal shapes of attention of online content. We also present a simple model that reliably predicts the shape of attention by using information about only a small number of participants. Our analyses offer insight into common temporal patterns of the content on theWeb and broaden the understanding of the dynamics of human attention.

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Flow curve prediction of Al-Mg alloys under warm forming conditions at various strain rates by ANN This paper describes an approach based on artificial neural network (ANN) to identify the material flow curves of strain hardened 5083-H111 and 5754-O Al-Mg alloys at the temperature ranges from room temperature (RT) to 300 degrees C and a strain rate of 0.0016-0.16 s(-1). The tensile tests were performed to determine the material responses at various temperatures and strain rates. An ANN model was developed to predict the flow curves of the materials in terms of experimental data. The input parameters of the model are strain rate, temperature, and strain while tensile flow stress is the output. A three layer feed-forward network was trained with BFGS (Broyden, Fletcher, Goldfarb, and Shanno) algorithm. The amount of the neurons in the hidden layer was determined by determining of the root mean square error (RMSE) values for each material. Results reveal that the predicted values in the ANN model are in very good agreement with the experimental data. The ANN model, described in this paper, is an efficient quantitative tool to evaluate and predict the deformation behavior of 5083-H111 and 5754-O Al-Mg alloys for tensile test at prescribed deformation conditions. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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flow curves
artificial neural network
ann