revi-miner, a kdd-environment for deviation detection and analysis of warranty and goodwill cost statements in automotive industry REVI-MINER is a KDD-environment which supports the detection and analysis of deviations in warranty and goodwill cost statements. The system was developed within the framework of a cooperation between DaimlerChrysler Research & Technology and Global Service and Parts (GSP) and is based upon the CRISP-DM methodology as a widely accepted process model for the solution of Data Mining problems. Also, we have implemented different approaches based on Machine learning and statistics which can be utilized for data cleaning in the preprocessing phase. The Data Mining models applied have been developed by using a statistical deviation detection approach. The tool supports controllers in their task of auditing the authorized repair shops. In this paper we describe the development phases which have led to REVI-MINER.

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

deviation detection
data cleaning
data mining


Basing cryptographic protocols on tamper-evident seals In this article, we attempt to formally study two very intuitive physical models: sealed envelopes and locked boxes, often used as illustrations for common cryptographic operations. We relax the security properties usually required from locked boxes [such as in bit-commitment (BC) protocols] and require only that a broken lock or torn envelope be identifiable to the original sender. Unlike the completely impregnable locked box, this functionality may be achievable in real life, where containers having this property are called "tamper-evident seals". Another physical object with this property is the "scratch-off card", often used in lottery tickets. We consider three variations of tamper-evident seals, and show that under some conditions they can be used to implement oblivious transfer, BC and coin flipping (CF). We also show a separation between the three models. One of our results is a strongly fair CF protocol with bias bounded by O(1/r) (where r is the number of rounds); this was a stepping stone towards achieving such a protocol in the standard model (in subsequent work). (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

tamper-evident seals
human
universally composable


Virtual unrolling and information recovery from scanned scrolled historical documents A pioneering attempt to automate virtual reading of a real historical parchment. The presented framework does not require user interaction. We propose a flexible framework which is controlled by several parameters. Our model is able to reveal a scrolled parchment's content if its ink contains enough iron. We demonstrate performance of the framework with five different real scrolls.

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

parchment restoration
digital unwrapping
document processing
text retrieval
volumetric scanning


Determination of the most probable slip surface in 3D slopes considering the effect of earthquake force direction Considering the effect of earthquake forces on stability of slopes has always been of crucial importance in seismic analysis of geotechnical structures like dams, roads and embankments and there has been much concern about stability of cuts, fills and natural slopes under earthquake loadings in recent years. In this research a three-dimensional approach in conjunction with genetic algorithm (GA) was proposed to investigate the effect of earthquake force inclination on minimum stability factor of safety and the shape and direction of the corresponding failure surface. The stability factor of safety was considered to be a function of soil properties, slope dimensions, coordination of the nodal points on the slip surface mesh and their rotation angle to the rotation centre, magnitude of pseudo-static coefficient and the inclination of earthquake forces. The proposed methodology was found to be very effective in determining the minimum stability factor of safety and the corresponding most probable slip surface considering pseudo-static analysis of slopes under inclined earthquake forces.

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 I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O


A Semantic Cache Framework for Secure XML Queries Secure XML query answering to protect data privacy and semantic cache to speed up XML query answering are two hot spots in current research areas of XML database systems. While both issues are explored respectively in depth, they have not been studied together, that is, the problem of semantic cache for secure XML query answering has not been addressed yet. In this paper, we present an interesting joint of these two aspects and propose an efficient framework of semantic cache for secure XML query answering, which can improve the performance of XML database systems under secure circumstances. Our framework combines access control, user privilege management over XML data and the state-of-the-art semantic XML query cache techniques, to ensure that data are presented only to authorized users in an efficient way. To the best of our knowledge, the approach we propose here is among the first beneficial efforts in a novel perspective of combining caching and security for XML database to improve system performance. The efficiency of our framework is verified by comprehensive experiments.

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


MinePhos: A Literature Mining System for Protein Phoshphorylation Information Extraction The rapid growth of scientific literature calls for automatic and efficient ways to facilitate extracting experimental data on protein phosphorylation. Such information is of great value for biologists in studying cellular processes and diseases such as cancer and diabetes. Existing approaches like RLIMS-P are mainly rule based. The performance lays much reliance on the completeness of rules. We propose an SVM-based system known as MinePhos which outperforms RLIMS-P in both precision and recall of information extraction when tested on a set of articles randomly chosen from PubMed.

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


Development of feature segmentation algorithms for quadratic surfaces Segmentation is a process of partitioning the data in a triangular model to extract the feature regions for use in surface reconstruction. Quadratic surfaces are among the common entities in typical CAD models and should be reconstructed accurately. The purpose of this study is to develop a method for segmenting quadratic features from triangular meshes. The proposed process is primarily composed of two steps. In the first step, a region growing is developed to search for a small area near a seed point to determine the feature type, which can either be a plane, a spherical surface, a cylindrical surface or a conical surface. In the second step, a re-growing procedure is employed to search for the points of the same feature type. Moreover, an automatic algorithm is proposed to extract all planar regions for complex triangular models. The feasibility and limitations of the proposed method are demonstrated by real range data with various quadratic surfaces.

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

feature segmentation
algorithms
quadratic surfaces


Interaction in the segmentation of medical images: A survey Segmentation of the object of interest is a difficult step in the analysis of digital images. Fully automatic methods sometimes fail, producing incorrect results and requiring the intervention of a human operator. This is often true in medical applications, where image segmentation is particularly difficult due to restrictions imposed by image acquisition, pathology and biological variation. In this paper we present an early review of the largely unknown territory of humancomputer interaction in image segmentation. The purpose is to identify patterns in the use of interaction and to develop qualitative criteria to evaluate interactive segmentation methods. We discuss existing interactive methods with respect to the following aspects: the type of information provided by the user, how this information affects the computational part, and the purpose of interaction in the segmentation process. The discussion is based on the potential impact of each strategy on the accuracy, repeatability and interaction efficiency. Among others, these are important aspects to characterise and understand the implications of interaction to the results generated by an interactive segmentation method. This survey is focused on medical imaging, however similar patterns are expected to hold for other applications as well.

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

image segmentation
medical images
interactive segmentation
humancomputer interaction


Early user - System interaction for database selection in massive domain-specific online environments The continued growth of very large data environments such as Westlaw and Dialog, in addition to the World Wide Web, increases the importance of effective and efficient database selection and searching. Current research focuses largely on completely autonomous and automatic selection, searching, and results merging in distributed environments. This fully automatic approach has significant deficiencies, including reliance upon thresholds below which databases with relevant documents are not searched (compromised recall). It also merges documents, often from disparate data sources that users may have discarded before their source selection task proceeded (diluted precision). We examine the impact that early user interaction can have on the process of database selection. After analyzing thousands of real user queries, we show that precision can be significantly increased when queries are categorized by the users themselves, then handled effectively by the system. Such query categorization strategies may eliminate limitations of fully automated query processing approaches. Our system harnesses the WIN search engine, a sibling to INQUERY, run against one or more authority sources when search is required. We compare our approach to one that does not recognize or utilize distinct features associated with user queries. We show that by avoiding a one-size-fits-all approach that restricts the role users can play in information discovery, database selection effectiveness can be appreciably improved.

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

structuring information to aid search and navigation


Application of neuro-fuzz techniques to robust speed control of PMSM Purpose - The purpose of the paper is to find a simple structure of speed controller robust against drive parameter variations. Application of neuro-fuzzy technique in the controller of PI type creates proper nonlinear characteristics, which ensures controller robustness. Design/methodology/approach - The robustness of the controller is based on its nonlinear characteristic introduced by neuro-fuzzy technique. The paper proposes a novel approach to neural controller synthesis to be performed in two stages. The first stage consists in training the neuro-fuzzy system to form the proper shape of the control surface, which represents the nonlinear characteristic of the controller. At the second stage, the PI controller settings are adjusted by means of the random weight change procedure, which optimises the control quality index formulated in the paper. The synthesis is performed using simulation techniques and subsequently the behavior of a laboratory speed control system is validated in the experimental setup. The control algorithms of the system are performed by a microprocessor floating point DSP control system. Findings - The proposed controller structure with proper control surface created by the neuro-fuzzy technique guarantees expected robustness. Research limitations/implications - The proposed controller was tested on a single machine under well defined conditions. Further investigations are required before any industrial applications can be made. Practical implications - The proposed controller synthesis and its results may be very helpful in the robotic system where changing of system parameters is characteristic for many industrial robots and manipulators. Originality/value - The original method of robust controller synthesis was proposed and validated by simulation and experimental investigations.

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

motion
fuzzy control
magnetism
magnetic devices


On the complexity of single-rule datalog queries Datalog programs containing a unique rule and possibly some facts are known as single rule programs, or sirups. We study the complexity of evaluating sirups over variable and fixed databases, respectively, as well as the descriptive complexity of sirups, i.e., their expressive power. In all cases it turns out that even very restricted classes of sirups have the same complexity and essentially the same expressive power as general datalog programs. In particular, the evaluation of single clause programs is EXPTIME complete (combined complexity) and, if restricted to linear recursive rules, PSPACE complete. Moreover, sirups with one recursive rule and one fact capture PTIME on ordered structures, if a certain data representation is assumed and certain predefined relations are provided. We also prove that the datalog clause implication problem, i.e., deciding whether a datalog clause implies another one, is EXPTIME complete. Our main technical tool is a product construction which maps a datalog programs to an essentially equivalent sirup. (C) 2003 Published by Elsevier Science (USA).

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

logic programming
single rule program
sirup : clause implication
subsumption
exponential time
descriptive complexity
linear recursion


An optimal stopping problem for a geometric Brownian motion with Poissonian jumps This paper examines an optimal stopping problem for a geometric Brownian motion with random jumps. It is assumed that jumps occur according to a time-homogeneous Poisson process and the proportions of these sizes are independent and identically distributed nonpositive random variables. The objective is to find an optimal stopping time of maximizing the expected discounted terminal reward which is defined as a nondecreasing power function of the stopped state. By applying the "smooth pasting technique" [1,2], we derive almost explicitly an optimal stopping rule of a threshold type and the optimal value function of the initial state. That is, we express the critical state of the optimal stopping region and the optimal value function by formulae which include only given problem parameters except an unknown to be uniquely determined by a nonlinear equation. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

geometric brownian motion
expected discounted terminal reward
optimal stopping
smooth pasting


implementing instant messaging using named data The Internet has been a huge success, but it is showing signs of age. Among multiple proposed directions for the Internet's future design is a promising architecture called Named Data Networking (NDN). NDN casts data as a first class element of the network's architecture in an effort to greatly facilitate new application development. However, as with any new architecture, one important deployment issues is being able to evolve existing applications. In this paper, we use a library for Instant Messaging (IM) applications called libpurple as a case study to demonstrate both the advantages of implementing IM as a serverless application in NDN and to explore promising approaches to porting applications to NDN. Our new serverless design enables IM clients to chat with each other without infrastructure support. Since libpurple is widely used as the transport layer of several IM applications (including Pidgin, Adium, and Apolio IM) our new library NDN Purple is able to seamlessly support these applications without modification to higher-layer code. In this work, we propose that our serverless design serves as a template for porting applications, and using it requires only trivial changes existing applications' state machines in order to facilitate interactions with NDN through. We do this by embedding a local pseudo-proxy in the application itself, and we are therefore able to leave the legacy code's state machine alone.

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


A multi-objective genetic algorithm for tuning and rule selection to obtain accurate and compact linguistic fuzzy rule-based systems This work proposes the application of Multi-Objective Genetic Algorithms to obtain Fuzzy Rule-Based Systems with a better trade-off between interpretability and accuracy in linguistic fuzzy modelling problems. To do that, we present a new post-processing method that by considering selection of rules together with the tuning of membership functions gets solutions only in Pareto zone with the highest accuracy. This method is based on the well-known SPEA2 algorithm, applying approriate genetic operators and including some modifications to concentrate the search in the desired Pareto zone.

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

rule selection
tuning of membership functions

multi-objective genetic algorithms
linguistic modelling
interpretability-accuracy trade-off


Fast depth-based subgraph kernels for unattributed graphs We investigate two fast subgraph kernels based on a depth-based representation. Our kernels gauge depth information rooted at a vertex for a graph. The time complexities for the two kernels are O(n2) O ( n 2 ) and O(n3) O ( n 3 ) . We evaluate the performance of our subgraph kernels on standard graph datasets. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed subgraph kernels.

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

depth-based representations
entropy
graph kernels
the jensenshannon divergence
graph isomorphism tests


A boundary condition capturing immersed interface method for 3D rigid objects in a flow To simulate the flow around an object, we can replace the object with the fluid enclosed by a singular force. We can then simulate the flow on a fixed domain with a fluidfluid interface supporting the singular force. In this paper, we present a boundary condition capturing approach to determine the singular force for a 3D rigid object. We apply a discontinuous body force to enforce the rigid motion of the fluid replacing the object and compute the singular force based on the kinematics of the object. Due to the singular force and the body force, the flow is not smooth across the interface. We solve the flow using the immersed interface method. Our boundary condition capturing immersed interface method is very efficient and stable, and its accuracy based on the infinity norm is near second order for the velocity and above first order for the pressure.

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

boundary condition capturing
the immersed interface method


Some topological properties of L-fuzzy normed spaces In this paper, the L-topological structure of L-fuzzy normed linear spaces is discussed. Firstly, we prove that the L-fuzzy normed linear space is a special type of Hausdorff locally convex and locally bounded L-topological vector space by a new way. Secondly, we characterize the convergence of a sequence of L-fuzzy points in L-fuzzy normed linear space. Finally, we use the convergence of a sequence of L-fuzzy points to describe the containment relationship of two L-fuzzy topologies induced by two L-fuzzy norms; and we give a necessary and sufficient condition for two L-fuzzy norms to be equivalent. (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

l-fuzzy set
l-fuzzy normed linear space
l-topological vector space


Non-uniform sampling for improved appearance-based models This work proposes the usage of non-uniform sampling to construct appearance-based models. Through this form of sampling, we shall have a guideline to spend less time for model construction and diminish storage usage, when pose estimation no matters. The sampling depends on the object class to be recognized and it is done by a simple proposed technique. This technique is based on a scheme of linear interpolation and sum-of-squared-difference to determine the strictly necessary images to build the objects model with an ? precision, and has been used in conjunction with the eigenspaces technique for object recognition. Experimental results about precision of Columbia object image library applying the proposed technique are exposed as well. In addition, the proposed technique allows controlling the movements of a motorized turntable, to automatically carry out the process of image acquisition and diminish the buffered images.

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

interpolation
object recognition
eigenspaces

non-uniform sampling
appearance-based model


Front propagation in random media: From extremal to activated dynamics Front propagation in a random environment is studied close to the depinning threshold. At zero temperature we show that the depinning force distribution exhibits a universal behavior. This property is used to estimate the velocity of the front at very low temperature. We obtain a Arrhenius behavior with a prefactor depending on the temperature as a power law. These results are supported by numerical simulations.

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


An Improved Transport Protocol for Mobile Ad Hoc Networks with Fuzzy Logic Control A mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is a dynamically reconfigurable wireless network that does not have a fixed infrastructure. Because this kind of network uses wireless connections for communication, traditional transport protocol for wired networks is not suitable for MANETs. In this paper, we propose an improved transport protocol (ITP) to enhance the efficiency of the transport protocol in MANETs. In ITP, we use a rate-based transmission scheme with fuzzy logic control to tune the proper data rate. ITP gets the MAC layer information and uses a fuzzy logic controller to estimate the appropriate data rate for transmission. Then ITP uses a feedback scheme to adjust data flow by receiving a feedback packet. The difference between traditional TCP and ITP is that ITP adjusts its transmission rate using the received packet instead of the acknowledgments or lost packets. Simulation results show that the proposed ITP outperforms TCP and ATP.

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

fuzzy logic control
data rate
mobile ad hoc networks
tcp


The academic impact of Chinese humanities and social science research Purpose - This paper is written as an attempt to employ the Chinese Social Science Citation Index (CSSCI) in the evaluation of Chinese humanities and social science research. Design/methodology/approach - This paper uses statistics in the CSSCI (2000-2004) to analyze the academic impact of researchers, papers and works, institutions and regions on Chinese humanities and social science research. Findings - The authors identify 100 highly cited people, 50 highly cited papers, 50 highly cited works, 20 highly productive institutions and 20 highly cited institutions. Also provided is some regional information about Chinese humanities and social science research. Originality/value - It is hoped that the CSSCI, as well as the analysis and evaluation based on it, will give researchers a better understanding of Chinese humanities and social science research.

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


Optimistic voting for managing replicated data An epidemic model gives an efficient approach for transaction processing of replication systems in weakly connected environments. The approach has the advantages of high adaptation, support for low-bandwidth network, and committing updates in an entirely decentralized control fashion. But the previous implementing protocols, like ROWA protocol, quorum protocol, and voting protocol, have a common shortcoming that they are pessimistic in conflict reconciliation, therefore bring high transaction abort rate and reduce system performance dramatically when the workload scales up. In this paper, an optimistic voting protocol, which introduces condition vote and order vote in the voting process of transactions, is proposed. The condition vote and order vote postpone the final decision on conflicting transactions and avoid transaction aborts that are incurred by read-write and write-write conflicts. Experimental. results indicate that the optimistic voting protocol decreases abort rate and improves average response time of transactions markedly when compared to other protocols.

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

weakly connected environment
data replication
consistency


Optimizing the Design of a Wind Farm Collection Network In this article we study a network design problem that arises in the exploitation of wind energy. We formulate this problem as a mixed integer programming problem, relate this formulation to other problems in combinatorial optimization, strengthen the formulation and propose cutting planes, and finally present experimental results for real-world instances of the collection network design problem.

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

network design
wind farm
mixed integer programming
cutting planes


Comparison of the GMRES and ORTHOMIN for the black oil model in porous media This paper deals with the application of the GMRES algorithm to a three-dimensional, three-phase black oil model used in petroleum reservoir simulation. Comparisons between the GMRES and ORTHOMIN algorithms in terms of storage and total flops per restart step are given. Numerical results show that the GMRES is faster than the ORTHOMIN for large-scale simulation problems. The GMRES uses only as much as 63% of the CPU time of the ORTHOMIN for some of the problems tested. Copyright (c) 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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

petroleum reservoir simulation
gmres
orthomin
black oil model


An implementation of lattice filters using four operands Real Multiply Accumulation Four operands Real Multiply Accumulation (4op-RMA) is a method to implement transversal circuits, direct form circuits and 2D type circuits with real coefficients by using a complex multiplier. Digital Signal Processors (DSPs) with 4op-RMA implement these circuits twice as fast as the conventional ones. Besides, we can simplify the programs on such DSPs. However 4op-RMA have not been applied to the lattice circuits yet because of their circuit structures. In this paper, we propose an implementation method for the lattice circuits by using 4op-RMA. The lattice part can be calculated by a 4op-RMA operation, which corresponds to a complex multiplication.

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 I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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


interactive k-d tree gpu raytracing Over the past few years, the powerful computation rates and high memory bandwidth of GPUs have attracted efforts to run raytracing on GPUs. Our work extends Foley et al.'s GPU k-d tree research. We port their kd-restart algorithm from multi-pass, using CPU load balancing, to single pass, using current GPUs' branching and looping abilities. We introduce three optimizations: a packetized formulation, a technique for restarting partially down the tree instead of at the root, and a small, fixed-size stack that is checked before resorting to restart. Our optimized implementation achieves 15 - 18 million primary rays per second and 16 - 27 million shadow rays per second on our test scenes. Our system also takes advantage of GPUs' strengths at rasterization and shading to offer a mode where rasterization replaces eye ray scene intersection, and primary hits and local shading are produced with standard Direct3D code. For 1024x1024 renderings of our scenes with shadows and Phong shading, we achieve 12-18 frames per second. Finally, we investigate the efficiency of our implementation relative to the computational resources of our GPUs and also compare it against conventional CPUs and the Cell processor, which both have been shown to raytrace well.

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

brook
stream computing
gpu computing
programmable graphics hardware
data parallel computing


The application of Jacobian-free NewtonKrylov methods to reduce the spin-up time of ocean general circulation models In present-day forward time stepping ocean-climate models, capturing both the wind-driven and thermohaline components, a substantial amount of CPU time is needed in a so-called spin-up simulation to determine an equilibrium solution. In this paper, we present methodology based on Jacobian-Free NewtonKrylov methods to reduce the computational time for such a spin-up problem. We apply the method to an idealized configuration of a state-of-the-art ocean model, the Modular Ocean Model version 4 (MOM4). It is shown that a typical speed-up of a factor 1025 with respect to the original MOM4 code can be achieved and that this speed-up increases with increasing horizontal resolution.

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

ocean modelling
jacobian-free newtonkrylov methods
preconditioning


Patterns of interactive media use among contemporary youth The intensive use of interactive media has led to assertions about the effect of these media on youth. Rather than following the assumption of a distinct Net generation, this study investigates diversity in interactive media use among youth. Results from a pilot study show that contemporary youth can be divided into clusters based on the use of interactive media. These results call for a better understanding of these clusters and the characteristics of their members. The research question for this paper was: Can patterns be found in the interactive media activities and opinions of young people? We answer this question by a survey among 2138 Dutch students aged 9 to 23 in education levels ranging from primary to higher professional education. Four categories of interactive media activities were discerned using confirmatory factor analysis: interacting, performing, interchanging, and authoring. Four clusters of interactive media users, namely Traditionalists, Gamers, Networkers, and Producers were identified using cluster analysis. Behind these straightforward categories, complex patterns of user activities and opinions can be found. The implication is that education should be cautious in applying these media as learning tools, because contemporary students show diversity in the kinds of interactive media they prefer using.

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

cluster analysis
factor analysis
interactive media
survey


supporting self-expression for informal communication Mobile phones are becoming the central tools for communicating and can help us keep in touch with friends and family on-the-go. However, they can also place high demands on attention and constrain interaction. My research concerns how to design communication mechanisms that mitigate these problems to support self-expression for informal communication on mobile phones. I will study how people communicate with camera-phone photos, paper-based sketches, and projected information and how this communication impacts social practices.

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


an information system based on distributed objects The Telesophy system is intended to provide transparent access to all of a community's online information. The scale of the system requires that it be distributed across many machines via a network; the multiple types and formats of the information require that it be a multimedia system. We describe a prototype that uses objects to represent, query, display, and edit information. A two-level storage system is used to store the objects on multiple servers; queries are processed by indexing servers layered on top of the storage system. New media types and new indexing schemes can be added simply by defining new classes within the existing framework.

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

framework
indexing
storage system
scale
edit
prototype
types
multimedia system
queries
distributed
access
information system
new media
online
query

communities systems transparency object informal server class scheme


The increase of productivity over timean industrial case study Introducing new and specialized technology is often seen as a way of meeting increasing non-functional requirements. An example of such a technology is a software platform that provides high performance and availability. The novelty of such a platform and lack of related experience and competence among the staff may affect initial development productivity. The competence problems should disappear with time. In this paper, we present a study, which we conducted at Ericsson. The purpose of the study was to assess the impact of experience and maturity on productivity in software development on the specialized platform. We quantify the impact by comparing productivity of two projects. One represents an initial development stage while the other represents a subsequent and thus more matured development stage. Both projects resulted in large commercial products. We reveal a factor of four difference in productivity. The difference was caused by a higher code delivery rate and a lower number of code lines per functionality in the latter project. We assess the impact of both these issues on productivity and explain their nature. Based on our findings, we suggest a number of improvement suggestions and guidelines for the process of introducing a new technology.

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


Stochastic language models for style-directed layout analysis of document images Image segmentation is an important component of any document image analysis system. While many segmentation algorithms exist in the literature, very few i) allow users to specify the physical style, and ii) incorporate user-specified style information into the algorithm's objective function that is to be minimized. We describe a segmentation algorithm that models a document's physical structure as a hierarchical structure where each node describes a region of the document using a stochastic regular grammar. The exact form of the hierarchy and the stochastic language is specified by the user, while the probabilities associated with the transitions are estimated from groundtruth data. We demonstrate the segmentation algorithm on images of bilingual dictionaries.

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

bilingual dictionaries
stochastic regular grammar

duration hidden markov models
physical layout analysis
style-directed analysis


Influence of speech codecs selection on transcoding steganography The typical approach to steganography is to compress the covert data in order to limit its size, which is reasonable in the context of a limited steganographic bandwidth. Trancoding steganography (TranSteg) is a new IP telephony steganographic method that was recently proposed that offers high steganographic bandwidth while retaining good voice quality. In TranSteg, compression of the overt data is used to make space for the steganogram. In this paper we focus on analyzing the influence of the selection of speech codecs on hidden transmission performance, that is, which codecs would be the most advantageous ones for TranSteg. Therefore, by considering the codecs which are currently most popular for IP telephony we aim to find out which codecs should be chosen for transcoding to minimize the negative influence on voice quality while maximizing the obtained steganographic bandwidth.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O 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 steganography
information hiding
speech coding


An action compiler targeting standard ML We present an action compiler that can be used in connection with an action semantics based compiler generator. Our action compiler produces code with faster execution times than code produced by other action compilers, and for some nontrivial test examples it is only a factor of two slower than the code produced by the Gnu C Compiler. Targeting Standard ML makes the description of the code generation simple and easy to implement. The action compiler has been tested on a description of the Core of Standard ML and a subset of C. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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 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

action semantics
code generation
standard ml


A TENGRAM method based part-of-speech tagging of multi-category words in Hindi language In this paper, we have dealt on the problem of part-of-speech tagging of multi-category words which appear within the sentences of Hindi language. Firstly, a Hindi tagger is proposed which provides part-of-speech tags developed using grammar of Hindi language. For this purpose, Hindi Devanagari alphabets are used and their Hindi transliteration is done within the proposed tagger. Thereafter, a Rules based TENGRAM method is described with an illustrative example, which guides to disambiguate multi-category words within sentences of Hindi corpus. The rules generated in TENGRAM are the result of computation of discernibility matrices, discernibility functions and reducts. These computations have been generated from decision tables which are based on theory of Rough sets. Basically, a discernibility matrix helps in cutting down indiscernible condition attributes; a discernibility function has rows corresponding to each column in the discernibility matrix which develops reducts; and the reducts provide a minimal subset of attributes which preserve indiscernibility relation of decision tables and hence they generate the decision rules.

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

devanagari
tengram
discernibility matrix
discernibility function
reducts
rough sets
decision rules
condition attributes

part-of-speech
multi-category
decision table
decision attribute


Arterial reservoir-excess pressure and ventricular work This study is based on the hypothesis that the pressure within the arterial network can be usefully decomposed as the sum of a reservoir pressure and an excess pressure. The reservoir pressure waveform is defined to be the same in each vessel but delayed by the wave travel time from the root of the aorta. Using calculus of variations and mass conservation, which relates the flow and rates of change of pressure in the vessels, we show that the reservoir pressure waveform minimises the ventricular hydraulic work for any physiologically or clinically reasonable ejection waveform and arterial properties, i.e. vessel compliances and terminal resistances. We conclude that the excess pressure determines the excess work done by the ventricle, which may have clinically important implications.

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

differential equations in mathematical aspects of biological physics

time-delay ordinary differential equation


More on quadratic functions and maximal ArtinSchreier curves For an odd prime \(p\) and an even integer \(n\) with \(\gcd (n,p) > 1\), we consider quadratic functions from \({\mathbb F}_{p^{n}}\) to \({\mathbb F}_p\) of codimension \(k\). For various values of \(k\), we obtain classes of quadratic functions giving rise to maximal and minimal ArtinSchreier curves over \({\mathbb F}_{p^{n}}\). We completely classify all maximal and minimal curves obtained from quadratic functions of codimension \(2\) and coefficients in the prime field \({\mathbb F}_p\). The results complement our results obtained earlier for the case \(\gcd (n,p) = 1\). The arguments are more involved than for the case \(\gcd (n,p) = 1\).

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 distribution protection design: quality of solution and computational analysis The fundamental goal of an electric utility is to serve its customers with a reliable and low cost power supply. To achieve this goal, utilities use various reliability indices to evaluate the service reliability, and prioritize capital and maintenance expenditures. Utilities improve distribution reliability either through preventive measures or by appropriate remedial actions in response to a disturbance. Remedial action capabilities include those provided by protective device response, fault locators and other sensors, and various distribution automation functions. The number, type and location of the protective devices on a distribution feeder have a direct effect on the system reliability. In previous work, a binary programming problem was formulated to identify type and location of the protective devices on a distribution feeder in order to optimize reliable performance. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the practicality of such design optimization techniques through: (a) comparison of these solutions to existing utility practices; and (b) analysis of the computational complexity of the algorithms.

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

distribution reliability
binary programming


analysis of power-performance for ultra-thin-body geoi logic circuits This work analyzes the power-performance of the emerging Ultra-Thin-Body (UTB) GeOI devices for logic circuit applications. The impacts of temperature and Vdd scaling on the leakage/delay are studied. Compared with the subthreshold leakage dominated SOI devices/circuits, the band-to-band tunneling dominated leakage currents of GeOI devices/circuits show less sensitivity to temperature. At 300 o K and comparable delay, GeOI inverter with smaller band-gap shows larger leakage than the SOI inverter at Vdd = 1.0V, while exhibits lower leakage than the SOI inverter at Vdd = 0.8V. At 400 o K, GeOI inverter shows both lower leakage and lower delay at Vdd = 0.6~1.0V compared with the SOI counterpart, due to the weaker temperature dependence of band-to-band tunneling leakage compared with subthreshold leakage. Compared with the SOI Two-Way NAND and NOR, the GeOI Two-Way NAND and NOR show smaller leakage currents at Vdd = 0.5V or 400 o K as the band-to-band tunneling leakage is less sensitive to temperature compared with the subthreshold leakage. Compared with the GeOI domino gate at 400 o K, the SOI domino gate shows 5 times degradation in the worst-case noise (dynamic node voltage droop) and 1.4 times increase in the worst-case delay. The GeOI latch leakages are smaller than the SOI counterparts at 300 o K (Vdd o K (Vdd = 0.5~1.0V).

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

band-to-band tunneling
power-performance
germanium-on-insulator (geoi)
ultra-thin-body (utb)


An approach for developing diagnostic Bayesian network based on operation procedures A method to develop Bayesian network based on operation procedures is proposed. The diagnostic model consists of faults, symptoms and operation procedures. The presented approach is applied to a case study of closing BOP.

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

fault diagnosis
state decision
subsea blowout preventer


Complexity-Reducing Algorithm for Serial Scheduled Min-Sum Decoding of LDPC Codes We propose a complexity-reducing algorithm for serial scheduled min-sum decoding that reduces the number of check nodes to process during an iteration. The check nodes to skip are chosen based on the reliability, a syndrome and a log-likelihood-ratio (LLR) value, of the incoming messages. The proposed algorithm is evaluated by computer simulations and shown to reduce the decoding complexity about 20% compared with a conventional serial scheduled min-sum decoding with small fractional decibel degradation in error correction performance.

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

low-density parity-check codes
min-sum decoding
serial scheduling


IESP EXASCALE CHALLENGE: CO-DESIGN OF ARCHITECTURES AND ALGORITHMS There is a large gap between the peak performance of supercomputers and the actual performance realized by today's algorithms. This architecture-algorithm performance gap will get even wider with the increase in computing power being driven by a rapid escalation in the number of cores incorporated into a single chip rather than increases in the clock rate. In order to improve the effectiveness of peta and exascale systems we need to have a paradigm shift where architectures and algorithms are co-designed.

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


A General Power Model of Differential Power Analysis Attacks to Static Logic Circuits This paper discusses a general model of differential power analysis (DPA) attacks to static logic circuits. Focusing on symmetric-key cryptographic algorithms, the proposed analysis provides a deeper insight into the vulnerability of cryptographic circuits. The main parameters that are of interest in practical DPA attacks are derived under suitable approximations, and a new figure of merit to measure the DPA effectiveness is proposed. Worst case conditions under which a cryptographic circuit should be tested to evaluate its robustness against DPA attacks are identified and analyzed. Several interesting properties of DPA attacks are also derived from the proposed model, whose fundamental expressions are compared with the counterparts of correlation power analysis attacks. The model was validated by means of DPA attacks on an FPGA implementation of the advanced encryption standard algorithm. Experimental results show that the model has a good accuracy, as its error is always lower than 2%.

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

advanced encryption standard (aes)
correlation power analysis (cpa)
differential power analysis (dpa)
modeling
power consumption
security
smart cards
vlsi


On reducing test length for FSMs with extra states A long-standing problem when testing from a deterministic finite state machine is to guarantee full fault coverage even if the faults introduce extra states in the implementations. It is well known that such tests should include the sequences in a traversal set which contains all input sequences of length defined by the number of extra states. This paper suggests the SPY method, which helps reduce the length of tests by distributing sequences of the traversal set and reducing test branching. It is also demonstrated that an additional assumption about the implementation under test relaxes the requirement of the complete traversal set. The results of the experimental comparison of the proposed method with an existing method indicate that the resulting reduction can reach 40%. Experimental results suggest that the additional assumption about the implementation can help in further reducing the test suite length. Copyright (C) 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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

test generation
finite state machines
fault domain


A classification and survey of preference handling approaches in nonmonotonic reasoning In recent years, there has been a large amount of disparate work concerning the representation and reasoning with qualitative preferential information by means of approaches to nonmonotonic reasoning. Given the variety of underlying systems, assumptions, motivations, and intuitions, it is difficult to compare or relate one approach with another. Here, we present an overview and classification for approaches to dealing with preference. A set of criteria for classifying approaches is given, followed by a set of desiderata that an approach might be expected to satisfy. A comprehensive set of approaches is subsequently given and classified with respect to these sets of underlying principles.

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

knowledge representation
preferences
reasoning with preferences


Parametric estimation of sample entropy in heart rate variability analysis A parametric approach based on autoregressive models is proposed for sample entropy. Theoretical analytical results, which were derived, help in guiding the process. A feasibility study of the technique was performed on synthetic and real series. When the parametric approach is suitable, nonlinearities are unlikely. On the contrary, a failure of the parametric approach is an index of nonlinearity.

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

sample entropy
autoregressive models
heart rate variability


Multi-objective planning of electrical distribution systems using dynamic programming This paper presents a novel dynamic programming approach for multi-objective planning of electrical distribution systems. In this planning, the optimal feeder routes and branch conductor sizes of a distribution system are determined by simultaneous optimization of cost and reliability. The multiple planning objectives are minimization of: (i) installation and operational cost, and (ii) interruption cost. The first objective function consists of the installation cost of new feeder branches and substations, maintenance cost of the existing and new feeder branches, and the cost of energy losses. The second objective function measures the reliability of the distribution network in terms of the associated interruption costs for all the branches, which includes the cost of non-delivered energy, cost of repair, and the customer damage cost due to interruptions. A dynamic programming based planning algorithm for optimization of the feeder routes and branch conductor sizes is proposed. A set of Pareto solutions is obtained using a weighted aggregation of the two objectives with different weight settings. The proposed approach is evaluated on 21-, 54-, and 100-node distribution systems. The simulation test results are analyzed with various case studies and are compared with those of two existing planning approaches based on multi-objective evolutionary algorithm.

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

electrical distribution system planning
pareto-optimality
multi-objective planning


autonomy (what's it good for?) This paper focuses on the impacts of mission requirements and environmental conditions on the decision to incorporate autonomous components into a cognitive system. The costs of autonomy are discussed, along with the benefits, and the interrelationships between the environmental context and task requirements are explored with respect to the application of autonomous systems. We address two fundamental questions: "Given the environment and the design goals of the intelligent system, can autonomy be enabled? Second, if it can be, should it be?"

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

reification
artificial intelligence
machine cognition


From Microsoft Word 2003 to Microsoft Word 2007: Design Heuristics, Design Flaws and Lessons Learnt By tracing and comparing the number of key-presses taken to complete the functions in Word 2007 and Word 2003, the paper identifies eight design heuristics Word 2003 and Word 2007 could have violated, creating design flaws leading to potential usability problems. This paper concludes with design implications for software.

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


Volume consistency in a staggered grid Lagrangian hydrodynamics scheme Staggered grid Lagrangian schemes for compressible hydrodynamics involve a choice of how internal energy is advanced in time. The options depend on two ways of defining cell volumes: an indirect one, that guarantees total energy conservation, and a direct one that computes the volume from its definition as a function of the cell vertices. It is shown that the motion of the vertices can be defined so that the two volume definitions are identical. A so modified total energy conserving staggered scheme is applied to the Coggeshall adiabatic compression problem, and now also entropy is basically exactly conserved for each Lagrangian cell, and there is increased accuracy for internal energy. The overall improvement as the grid is refined is less than what might be expected.

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

volume consistency
entropy
hydrodynamics


Enhanced optimal and heuristic solutions of the routing problem in light-trail networks Light-trail is an efficient and feasible technology for IP transport over all-optical networks. The proposition of light-trails for all-optical networks has demonstrated a number of advantages over other paradigms such as Wavelength Routing (WR), Optical Burst Switching (OBS) and Optical Packet Switching (OPS). This article tackles the routing problem of light-trails with the solution objective of minimizing the number of needed light-trails to accommodate an offered traffic matrix. We present two enhancements to the Integer Linear Programming (ILP) formulation of the routing problem. We also propose a computationally efficient routing heuristic for use with static and incremental traffic models. The heuristic is based on routing flows one-by-one. This is done by assigning a set of attributes to each flow and to each network path. The flow attributes are used to determine the order in which flows are presented to the routing algorithm. The path attributes are used to determine which path is selected to route the flow at hand. The efficiency of the proposed heuristic is confirmed using example problems of different network topologies.

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

all-optical networks
ip over optical
light-trails
traffic grooming
heuristic solution


A Predual Proximal Point Algorithm Solving a Non Negative Basis Pursuit Denoising Model This paper develops an implementation of a Predual Proximal Point Algorithm (PPPA) solving a Non Negative Basis Pursuit Denoising model. The model imposes a constraint on the l (2) norm of the residual, instead of penalizing it. The PPPA solves the predual of the problem with a Proximal Point Algorithm (PPA). Moreover, the minimization that needs to be performed at each iteration of PPA is solved with a dual method. We can prove that these dual variables converge to a solution of the initial problem. Our analysis proves that we turn a constrained non differentiable convex problem into a short sequence of nice concave maximization problems. By nice, we mean that the functions which are maximized are differentiable and their gradient is Lipschitz. The algorithm is easy to implement, easier to tune and more general than the algorithms found in the literature. In particular, it can be applied to the Basis Pursuit Denoising (BPDN) and the Non Negative Basis Pursuit Denoising (NNBPDN) and it does not make any assumption on the dictionary. We prove its convergence to the set of solutions of the model and provide some convergence rates. Experiments on image approximation show that the performances of the PPPA are at the current state of the art for the BPDN.

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

sparse representation
proximal point algorithm
ell1 minimization


Information risk of inadvertent disclosure: An analysis of file-sharing risk in the financial supply chain Firms face many different types of information security risk. Inadvertent disclosure of sensitive business information represents one of the largest classes of recent security breaches. We examine a specific instance of this problem-inadvertent disclosures through peer-to-peer file-sharing networks. We characterize the extent of the security risk for a group of large financial institutions using a direct analysis of leaked documents. We also characterize the threat of loss by examining search patterns in peer-to-peer networks. Our analysis demonstrates both a substantial threat and vulnerability for large financial firms. We find a statistically significant link between leakage and leak sources including the firm employment base and the number of retail accounts. We also find a link between firm visibility and threat activity. Finally, we find that firms with more leaks also experience increased threat.

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

information security
inadvertent disclosure

data breaches
file-sharing
intellectual property leaks
peer-to-peer networks
risk management


Context-aware mesh smoothing for biomedical applications Smoothing algorithms allow to reduce artifacts from mesh generation, but often degrade accuracy. Thus, we present a method that identifies staircase artifacts which result from image inhomogeneities and binary segmentation in medical image data for subsequent removal by adaptive mesh smoothing. This paper makes the following specific contributions: caps, which are flat regions, resulting from segmentation or clipping at the endings of anatomical structures are detected and modified by smoothing; the effects of the adaptive smoothing method involving context information are quantitatively analyzed with respect to accuracy and their influence on blood flow simulations; the image stack orientation, which is relevant for this context-aware smoothing approach, is estimated automatically from the surface models. Thus, context-aware smoothing enables to adaptively smooth artifact areas, while non-artifact features can be preserved. The approach has been applied to CT neck datasets, as well as phantom data and the results are evaluated regarding smoothness and model accuracy. The accuracy of model orientation estimation and cap detection has been evaluated for clinical and phantom data. Finally, context-aware smoothing has been applied to CT angiography data for the simulation of blood flow. The simulation results are presented and prove the general suitability of context-aware smoothing.

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


analysis of actual fault mechanisms in cmos logic gates An analysis of failure modes in CMOS logic gates is presented. An example 3-input NAND gate is analyzed in detail and the ramifications of its failure modes are discussed.

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


Genetic fuzzy rule-based scheduling system for grid computing in virtual organizations One of the most challenging problems when facing the implementation of computational grids is the system resources effective management commonly referred as to grid scheduling. A rule-based scheduling system is presented here to schedule computationally intensive Bag-of-Tasks applications on grids for virtual organizations. There exist diverse techniques to develop rule-base scheduling systems. In this work, we suggest the joining of a gathering and sorting criteria for tasks and a fuzzy scheduling strategy. Moreover, in order to allow the system to learn and thus to improve its performance, two different off-line optimization procedures based on Michigan and Pittsburgh approaches are incorporated to apply Genetic Algorithms to the fuzzy scheduler rules. A complex objective function considering users differentiation is followed as a performance metric. It not only provides the conducted system evaluation process a comparison with other classical approaches in terms of accuracy and convergence behaviour characterization, but it also analyzes the variation of a wide set of evolution parameters in the learning process to achieve the best performance.

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

fuzzy rule-based systems
evolutionary algorithms
genetic fuzzy systems


Overlapping and multi-touching text-line segmentation by Block Covering analysis This paper presents a new approach for text-line segmentation based on Block Covering which solves the problem of overlapping and multi-touching components. Block Covering is the core of a system which processes a set of ancient Arabic documents from historical archives. The system is designed for separating text-lines even if they are overlapping and multi-touching. We exploit the Block Covering technique in three steps: a new fractal analysis (Block Counting) for document classification, a statistical analysis of block heights for block classification and a neighboring analysis for building text-lines. The Block Counting fractal analysis, associated with a fuzzy C-means scheme, is performed on document images in order to classify them according to their complexity: tightly (closely) spaced documents (TSD) or widely spaced documents (WSD). An optimal Block Covering is applied on TSD documents which include overlapping and multi-touching lines. The large blocks generated by the covering are then segmented by relying on the statistical analysis of block heights. The final labeling into text-lines is based on a block neighboring analysis. Experimental results provided on images of the Tunisian Historical Archives reveal the feasibility of the Block Covering technique for segmenting ancient Arabic documents.

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

block covering
block counting
ancient arabic documents

text-line segmentation
overlapping and multi-touching lines


Association schemes related to DelsarteGoethals codes In this paper, we construct an infinite series of 9-class association schemes from a refinement of the partition of DelsarteGoethals codes by their Lee weights. The explicit expressions of the dual schemes are determined through direct manipulations of complicated exponential sums. As a byproduct, another three infinite families of association schemes are also obtained as fusion schemes and quotient schemes.

B I 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 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

association schemes
delsartegoethals codes


Dual-beam laser illuminator of fluorescence microscope for in vivo microcirculation studies A new fluorescence intravital microscope of long working distance (39 mm) has been developed for the observation of microcirculation in a wide Visual field by designing a simple epi-illumination technique with dual laser beams. Cross-illumination, in which a pair of laser beams is symmetrically placed on either side of the objective such that they intersect at the focal plane of the objective, was employed to produce uniform distribution of the incident light in the object plane. In vitro experiments using a fluorescein isothiocyanate dextran (FITC-dextran; molecular weight=70 000) solution of known concentration confirmed uniform tracer excitation in a wide visual field (approximately 30 mm(2)), and a linear correlation between fluorescence intensity and tracer concentration (r = 0.999), ranging between 5 mu mol l(-1) and 25 mu mol l(-1). In vivo observations in the microcirculation of a hamster cheek pouch indicated that the present technique had the advantage of high contrast compared with the image obtained by bright-field transillumination. This microscope illuminator may prove useful for the evaluation of vascular permeability under physiological and inflammatory conditions, with sufficient quantitative reliability to determine tracer concentrations in all parts of the microvascular network, Furthermore, a long working distance in this technique could have considerable advantages for the application to nail-fold capillaroscopy in humans.

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

laser
vascular permeability
hamster cheek pouch

intravital microscopy
fluorescence illuminator
fitc-dextran
microvasculature


unlocking the design secrets of a 2.29 gb/s rijndael processor This contribution describes the design and performance testing of an Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) compliant encryption chip that delivers 2.29 GB/s of encryption throughput at 56 mw of power consumption. We discuss how the high level reference specification in C is translated into a parallel architecture. Design decisions are motivated from a system level viewpoint. The prototyping setup is discussed.

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

processor
power consumption
encryption
rijndael
design
performance
throughput
parallel architecture

domain-specific systems test prototype standardization low-power


QSAR study of natural estrogen-like isoflavonoids and diphenolics from Thai medicinal plants Two species of Thai medicinal plants, Dalbergia parviflora R. (Leguminosae) and Belamcanda chinensis L. (Iridaceae), used traditionally for the regulation of menstrual disorders, have been found to contain a large number of potential estrogen-like compounds. A set of some 55 isolated isoflavonoids and diphenolics showed a wide range of estrogen activity as determined in breast cancer MCF-7 and T47D cell proliferation assays. This set of compounds was studied by means of computational techniques including quantitative structureactivity relationships (QSAR) and molecular modeling. It was found that the estrogenic potencies of the studied compounds depend mainly upon the presence/absence of hydroxyl groups attached to 3? and 5? positions of B ring of the isoflavone scaffold and the inter-atomic distance between the hydroxyl groups attached to the outer terminal positions 7 of A ring and 4? of B ring. In a QSAR model employing ligandreceptor interaction energy descriptors, the LigScore scoring function of Cerius2 virtual screening module, which describes the receptor affinities of simultaneous binding to estrogenic receptors ? and ? (ER? and ER?), led to the best correlation between the observed estrogenic activities and computed descriptors. Consideration of independent binding to ER? and ER? did not result in statistically significant QSAR models. It was thus concluded that simultaneous and possibly competitive interaction of the compounds with the ER? and ER? receptors, in which the presence of hydroxyl groups at the abovementioned positions of the isoflavonoids and diphenolics molecular scaffold plays a dominant role, may determine the estrogenic potency of the considered phytochemicals.

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

qsar
molecular modeling
isoflavonoids
dalbergia parviflora
belamcanda chinensis


Slow-fast response decomposition of a bi-stable energy harvester A bi-stable vibration-based energy harvester excited by low frequency base motions exhibits vibrations characterised by a combination of slow and non-stationary fast components. The conversion of slow into fast oscillations by a nonlinear potential barrier can increase the amount of harvested power as has been shown before. In this paper the dynamical behaviour leading to the conversion of low-frequency oscillations into high frequency ones is discussed and explained. A non-parametric response decomposition approach able to separate the slow and fast parts is employed. This decomposition provides deeper insight into the effect of the nonlinear potential barrier by identifying the local evolution of instantaneous amplitude and frequency near the potential barrier and far from it. The slow and fast components are utilised to identify the backbone-curves of the two asymmetric potential wells and the nonlinear stiffness of the system. The proposed decomposition and analysis allow one to examine the repetitive transient dynamics near the potential barrier without resorting to averaging or perturbation based methods. The proposed approach and the subsequent analysis are demonstrated and explained via numerical and experiment results.

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

energy harvesting
nonlinear vibrations
frequency up-conversion
bi-stable oscillator
hilbert transform
backbone curve


Analysis of CDMA MIMO Beamforming Multicell Deployment Scenarios using Effective Radiation Patterns This paper presents approximate formulas for the signal to interference ratio (SIR) gain and the corresponding bit error rate (BER) performance, when the simple concept of an effective radiation pattern of the produced real world Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output (MIMO) beamforming radiation pattern, is considered for CDMA multi-cell/tier deployments. These simple and practical formulas can be easily used to produce initial results for a range of effective values corresponding to different operational scenarios, and hence, provide a fast and straightforward approach to evaluate performance aspects of MIMO beamforming multicell deployments. Results show that for macrocellular operational scenarios with \(10^{\circ }\) effective beamwidth and \(-\)10dB effective average sidelobe level, 11dB SIR gain and 3.5 orders of magnitude BER improvement (compared to the omnidirectional scenario) can be achieved with an aggressive (MIMO beamforming in all cells) deployment strategy.

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


Target prediction utilising negative bioactivity data covering large chemical space In silico analyses are increasingly being used to support mode-of-action investigations; however many such approaches do not utilise the large amounts of inactive data held in chemogenomic repositories. The objective of this work is concerned with the integration of such bioactivity data in the target prediction of orphan compounds to produce the probability of activity and inactivity for a range of targets. To this end, a novel human bioactivity data set was constructed through the assimilation of over 195 million bioactivity data points deposited in the ChEMBL and PubChem repositories, and the subsequent application of a sphere-exclusion selection algorithm to oversample presumed inactive compounds.

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

cheminformatics
qsar
similarity search
data mining
bedroc


User interaction with the matita proof assistant Matita is a new, document-centric, tactic-based interactive theorem prover. This paper focuses on some of the distinctive features of the user interaction with Matita, characterized mostly by the organization of the library as a searchable knowledge base, the emphasis on a high-quality notational rendering, and the complex interplay between syntax, presentation, and semantics.

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

interactive theorem proving
digital libraries
xml
mathematical knowledge management
authoring


Modelling neuromuscular blockade: a stochastic approach based on clinical data During surgical interventions, a muscle relaxant drug is frequently administered with the objective of inducing muscle paralysis. Clinical environment and patient safety issues lead to a huge variety of situations that must be taken into account requiring intensive simulation studies. Hence, population models are crucial for research and development in this field.This work develops a stochastic population model for the neuromuscular blockade (NMB) (muscle paralysis) level induced by atracurium based on a deterministic individual model already proposed in the literature. To achieve this goal, a joint Lognormal distribution is considered for the patient-dependent parameters. This study is based on clinical data collected during general anaesthesia. The procedure developed enables to construct a reliable reference bank of parametrized models that not only reproduces the overall features of the NMB, but also the inter-individual variability characteristic of physiological signals. It turns out that this bank constitutes a fundamental tool to support research on identification and control algorithms and is suitable to be integrated in clinical decision support systems.

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

stochastic modelling
neuromuscular blockade level
validation


approximations of general independent distributions We describe efficient constructions of small probability spaces that approximate the independent distribution for general random variables. Previous work on efficient constructions concentrate on approximations of the independent distribution for the special case of uniform boolean-valued random variables. Our results yield efficient constructions of small sets with low discrepancy in high dimensional space and have applications to derandomizing randomized algorithms.

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

yield probability applications case general space

variability
efficiency
distributed
randomization
approximation
randomized algorithm


Individual and team annotation effects on students reading comprehension, critical thinking, and meta-cognitive skills ? Many students enter college without the needed skills to be successful. Colleges and universities are seeking instructional interventions to address these needs. Various classes are leveraging web-based social media to provide new instructional technologies that will help students learn. This paper reports on two studies related to the potential of online social annotation for improving teaching and learning in second-semester Freshman English classes. The approach, referred to as the Social Annotation Model-Learning System (SAM-LS), combines various instructional strategies, team-based learning, and a social annotation computer-supported collaborative learning tool, HyLighter, to increase student engagement with selected essays and with classmates. SAM-LS stimulates students to actively monitor their thoughts and compare them to both peers and the instructor (or domain experts). Study 1 showed no significant difference between the SAM-LS approach and a control; however, results appear to be related to confounding factors. Study 2 showed that students achieve better outcomes on measures of reading comprehension and meta-cognitive skill, but not critical thinking, when SAM-LS activities include small team collaborations. The two studies suggest future directions for research and development of SAM-LS and the HyLighter tool.

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

social annotation
reading comprehension
critical thinking


more design data for stack architectures Some behavioural properties of programs running on a B6700 are presented. The data has been collected from simulations of many large and medium sized programs. The data present includes the percentages of different types of memory references, the average sequence lengths between transfers of control, and statistical information from the segments of the programs. The results collected have some interesting implications concerning the design of processors executing programs written in modern, high level languages.

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

processor program statistics simulation language architecture memorialized segmentation informal


A new minimal average weight representation for left-to-right point multiplication methods This paper introduces a new radix-2 representation with the same average weight as the width-w nonadjacent form (w-NAF). In both w-NAF and the proposed representations, each nonzero digit is an odd integer with absolute value less than M. However, for w-NAF, M is of the form 2(w-1), while, for the proposed representation, it can be any positive integer. Therefore, using the proposed integer representation, we can use the available memory efficiently, which is attractive for devices with limited memory. Another advantage of the proposed representation over w-NAF is that it can be obtained by scanning the bits from left-to-right. This property is also useful for memory-constrained devices because it can reduce both the time and space complexity of fast point multiplication techniques.

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 B I O

minimum-weight representation
left-to-right recoding
efficient implementation
elliptic curve cryptosystems


Intelligent technologies for nuclear power systems: heuristic and neural tools The consecutive, partly overlapping emergence of expert systems and then neural computation methods among intelligent technologies, is reflected in the evolving scene of their application to nuclear engineering. This paper provides a bird's eye view of the state of the application in the domain, along with a review of a particular task, the one perhaps economically more important: refueling design in nuclear power reactors.

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

intelligent methodologies
neural networks


A hierarchical semantic-based distance for nominal histogram comparison We propose a new distance called Hierarchical Semantic-Based Distance (HSBD), devoted to the comparison of nominal histograms equipped with a dissimilarity matrix providing the semantic correlations between the bins. The computation of this distance is based on a hierarchical strategy, progressively merging the considered instances (and their bins) according to their semantic proximity. For each level of this hierarchy, a standard bin-to-bin distance is computed between the corresponding pair of histograms. In order to obtain the proposed distance, these bin-to-bin distances are then fused by taking into account the semantic coherency of their associated level. From this modus operandi, the proposed distance can handle histograms which are generally compared thanks to cross-bin distances. It preserves the advantages of such cross-bin distances (namely robustness to histogram translation and histogram bin size issues), while inheriting the low computational cost of bin-to-bin distances. Validations in the context of geographical data classification emphasize the relevance and usefulness of the proposed distance.

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

histogram distance
data representation
semantic-based metric
unsupervised classification
information retrieval


Impact factor: outdated artefact or stepping-stone to journal certification? A review of Garfields journal impact factor and its specific implementation as the Thomson Reuters impact factor reveals several weaknesses in this commonly-used indicator of journal standing. Key limitations include the mismatch between citing and cited documents, the deceptive display of three decimals that belies the real precision, and the absence of confidence intervals. These are minor issues that are easily amended and should be corrected, but more substantive improvements are needed. There are indications that the scientific community seeks and needs better certification of journal procedures to improve the quality of published science. Comprehensive certification of editorial and review procedures could help ensure adequate procedures to detect duplicate and fraudulent submissions.

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

thomson reuters
journal impact factor
certification


A network-based approach to the multi-activity combined timetabling and crew scheduling problem: Workforce scheduling for public health policy implementation This paper introduces the multi-activity combined timetabling and crew scheduling problem. The goal of this problem is to schedule the minimum number of workers required in order to successfully visit a set of customers characterized by services needed matched against schedule availability. Two solution strategies are proposed. The first is based on mathematical programming whilst the second uses a heuristic procedure in order to reduce computational time. The proposed model combines timetabling with crew scheduling decisions in one mixed integer programming model which considers multiple activities. The algorithms are tested on randomly generated and real instances provided by the Health to School Initiative, a program based at Bogota's local Health Department. The results show that the Initiative can increase its coverage by up to 68% using the proposed heuristic approach as a planning process tool. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

timetabling problem
health services delivery


Point-augmented biquadratic C1 subdivision surfaces ? Shape artifacts, especially for convex input polyhedra, make Doo and Sabins generalization of bi-quadratic (bi-2) subdivision surfaces unattractive for general design. Rather than tuning the eigenstructure of the subdivision matrix, we improve shape by adding a point and enriching the refinement rules. Adding a guiding point can also yield a polar bi-2 subdivision algorithm. Both the augmented and the polar bi-2 subdivision are complemented by a new Primal Bi-2 Subdivision scheme. All surfaces are C1 C 1 and can be combined.

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

surface
doo-sabin
guide point
polar subdivision
ternary subdivision


PERFORMANCE DRIVERS FOR RFID-GENERATED ITEM-LEVEL INFORMATION IN THE OIL INDUSTRY Radio frequency identification (RFID)-generated item-level information provides interesting perspectives to increase operational performance in the oil and natural gas industry. However, costs and benefits of information systems with low-granular item-level information can be very different depending on various factors. We consider item-level information applications, especially RFID solutions, within the oil industry. We discuss why the incorporation of RFID tags in this system cannot be isolated and studied and how several related dimensions need to be considered. Among them, we detail characteristics like item-level identification, the rewritable and contact-less information functions, the existence of distributed sensors, and the overall network architecture. We consider the solutions used or potentially useful in the oil industry and evaluate three types of performance drivers (technical, operational, and strategic) related to these systems. Based on these, we propose five typologies-related to tubes, containers, other items, processes, and people-to characterize various critical empirical scenarios to identify the conditions under which item-level information is valuable in the oil industry. We then illustrate these typologies through potential applications.

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