Validation of Canopy Height Profile methodology for small-footprint full-waveform airborne LiDAR data in a discontinuous canopy environment A Canopy Height Profile (CHP) procedure presented in Harding et al. (2001) for large footprint LiDAR data was tested in a closed canopy environment as a way of extracting vertical foliage profiles from LiDAR raw-waveform. In this study, an adaptation of this method to small-footprint data has been shown, tested and validated in an Australian sparse canopy forest at plot- and site-level. Further, the methodology itself has been enhanced by implementing a dataset-adjusted reflectance ratio calculation according to Armston et al. (2013) in the processing chain, and tested against a fixed ratio of 0.5 estimated for the laser wavelength of 1550nm. As a by-product of the methodology, effective leaf area index (LAIe) estimates were derived and compared to hemispherical photography values. To assess the influence of LiDAR aggregation area size on the estimates in a sparse canopy environment, LiDAR CHPs and LAIes were generated by aggregating waveforms to plot- and site-level footprints (plot/site-aggregated) as well as in 5m grids (grid-processed). LiDAR profiles were then compared to field biomass profiles generated based on field tree measurements. The correlation between field and LiDAR profiles was very high, with a mean R2 of 0.75 at plot-level and 0.86 at site-level for 55 plots and the corresponding 11 sites. Gridding had almost no impact on the correlation between LiDAR and field profiles (only marginally improvement), nor did the dataset-adjusted reflectance ratio. However, gridding and the dataset-adjusted reflectance ratio were found to improve the correlation between raw-waveform LiDAR and hemispherical photography LAIe estimates, yielding the highest correlations of 0.61 at plot-level and of 0.83 at site-level. This proved the validity of the approach and superiority of dataset-adjusted reflectance ratio of Armston et al. (2013) over a fixed ratio of 0.5 for LAIe estimation, as well as showed the adequacy of small-footprint LiDAR data for LAIe estimation in discontinuous canopy forests.

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

full-waveform
small-footprint
canopy height profile (chp)
effective leaf area index (laie)
discontinuous canopy cover


using aspect-orientation to simplify concurrent programming The Java programming language offers several basic constructs for concurrent programming. Despite covering everything needed from a functional point of view, the constructs are difficult to use since they require a lot of infrastructural statements besides the real logic. This makes concurrent programming errorprone and difficult to reuse. It seems that abstractions are needed to ease the pain and to better support reusability. This paper explores how to use and benefit from aspect-orientation (AO), particularly the AspectJ language, in this respect. AO promises a high potential for reuse due to a higher level of modularization since crosscutting concerns can better be modularized in aspects. This paper confirms higher reuse by presenting a collection of reusable aspects for solving specific problems in concurrent programming. Having AspectJ-based implementations for recurring problems, this paper also summarizes some interesting experiences and takes the chance to present an industrial view on some criticisms of aspect-orientation.

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

crosscutting concern
modularity
case study
aspect-orientation


A simplified multi-class support vector machine with reduced dual optimization Support vector machine (SVM) was initially designed for binary classification. To extend SVM to the multi-class scenario, a number of classification models were proposed such as the one by Crammer and Singer (2001). However, the number of variables in Crammer and Singers dual problem is the product of the number of samples (l) by the number of classes (k), which produces a large computational complexity. This paper presents a simplified multi-class SVM (SimMSVM) that reduces the size of the resulting dual problem from lk to l by introducing a relaxed classification error bound. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed SimMSVM approach can greatly speed-up the training process, while maintaining a competitive classification accuracy.

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

multi-class classification
kernel-based methods
pattern classification


Antivirus security: naked during updates The security of modern computer systems heavily depends on security tools, especially on antivirus software solutions. In the anti-malware research community, development of techniques for evading detection by antivirus software is an active research area. This has led to malware that can bypass or subvert antivirus software. The common strategies deployed include the use of obfuscated code and staged malware whose first instance (usually installer such as dropper and downloader) is not detected by the antivirus software. Increasingly, most of the modern malware are staged ones in order for them to be not detected by antivirus solutions at the early stage of intrusion. The installers then determine the method for further intrusion including antivirus bypassing techniques. Some malware target boot and/or shutdown time when antivirus software may be inactive so that they can perform their malicious activities. However, there can be another time frame where antivirus solutions may be inactive, namely, during the time of update. All antivirus software share a unique characteristic that they must be updated at a very high frequency to provide up-to-date protection of their system. In this paper, we suggest a novel attack vector that targets antivirus updates and show practical examples of how a system and antivirus software itself can be compromised during the update of antivirus software. Local privilege escalation using this vulnerability is also described. We have investigated this design vulnerability with several of the major antivirus software products such as Avira, AVG, McAfee, Microsoft, and Symantec and found that they are vulnerable to this new attack vector. The paper also discusses possible solutions that can be used to mitigate the attack in the existing versions of the antivirus software as well as in the future ones. Copyright 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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

security
antivirus
malware
vulnerability
local privilege escalation


A lattice-Boltzmann method with hierarchically refined meshes A lattice-Boltzmann method (LBM) with local hierarchical adaptive grid refinement using a cell-centered lattice structure is presented which satisfies the requirements of high accuracy and high efficiency. It is applied to two-dimensional and three-dimensional laminar and turbulent flows over cylinders and spheres which constitute a comprehensive validation of LB methods for such blunt body problems. In the turbulent flow regime, a large-eddy simulation is used to capture the flow physics up to the inertial subrange. The numerical approach is described in detail and the accuracy of the method is demonstrated by considering the flow around a circular cylinder at Reynolds numbers Re = 20, 40, and 100 and the flow past a sphere at Re = 100, 300, 3700, and 10,000. The LBM plus local hierarchical grid refinement yields accurate temporal and spatial results and dramatically increases the computational efficiency by globally reducing the number of cells. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

subcritical turbulent flow past a sphere


Crumbling walls: A class of practical and efficient quorum systems A quorum system is a collection of sets (quorums) every two of which intersect. Quorum systems have been used for many applications in the area of distributed systems, including mutual exclusion, data replication and dissemination of information. In this paper we introduce a general class of quorum systems called Crumbling Walls and study its properties. The elements (processors) of a wall are logically arranged in rows of varying widths. A quorum in a wall is the union of one full row and a representative from every row below the full row. This class considerably generalizes a number of known quorum system constructions. The best crumbling wall is the CWlog quorum system. It has small quorums, of size O(lg n), and structural simplicity. The CWlog has optimal availability and optimal load among systems with such small quorum size. It manifests its high quality for all universe sizes, so it is a good choice not only for systems with thousands or millions of processors but also for systems with as few as 3 or 5 processors. Moreover, our analysis shows that the availability will increase and the load will decrease at the optimal rates as the system increases in size.

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

coteries
distributed computing
fault tolerance


Texture classification by multi-model feature integration using Bayesian networks In this paper, a texture classification method based on multi-model feature integration by Bayesian networks is proposed. Considering that many image textures exhibit both structural and statistical properties, two feature sets based on two texture modelsthe Gabor model and the Gaussian Markov random field model are used to describe the image properties in both structure and statistics. A Bayesian network classifier is then used to combine these two sets of features along with their individual confidence measures for texture classification. Seventy eight Brodatz textures were used to evaluate the classification performance. The results show that the proposed method is better than that using a single set of features from either model for texture classification.

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

gaussian markov random field
feature integration
bayesian networks
texture classification


A unified model for techniques on video-shot transition detection A first step required to allow video indexing and retrieval of visual data is to perform a temporal segmentation, that is, to find the location of camera-shot transitions, which can be either abrupt (i.e., cuts) or gradual (e.g., fades, dissolves, wipes). After a critical review of most approaches seeking to solve this problem, we propose a unified detection model (both for abrupt and all types of gradual transitions), as well as an implementation whose results improve upon those of all the inspected reports. The innovation of the approach presented here is centered on mapping the space of inter-frame distances onto a new space of decision better suited to achieving a sequence-independent thresholding. This mapping aims to consider frame ordering information within the thresholding process; it is based on the parametric modeling of the patterns that transitions generate on the distances' output. As opposed to most reviewed works, our results are detailed over a large and representative sample of more than 1500 cuts and 250 gradual transitions, which make up a significant part (200 min) of the MPEG-7 testing material; this ensures a high degree of confidence in the validity of our approach.

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

cut detection
gradual transition detection
shot transition detection
video analysis


DETECTION OF FRAME DUPLICATION FORGERY IN VIDEOS BASED ON SPATIAL AND TEMPORAL ANALYSIS In this paper, we present a passive-blind scheme for detection of frame duplication forgery in videos. The scheme is a coarse-to-fine approach that is implemented in four stages: candidate segment selection, spatial similarity measurement, frame duplication classification, and post-processing. To screen and select duplicated candidates in the temporal domain, the histogram difference of two adjacent frames in the RGB color space is adopted as a feature. Then, to evaluate the similarity of two images, we use a block-based algorithm to measure the spatial correlation between the candidate segment and the corresponding frame in the query template. Based on the results of spatial and temporal analysis, we construct a classifier to detect duplicated clips. In addition, to deal with the partial detection problem, we develop a post-processing technique that examines and merges two adjacent detected candidates into a complete duplicated video clip. Our experiment results demonstrate that the proposed scheme can not only achieve detection of frame duplication forgery but also accurately detect and localize duplicated clips in different kinds of videos. The results also show that the scheme outperforms an existing method in terms of precision, recall, accuracy, and computation time.

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


Implantable CMOS neuro-stimulus chip for visual prosthesis A prototype chip with 2x2 pixels for implanting in blind patients affected by outer retinal degeneration is presented in this paper. This visual prosthesis chip imitates the degenerated photoreceptor cells, senses the incident light and stimulates the remaining healthy layers of retina or optic nerve. Each pixel integrates photodiode and stimulus pulse generator, converting the illumination on the eyes into 3-bit resolution bi-phasic current pulses. On-chip charge cancellation modules are used to discharge each electrode site for tissue safety. The prototype chip is designed and fabricated in 0.18-mu m N-well CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor) 1P6M Mix-signal process, with a +/- 2.5 V dual voltage supply. The functionality of the fabricated chip is demonstrated on anesthetized rabbits. Neural responses in visual cortex are successfully evoked by the neuro-stimulus chip through an on-board trigger interface and flexible electrode.

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

biomedical microelectronics
functional electrical stimulation
acute animal experiment
electrical evoked potential (eep) test


A residential PHEV load coordination mechanism with renewable sources in smart grids Realistic model of a residential distribution grid with renewable sources of energy. Efficient load coordination mechanism to control PHEV battery charging. Extensive simulations showing the proposed method can avoid transformer overload.

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

demand response
load control
feed-in tariff


The possibility of magnetic resonance imaging-based diagnosis of Alzheimer-type dementia We studied the possibility of making an objective diagnosis of dementia based on radiological findings by evaluating cerebral and hippocampal atrophy and the corpus callosum shape on MRI images in patients with Alzheimer-type dementia. compared with healthy elderly individuals. There was a statistically significant difference in the hippocampus area index, the ventricle area index, and the area ratio for the second, forth, and fifth parts of corpus callosum. Discriminant analysis using these three parameters demonstrated the sensitivity of 88.5% and the specificity of 85.7%, suggesting a highly positive diagnostic rate. These results indicate that quantitative MRI measurements could be used for differentiating Alzheimer-type dementia from similar diseases.

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

mri
hippocampus
ventricle
corpus callosum


NIR-based quantification of process parameters in polyetheracrylat (PEA) production using flexible non-linear fuzzy systems In polyetheracrylat (PEA) production, it is important to monitor three process parameters in order to assure a high quality of the final product: hydroxyl (OH) number, viscosity and acidity (acid number). Due to the high resolution and high sensitivity, it has been shown in the past that the Fourier transform near infrared (FTNIR) process spectrum measurements can be used to obtain spectra with precise content information about these process parameters. In order to perform an automatic supervision and to reduce the (off-line, laboratory) analysis effort of experts and operators of these substances, chemometric quantification models have to be used. In this paper, we investigate the usage of a specific type of fuzzy systems, so-called Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy systems, for calibrating the chemometric models. This type of model architecture supports the usage of piecewise local linear predictors, being able to model flexibly different degrees of non-linearities implicitly contained in the mapping between NIR spectra and reference values. The training of these models is conducted by an evolving clustering method (adding new local linear models on demand) and a local (weighted) least squares estimation of the consequent parameters, and connected with a wavelength (dimensionality) reduction mechanism. Results on a concrete data set show that it can outperform state-of-the-art calibration methods as well as support vector regression as alternative non-linear model. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

pea production
chemometric quantification models
local linear predictors
evolving clustering method

nir spectroscopy
takagi-sugeno fuzzy systems
wavelength reduction


scalable influence maximization for prevalent viral marketing in large-scale social networks Influence maximization, defined by Kempe, Kleinberg, and Tardos (2003), is the problem of finding a small set of seed nodes in a social network that maximizes the spread of influence under certain influence cascade models. The scalability of influence maximization is a key factor for enabling prevalent viral marketing in large-scale online social networks. Prior solutions, such as the greedy algorithm of Kempe et al. (2003) and its improvements are slow and not scalable, while other heuristic algorithms do not provide consistently good performance on influence spreads. In this paper, we design a new heuristic algorithm that is easily scalable to millions of nodes and edges in our experiments. Our algorithm has a simple tunable parameter for users to control the balance between the running time and the influence spread of the algorithm. Our results from extensive simulations on several real-world and synthetic networks demonstrate that our algorithm is currently the best scalable solution to the influence maximization problem: (a) our algorithm scales beyond million-sized graphs where the greedy algorithm becomes infeasible, and (b) in all size ranges, our algorithm performs consistently well in influence spread --- it is always among the best algorithms, and in most cases it significantly outperforms all other scalable heuristics to as much as 100\%--260\% increase in influence spread.

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

viral marketing
social networks
influence maximization


Thermodynamic Limit for Large Random Trees We consider Gibbs distributions on finite random plane trees with bounded branching. We show that as the order of the tree grows to infinity, the distribution of any finite neighborhood of the root of the tree converges to a limit. We compute the limiting distribution explicitly and study its properties. We introduce an infinite random tree consistent with these limiting distributions and show that it satisfies a certain form of the Markov property. We also study the growth of this tree and prove several limit theorems including a diffusion approximation. (C) 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Random Struct. Alg., 37, 312-331, 2010

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

gibbs distribution
infinite volume limit


Game theory basis for control of long-lived lunar/planetary surface robots Current and future NASA robotic missions to planetary surfaces are tending toward longer duration and are becoming more ambitious for rough terrain access. For a higher level of autonomy in such missions, the rovers will require behavior that must also adapt to declining health and unknown environmental conditions. The MER (Mars Exploration Rovers) called Spirit and Opportunity have both passed 600 days of life on the Martian surface, with extensions to 1000 days and beyond depending on rover health. Changes in navigational planning due to degradation of the drive motors as they reach their lifetime are currently done on Earth for the Spirit rover. The upcoming 2009 MSL (Mars Science Laboratory) and 2013 AFL (Astrobiology Field Laboratory) missions are planned to last 300-500 days, and will possibly involve traverses on the order of multiple kilometers over challenging terrain. This paper presents a unified coherent framework called SMART (System for Mobility and Access to Rough Terrain) that uses game theoretical algorithms running onboard a planetary surface rover to safeguard rover health during rough terrain access. SMART treats rover motion, task planning, and resource management as a Two Person Zero Sum Game (TPZSG), where the rover is one player opposed by the other player called "nature" representing uncertainty in sensing and prediction of the internal and external environments. We also present preliminary results of some field studies.

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

mobile robots
all terrain mobility
robot control
reconfigurable robots


Analysis of fragmented time directionality in time series to elucidate feedbacks in climate data Fragmented time directionality in climate time series may be the signature of feedback. Fragmented time directionality can be tested with randomization tests implemented in the R package FeedbackTS. We identified feedback using historical Australian rainfall data. We identified temporal changes in feedback around the year 1960. We identified spatial variation in feedback across Australia.

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

extreme rainfall
feedbackts package
kriging
randomization test
r statistical software
time reversibility


Demosaicing using optimal recovery Color images in single-chip digital cameras are obtained by interpolating mosaiced color samples. These samples are encoded in a single-chip charge-coupled device by sampling the light after it passes through a color filter array (CIA) that contains different color filters (i.e., red, green, and blue) placed in some pattern. The resulting sparsely sampled images of the three-color planes are interpolated to obtain the complete color image. Interpolation usually introduces color artifacts due to the phase-shifted, aliased signals introduced by the sparse sampling of the CFAs. This paper introduces a nonlinear interpolation scheme based on edge information that produces high-quality visual results. The new method is especially good at reconstructing the image around edges, a place where the visual human system is most sensitive.

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

denoising
image modeling
quadratic classes


towards real-time integration Today, most developers work in parallel inside private workspaces to ensure stability during programming, but this provokes isolation from what co-workers are doing. Isolation may result in conflicts, which must be detected as early as possible to avoid bugs and expensive rework. Currently, frequent integration and awareness are used for early conflict detection. Frequent integration detects actual conflicts using automated builds, although only when merging checked in changes. Awareness informs about ongoing changes in private workspaces, however developers must find actual conflicts by themselves. This paper proposes the novel concept of real-time integration . This automates the detection of actual conflicts emerging during programming, involving checked in and ongoing changes, and affecting two or more developers. Cooperative resolution of conflicts is explicitly supported by sharing fine-grained changes among private workspaces. Software versions will also improve quality as integration builds are run before checking in.

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

cooperative work
continuous integration
real-time integration


discovering controlling factors of geospatial variables Efficient means of determining factors controlling spatial distribution of an environmental class variable are of significant interest in Earth science. In this paper, we present a method for automated discovery of controlling factors by mining for emerging patterns in a database constructed from the fusion of several explanatory datasets. We introduce a new definition of pattern support to account for spatial character of the data and systematically evaluate the effectiveness of our technique using a real-world application pertaining to density of vegetation cover. Experimental results show that our method can successfully identify controlling factors for the presence of high vegetation cover.

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


Identification of prognostic factors with multivariate survival data Multivariate survival data arises when subjects in the same group are related to each other or when there are multiple recurrences of the disease in the same subject. A common goal of survival analysis is to relate the outcome (time to event) to a set of covariates. In this paper, we focus on prognostic classification for multivariate survival data where identifying subgroups of patients with similar prognosis is of interest. We propose a computationally feasible method to identify prognostic groups with the widely used Classification and Regression Trees (CART) algorithm. The proposed method extends CART algorithm to multivariate survival data by introducing a gamma frailty to account for dependence among correlated events. The method is applied to a catheter infection data, and the performance of the method is also investigated by several simulation studies.

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


ict infrastructure and scientific research The paper discuses the trends in contemporary science research to massively use the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for their regular activities. The significance of ICT infrastructure as preliminary condition for successful research is analysed. The main European ICT infrastructure projects and their status in Bulgaria are presented. The conditions for successful development of ICT infrastructure for scientific research in Bulgaria are discussed.

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

grid
ict infrastructure
distributed resources
supercomputing
networks


Optimal loading conditions in the design and identification of structures. Part 1: discrete formulation The paper is concerned with a class of structural optimization problems for which loading distribution and orientation are unspecified. The optimal loading conditions correspond to the extremal structural response, which can be used in assessment of structural safety or in generating the maximum structure stiffness or compliance. In identification problems the optimal load distribution is selected in order to minimize the distance norm between model prediction and experimental data. The sensitivity derivatives and optimality conditions are derived in the paper using discretized formulations. The generalized coaxiality conditions of loading and displacement or adjoint displacement vectors generate eigenvalue problems specifying stationary solutions. The paper is illustrated by examples of optimal loading distribution in structure design and identification.

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

sensitivity analysis
structural identification
variable loading conditions


images and perceptions of neighbourhood extents In this paper, we describe an experiment in which we use an online questionnaire to elicit people's perception of the extents of smaller vague regions, such as neighbourhoods. Our approach uses images of street scenes rather than landmarks or placenames.

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


Rendering traditional mosaics This paper discusses the principles of traditional mosaics and describes a technique for implementing a digital mosaicing system. The goal of this work is to transform digital images into traditional mosaic-like renderings. We achieve this effect by recovering free-form feature curves from the image and laying rows of tiles along these curves. Composition rules are applied to merge these tiles into an intricate jigsaw that conforms to classical mosaic styles. Mosaic rendering offers the user flexibility over every aspect of this craft, including tile arrangement, shapes, and colors. The result is a system that makes this wonderful craft more flexible and widely accessible than previously possible.

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 O O O

nonphotorealistic rendering
offset curves
voronoi diagrams


Continuous reinforcement learning to robust fault tolerant control for a class of unknown nonlinear systems Proposing two robust adaptive FTC systems based on machine learning approaches. Presenting adaptation laws in the sense of the proposed Lyapunov function. Using an intelligent observer for unknown nonlinear systems in presence of faults. Adapting the critic and actor of continuous RL based on the Lyapunov function.

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

fault tolerant control
continuous reinforcement learning

neural network
actor-critic learning
adaptive control
variable structure control


A simulation framework for priority scheduling on heterogeneous clusters Trace driven cluster management framework for priority scheduling is proposed. Tradeoff between evictions and response time of priorities is analyzed. Effects of different eviction policies are explored by trace driven simulations. Workload-aware system is proposed to improve response time of heterogeneous workloads.

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

resource (in)efficiency
task eviction
workload heterogeneity


portable performance of data parallel languages A portable program executes on different platforms and yields consistent performance. With the focus on portability, this paper presents an in-depth study of the performance of three NAS benchmarks (EP, MG, FT) compiled with three commercial HPF compilers (APR, PGI, IBM) on the IBM SP2. Each benchmark is evaluated in two versions: using DO loops and using F90 constructs and/or HPF's Forall statement. Base-line comparison is provided by versions of the benchmarks written in Fortran/MPI and ZPL, a data parallel language developed at the University of Washington.While some F90/Forall programs achieve scalable performance with some compilers, the results indicate a considerable portability problem in HPF programs. Two sources for the problem are identified. First, Fortran's semantics require extensive analysis and optimization to arrive at a parallel program; therefore relying on the compiler's capability alone leads to unpredictable performance. Second, the wide differences in the parallelization strategies used by each compiler may require an HPF program to be customized for the particular compiler. While improving compiler optimizations may help to reduce some performance variations, the results suggest that the foremost criteria for portability is a concise performance model that the compiler must adhere to and that the users can rely on.

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

help portability benchmark analysis performance paper program strategies users zpl parallel language nas hpf

platform
scalability
performance model
comparisons
- compiler optimization
semantic
optimality
data paraller language
variation
custom
mpi
compilation
version
data parallelism
consistency


Chest wall segmentation in automated 3D breast ultrasound scans In this paper, we present an automatic method to segment the chest wall in automated 3D breast ultrasound images. Determining the location of the chest wall in automated 3D breast ultrasound images is necessary in computer-aided detection systems to remove automatically detected cancer candidates beyond the chest wall and it can be of great help for inter- and intra-modal image registration. We show that the visible part of the chest wall in an automated 3D breast ultrasound image can be accurately modeled by a cylinder. We fit the surface of our cylinder model to a set of automatically detected rib-surface points. The detection of the rib-surface points is done by a classifier using features representing local image intensity patterns and presence of rib shadows. Due to attenuation of the ultrasound signal, a clear shadow is visible behind the ribs. Evaluation of our segmentation method is done by computing the distance of manually annotated rib points to the surface of the automatically detected chest wall. We examined the performance on images obtained with the two most common 3D breast ultrasound devices in the market. In a dataset of 142 images, the average mean distance of the annotated points to the segmented chest wall was 5.593.08mm.

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

chest wall segmentation
automated 3d breast ultrasound


Optimal multilevel redundancy allocation in series and series-parallel systems To achieve truly optimal system reliability, the design of a complex system must address multilevel reliability configuration concerns at the earliest possible design stage, to ensure that appropriate degrees of reliability are allocated to every unit at all levels. However, the current practice of allocating reliability at a single level leads to inferior optimal solutions, particularly in the class of multilevel redundancy allocation problems. Multilevel redundancy allocation optimization problems frequently occur in optimizing the system reliability Of Multilevel systems. It has been found that a modular scheme of redundancy allocation in multilevel systems not only enhances system reliability but also provides fault tolerance to the optimum design. Therefore, to increase the efficiency, reliability and maintainability of a multilevel reliability system, the design engineer has to shift away from the traditional focus on component redundancy, and deal more effectively with issues pertaining to modular redundancy. This paper proposes a method for optimizing modular redundancy allocation in two types of multilevel reliability configurations, series and series-parallel. A modular design variable is defined to handle modular redundancy in these two types of multilevel redundancy allocation problem. A customized genetic algorithm, namely, a hierarchical genetic algorithm (HGA), is applied to solve the modular redundancy allocation optimization problems, in which the design variables are coded as hierarchical genotypes. These hierarchical genotypes are represented by two nodal genotypes, ordinal and terminal. Using these two genotypes is extremely effective, since this allows representation of all possible modular configurations. The numerical examples solved in this paper demonstrate the efficacy of a customized HGA in optimizing the multilevel system reliability. Additionally, the results obtained in this paper indicate that achieving modular redundancy in series and series-parallel systems provides significant advantages when compared with component redundancy. The demonstrated methodology also indicates that future research may yield significantly better solutions to the technological challenges of designing more fault-tolerant systems that provide improved reliability and lower lifecycle cost. (c) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

redundancy allocation
modular redundancy
component redundancy

multilevel series system
multilevel series-parallel
genetic algorithms


Knowledge patterns and spatial dynamics of industrial districts in knowledge cities: Hsinchu, Taiwan The paper argues the strategic role of knowledge or industrial districts in increasing the competitiveness of knowledge cities. This paper analyzes the correlation between the spatial dynamics of knowledge in major industries and innovation. The paper puts Hsinchu region under the knowledge pattern and spatial dynamics microscope.

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

industrial district
knowledge districts
knowledge city


Raster space with relativity Practical needs in geographical information systems (GIS) have led to the investigation of formal, sound and computational methods for spatial analysis. Since models based on topology of R-2 have a serious problem of incapability of being applied directly for practical computations, we have noticed that models developed on the raster space can overcome this problem. Because some models based on vector spaces have been effectively used in practical applications, we then introduce the idea of using the raster space as our platform to study spatial entities of vector spaces. In this paper, we use raster spaces to study not only morphological changes of spatial entities of vector spaces, but also equal relations and connectedness of spatial entities of vector spaces. Based on the discovery that all these concepts contain relativity, we then introduce several new concepts, such as observable equivalence, strong connectedness, and weak connectedness. Additionally, we present a possible method of employing raster spaces to study spatial relations of spatial entities of vector spaces. Since the traditional raster spaces could not be used directly, we first construct a new model, called pansystems model, for the concept of raster spaces, then develop a procedure to convert a representation of a spatial entity in vector spaces to that of the spatial entity in a raster space. Such conversions are called approximation mappings.

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


Benchmarking of Dynamic Bayesian Networks Inferred from Stochastic Time-Series Data We seek to quantify the failure and success of dynamic Bayesian networks (DBNs), a popular tool for reverse-engineering networks from time-series data. In particular, we focus on data generated by continuous time processes (e.g., genetic expression) and sampled at discrete times. To facilitate analysis and interpretation, we employ a minimal model to generate arbitrary abundances of stochastic data from networks of known topologies, which are then sub-sampled and in some cases interpolated. We find that DBNs perform relatively poorly when given data sets comparable to those used for genetic network inference. Interpolation does not appear to improve inference success. Finally, we contrast the performance of DBNs with results from linear regression on our synthetic data

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

benchmarking
dynamic bayesian networks
stochastic
network inference


Revisiting the RossbyHaurwitz wave test case with contour advection This paper re-examines a basic test case used for spherical shallow-water numerical models, and underscores the need for accurate, high resolution models of atmospheric and ocean dynamics. The RossbyHaurwitz test case, first proposed by Williamson et al. [D.L. Williamson, J.B. Drake, J.J. Hack, R. Jakob, P.N. Swarztrauber, A standard test set for numerical approximations to the shallow-water equations on the sphere, J. Comput. Phys. (1992) 221224], has been examined using a wide variety of shallow-water models in previous papers. Here, two contour-advective semi-Lagrangian (CASL) models are considered, and results are compared with previous test results. We go further by modifying this test case in a simple way to initiate a rapid breakdown of the basic wave state. This breakdown is accompanied by the formation of sharp potential vorticity gradients (fronts), placing far greater demands on the numerics than the original test case does. We also go further by examining other dynamical fields besides the height and potential vorticity, to assess how well the models deal with gravity waves. Such waves are sensitive to the presence or not of sharp potential vorticity gradients, as well as to numerical parameter settings. In particular, large time steps (convenient for semi-Lagrangian schemes) can seriously affect gravity waves but can also have an adverse impact on the primary fields of height and velocity. These problems are exacerbated by a poor resolution of potential vorticity gradients.

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

shallow-water equations
spherical geometry
rossby waves


Efficient heuristics for orientation metric and Euclidean Steiner tree problems We consider Steiner minimum trees (SMT) in the plane, where only orientations with angle i pi/o, 0 less than or equal to i less than or equal to sigma - 1 and sigma an integer, are allowed. The orientations define a metric, called the orientation metric, lambda(sigma), in a natural way. In particular, lambda(2) metric is the rectilinear metric and the Euclidean metric can be regarded as lambda(infinity) metric. In this paper, we provide a method to find an optimal lambda(sigma) SMT for 3 or 4 points by analyzing the topology of lambda(sigma) SMT's in great details. Utilizing these results and based on the idea of loop detection first proposed in Chao and Hsu, IEEE Trans. CAD, vol. 13, no. 3, pp. 303-309, 1994, we further develop an O(n(2)) time heuristic for the general lambda(sigma) SMT problem, including the Euclidean metric. Experiments performed on publicly available benchmark data for 12 different metrics, plus the Euclidean metric, demonstrate the efficiency of our algorithms and the quality of our results.

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

steiner tree problems
orientation metric
rectilinear metric
euclidean metric
heuristics


Operations fitting triangular-norm-based biresiduation Given a t-norm T and the corresponding biresiduation (T). An Operation K fits the latter (or shortly, is fitting) if (T) is respected by K in all its arguments. In this paper, the structure of fitting operations is investigated. Special attention is paid to the case of basic t-norms. The connection between the fitting property and the Lipschitz property is stressed. Some examples are given. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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

residuation
fitting operation
implication
triangular norm


Preparation of multi-qubit W states in multiple resonators coupled by a superconducting qubit via adiabatic passage We propose an efficient scheme to prepare W state of \(N\) superconducting (SC) qubits in \(N\) spatially separated coplanar waveguide (CPW) resonators via adiabatic passage. The \(N\) CPW resonators, each trapping a SC qubit, are coupled only by a superconducting coupler (SCC) qubit. Based on a circuit quantum electrodynamics system, our scheme can be controlled and implemented easily in experiment. As a model of a plurality of separated cavities coupled to a SCC qubit, our protocol can be useful in scalable distributed quantum networks. By introducing adiabatic passage into our model, there is no need to control the Rabi frequency of classical field and the interaction time precisely during the whole operation. Also, the dissipation from the resonators and the energy relaxation can be omitted approximately.

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

w entangled state
circuit quantum electrodynamics (qed)
adiabatic technology


Analyzing User Behavior across Social Sharing Environments In this work we present an in-depth analysis of the user behaviors on different Social Sharing systems. We consider three popular platforms, Flickr, Delicious and StumbleUpon, and, by combining techniques from social network analysis with techniques from semantic analysis, we characterize the tagging behavior as well as the tendency to create friendship relationships of the users of these platforms. The aim of our investigation is to see if (and how) the features and goals of a given Social Sharing system reflect on the behavior of its users and, moreover, if there exists a correlation between the social and tagging behavior of the users. We report our findings in terms of the characteristics of user profiles according to three different dimensions: (i) intensity of user activities, (ii) tag-based characteristics of user profiles, and (iii) semantic characteristics of user profiles.

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

design
experimentation
human factors
social networks
folksonomies
social systems
user modeling


Recent progress in modeling neural mechanisms of form and color vision Over the past 10 years a neural modeling approach to understanding form and color vision has driven a productive research program of psychophysical and neurophysiological modeling as well as further theoretical development. Along the way, it has led to psychophysical experiments and image-processing applications. This work has helped us to better understand how we can percieve surface colors to be constant despite environmental variablity through neural mechansims of contrast measurement and filling-in, how patterns of recurrent excitatory and inhibitory cortical connectivity can interact to segregate forms despite camouflage and occlusion, how these neural representations of forms can be dynamically reset so that we can perceive rapidly changing scenes, and how learned recognition categories can interact with preattentive form and color representations to achieve efficient visual search. This paper discusses this neural modeling approach and reviews recent progress. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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

bcs/fcs
illusory contours
segmentation
grouping
persistence


A process monitoring method based on noisy independent component analysis ? Independent component analysis (ICA) is an effective feature extraction tool for process monitoring. However, the conventional ICA-based process monitoring methods usually adopt noise-free ICA models and thus may perform unsatisfactorily under the adverse effects of the measurement noise. In this paper, a process monitoring method using a new noisy independent component analysis, referred to as NoisyICAn, is proposed. Using the noisy ICA model which considers the measurement noise explicitly, a NoisyICAn algorithm is developed to estimate the mixing matrix by setting up a series of the fourth-order cumulant matrices of the measured data and performing the joint diagonalization of these matrices. The kurtosis relationships of the independent components and measured variables are subsequently obtained based on the estimated mixing matrix, for recursively estimating the kurtosis of independent components. Two monitoring statistics are then built to detect process faults using the obtained recursive estimate of the independent components' kurtosis. The simulation studies are carried out on a simple three-variable system and a continuous stirred tank reactor system, and the results obtained demonstrate that the proposed NoisyICAn-based monitoring method outperforms the conventional noise-free ICA-based monitoring methods as well as the benchmark monitoring methods based on the existing noisy ICA schemes adopted from blind source separation, in terms of the fault detection time and local fault detection rate.

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

process monitoring
independent component analysis
kurtosis
fault detection time
fault detection rate


using mini-flash crowds to infer resource constraints in remote web servers Unexpected surges in request traffic (e.g., flash crowds) can exercise server-side resources such as access bandwidth, CPU, and disks in unanticipated ways. Administrators today do not have the requisite tools to fully understand the effect that flash crowds can have on server-side resources. As a result, most Web-servers today rely on significant over-provisioning, strict admission control, or alternatively use potentially expensive solutions like CDNs to provide high availability under load. A more fine-grained understanding of the performance of servers under emulated but controlled flash crowd like conditions can guide administrators to make more efficient provisioning and resource management decisions. We present the initial design of Mini-Flash Crowds (MFC) -- a light-weight wide-area profiling service that reveals resource bottlenecks in a Web-server infrastructure, including access bandwidth, processing resources, and back-end data management. The MFC approach is based on a set of controlled measurements in which an increasing number of distributed clients make synchronized requests to exercise specific resources of a remote server. Using a number of wide-area experiments and controlled lab tests, we show that our approach can faithfully track the impact of request loads on different server resources. Our approach is non-intrusive and thus we can use it to actively probe numerous live Web servers. We present the results from a preliminary measurement study of resource provisioning on public Web servers.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 field study of database communication issues peculiar to users of a voice activated medical tracking application This paper investigates database communication issues peculiar to users of a voice activated medical tracking application (VAMTA). Specifically, this study investigates voice activated userdatabase interaction, in terms of user gender, speech speed in words per minute (WPM) and technical computer experience of the users. A VAMTA device is employed to help solve the business and clinical needs of medical personnel, and to help them facilitate communication and interaction with database systems and designers, who are interested in improving technical specifications. The VAMTA device was integrated into a Dragon Naturally Speaking commercial system. The ability of the VAMTA to interact effectively and efficiently with the database of medical patient signs and symptoms has enhanced the productive usage of database systems that are vital components of the medical organization information systems. In this paper, we address the communication issues in voice activated userdatabase interaction and the philosophical perspectives of database modeling, by identifying gender and experience factors as important barriers and issues that must be further investigated to improve communication between user and database systems. Our research studies the impact of user's gender, speech speed in WPM and user's computer experience on the performance of a speech recognition system. We also investigated the interactive effects of gender and user, user and WPM, and gender and WPM. Our research investigates 33 users; a voice activated medical tracking application and a mobile healthcare fieldwork environment. The field study suggests that VAMTA can be applied to either an emergency medical services or preventative care setting. We illustrate that the user's gender and computer experience has a significant impact (p<0.05) on the use of voice interface as an input to a medical database of patient signs and symptoms. WPM and the interaction of gender and WPM show a weak impact (p<0.10) on system performance.

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

voice activation
humancomputer interaction
decision support system


Automatic detection of blue-white veil and related structures in dermoscopy images Dermoscopy is a non-invasive skin imaging technique, which permits visualization of features of pigmented melanocytic neoplasms that are not discernable by examination with the naked eye. One of the most important features for the diagnosis of melanoma in dermoscopy images is the blue-white veil (irregular, structureless areas of confluent blue pigmentation with an overlying white ground-glass film). In this article, we present a machine learning approach to the detection of blue-white veil and related structures in dermoscopy images. The method involves contextual pixel classification using a decision tree classifier. The percentage of blue-white areas detected in a lesion combined with a simple shape descriptor yielded a sensitivity of 69.35% and a specificity of 89.97% on a set of 545 dermoscopy images. The sensitivity rises to 78.20% for detection of blue veil in those cases where it is a primary feature for melanoma recognition.

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

melanoma
dermoscopy
contextual pixel classification
decision tree classifier


Rainwater harvesting system using a non-parametric stochastic rainfall generator With water becoming an even scarcer resource, rainwater harvesting (RWH) systems are becoming increasingly more commonplace as mechanisms to capture and store rainwater for both agricultural and domestic use. Three important engineering considerations associated with the construction of RWH systems are the capture surface area, the tank volume required for specific demand levels, and the number of expected occupants. The purpose of this work is to evaluate the engineering design of a RWH system in a semi-arid Texas region using a non-parametric stochastic rainfall generator based on 64 years of data and to provide engineering charts and equations for future use. We model the RWH system using simulation techniques in order to estimate requirements for building a system capable of providing a family with 100% of its water requirements with demand never exceeding available supply (100% demand satisfaction).

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

stochastic modeling
systems simulation
sustainability development


Triangular matrices, differential resultants and systems of linear homogeneous PDE's In this: paper, it is shown that if we consider an upper triangular form T(RM) of RM using only row operations, then the differential resultants with respect to a permutation a can be defined as divisors of the entries of T(RM) in the last column and in the rows with only a nonzero entry. Furthermore, a triangular form for the system is provided. Unfortunately the corresponding system is not always completely integrable, on the other hand such triangular form is useful for finding the integrability conditions. (C) 1998 IMACS/Elsevier Science B.V.

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

homogeneous linear pde
triangular matrix


Throughput analysis and bandwidth allocation for IEEE 802.11 WLAN with hidden terminals Motivated by observations from real world wireless local area network (WLAN) deployments, we develop in this paper a novel analytical model to characterize the saturation throughput of an IEEE 802.11-based access point (AP) and stations under the influence of hidden terminals. Unlike existing models, our model can accommodate different numbers of hidden nodes without increasing the model complexity. Given any number of hidden nodes, only four constraints are needed to describe the interaction between stations and the AP with the consideration of both uplink and downlink traffic. Simulation evaluation shows that our model predicts network performance accurately over a wide range of network sizes and indicates the existence of a throughput starvation problem. To address this problem, based on our model, we formulate a bandwidth allocation problem to optimize the network throughput and fairness under some predefined requirements by systematically tuning the AP and stations contention windows. Simulation results show that the starvation problem is resolved with our approach, and the target throughput is met. (C) 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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

analytical modelling
ieee 802.11 wlan
contention window tuning


High-resolution detection of sustained ventricular and supraventricular tachycardia through FPGA-based fuzzy processing of ECG signal The paper presents a field-programmable gate array (FPGA)-based fast processing system with 12-channel high-resolution (24 bits) front-end for ECG signal processing. The implemented high-resolution data conversion makes the system suitable for recording of late potentials of the QRS complex in patients prone to sustained ventricular tachycardia. The system accepts ECG signals through 12 channels and then filtered to minimize baseline wander and power-line interference. The filter outputs are connected to 12 delta-sigma ADCs. The whole ADCs work synchronously at 8kHz sampling frequency, and their output data are transferred to an FPGA that computes online on the digitized sample values in real time and ascertains whether the patient under study suffers from ventricular tachycardia or not. In order to ascertain the QRS complex accurately in the noisy ECG signal, fuzzy entropy of the sample values has been computed and provided as an input to inverse multiquadratic radial basis function neural network. Using the standard CSE ECG database, the algorithm performed highly effectively. The performance of the algorithm in respect of QRS detection with sensitivity of 99.83% and accuracy of 99.7% is achieved when tested using single-channel ECG with entropy criteria. The performance of the QRS detection system has been compared and found to be better than most of the QRS detection systems available in the literature. Using the system, 200 patients have been diagnosed with an accuracy of 99%.

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

field-programmable gate array
differential diagnosis


Generalized sparse MRF appearance models ? Image segmentation or registration approaches that rely on a local search paradigm (e.g, Active Appearance Models, Active Contours) require an initialization that provides for considerable overlap or a coarse localization of the object to be segmented or localized. In this paper we propose an approach that does not need such an initialization, but localizes anatomical structures in a global manner by formulating the localization task as the solution of a Markov Random Field (MRF). During search Sparse MRF Appearance Models (SAMs) relate a priori information about the geometric configuration of landmarks and local appearance features to a set of candidate points in the target image. They encode the correspondence probabilities as an MRF, and the search in the target image is equivalent to solving the MRF. The resulting node labels define a mapping of the modeled object (e.g. a sequence of vertebrae) to the target image interest points. The local appearance information is captured by novel symmetry-based interest points and local descriptors derived from Gradient Vector Flow (GVF). Alternatively, arbitrary interest points can be used. Experimental results are reported for two data-sets showing the applicability to complex medical data. The approach does not require initialization and finds the most plausible match of the query structure in the entire image. It provides for precise, reliable and fast localization of the structure.

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

markov random fields
object localization
medical imaging


International comparative study on nanofiltration membrane technology based on relevant publications and patents This study adopts a bibliometric approach to quantitatively assess current research trends in nanofiltration membrane technology (NFM), a new membrane separation technology widely used in various fields. It analyses scientific papers published between 19882011 in all journals contained in the Science Citation Index and patent data with the same time span from the Derwent patent database. The study examines developments in basic NFM research and technological innovations. Over the past 24years, there has been a notable growth in publication outputs. Compared with other countries, China exhibited a rapid growth, particularly from 20002011, with its total number of papers ranking second only to the United States (US). Chinese NFM papers focus on energy and agriculture, while the US focuses on biochemistry and molecular biology. China holds the most global NFM patents, with rapid growth in patent numbers from 20052011. China, the US and Japan together hold 78% of the total global NFM patents and have a strong technological advantage in water treatment and separation technology. Although there are four Chinese institutions in the top 10 patentee list, most are application patents that focus on the integrated application of existing nanofiltration membrane. In contrast the patents owned by foreign patentees are mostly research patents involving technology innovations of the nanofiltration membrane itself. Therefore, NFM research capacity in China should be further strengthened to maximize the advantages gained via research to date.

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

nanofiltration membrane (nfm)
output of science and technology
bibliometric analysis


Model order reduction using spline-based dynamic multi-point rational interpolation for passive circuits The efficient modeling of integrated passive components and interconnects is vital for the realization of high performance mixed-signal systems. In this paper, we develop a dynamic multi-point rational interpolation method based on Krylov subspace techniques to generate reduced order models for passive components and interconnects that are accurate across a wide-range of frequencies. We dynamically select interpolation points by applying a cubic spline-based algorithm to detect complex regions in the system's frequency response. The results indicate that our method provides greater accuracy than techniques that apply uniform interpolation points.

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

multi-shift arnoldi
spline interpolation
spiral inductors


The quadratic compression method for model updating and its noise filtering properties The paper presents the quadratic compression method (QCM) method for model updating. The modelling error is defined in the parametric set-up, i.e. with pre-specified principal submatrices multiplied by unknown scalar parameters. The optimal parameters are obtained by minimising the error in a squared down version of the eigenvalue equation, thus with reduced computation. The method is shown to belong to the class of Minimisation of the Error in the Characteristic Equation, with a particular choice of the weighting matrix. Analysis of the propagation of the noise into the identified parameters reveals that QCM has desirable noise filtering properties. The paper presents also a weighted version of the method, called WQCM, which is motivated by further reducing the effect of measurement noise. In addition to the theoretical analysis, the superior robustness to noise properties of QCM and WQCM are demonstrated by simulations and experimentally.

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


Infection dynamics on the Internet In previous works, the connectivity of nodes in social networks such as the Internet has been shown to follow a scale-free distribution in which there is a larger probability of nodes with lower connectivity and a smaller probability of nodes with higher connectivity. This network structure facilitates communication but also aids in the propagation of viruses. In this work, solutions have been obtained for a dynamical mean-field equation that characterizes virus infections and growth in scale-free networks. In contrast to previous findings, a threshold condition has been found for the persistence of computer infections. The effect of connectivity-dependent growth and recovery rates is also reported. It has been found that it is possible to reduce the deleterious effects of viruses by preferentially discouraging growth and enhancing recovery in high-connectivity nodes. Significantly, a security figure-of-merit has been derived that will allow network administrators to sample their environment in real time and measure the risk relative to E-mail-borne threats.

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


A new hybrid evolutionary based RBF networks method for forecasting time series: A case study of forecasting emergency supply demand time series This paper presents a new hybrid evolutionary based RBF networks method for forecasting time series. A new hybrid evolutionary algorithm is developed to determine both architecture and network parameters of radial basis functions neural networks simultaneously. The applicability and capability are demonstrated for several existing benchmark time series modeling and algorithms. The proposed method is applied for forecasting emergency supply demand time series.

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

time series prediction
radial basis function networks
evolutionary algorithms
demand forecasting
natural disaster


On upper bounds for toroidal mosaic numbers In this paper, we construct mosaic representations of knots on the torus, rather than in the plane. This consists of a particular choice of the ambient group \(\mathbb{A }\), as well as different Definitions of contiguous and suitably connected. We present conditions under which mosaic numbers might decrease by this projection, and present a tool (called waste) to measure this reduction. We show that the order of edge identification in construction of the torus sometimes yields different resultant knots from a given mosaic when reversed. Additionally, in the Appendix we give the catalog of all torus \(2\)-mosaics.

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

quantum knots
knot theory
quantum computation
quantum algorithms
primary: 81p68
57m25
81p15
57m27
secondary: 20c35


porting a distributed meeting system to the eclipse communication framework eConference is a text-based conferencing tool that supports distributed teams in need for synchronous communication and structured discussion services. Other than offering communication services, it integrates an agenda and minutes editor, plus other control and coordination features, like hand raising and threaded discussion. The current version of the tool is based on Eclipse RCP and uses the eXtensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) as the only communication infrastructure. The goal of this paper is presenting a work-in-progress to port the eConference tool on the Eclipse Communication Framework (ECF), which will enables us to abstract from the underlying communication protocol, provide better decoupling among components, and build additional team-support services.

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

xmpp
eclipse rcp
eclipse communication framework


A Novel Interface for Interactive Exploration of DTI Fibers Visual exploration is essential to the visualization and analysis of densely sampled 3D DTI fibers in biological speciments, due to the high geometric, spatial, and anatomical complexity of fiber tracts. Previous methods for DTI fiber visualization use zooming, color-mapping, selection, and abstraction to deliver the characteristics of the fibers. However, these schemes mainly focus on the optimization of visualization in the 3D space where cluttering and occlusion make grasping even a few thousand fibers difficult. This paper introduces a novel interaction method that augments the 3D visualization with a 2D representation containing a low-dimensional embedding of the DTI fibers. This embedding preserves the relationship between the fibers and removes the visual clutter that is inherent in 3D renderings of the fibers. This new interface allows the user to manipulate the DTI fibers as both 3D curves and 2D embedded points and easily compare or validate his or her results in both domains. The implementation of the framework is GPU-based to achieve real-time interaction. The framework was applied to several tasks, and the results show that our method reduces the user's workload in recognizing 3D DTI fibers and permits quick and accurate DTI fiber selection.

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

diffusion tensor imaging
fiber clustering
visualization interface


On connected Boolean functions A Boolean function is called (co-)connected if the subgraph of the Boolean hypercube induced by its (false) true points is connected; it is called strongly connected if it is both connected and co-connected. The concept of (co-)geodetic Boolean functions is defined in a similar way by requiring that at least one of the shortest paths connecting two (false) true points should consist only of (false) true points. This concept is further strengthened to that of convexity where every shortest path connecting two points of the same kind should consist of points of the same kind. This paper studies the relationships between these properties and the DNF representations of the associated Boolean functions.

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

disjunctive normal form
monotone
unate
boolean convexity
connectedness
geodetic
recognition
computational complexity


What we know about dyslexia and Web accessibility: a research review Compared to the online interaction behavior of other users, little is known about the difficulties dyslexic Web users encounter online. This paper reviews existing literature at the intersection of dyslexia and accessibility research to determine what useful knowledge exists regarding this important and relatively large group of users. This review uncovers that, although there are few published usability tests with dyslexic users, there is a considerable body of knowledge on dyslexia as well as many design guidelines for authoring dyslexic-accessible interfaces. Through a comparison of existing accessibility guidelines for dyslexic and non-dyslexic users and discussion of the plain language movement, it is argued that dyslexic-accessible practices may redress difficulties encountered by all Internet users. This conclusion suggests that usability testing yielding a clearer profile of the dyslexic user would further inform the practice of universal design, but also that enough knowledge is already available to allow doing more to increase accessibility for dyslexic Internet users.

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

dyslexia
accessibility
usability
universal design


Improving broadcast reliability for neighbor discovery, link estimation and collection tree construction in wireless sensor networks Neighbor Discovery and Link Estimation (NDLE) phase and Collection Tree Construction (CTC) phase are essential for correct and efficient operation of network protocols. However, the accuracy of these phases is highly affected by packet collisions, because CSMA is used for access arbitration and it does not support collision avoidance with broadcast transmissions. To improve NDLE accuracy: (i) We propose contention window adjustment mechanisms that rely on collision detection through the capture effect. In contrast to the existing approaches that utilize a long inter-packet duration for collision avoidance, the proposed mechanisms do not depend on network configuration and can provide adaptive collision avoidance with respect to the local collision intensity. (ii) We propose a mathematical model through which the MAC protocol can be configured to achieve a desired broadcasting success probability. (iii) We investigate and show the potential benefits of exploiting partially recovered packets during the NDLE phase. To improve CTC accuracy, we propose the Geowindow algorithm, which reduces packet collisions through contention window size management and transmission prioritization. Our results show that the Geowindow algorithm can improve the efficiency of the TinyOSs Collection Tree Protocol up to 74% in terms of tree cost, without increasing duration or energy consumption. Also, it can improve the packet delivery performance up to 70% in data gathering scenarios. The proposed MAC mechanisms of this paper are not only suitable for the initialization phases, but they can also be used for NDLE and CTC updates during the regular network operation, as well as other broadcast-based traffic patterns.

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


Face recognition using HOG-EBGM This paper presents a new face recognition algorithm based on the well-known EBGM which replaces Gabor features by HOG descriptors. The recognition results show a better performance of our approach compared to other face recognition approaches using public available databases. This better performance is explained by the properties of HOG descriptors which are more robust to changes in illumination, rotation and small displacements, and to the higher accuracy of the face graphs obtained compared to classical Gabor-EBGM ones. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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


understanding luxury in the premium automotive industry This paper summarises the findings of investigations to date in understanding what luxury and premiumness mean to the high-end automotive consumer. Existing writings on luxury and premiumness are considered. An exploratory study was carried out in two countries using 309 respondents and 18 prestige cars. A "stream of consciousness" approach was used to capture respondent's views on a selection of vehicles. The codified transcripts were used to identify key differences between the top and bottom rated vehicles, in terms of the nature and quantity of emotional responses elicited. This paper describes some of these key product differences that were self-reported to impact upon a luxury response. Finally, suggestions are made as to the next steps required for this research.

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


a service-oriented middleware for providing context awareness and notification In the last few years context awareness has emerged as an important element in distributed computing. It offers mechanisms that allow applications to be aware of their environment and enable these applications to adjust their behavior to the current context. Considering the dynamic nature of context, the data flow of relevant contextual information can be significant. In order to keep track of this information flow, a flexible service mechanism should be available for the client applications. In this document we propose a demonstration of the Awareness and Notification Service (ANS) middleware. ANS provides context-awareness capabilities to users and client applications. The conditions for the notification and the notification itself are defined in rules that users submit to the service by means of a convenient rule language.

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


Automatic generation of basic behavior schemas from UML class diagrams The specification of a software system must include all relevant static and dynamic aspects of the domain. Dynamic aspects are usually specified by means of a behavioral schema consisting of a set of system operations that the user may execute to update the system state. To be useful, such a set must be complete (i.e. through these operations, users should be able to modify the population of all elements in the class diagram) and executable (i.e. for each operation, there must exist a system state over which the operation can be successfully applied). A manual specification of these operations is an error-prone and time-consuming activity. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to present a strategy for the automatic generation of a basic behavior schema. Operations in the schema are drawn from the static aspects of the domain as defined in the UML class diagram and take into account possible dependencies among them to ensure the completeness and executability of the operations. We believe our approach is especially useful in a Model-Driven Development setting, where the full implementation of the system is derived from its specification. In this context, our approach facilitates the definition of the behavioral specification and ensures its quality obtaining, as a result, an improved code generation phase.

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

behavior schema
operation
class diagram
uml


On the balancedness of nonlinear generators of binary sequences A simple method of computing the number of 1's in the binary sequences obtained from combination generators has been developed. The procedure, which is based exclusively on the particular form of the combining function, can be applied to standard generators proposed and published in the open literature. As a straight consequence of this method, simple rules to design generators producing balanced (quasi-balanced) sequences are also derived. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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

lfsr-based generators
minterm
cryptography


On the Fly Estimation of the Processes that Are Alive in an Asynchronous Message-Passing System It is well known that in an asynchronous system where processes are prone to crash, it is impossible to design a protocol that provides each process with the set of processes that are currently alive. Basically, this comes from the fact that it is impossible to distinguish a crashed process from a process that is very slow or with which communications are very slow. Nevertheless, designing protocols that provide the processes with good approximations of the set of processes that are currently alive remains a real challenge in fault-tolerant-distributed computing. This paper proposes such a protocol, plus a second protocol that allows to cope with heterogeneous communication networks. These protocols consider a realistic computation model where the processes are provided with nonsynchronized local clocks and a function alpha() that takes a local duration Delta as a parameter, and returns an integer that is an estimate of the number of processes that could have crashed during that duration Delta. A simulation-based experimental evaluation of the proposed protocols is also presented. These experiments show that the protocols are practically relevant.

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 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

asynchronous system
nonsynchronized local clocks

approximation protocol
coverage assumption
crash failure
crash detection
fault-tolerance
message passing


The packing coloring of distance graphs D(k,t) D ( k , t ) The packing chromatic number ??(G) ? ? ( G ) of a graph G G is the smallest integer p p such that vertices of G G can be partitioned into disjoint classes X1,,Xp X 1 , , X p where vertices in Xi X i have pairwise distance between them greater than i i . For k<t k < t we study the packing chromatic number of infinite distance graphs D(k,t) D ( k , t ) , i.e.graphs with the set Z Z of integers as vertex set and in which two distinct vertices i,j?Z i , j ? Z are adjacent if and only if |i?j|?{k,t} | i ? j | ? { k , t } . We generalize results given by Ekstein et al. for graphs D(1,t) D ( 1 , t ) . For sufficiently large t t we prove that ??(D(k,t))?30 ? ? ( D ( k , t ) ) ? 30 for both k k and t t odd, and that ??(D(k,t))?56 ? ? ( D ( k , t ) ) ? 56 for exactly one of k k and t t odd. We also give some upper and lower bounds for ??(D(k,t)) ? ? ( D ( k , t ) ) with small k k and t t .

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

packing coloring
packing chromatic number


Hypergeometric transforms in certain classes of analytic functions In the present investigation, we obtain certain sufficient conditions for special analytic functions to be in the class of normalized analytic functions satisfying the condition R (f'(z)) >= beta | zf ''(z) | for | z |< 1, where beta is a given real number. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

gaussian hypergeometric functions
convex functions
starlike functions
hadamard product
carlson-shaffer operator
hohlov operator


A fuzzy CBR technique for generating product ideas This paper presents a fuzzy CBR (case-based reasoning) technique for generating new product ideas from a product database for enhancing the functions of a given product (called the baseline product). In the database, a product is modeled by a 100-attribute vector, 87 of which are used to model the use-scenario and 13 are used to describe the manufacturing/recycling features. Based on the use-scenario attributes and their relative weights determined by a fuzzy AHP technique, a fuzzy CBR retrieving mechanism is developed to retrieve product-ideas that tend to enhance the functions of the baseline product. Based on the manufacturing/recycling features, a fuzzy CBR mechanism is developed to screen the retrieved product ideas in order to obtain a higher ratio of valuable product ideas. Experiments indicate that the retrieving-and-filtering mechanism outperforms the prior retrieving-only mechanism in terms of generating a higher ratio of valuable product ideas.

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

new product development
case-based reasoning