FPGA Architecture for 2D Discrete Fourier Transform Based on 2D Decomposition for Large-sized Data Applications based on Discrete Fourier Transforms (DFT) are extensively used in several areas of signal and digital image processing. Of particular interest is the two-dimensional (2D) DFT which is more computation- and bandwidth-intensive than the one-dimensional (1D) DFT. Traditionally, a 2D DFT is computed using Row-Column (RC) decomposition, where 1D DFTs are computed along the rows followed by 1D DFTs along the columns. Both application specific and reconfigurable hardware have utilized this scheme for high-performance implementations of 2D DFT. However, architectures based on RC decomposition are not efficient for large input size data due to memory bandwidth constraints. In this paper, we propose an efficient architecture to implement 2D DFT for large-sized input data based on a novel 2D decomposition algorithm. This architecture achieves very high throughput by exploiting the inherent parallelism due to the algorithm decomposition and by utilizing the row-wise burst access pattern of the external memory. A high throughput memory interface has been designed to enable maximum utilization of the memory bandwidth. In addition, an automatic system generator is provided for mapping this architecture onto a reconfigurable platform of Xilinx Virtex-5 devices. For a 2K 2K input size, the proposed architecture is 1.96times faster than RC decomposition based implementation under the same memory constraints, and also outperforms other existing implementations.

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 B O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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-dimensional signal processing
algorithm-architecture co-design


A data-driven test to compare two or multiple time series In this paper, a data-driven test is proposed to compare two independent or dependent stationary time series, in terms of the second order dynamics. We show that the problem of time series comparison is equivalent to a goodness-of-fit test checking if a constant model is adequate. Using the same framework, the proposed test is easily extended to compare multiple time series and time series of different lengths. Different to previous methods, it is based on generalized score statistics in an estimating equation setting, with some weak and flexible conditions. An extensive simulation study illustrates the validity of the asymptotic result and finite sample properties, using the tapered periodogram. The proposed test is found to perform well for many different situations, including time series with heavy-tailed or skewed innovations. An application to damage detection using vibration data is discussed.

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

generalized score
tapered periodogram
stationary time series
vibration data


Robust visual tracking based on interactive multiple model particle filter by integrating multiple cues Visual tracking can be formulated as a state estimation problem of target representation based on observations in image sequences. To investigate the integration of rough models from multiple cue and to explore computationally efficient algorithms, this paper formulates the problem of multiple cue integration and tracking to combine Interactive Multiple Model (IMM) with particle filter (IMM_PF). Interactive Multiple Model can estimate the multiple cue state of a dynamic system with several behavioral models that switch from one to another using model likelihoods and model transition probabilities. For the problem of visual tracking, the model of IMM is adopted to three target observation models: Corrected Background Weighted Histogram (CBWH), Completed Local Ternary Patterns (CLTP) and Histogram of Oriented Gradients (HOG). The probabilities of these models are corresponding to the weights of multiple cues. IMM_PF then dynamically adjusts the weights of different features. Compared with those state-of-the-art methods in the tracking literature, this algorithm can track the object accurately in conditions of rotation, abrupt shifts, as well as clutter and partial occlusions occurring to the tracking object with good robustness, as demonstrated by experimental results.

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

visual tracking
particle filter
interactive multiple model
corrected background weighted histogram
completed local ternary patterns
histogram of oriented gradients


Variational proof of optimality criteria for Michell structures with pre-existing members This note puts forward a direct variational derivation of the optimality criteria of a class of Michell-like structures in which some members are a priori given; an alternative derivation was published in Rozvany et al. (Struct Multidisc Optim 31:373-377, 2006).

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


Tactile display using shape memory alloy micro-coil actuator and magnetic latch mechanism The tactile pins are actuated by an SMA coil actuator and latched by magnetic force. The pins remain in place even if the electrical current to the SMA actuator is cut off by the latch mechanism. The 100-pin tactile display consists of 10 stacked modules and latch parts. The magnetic latch mechanism can control the stroke of the pin accurately without any feedback control. The magnetic latch mechanism realizes lower electrical consumption and high density of the tactile pins.

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

tactile display
sma coil actuator
magnetic latch mechanism


3-D Image Pre-processing Algorithms for Improved Automated Tracing of Neuronal Arbors The accuracy and reliability of automated neurite tracing systems is ultimately limited by image quality as reflected in the signal-to-noise ratio, contrast, and image variability. This paper describes a novel combination of image processing methods that operate on images of neurites captured by confocal and widefield microscopy, and produce synthetic images that are better suited to automated tracing. The algorithms are based on the curvelet transform (for denoising curvilinear structures and local orientation estimation), perceptual grouping by scalar voting (for elimination of non-tubular structures and improvement of neurite continuity while preserving branch points), adaptive focus detection, and depth estimation (for handling widefield images without deconvolution). The proposed methods are fast, and capable of handling large images. Their ability to handle images of unlimited size derives from automated tiling of large images along the lateral dimension, and processing of 3-D images one optical slice at a time. Their speed derives in part from the fact that the core computations are formulated in terms of the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT), and in part from parallel computation on multi-core computers. The methods are simple to apply to new images since they require very few adjustable parameters, all of which are intuitive. Examples of pre-processing DIADEM Challenge images are used to illustrate improved automated tracing resulting from our pre-processing methods.

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

image preprocessing
curvelet transform
perceptual grouping
focus detection


Control of port Hamiltonian systems by dissipative devices and its application to improve the semi-active suspension behaviour The port Hamiltonian framework is a powerful tool for modeling a wide class of nonlinear systems such as robots and, more generally, mechatronic systems. The standard approaches used for the control of the port Hamiltonian systems are not applicable to a wide variety of mechatronic systems. This happens, for example, when the input control variable acts directly on some dissipative components of the system. In these cases the controlled devices can only dissipate power and the problem is to find a proper control law in order to meet the control requirements. This paper proposes four control laws for the controlled dissipative components which allow to satisfy a set of control requirements by acting on the energy stored in a subsection of the given system or by controlling the power flowing through a physical section of the system. Although some important issues remain open. the example of the semi-active suspension shows that some positive results can be achieved by applying the proposed approach. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

nonlinear control
automotive control
semi-active suspension


hybrid results merging The problem of results merging in distributed information retrieval environments has been approached by two different directions in research. Estimation approaches attempt to calculate the relevance of the returned documents through ad-hoc methodologies (weighted score merging, regression etc) while download approaches, download all the documents locally, partially or completely, in order to estimate "first hand" their relevance. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. It is assumed that download algorithms are more effective but they are very expensive in terms of time and bandwidth. Estimation approaches on the other hand, usually rely on document relevance scores being returned by the remote collections in order to achieve maximum performance. In addition to that, regression algorithms, which have proved to be more effective than weighted scores merging, rely on a significant number of overlap documents in order to function effectively, practically requiring multiple interactions with the remote collections. The new algorithm that is introduced reconciles the above two approaches, combining their strengths, while minimizing their weaknesses. It is based on downloading a limited, selected number of documents from the remote collections and estimating the relevance of the rest through regression methodologies. The proposed algorithm is tested in a variety of settings and its performance is found to be better than estimation approaches, while approximating that of download.

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

distributed information retrieval
results merging


Code Optimizations Using Formally Verified Properties Formal program verification offers strong assurance of correctness, backed by the strength of mathematical proof. Constructing these proofs requires humans to identify program invariants, and show that they are always maintained. These invariants are then used to prove that the code adheres to its specification. In this paper, we explore the overlap between formal verification and code optimization. We propose two approaches to reuse the invariants derived in formal proofs and integrate them into compilation. The first applies invariants extracted from the proof, while the second leverages the property of program safety (i.e., the absence of bugs). We reuse this information to improve the performance of generated object code. We evaluated these methods on seL4, a real-world formally-verified microkernel, and obtained improvements in average runtime performance (up to 28%) and in worst-case execution time (up to 25%). In macro-benchmarks, we found the performance of para-virtualized Linux running on the microkernel improved by 6-16%.

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


Usability professionals - current practices and future development The usability concept has now received such a wide recognition in information technology (IT) development that working with usability can be regarded as a profession in its own right. In recent research projects, we have surveyed and studied usability work on an individual level in a number of Swedish development organisations, including success factors and obstacles. What we have seen relates to the individual usability professional and her background and experiences, the organisation in which she operates, the development process, communication and communication means, and finally the attitudes and basic values held by the people involved. In this paper, we compile and reflect on selected findings from different studies on usability work in practical systems(1) development in a number of Swedish organisations. We discuss our findings from a practical point of view and relate them to the research of others within the international HCI community. Finally, we discuss some issues we consider important for the future development of the practice of usability that we believe is of interest to the international community of usability professionals. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

usability organisation practice profession

design
user-centred design
software development
role


Off-line model reduction for on-line linear MPC of nonlinear large-scale distributed systems Model predictive control (MPC) is an efficient method for the controller design of a large number of processes. However, linear MPC is often inappropriate for controlling nonlinear large-scale systems, while non-linear MPC can be computationally costly. The resulting optimization-based procedure can lead to local minima due to the, non-convexities that non-linear systems can exhibit. To overcome the excessive computational cost of MPC application for large-scale nonlinear systems, model reduction methodology in conjunction with efficient system linearizations have been exploited to enable the efficient application of linear MPC for nonlinear distributed parameter systems (DPS). An off-line model reduction technique, the proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) method, combined with a finite element Galerkin projection is first used to extract accurate non-linear low-order models from the large-scale ones. Trajectory Piecewise-Linear (TPWL) methodologies are subsequently developed to construct a piecewise linear representation of the reduced nonlinear model, both in a static and in a dynamic fashion. Linear MPC, based on quadratic programming, can then be efficiently performed on the resulting low-order, piecewise affine system. Our combined methodology is readily applicable in combination with advanced MPC methodologies such as multi-parametric MPC (MP-MPC) (Pistikopoulos, 2009). The stabilisation of the oscillatory behaviour of a tubular reactor with recycle is used as an illustrative example to demonstrate our methodology. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

model reduction
model predictive control
distributed systems
proper orthogonal decomposition


A direct Eulerian GRP scheme for relativistic hydrodynamics: Two-dimensional case This paper develops a direct Eulerian generalized Riemann problem (GRP) scheme for two-dimensional (2D) relativistic hydrodynamics (RHD). It is an extension of the GRP scheme for one-dimensional (1D) RHDs [Z.C. Yang, P. He, H.Z. Tang, J. Comput. Phys. 230 (2011) 79647987] and the GRP scheme for the non-relativistic hydrodynamics [M. Ben-Artzi, J.Q. Li, G. Warnecke, J. Comput. Phys. 218 (2006) 1943]. In order to derive the direct Eulerian GRP scheme, the (local) GRP of the split 2D RHD equations in the Eulerian formulation has to be directly resolved by using corresponding Riemann invariants and RankineHugoniot jump conditions so that the crucial and delicate Lagrangian treatment in the original GRP scheme [M. Ben-Artzi, J. Falcovitz, J. Comput. Phys. 55 (1984) 132] may be avoided. An important difference of resolving the GRP of the split 2D RHD equations from the GRP of the 1D RHD equations or the non-relativistic hydrodynamical equations is coming from the fact that the flow regions across the shock or rarefaction wave in the GRP of the split 2D RHD equations are nonlinearly coupled through the Lorentz factor which is also built in terms of the tangential velocities. It is a purely multi-dimensional relativistic feature. Several numerical examples are given to demonstrate the accuracy and effectiveness of the proposed 2D GRP scheme.

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

riemann problem
relativistic hydrodynamics

generalized riemann problem scheme
riemann invariant
rankinehugoniot jump condition


A Laboratory Experiment for Teaching Automation Inspired by the Smart Home This paper presents a laboratory experiment for teaching Automation. The objective of this project is to allow the students of the Technical Engineering Schools of the University of La Laguna (Spain) to learn the theoretical and practical fundamentals of Automation Systems through a laboratory experiment based on a home automation application. Automation plays an increasingly important role in the centred of Engineering; as a result, several subjects in the curriculum plan at the Engineering School focus on this discipline. In recent years, our teaching efforts have been centred on designing appealing and modern laboratory experiments. With these practical experiments, students acquire a basic knowledge of Automation, along with complementary knowledge of the latest developments in the field. The laboratory session presented in this article draws its inspiration from the Smart Home, a recent field in applied Automation. Due to the impossibility of carrying out the control of a smart installation in a real house, a simulation experiment was designed for educational tasks. A scale model of a house was built, and all the sensors, the actuators and the control system were adapted to this scale model. A Programmable Logic Controller was selected as the control system. (c) 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Comput Appl Eng Educ 21:E121-E131, 2013

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

automation
programmable logic controller


A lifetime extended multi-levels heterogeneous routing protocol for wireless sensor networks IoT, Smart Grid and M2M are paradigms that are expected to dominate in 5G networks and, hence, the role of WSNs is of great importance. In WSNs, horizontal and vertical levels of node heterogeneity has been studied in the past for various operation such as data capturing, processing and communication at different levels of nodes in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). For saving energy consumption of nodes in these networks, many existing proposals in literature have considered 1st to \(k\)th level energy heterogeneity of sensor nodes. But major problem in the existing solutions is that an enhancement of initial energy of network may not guarantee an enhancement of initial energy for higher level nodes in comparison to the lower level nodes. In addition to this, number of nodes in higher level is always less than the number of nodes in lower level. To address these issues, in this paper, we proposed a new lifetime extended multi-levels heterogeneous routing (LE-MHR) protocol for WSNs, which includes \(k\) levels horizontal energy heterogeneity. LE-MHR gives a guarantee for an enhancement of initial energy of network field for higher level, and number of advanced nodes is independent to any level of hierarchy in the network. Performance of the proposed scheme was evaluated by performing extensive simulations with respect to various performance evaluation parameters and results obtained were compared with other pre-existing prominent protocols. Results obtained shows that, by varying the initial energy, and energy heterogeneity parameters, the network lifetime of LE-MHR was improved 53.7, 46.9 and 44.1% with respect to SEP, MCR and EEMHR protocols respectively.

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


The complexity of checking consistency of pedigree information and related problems Consistency checking is a fundamental computational problem in genetics. Given a pedigree and information on the genotypes (of some) of the individuals in it, the aim of consistency checking is to determine whether these data are consistent with the classic Mendelian laws of inheritance. This problem arose originally from the geneticists' need to filter their input data from erroneous information, and is well motivated from both a biological and a sociological viewpoint. This paper shows that consistency checking is NP-complete, even with focus on a single gene and in the presence of three alleles. Several other results on the computational complexity of problems from genetics that are related to consistency checking are also offered. In particular, it is shown that checking the consistency of pedigrees over two alleles, and of pedigrees without loops, can be done in polynomial time.

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

consistency checking
pedigrees
genotypes

np-completeness
satisfiability
polynomial time complexity
critical genotypes


A framework for internet channel evaluation The Internet is becoming an increasingly important and pervasive channel to market for many organisations. Despite its importance, and the continued pressure to justify IT expenditure, few organisations undertake comprehensive channel evaluation. Market leading evaluation firms provide technical and operational metrics for their clients such as the number of hits per page and site response times, but more sophisticated concepts such as user value and long-term business benefits remain underexplored in practice. In contrast, there is a growing academic literature on channel evaluation. Many frameworks and metrics have been proposed recently. This paper brings theory and practice together by synthesizing existing frameworks proposed by academics with those used by the market leaders in Internet channel evaluation. The resulting framework has two levelsa business- and a user-level. The framework is validated by Internet consultants, channel managers and channel users in three different sectors: retail, financial services and higher education. The framework is refined following the validation in response to the need for a simpler, more usable set of metrics. The outcome is a framework split into three sets. Set A constitutes the foundation stone of an Internet channel evaluation programme and consists of a core set of objective user-level metrics. Set B contains a further set of more sophisticated user-level metrics. Set C addresses business-level metrics, which enable the long-term contribution of the Internet channel to be evaluated.

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

electronic business
performance measurement framework
information system assessment


A new method to evaluate human-robot system performance One of the key issues in space exploration is that of deciding what space tasks are best done with humans, with robots, or a suitable combination of each. In general, human and robot skills are complementary. Humans provide as yet unmatched capabilities to perceive, think, and act when faced with anomalies and unforeseen events, but there can be huge potential risks to human safety in getting these benefits. Robots provide complementary skills in being able to work in extremely risky environments, but their ability to perceive, think, and act by themselves is currently not error-free, although these capabilities are continually improving with the emergence of new technologies. Substantial past experience validates these generally qualitative notions. However, there is a need for more rigorously systematic evaluation of human and robot roles, in order to optimize the design and performance of human-robot system architectures using well-defined performance evaluation metrics. This article summarizes a new analytical method to conduct such quantitative evaluations. While the article focuses on evaluating human-robot systems, the method is generally applicable to a much broader class of systems whose performance needs to be evaluated.

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


Fuzzy modeling approach to predictions of chemical oxygen demand in activated sludge processes This paper is concerned with predicting the chemical oxygen demand, the common criterion of the outlet water in most wastewater treatment plants. A fuzzy modeling approach is proposed which can efficiently eliminate the complex nonlinear terms existing in Activated Sludge Model No. 1 (ASM1). First, the structure of fuzzy rules in the approach is identified based on ASM1. Further, by combining the well-known fuzzy c-means cluster algorithm and the method of least squares, the fuzzy space of input variables required in the approach is partitioned and the consequent parameters are identified using the data in Benchmark Simulation Model No. 1, which can be replaced by the data in a real wastewater treatment plant. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is illustrated by comparing the predicted values of chemical oxygen demand and the experimental measurements obtained from the Benchmark Simulation Model No. 1.

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

activated sludge model no.1
benchmark simulation model no.1
fuzzy model


service composition using service selection with ws-agreement The business requirements are dynamic in nature. Identification of suitable business partners who can satisfy a set of guarantees "on demand" is a critical process. Selection of business partners is influenced by several parameters including maximizing profit, minimizing cost, reliability, credit history, etc. A business process can be decomposed into several tasks, possibly expressed as Web services implementing desired business functionalities. Each service offers a set of guarantees, each defining a Service Level Objective(SLO). Many service providers may provide the similar business functionality in the form of service with different SLOs. Thus, it is necessary to select services offered by service partner(s) such that overall performance of the process is improved. By specifying requirements of a service in the form of multiple service level objectives (SLOs), selection of a service provider can be achieved based on the best or optimal matching of SLOs of service consumer and providers. A set of services, SLOs, and participating actors constitute a Service Level Agreement (SLA). In this work, WS-Agreement specification is used to specify the SLA. The service partner must comply with the multiple criteria and preferences of a requester. Multi Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) method is also required in this process.

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

service level objective (slo)
ws-agreement
service-oriented computing (soc)
service level agreement (sla)
ontology


testbed evaluation of p2p shared cache architecture In this paper, we developed Linux kernel based shared cache router designed to eliminate BitTorrent traffic redundancy. The proposed shared cache architecture was experimentally evaluated by the programmable testbeds deployed throughout Japan. We validated the functional operation of the cache implementation and expected about 30\% traffic compression for BitTorent repetitive packet flows.

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

redundancy elimination
programmable testbed


A first-class approach to genericity This paper describes how to add first-class generic types including mixins - to strongly-typed 00 languages with nominal subtyping such as Java and C#. A generic type system is "first-class" if generic types can appear in any context where conventional types can appear. In this context, a mixin is simply a generic class that extends one of its type parameters, e.g., a class C that extends T. Although mixins of this form are widely used in C++ (via templates), they are clumsy and error-prone because C++ treats mixins as macros, forcing each mixin instantiation to be separately compiled and type-checked. The abstraction embodied in a mixin is never separately analyzed. Our formulation of mixins using first-class genericity accommodates sound local (class-by-class) type checking. A mixin can be fully type-checked given symbol tables for each of the classes that it directly references-the same context in which Java performs incremental class compilation. To our knowledge, no previous formal analysis of first-class genericity in languages with nominal type systems has been conducted, which is surprising because nominal subtyping has become predominant in mainstream object-oriented programming languages. What makes our treatment of first-class genericity particularly interesting and important is the fact that it can be added to the existing Java language without any change to the underlying Java Virtual Machine. Moreover, the extension is backward compatible with legacy Java source and class files. Although our discussion of a, practical implementation strategy focuses on Java, the same implementation techniques could be applied to other object-oriented languages such as C# or Eiffel that support incremental compilation, dynamic class loading, and nominal subtyping.

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


Interaction of actors theory Gordon Pask developed not only a conversation theory, but also a (less well-known) interaction of actors theory, partly in response to demands during the time he worked in Amsterdam. The paper aims to claret how this theory intended to minimise the effects of use on scientific results, while maximising the help of such results to improve on actions. This would facilitate empirical study of what changes User values, as well as the preferred design of (computer supported) support systems. Results include the material and communicative support of collective and social activities. Three examples are presented.

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


Two-parameter bifurcation analysis of firing activities in the Chay neuronal model The parameter regions for different firing patterns in the Chay neuronal model are presented and classified by using both two-parameter bifurcations and fastslow dynamics analysis. Firing arises via a supercritical Hopf bifurcation of the whole system and disappears via a fold limit cycle bifurcation, respectively. Complex firing phenomena, including fold/fold bursting, fold/Hopf bursting, fold/homoclinic bursting, chaotic bursting, as well as chaotic and periodic spiking, are found in the firing area. The transitions of bursting activities can be determined by the codimension-1 and codimension-2 bifurcations of the fast subsystems in the two-parameter plane. It is seen that the dynamical analysis of different firing activities of neurons is closely related to the global bifurcation of the whole system as well as the two-parameter bifurcations of the fast subsystems.

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


Quality-of-service in cloud computing: modeling techniques and their applications Recent years have seen the massive migration of enterprise applications to the cloud. One of the challenges posed by cloud applications is Quality-of-Service (QoS) management, which is the problem of allocating resources to the application to guarantee a service level along dimensions such as performance, availability and reliability. This paper aims at supporting research in this area by providing a survey of the state of the art of QoS modeling approaches suitable for cloud systems. We also review and classify their early application to some decision-making problems arising in cloud QoS management.

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


the business process modelling ontology In this paper we describe the Business Process Modelling Ontology (BPMO), which is part of an approach to modelling business processes at the semantic level, integrating knowledge about the organisational context, workflow activities and Semantic Web Services. We harness knowledge representation and reasoning techniques so that business process workflows can: be exposed and shared through semantic descriptions; refer to semantically annotated data and services; incorporate heterogeneous data though semantic mappings; and be queried using a reasoner or inference engine. In this paper we describe our approach and evaluate BPMO through a use case.

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

semantic interoperability
workflow management
semantic business process modelling


formal description of a multimodal interaction technique in an immersive virtual reality application Even if the majority of research in the field of Human-Computer Interaction seems to focus on using advanced interaction techniques, such as multimodality or virtual reality, critical systems show that usability of such techniques is only one of the main problems a designer must face with reliability and efficiency. This paper presents, through the study of an example from the field of virtual reality, extensions to previous works in the field of formal description techniques for interactive systems, by adding elements to the ICO formalism, allowing the modelling of multimodal applications.

O O O O O O O O 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

multimodal interfaces
formal specification


Magnetic field analysis under complex approximation taking account of two-dimensional magnetic properties Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to reduce computation time of magnetic characteristic analysis considering 2D vector magnetic properties. Design/methodology/approach - The paper proposes a complex E&S modelling with assumption that both flux density and field strength waveforms are sinusoidal. The computation time of the complex E&S modeling becomes 1/10 in comparison with one of the conventional E&S modeling. This modeling is applicable up to 1.4 T of the local magnetic flux density condition in the case of non-oriented magnetic materials. Findings - In the results of the magnetic field analyses of a linear-induction motor model core by means of the finite element method taking account of the complex E&S modeling, the distributions of the flux density and the field strength were able to be approximately analyzed and their phase differences in space were represented. The results of the magnetic characteristic analysis of the linear-induction motor showed that the teeth-end shape had large influences on the thrust and cogging. Practical implications - This technique helps to know approximately local vector magnetic properties in core materials. This modeling is very useful for magnetic core design taking account of the simplified 2D vector magnetic properties. Originality/value - The method presented in this paper enables expression of the simplified 2D vector magnetic properties in magnetic field analyses. The computation time can be considerably reduced in comparison with the conventional method.

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

electromagnetism
vectors
function approximation
electromagnetic induction


RESEARCH OF TASK SCHEDULING BASED ON PERFORMANCE UNDER GRID ENVIRONMENT Grid computing is a special kind of branch network computing which has important innovative ideas and great potential of development. It forms a large use of each other and co-operation high-performance computing network by interconnecting a number of computing resources, data resources of the wide area network as well as other equipments. Since grid system is heterogeneous and dynamic, and the different resource requires of the applications running on grid system, grid task scheduling is extremely complicated. Therefore, how to syncopate the task will directly affect the overall scheduling performance of the task in a grid system. In implementation process, different tasks need different resource, this article mainly aims at the demand of CPU and memory to establish a performance evaluation model. Through the evaluation results of CPU and memory, establish a rational task segmentation strategy to improve the quality of service, and realize grid load balancing, low communication complexity and high reliability between tasks, which achieve the purpose of minimizing the task execution time.

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


remote access to large spatial databases Enterprises in the public and private sectors have been making their large spatial data archives available over the Internet. However, interactive work with such large volumes of online spatial data is a challenging task. We propose two efficient approaches to remote access to large spatial data. First, we introduce a client-server architecture where the work is distributed between the server and the individual clients for spatial query evaluation, data visualization, and data management. We enable the minimization of the requirements for system resources on the client side while maximizing system responsiveness as well as the number of connections one server can handle concurrently. Second, for prolonged periods of access to large online data, we introduce APPOINT (an Approach for Peer-to-Peer Offloading the INTernet). This is a centralized peer-to-peer approach that helps Internet users transfer large volumes of online data efficiently. In APPOINT, active clients of the client-server architecture act on the server's behalf and communicate with each other to decrease network latency, improve service bandwidth, and resolve server congestions.

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


Designing environmental software applications based upon an open sensor service architecture One of the key issues for the analysis and the management of the environmental status is the integration of information from various sources, being in situ, airborne or space borne sensors or environmental databases. The European Integrated Project SANY has published a specification of the Sensor Service Architecture (SensorSA) enabling large-scale environmental information systems. The SensorSA belongs to the family of service-oriented architectures but has a particular focus on the access, the management, the processing of information and event notifications provided by sensors and sensor networks. It contains sensor-specific services, primarily based upon standards of the Sensor Web Enablement initiative of the Open Geospatial Consortium abstracting from the peculiarities of sensors and underlying sensor network technologies. The SensorSA follows a multi-style architectural approach: In addition to remote invocations, it also supports an event-driven and a resource-oriented architectural style. This paper presents the basic architectural concepts, supported sensor network topologies, generic use cases, sensor service types and information models. It concludes with a description of the SERVUS design methodology. The SERVUS design methodology is tailored to the design of geospatial service-oriented architectures and environmental information systems and leverages the idea of a uniform modeling of use cases and capabilities of SensorSA implementations as resources.

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

environmental information systems
sensor web enablement
sensor service architecture
open geospatial consortium

sensors anywhere
service-oriented design


Hybrid multi-technology routing in heterogeneous vehicular networks Recent developments of wireless communication systems have resulted in the availability of heterogeneous access networks at any geographic area. To make use of this heterogeneous environment for vehicular users to access the Internet, in this article we propose a hybrid multi-technology routing (HMTR) protocol for multihop vehicular networks. HMTR takes into account different combinations of wireless technologies in intermediate hops and is generally formed of a combination of topology-based and position-based routing schemes for packet forwarding. For a given packet, HMTR uses the position-based routing approach over highly variable links whose lifetimes are shorter than the packet expiry time. On the other hand, it employs the topology-based routing approach over more stable links that are expected to stay valid before the expiry time of the packet. Among the candidate routes, any route which does not meet the user requirements in terms of budget or quality of service metrics such as delay and bandwidth is ruled out first. Then, among the remained candidates those with adequate levels of connectivity are assessed for their appropriateness in terms of network utilizations, which are of the network's concern and connection costs, which are of users' concern. Simulation results show that HMTR enables us to achieve the best possible performance in terms of delivery ratio and delivery delay for a given budget, whereas in pure position-based or pure topology-based routing schemes sacrificing the performance or budget may be inevitable in many scenarios.

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

vehicle-to-vehicle (v2v) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (v2i) communications


Coordination of supply chains with bidirectional option contracts We model the supply chain that deals with products having high demand uncertainty. We characterize the optimal order strategies with bidirectional options provision. We examine the feedback effects that come from bidirectional options provision. We develop the bidirectional option contracts to coordinate the supply chain.

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

supply chain management
bidirectional option contract
structural property
channel coordination


A call for an international network of genomic observatories (GOs) We are entering a new era in genomicsthat of large-scale, place-based, highly contextualized genomic research. Here we review this emerging paradigm shift and suggest that sites of utmost scientific importance be expanded into Genomic Observatories (GOs). Investment in GOs should focus on the digital characterization of whole ecosystems, from all-taxa biotic inventories to time-series omics studies. The foundational layer of biodiversitygenetic variationwould thus be mainstreamed into Earth Observation systems enabling predictive modelling of biodiversity dynamics and resultant impacts on ecosystem services.

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

earth observation
biodiversity
ecosystems

ecogenomics
biocode
genomic observatory
dna


hp-Discontinuous Galerkin time stepping for parabolic problems The algorithmic pattern of the hp-discontinuous Galerkin finite element method (DGFEM) for the time semidiscretization of parabolic evolution equations is presented. In combination with a continuous hp-discretization in space we obtain a fully discrete hp-scheme for the numerical solution of parabolic problems. Numerical examples for the heat equation in a two-dimensional domain confirm the exponential convergence rates which are predicted by theoretical results, under realistic assumptions on the initial data and the forcing terms. We also compare different methods to reduce the computational cost of the DGFEM.

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

discontinuous galerkin methods
hp-finite element methods


Learning style translation for the lines of a drawing We present an example-based method for translating line drawings into different styles. We fit each line as a linear combination of similar lines in a training set, and interpolate between the corresponding training examples in the output style. The synthesized lines preserve the desired stylistic features of the output style.

O B 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 B 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 B


IntoNews: Online news retrieval using closed captions IntoNews is an Intonow app for matching web news with news broadcasted on TV. We present a framework that models the task as 2 separate sub-tasks: Find & retrieve. We design and publicly provide an evaluation testbed for the IntoNews problem. Quality evaluation has to trade-off 2 competing metrics: coverage and precision.

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

second screen
continuous retrieval
intonews nto ews


Empirical Evidence of Priming, Transfer, Reinforcement, and Learning in the Real and Virtual Trillium Trails Over the past 20 years, there has been a debate on the effectiveness of virtual reality used for learning with young children, producing many ideas but little empirical proof. This empirical study compared learning activity in situ of a real environment (Real) and a desktop virtual reality (Virtual) environment, built with video game technology, for discovery-based learning. The experiences were in the form of two field trips featuring statistically identical wildflower reserves. While the results support that the Real is superior for learning activity, they also show that the Virtual is useful for priming and reinforcing in-curriculum material, or for situations when the real environment is inaccessible. Offering the Virtual first primes for learning activity in the Real; if used second, it reinforces the Real experience, as supporting evidence shows significant transfer effects. Thus, the Virtual may serve educational goals, if used appropriately, and can come close to the Real. As informal learning environments, such as field trips and video games, are accepted as motivational, an attitudinal survey was conducted postexperiences to capture motivational factors at play, to aid in comparison and contrast, and to provide context to the empirical results on learning activity in situ; however, more work is needed.

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

child-computer-environment interaction
child-computer interface
discovery-based learning
educational simulation
evaluation/methodology
serious games
human factors in software design
human-computer interaction
human information processing
intrinsic learning
salient events
simulation
modeling
visualization
software psychology
user-centered design
user interfaces


The two-median problem on Manhattan meshes We investigate the two-median problem on a mesh with M columns and N rows (M >= N), under the Manhattan (L-1) metric. We derive exact algorithms with respect to m, n, and r, the number of columns, rows, and vertices, respectively, that contain requests. Specifically, we give an O(mn(2) log m) time, O(r) space algorithm for general (nonuniform) meshes (assuming m >= n). For uniform meshes, we give two algorithms both using O(MN) space. One is an O(MN2) time algorithm, while the other is an algorithm running in O(MN log N) time with high probability and in O(MN2) time in the worst case assuming the weights are independent and identically distributed random variables satisfying certain natural conditions. These improve upon the previously best-known algorithm that runs in O(mn(2)r) time. (c) 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

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


An epistemic and dynamic approach to abductive reasoning: Abductive problem and abductive solution We propose a study of abductive reasoning addressing it as an epistemic process that involves both an agent's information and the actions that modify this information. More precisely, we present and discuss definitions of an abductive problem and an abductive solution in terms of an agent's information, that is, in terms of knowledge and beliefs. The discussion is then formalised by 'implementing' our definitions in a dynamic epistemic logic framework, where the properties of these definitions are studied, an epistemic action that represents the application of an abductive step is introduced, and an illustrative example is provided. A number of the most interesting properties of abductive reasoning (those highlighted by Peirce) are shown to be better modelled within this approach. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

abductive reasoning
dynamic epistemic logic


Modified symmetrical reversible variable-length code and its theoretical bounds Reversible variable length codes (RVLCs) have been adopted in emerging video coding standards-H.263+ and MPEG-4-to enhance their error-resilience capabilities (which are important and essential) in error-prone environments. This study proposes an efficient algorithm to construct a symmetrical RVLC from a given Huffman code. In addition, theoretical bounds on the maximum codeword length for fixed-length Huffman codes, and on the optimal average codeword lengths for sources with exponential distribution are provided.

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

reversible variable length codes (rvlcs)


On transition minimality of bideterministic automata Bideterministic automata are deterministic automata with the property of their reversal automata also being deterministic. Bideterministic automata have previously been shown to be unique ( up to an isomorphism) minimal NFAs with respect to the number of states. In this paper, we show that in addition to state minimality, bideterministic automata are also transition-minimal NFAs. However, as this transition minimality is not necessarily unique, we also present the necessary and sufficient conditions for a bideterministic automaton to be uniquely transition-minimal among NFAs. These results are obtained using the notion of the universal automaton. We also present some properties of the universal automaton. Furthermore, we show that bideterministic automata are transition-minimal epsilon-NFAs.

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

bideterministic automaton
transition minimality
universal automaton


Testing the PEARL model in the Netherlands and Sweden The Plant Protection Product Directive (91/414/EEC) stresses the need of validated models to calculate predicted environmental concentrations. The use of models has become an unavoidable step before pesticide registration. The main topic of the research presented here is the validation of the PEARL model for two well-instrumented sites located in the Netherlands and Sweden. First the water transport module was calibrated, and then the solute transport module, keeping unchanged the water transport parameters. The Dutch site is characterised by a sandy soil. PEARL predictions were very satisfactory for both soil moisture content and groundwater level. Predictions for the tracer, bentazone and ethoprophos concentrations in the soil profile were also successful. The Swedish site is characterised by a structured clay soil. PEARL was successful in predicting soil moisture profiles and the draining water. PEARL performed well in predicting the soil concentration of bentazone at different depths, however, it did not predict accurately solute concentration in the drainage water. A sensitivity analysis of the PEARL model performed on the Swedish site showed the greater importance of the pesticide degradation properties over the soil hydraulic properties.

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


A Recourse Goal Programming Approach for the Portfolio Selection Problem This paper presents a recourse goal programming approach to a multiple objective stochastic programming portfolio selection model. The main assumption of our approach is that the investor has a minimum acceptable expected rate of return to achieve under some predefined risk restrictions. The risk restrictions are expressed through constraints on the optimal portfolio beta value. The model and the solution strategy are illustrated with data from securities listed in the S&P100 index.

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

portfolio selection
goal programming
beta

multiobjective stochastic programming
recourse approach
capm


Effect of 4-point bending test procedure on crack propagation in thin film stacks Increasing loading speed will result in increased measured Gc and smoother force plateau. Deeper notch depth was proved to be able to force the cohesive failure within the tested low-k. Symmetric and asymmetric crack propagation proved to have no influence on the values of force plateau. Observed reduction in crack path variation with an increase of loading speed.

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

4 point bending
fem modeling
symmetric/asymmetric crack propagation
gc variation
cohesive/adhesive failure


MPEG-2 coded video traces transmitted over a satellite link: Scalable and non-scalable solutions in rain fading conditions The literature is poor in the analyses of the effects produced by corrupted bits in compressed video bitstreams. This paper presents the results of a transmission experiment of MPEG-2 coded video data over a satellite link affected by noise, in order to investigate under which conditions this type of transmission is economically feasible. The signal-to-noise ratio scalability feature of the MPEG-2 encoder was used to produce different bitstreams of the same movie sequence. The scope of the study was to verify which are the best combinations of video and channel codings in the presence of attenuation on the satellite link, in order to optimize the bandwidth utilisation for a requested image quality. The results obtained give indications about the data channel codings to be used to counter the rain fade on the transmission link, which is a non negligible problem especially when satellite transmissions are in the Ka band. Moreover, the results highlight the flexibility of the scalable video coding in the examined scenario.

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


Design of active and energy-regenerative controllers for DC-motor-based suspension In this paper, active and energy-regenerative controllers are designed for the DC-motor-based suspension, which is able to operate in two modes: active control for ride comfort promotion and energy-regenerative control for energy harvesting. In order to achieve these two modes, the main/torque-tracking loop control structure is presented in this paper. Then by simplifying torque-tracking loop, working areas of the DC-motor actuator are analyzed. As for main loop controller design, H infinity robust control is investigated for the active suspension based on a full-car suspension model. The restricted H infinity controller, which is the combination of proposed H infinity controller and a restriction strategy that confines the motor to the working areas of energy regeneration, is employed as the main controller to realize energy regeneration. Simulations are carried out with random uneven road inputs and the results demonstrate that better ride comfort can be achieved by proposed active suspension and energy-regenerative (ER) suspension compared with passive counterpart. Moreover, effects of uncertainties are also investigated under several cases, indicating good robustness of designed suspension systems. Meanwhile, capacity of energy regeneration is also ensured by the ER suspension. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

energy-regenerative suspension
motor actuator
h infinity control


Minimal standby redundancy allocation in a k-out-of-n:F system of dependent components ? We define minimal standby redundancy and use the reverse rule of order 2 (RR2) property between compensator processes to investigate the problem of where to allocate a spare in a k-out-of-n:F system of dependent components through minimal standby redundancy.

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

minimal standby redundancy
reverse rule of order 2

reliability
martingales
marked point process
k-out-of-n:f system


The optimal PAC bound for intersection-closed concept classes ? The optimal upper bound for learning intersection-closed concept classes. Proves an open question by Auer and Ortner and supports a conjecture by Warmuth. An improved upper bound on the sample complexity in PAC-learning. Comparison between different variants of disagreement coefficients. An application of the disagreement coefficient in realizable PAC-learning.

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

sample complexity
disagreement coefficient

computational complexity
pac-learning
intersection-closed classes


Fuzzy decision tree based on fuzzy-rough technique Using an efficient criterion in selection of fuzzy conditional attributes (i.e. expanded attributes) is important for generation of fuzzy decision trees. Given a fuzzy information system (FIS), fuzzy conditional attributes play a crucial role in fuzzy decision making. Besides, different fuzzy conditional attributes have different influences on decision making, and some of them may be more important than the others. Two well-known criteria employed to select expanded attributes are fuzzy classification entropy and classification ambiguity, both of which essentially use the ratio of uncertainty to measure the significance of fuzzy conditional attributes. Based on fuzzy-rough technique, this paper proposes a new criterion, in which expanded attributes are selected by using significance of fuzzy conditional attributes with respect to fuzzy decision attributes. An illustrative example as well as the experimental results demonstrates the effectiveness of our proposed method.

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

fuzzy decision trees
fuzzy classification entropy
fuzzy conditional attributes
fuzzy decision attributes


Process monitoring for continuous process with periodic characteristics Application of conventional statistical monitoring methods to periodic processes can result in frequent false alarms and/or missed faults due to the non-stationary behavior seen over a period. To address this problem, we propose to identify and use a stochastic state space model that describes the statistical behavior of changes occurring from period to period. This model, when retooled as a periodically time-varying model, can be used for on-line monitoring and estimation with the aid of a Kalman filter. The same model can also be used for inferential estimation of the variables that are difficult or slow to measure on-line. The proposed approach is applied to a simulation benchmark of a waste water treatment process, which exhibits strong diurnal changes in the feed stream, and is compared against the principal component analysis (PCA) and partial least squares (PLS) methods. Copyright (C) 2004 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.

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


Dependency Chart Parsing Algorithm Based on Ternary-Span Combination This paper presents a new span-based dependency chart parsing algorithm that models the relations between the left and right dependents of a head. Such relations cannot be modeled in existing span-based algorithms, despite their popularity in dependency corpora. We address this problem through ternary-span combination during the subtree derivation. By modeling the relations between the left and right dependents of a head, our proposed algorithm provides a better capability of coordination disambiguation when the conjunction is annotated as the head of the left and right conjuncts. This eventually leads to state-of-the-art performance of dependency parsing on the Chinese data of the CoNLL shared task.

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

span-based parsing
factor-based parsing
dependency parsing algorithm
averaged perceptron
syntactic analysis


Unified Publication and Discovery of Semantic Web Services The challenge of publishing and discovering Web services has recently received lots of attention. Various solutions to this problem have been proposed which, apart from their offered advantages, suffer the following disadvantages: (i) most of them are syntactic-based, leading to poor precision and recall, (ii) they are not scalable to large numbers of services, and (iii) they are incompatible, thus yielding in cumbersome service publication and discovery. This article presents the principles, the functionality, and the design of PYRAMID-S which addresses these disadvantages by providing a scalable framework for unified publication and discovery of semantically enhanced services over heterogeneous registries. PYRAMID-S uses a hybrid peer-to-peer topology to organize Web service registries based on domains. In such a topology, each Registry retains its autonomy, meaning that it can use the publication and discovery mechanisms as well as the ontology of its choice. The viability of this approach is demonstrated through the implementation and experimental analysis of a prototype.

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

design
unified
scalable
semantic web services

algorithms
measurement
web service publication
web service discovery
evaluation
pyramid-s


Filter bank subtraction for robust speech recognition In this paper, we propose a new technique of filter bank subtraction for robust speech recognition under various acoustic conditions. Spectral subtraction is a simple and useful technique for reducing the influence of additive noise. Conventional spectral subtraction assumes accurate estimation of the noise spectrum and no correlation between speech and noise. Those assumptions, however, are rarely satisfied in reality, leading to the degradation of speech recognition accuracy. Moreover, the recognition improvement attained by conventional methods is slight when the input SNR changes sharply. We propose a new method in which the output values of filter banks are used for noise estimation and subtraction. By estimating noise at each filter bank, instead of at each frequency point, the method alleviates the necessity for precise estimation of noise. We also take into consideration expected phase differences between the spectra of speech and noise in the subtraction and control a subtraction coefficient theoretically. Recognition experiments on test sets at several SNRs showed that the filter bank subtraction technique improved the word accuracy significantly and got better results than conventional spectral subtraction on all the test sets. In other experiments, on recognizing speech from TV news field reports with environmental noise, the proposed subtraction method yielded better results than the conventional method.

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

filter bank
spectral subtraction
speech recognition
noise


collusion resistant fingerprinting of digital audio Digital fingerprinting is a technique for tracing the distribution of multimedia content, and protecting it from unauthorized manipulation. Unique identification information is embedded into each distributed copy of the signal. In a collusion attack, fingerprints are combined to remove or distort the fingerprints. Audio signals are good candidates for fingerprinting, because of the forgiving nature of the human auditory system to cross-talk between channels. We use principal components of the audio signal to construct an abstract vector space. The fingerprints are ordered rotations in that space. The rotations are determined by arrays with good correlation properties. These arrays are embedded in real audio, and are imperceptible, according to a panel of experts. These fingerprints are resistant to an averaging collusion attack by hundreds or thousands of colluders, and can withstand a worst case RandNeg attack by up to 30 colluders.

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

fingerprint
array
traitor tracing
watermark


Particle swarm optimized bi-histogram equalization for contrast enhancement and brightness preservation of images A novel technique, Optimized Bi-Histogram Equalization (OBHE), is proposed in this paper for preserving brightness and enhancing the contrast of any input image. The central idea of this technique is to first segment the histogram of the input image into two, based on its mean and then weighting constraints are applied to each of the sub-histograms separately. Those two histograms are equalized independently and their union produces a brightness-preserved and contrast-enhanced output image. While formulating the weighting constraints, Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) is employed to find the optimal constraints in order to maximize the degree of brightness preservation and contrast enhancement. This technique is found to have an edge over the other contemporary methods in terms of Entropy and Absolute Mean Brightness Error.

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

brightness preservation
contrast enhancement
particle swarm optimization
entropy
absolute mean brightness error


Kernel ICA: An alternative formulation and its application to face recognition This paper formulates independent component analysis (ICA) in the kernel-inducing feature space and develops a two-phase kernel ICA algorithm: whitened kernel principal component analysis (KPCA) plus ICA. KPCA spheres data and makes the data structure become as linearly separable as possible by virtue of an implicit nonlinear mapping determined by kernel. ICA seeks the projection directions in the KPCA whitened space, making the distribution of the projected data as non-gaussian as possible. The experiment using a subset of FERET database indicates that the proposed kernel ICA method significantly outperform ICA, PCA and KPCA in terms of the total recognition rate.

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

kernel-based methods
independent component analysis (ica)
principal component analysis (pca)
feature extraction


Exquisite variety: computer as mirror to community An approach is developed to building information systems whose purpose is to express (rather than regulate) the life of a community group. The story of a community group, as understood and told by its members, is taken as the basis for building a computer system which reflects the life of the community. Development of the system is seen as an open-ended process of discovery, collaboration and experiential learning. Engagement with the technology is understood as a 'tactical' practice on the part of the users. A fieldwork exercise conducted along these lines with one community group, in which the group used hypermedia technology to make a shared story, is described. Aspects of process and form in story making on a computer, in this project and more generally, are discussed. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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


Non-uniform traffic issues in DCA wireless multimedia networks Wireless networks that utilize dynamic channel allocation (DCA) are known to perform better than those with fixed channel allocation, in terms of the call level QoS measures such as the handoff dropping probability. On account of this, the DCA networks are usually designed without the call admission control (CAC). However, given the decrease of cell sizes, together with ever increasing mobile phone and terminal population, dynamic channel allocation policies ( such as channel borrowing) may not be sufficient to cope with the hotspot area size and its traffic intensity. This paper analyses the performance of the DCA networks, both with and without the call admission control, under the hot-spot traffic regime. In such cases, the pure DCA approach fails to ensure sufficiently low level of QoS in both the hot-spot area and the surrounding cells. We propose a CAC policy that can stabilize the QoS under non-uniform traffic, whilst being easy to integrate in the distributed DCA policies.

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 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

multimedia wireless networks
adaptive call admission control
quality-of-service


Estimating freight rates in inventory replenishment and supplier selection decisions Given the impact of transportation costs on both supplier selection and inventory replenishment decisions in todays enterprises, this article addresses both problems simultaneously by proposing a mixed integer nonlinear programming model to properly allocate order quantities to the selected set of suppliers while taking into account the purchasing, holding and transportation costs under suppliers capacity and quality constraints. It is shown that incorporating transportation costs in the process of selecting suppliers and establishing an inventory policy, not only affects the order quantity shipped from selected suppliers, but also the actual selection of suppliers. Because of the difficulty that arises when working with actual transportation freight rates in large-scale problems, two continuous functions that estimate actual freight rates are analyzed. It is shown that the use of these functions is very practical and easy to implement.

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

supplier selection
inventory replenishment
transportation costs


Operator programs and operator processes We define a notion of program which is not a computer program but an operator program: a detailed description of actions performed and decisions taken by a human operator (computer user) performing a task to achieve a goal in a simple setting consisting of that user, one or more computers and a work environment. Our definition and notations are based on the program algebra PGA: a small body of theory allowing one to reason fundamentally and practically about programs viewed as instruction sequences. This article is entirely self-contained and introduces all concepts and notations used. We offer some small examples, and we sketch one limitation 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 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

algorithms
agent modeling
humancomputer interaction
specification languages
user behavior
user modeling


Developable Bzier patches: properties and design Geometric design of quadratic and cubic developable Bzier patches from two boundary curves is studied in this paper. The conditions for developability are derived geometrically from the de Casteljau algorithm and expressed as a set of equations that must be fulfilled by the Bzier control points. This set of equations allows us to infer important properties of developable Bzier patches that provide useful parameters and simplify the solution process for the patch design. With one boundary curve freely specified, five more degrees of freedom are available for a second boundary curve of the same degree. Various methods are introduced that fully utilize these five degrees of freedom for the design of general quadratic and cubic developable Bzier patches in 3D space. A more restricted generalized conical model or cylindrical model provides simple solutions for higher-order developable patches.

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

developable surfaces
computer aided design


Route Stability in MANETs under the Random Direction Mobility Model A fundamental issue arising in mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) is the selection of the optimal path between any two nodes. A method that has been advocated to improve routing efficiency is to select the most stable path so as to reduce the latency and the overhead due to route reconstruction. In this work, we study both the availability and the duration probability of a routing path that is subject to link failures caused by node mobility. In particular, we focus on the case where the network nodes move according to the Random Direction model, and we derive both exact and approximate (but simple) expressions of these probabilities. Through our results, we study the problem of selecting an optimal route in terms of path availability. Finally, we propose an approach to improve the efficiency of reactive routing protocols.

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


tractable model checking for fragments of higher-order coalition logic A number of popular logical formalisms for representing and reasoning about the abilities of teams or coalitions of agents have been proposed beginning with the Coalition Logic (CL) of Pauly. gotnes et al introduced a means of succinctly expressing quantification over coalitions without compromising the computational complexity of model checking in CL by introducing Quantified Coalition Logic (QCL). QCL introduces a separate logical language for characterizing coalitions in the modal operators used in QCL. Boella et al, increased the representational expressibility of such formalisms by introducing Higher-Order Coalition Logic (HCL), a monadic second-order logic with special set grouping operators. Tractable fragments of HCL suitable for efficient model checking have yet to be identified. In this paper, we relax the monadic restriction used in HCL and restrict ourselves to the diamond operator. We show how formulas using the diamond operator are logically equivalent to second-order formulas. This permits us to isolate and define well-behaved expressive fragments of second-order logic amenable to model-checking in PTime. To do this, we appeal to techniques used in deductive databases and quantifier elimination. In addition, we take advantage of the monotonicity of the effectivity function resulting in exponentially more succinct representation of models. The net result is identification of highly expressible fragments of a generalized HCL where model checking can be done efficiently in PTime.

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

complexity
coalition logic
model checking


Assessment of digital camera-derived vegetation indices in quantitative monitoring of seasonal rice growth A commercially available digital camera can be used in a low-cost automatic observation system for monitoring crop growth change in open-air fields. We developed a prototype Crop Phenology Recording System (CPRS) for monitoring rice growth, but the ready-made waterproof cases that we used produced shadows on the images. After modifying the waterproof cases, we repeated the fixed-point camera observations to clarify questions regarding digital camera-derived vegetation indices (VIs), namely, the visible atmospherically resistant index (VARI) based on daytime normal color images (RGB image) and the nighttime relative brightness index (NRBINIR) based on nighttime near infrared (NIR) images. We also took frequent measurements of agronomic data such as plant length, leaf area index (LAI), and aboveground dry matter weight to gain a detailed understanding of the temporal relationship between the VIs and the biophysical parameters of rice. In addition, we conducted another nighttime outdoor experiment to establish the link between NRBINIR and camera-to-object distance. The study produced the following findings. (1) The customized waterproof cases succeeded in preventing large shadows from being cast, especially on nighttime images, and it was confirmed that the brightness of the nighttime NIR images had spatial heterogeneity when a point light source (flashlight) was used, in contrast to the daytime RGB images. (2) The additional experiment using a forklift showed that both the ISO sensitivity and the calibrated digital number of the NIR (cDNNIR) had significant effects on the sensitivity of NRBINIR to the camera-to-object distance. (3) Detailed measurements of a reproductive stem were collected to investigate the connection between the morphological feature change caused by the panicle sagging process and the downtrend in NRBINIR during the reproductive stages. However, these agronomic data were not completely in accord with NRBINIR in terms of the temporal pattern. (4) The time-series data for the LAI, plant length, and aboveground dry matter weight could be well approximated by a sigmoid curve based on NRBINIR and VARI. The results confirmed that NRBINIR was more sensitive to all of the agronomic data for overall season, including the early reproductive stages. VARI had an especially high correlation with LAI, unless yellow panicles appeared in the field of view.

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

adiso amplification degree calculated from iso sensitivity

dn digital number in original digital image

cdn area-averaged value of calibrated dn

evf exposure value calculated from f-stop

evexp exposure value calculated from exposure time

gn/m2 nitrogen-equivalent amount of applied fertilizer

vari visible atmospherically resistant index

nir-cam modified digital camera for acquiring nir image

nrbinir nighttime relative brightness index in the near-infrared region

rgb-cam original digital camera for acquiring color image


continuous collision detection for articulated models using taylor models and temporal culling We present a fast continuous collision detection (CCD) algorithm for articulated models using Taylor models and temporal culling. Our algorithm is a generalization of conservative advancement (CA) from convex models [Mirtich 1996] to articulated models with non-convex links. Given the initial and final configurations of a moving articulated model, our algorithm creates a continuous motion with constant translational and rotational velocities for each link, and checks for interferences between the articulated model under continuous motion and other models in the environment and for self-collisions. If collisions occur, our algorithm reports the first time of contact (TOC) as well as collision witness features . We have implemented our CCD algorithm and applied it to several challenging scenarios including locomotion generation, articulated-body dynamics and character motion planning. Our algorithm can perform CCDs including self-collision detection for articulated models consisting of many links and tens of thousands of triangles in 1.22 ms on average running on a 3.6 GHz Pentium 4 PC. This is an improvement on the performance of prior algorithms of more than an order of magnitude.

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

continuous collision detection
articulated models
conservative advancement

convex decomposition
dynamics simulation


Message authentication code algorithm for IP-SEC Authentication is included as a necessary security feature in IPv6. Message Authentication Code (MAC) algorithms are used as authenticating mechanisms in IP-Sec protocol Authentication Header (AH) to provide data origin authentication and integrity protection. The MAC bit size requirement of the authentication field is 96 bits. The currently used MAC algorithms produces MAC of larger size and the results are truncated to 96 bits to suit the requirement of the AH. This results in additional computing time. In this paper we come out with a newly designed MAC algorithm which is more appropriate to be used with IP-Sec AH. Experimental results show that the expected characteristic of the MAC are satisfied by the algorithm and is faster than the existing one.

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

message authentication code
authentication header

initialization vector
integrity check value


Automatic identification and skew estimation of text lines in real scene images A method for the automatic localization of text embedded in complex images is proposed. It permits to detect the spatial position and the skew of the text lines which are present in the scene and to return a binary representation of each text line. Strengths of the algorithm are independence of text skew and of presence of connected text. After a preprocessing step the input image is segmented in order to obtain a set of connected components which represent the basic objects of the algorithm. Several heuristics are proposed to characterize text objects which depend both on the geometrical features of single components and on the geometrical and spatial relations among components. According to these heuristics several components are discarded and the retained ones are grouped into text lines candidates by means of a divisive hierachical clustering procedure. In the experimental session we describe the application of the algorithm to the extraction of text lines from the images of 100 book covers. Results about skew estimation are also reported. (C) 1999 Pattern Recognition Society. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

text localization
image processing
connected components analysis
ocr


Fuzzy modelling of a moving grate biomass furnace for simulation and control purposes Takagi-Sugeno (TS) fuzzy models are developed for a moving grate biomass furnace for the purpose of simulating and predicting the main process output variables, which are heat output, oxygen concentration of flue gas, and temperature of flue gas. Numerous approaches to modelling biomass furnaces have been proposed in the literature. Usually their objective is to simulate the furnace as accurately as possible. Hence, very complex model architectures are utilized which are not suited for applications like model predictive control. TS fuzzy models are able to approximate the global non-linear behaviour of a moving grate biomass furnace by interpolating between local linear, time-invariant models. The fuzzy partitions of the individual TS fuzzy models are constructed by an axis-orthogonal, incremental partitioning scheme. Validation results with measured process data demonstrate the excellent performance of the developed fuzzy models.

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

grate-firing
takagi-sugeno fuzzy models
non-linear identification
dynamic modelling
biomass combustion