covert channels in privacy-preserving identification systems We examine covert channels in privacy-enhanced mobile identification devices where the devices uniquely identify themselves to an authorized verifier. Such devices (e.g. RFID tags) are increasingly commonplace in hospitals and many other environments. For privacy, the device outputs used for identification should "appear random" to any entity other than the verifier, and should not allow physical tracking of device bearers. Worryingly, there already exist privacy breaches for some devices [28] that allow adversaries to physically track users. Ideally, such devices should allow anyone to publicly determine that the device outputs are covert-channel free (CCF); we say that such devices are CCF-checkable. Our main result shows that there is a fundamental tension between identifier privacy and CCF-checkability; we show that the two properties cannot co-exist in a single system. We also develop a weaker privacy model where a continuous observer can correlate appearances of a given tag, but a sporadic observer cannot. We also construct a privacy-preserving tag identification scheme that is CCF-checkable and prove it secure under the weaker privacy model using a new complexity assumption. The main challenge addressed in our construction is the enforcement of public verifiability , which allows a user to verify covert-channel-freeness in her device without managing secret keys external to the device.

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

identification
privacy
covert channels
rfid
mobile


Performance evaluation of graded precision localization with sensor networks in indoor spaces ? Graded precision localization (GPL) offers a range of localization precision levels. GPL for user modules is achieved with an infrastructure of hotspots and radio nodes. A user module prototype is built with a laptop, a Cricket node and a mobile phone. Performance of GPL for indoor spaces is discussed with simulation and experiments. An analytical Markov model for evaluating GPL for constrained spaces is proposed.

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

sensor network
inertial navigation
graded precision localization


Traffic control of urban corridor systems with weaving effects Corridor traffic control in the form of ramp metering is an effective strategy for alleviating the congestion on freeways. Due to capacity drop arising from the weaving effects, a weaving section often constitutes a typical bottleneck of heavy congestion on urban freeways during peak hours. This paper investigates the corridor control problem considering the weaving effects with fixed demand. The operational capacity of a weaving section link is introduced and assumed to decrease linearly with volume ratio, which is related to the adjacent on-ramp and off-ramp flows. Asymmetric flow interactions emerge among links as a result of the operational capacity for calculation of link travel times. A mathematical program with equilibrium constraints (MPEC) is used to represent the corridor control problem. The objective is to minimize the total travel cost subject to the traffic equilibrium with queuing as well as the queue length constraints at on-ramps and flow capacity constraints on freeway main sections. A sensitivity analysis based algorithm is adopted to solve the corridor control model and its convergence is demonstrated with numerical examples.

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

corridor control
traffic equilibrium
mpec
sensitivity analysis


Glitch PUF: Extracting Information from Usually Unwanted Glitches In this paper, we propose a new Delay PUF architecture trying to solve the major problem of existing Delay PUFs that it is easy to predict the relation between delay information and generated information. For that purpose, our architecture exploits glitches as a source of information generation that behave non-linearly from delay variation between gates and the characteristic of pulse propagation of each gate. We thus call it the Glitch PUF. We present two circuit structures of the Glitch PUF both of which have their own merits. We then provide the results of evaluation in which we first verify that the two Glitch PUFs exhibit the same characteristics, and second show the randomness and statistical properties of the Glitch PUF.

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


Stochastic models for unit-load operations in warehouse systems with autonomous vehicles This paper presents stochastic models for multi-tier warehouse systems that handle unit load transactions using autonomous vehicle-based technology. In this system, self-powered autonomous vehicles carry out unit-load transactions by moving along rails within a tier and using lifts or conveyors for vertical movement between tiers. We develop semi-open queuing network models to evaluate congestion effects in processing storage and retrieval transactions in this system. The queuing network is evaluated using a decomposition-based approach. The queuing model provides design insights on the effect of vehicle interference and vertical transfer mechanism on various system performance measures of interest. Insights from such studies can be especially useful during the conceptualization stage of warehouses that use autonomous vehicle technology.

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

vertical conveyors
semi-open queuing network
decomposition
unit-load warehouses


Coordinated scheduling of production and delivery with production window and delivery capacity constraints This paper addresses the problem of coordinated scheduling of production and delivery subject to the production window constraint and the delivery capacity constraint. We have a planning horizon consisting of one or more delivery times each with a unique delivery capacity. There is a set of jobs each with a committed delivery time, processing time, production window, and profit. The company can earn the profit only if the job is processed in its production window and delivered before its committed delivery time. From the company point of view, we are interested in selecting a subset of jobs to process and deliver so as to maximize the total profit subject to the delivery capacity constraint. We consider both the single delivery time case and the multiple delivery time case. In both cases, the problem is strongly NP-hard since the subproblems at the production stage and at the delivery stage are both strongly NP-hard. Our goal is to design approximation algorithms. Suppose the jobs are k-disjoint, that is, the jobs can be partitioned into k lists of jobs such that the jobs in each list have disjoint production windows. When k is a constant, we developed the first PTAS for the single delivery case. For multiple delivery time case, we also develop a PTAS when the number of delivery times is a constant as well. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

coordinated scheduling
production
delivery
ptas


optimizing data popularity conscious bloom filters Bloom filters are compact set representations that support set membership queries with small, one-sided error probabilities. Standard Bloom filters are oblivious to object popularity in sets and membership queries. However, sets and queries in many distributed applications follow known, stable, highly skewed distributions (e.g., Zipf-like). This paper studies the problem of minimizing the false-positive probability of a Bloom filter by adapting the number of hashes used for each data object to its popularity in sets and membership queries. We model the problem as a constrained nonlinear integer program and propose two polynomial-time solutions with bounded approximation ratios -- one is a 2-approximation algorithm with O(N c ) running time (c ? 6 in practice); the other is a (2+?)-approximation algorithm with running time O(N 2 /?)$, ? > 0. Here N denotes the total number of distinct data objects that appear in sets or queries. We quantitatively evaluate our proposed approach on two distributed applications (cooperative caching and full-text keyword searching) driven by real-life data traces. Compared to standard Bloom filters, our data popularity-conscious Bloom filters achieve up to 24 and 27 times false-positive probability reduction for the two applications respectively. The quantitative evaluation also validates our solution's bounded approximation ratio to the optimal.

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

optimization
dynamic programming
knapsack problems


Virtual genetic coding and time series analysis for alternative splicing prediction in C. elegans Prediction of alternative splicing has been traditionally based on the study of expressed sequences, helped by homology considerations and the analysis of local discriminative features. More recently, machine learning algorithms have been developed that try avoid or reduce the use of a priori information, with partial success. With the aim of developing a fully automatic procedure of recognition of alternative splicing events based only on the genomic sequence, we first introduce a virtual genetic coding scheme to numerically modeling the information content of sequences in an effective way, then we use time series analysis to extract a fixed-length set of features from each sequence and finally we adopt a supervised learning method, namely the support vector machine, to predict alternative splicing events. On the base of real C. elegans data, we show that it is possible within this purely numeric framework to obtain results better than the state of the art, without any explicit modeling of homology or positions in the splice site, nor any use of other local features. The virtual genetic coding together with time series analysis allows us to introduce an effective and powerful sequence coding scheme, that may be useful in various areas of genomics and transcriptomics.

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

alternative splicing
support vector machine

virtual genetic code
autoregressive model


Expanding awareness by inclusive communication design In this paper, we report the case of an Inclusive Design workshop. Inclusive Design is a design method that includes elderly and disabled people not only in interviews, but also in the upstream design process such as basic design and survey analysis. In the workshop, participants designed scientific educational materials that visually impaired and sighted people can use together. To work together regardless of visual disability, participants used the image-processing system and the stereo copying machine to make images tactile. We think that collaborative work with elderly and disabled people in Inclusive Design can teach participants different perspectives and help to correct their biased view of each other. In fact, participants of the workshop noticed several facts that they were not aware of before. That is, the Inclusive Design workshop can improve social awareness.

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


On the Behaviours Produced by Instruction Sequences under Execution We study several aspects of the behaviours produced by instruction sequences under execution in the setting of the algebraic theory of processes known as A C P. We use A C P to describe the behaviours produced by instruction sequences under execution and to describe two protocols implementing these behaviours in the case where the processing of instructions takes place remotely. We also show that all finite-state behaviours considered in A C P can be produced by instruction sequences under execution.

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

instruction sequence
remote instruction processing
instruction sequence producible process


Performance evaluation with fuzzy VIKOR and AHP method based on customer satisfaction in Turkish banking sector Purpose - Firms operating in the service sector must have a dynamic structure to be competitive in a volatile business environment. The dynamic structure brings skilled employees and talented managers together to create effective strategies for global competition. In traditional retail service companies, the majority of the staff interacts intensively with the clients and engaged in advanced facilities. The purpose of this research is to evaluate the performance results of the banks in Turkey based on the level of customer service and satisfaction within an interdisciplinary frame. Design/methodology/approach - The fuzzy VlKOR and AHP method has been applied to analyse the performance levels of Turkish banks registered in Borsa Istanbul. In order to obtain the dynamics of data, the customer satisfaction competencies have been identified as the reference points for experts. Findings - The empirical results confirm that the performance results of the banks vary based on customer satisfaction level and ownership types. The fundamental conclusion clarifies the facilities of the state-owned banks are suitable for meeting customer expectations, private bank's performance level is higher than foreign banks, foreign banks have the weakest performance results based on customer satisfaction level with a negative financial outcomes in local countries and finally, state-owned banks with their strong assets serve the customers in expected manner. Originality/value - Generating sales revenue based on effective customer services and quality improvement requires prompt response to changing competitive conditions and customer demands. Effective customer service in performance evaluation process has a strategic role in adopting competitive strategies. The originality of the study is to evaluate the performance results of the customer satisfaction using the hybrid approach under the fuzzy environment.

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

ahp
banking
customer satisfaction
fuzzy
vikor


The Geometry of Generalized Binary Search This paper investigates the problem of determining a binary-valued function through a sequence of strategically selected queries. The focus is an algorithm called Generalized Binary Search (GBS). GBS is a well-known greedy algorithm for determining a binary-valued function through a sequence of strategically selected queries. At each step, a query is selected that most evenly splits the hypotheses under consideration into two disjoint subsets, a natural generalization of the idea underlying classic binary search. This paper develops novel incoherence and geometric conditions under which GBS achieves the information-theoretically optimal query complexity; i.e., given a collection of hypotheses, GBS terminates with the correct function after no more than a constant times log N queries. Furthermore, a noise-tolerant version of GBS is developed that also achieves the optimal query complexity. These results are applied to learning halfspaces, a problem arising routinely in image processing and machine learning.

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

channel coding with feedback
learning theory
query learning
shannon-fano coding


An investigation on the generality level of selection hyper-heuristics under different empirical conditions The present study concentrates on the generality of selection hyper-heuristics across various problem domains with a focus on different heuristic sets in addition to distinct experimental limits. While most hyper-heuristic research employs the term generality in describing the potential for solving various problems, the performance changes across different domains are rarely reported. Furthermore, a hyper-heuristic's performance study purely on the topic of heuristic sets is uncommon. Similarly, experimental limits are generally ignored when comparing hyper-heuristics. In order to demonstrate the effect of these generality related elements, nine heuristic sets with different improvement capabilities and sizes were generated for each of three target problem domains. These three problem domains are home care scheduling, nurse rostering and patient admission scheduling. Fourteen hyper-heuristics with varying intensification/diversification characteristics were analysed under various settings. Empirical results indicate that the performance of selection hyper-heuristics changes significantly under different experimental conditions.

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

generality
home care scheduling
nurse rostering
patient admission scheduling


Self-organization in fluvial landscapes: sediment dynamics as an emergent property Erosion and deposition by flowing water generally follow simple rules relating the rates of erosion and deposition to slope angle and other variables. When these rules are applied at small scales, the resulting landscape has large-scale properties which are apparent in its morphological attributes, e.g., drainage network configuration, and in its functional attributes, e.g., sediment dynamics. These emergent properties are not part of the basic, small-scale rules but, instead, result from repeated application of these rules and the ensuing self-organization of the landscape. This paper discusses a cellular model of long-term evolution of a fluvial landscape. The model is started by applying rainfall to a square group of cells of random size and at a random location within a grid. Erosion takes place as the water moves from each cell to its lowest neighbor. Sediment is routed downslope according to a transport equation with the transport rate dependent on the elevation difference between two adjacent cells. The model allows both erosion and deposition of sediment, depending on the difference between sediment input and output of a cell. When all runoff has been routed across the edge of the grid, a new rainstorm with a random area is applied at a random location and the whole process is repeated. Starting with a block-faulted landscape, over time a drainage network evolves. Sediment yield records of the drainage basins display a complex behavior, even though there are no external factors that would explain the variations in sediment yield. The complexity of sediment dynamics in the model arises from self-organization within the modeled system itself. This study is a first step towards separating the impact of this aspect of complexity on the sediment yield and depositional record from the impact of external factors associated with global change.

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

cellular automata
emergence
fluvial erosion


Regularized nonnegative matrix factorization using Gaussian mixture priors for supervised single channel source separation ? We introduce a new regularized nonnegative matrix factorization (NMF) method for supervised single-channel source separation (SCSS). We propose a new multi-objective cost function which includes the conventional divergence term for the NMF together with a prior likelihood term. The first term measures the divergence between the observed data and the multiplication of basis and gains matrices. The novel second term encourages the log-normalized gain vectors of the NMF solution to increase their likelihood under a prior Gaussian mixture model (GMM) which is used to encourage the gains to follow certain patterns. In this model, the parameters to be estimated are the basis vectors, the gain vectors and the parameters of the GMM prior. We introduce two different ways to train the model parameters, sequential training and joint training. In sequential training, after finding the basis and gains matrices, the gains matrix is then used to train the prior GMM in a separate step. In joint training, within each NMF iteration the basis matrix, the gains matrix and the prior GMM parameters are updated jointly using the proposed regularized NMF. The normalization of the gains makes the prior models energy independent, which is an advantage as compared to earlier proposals. In addition, GMM is a much richer prior than the previously considered alternatives such as conjugate priors which may not represent the distribution of the gains in the best possible way. In the separation stage after observing the mixed signal, we use the proposed regularized cost function with a combined basis and the GMM priors for all sources that were learned from training data for each source. Only the gain vectors are estimated from the mixed data by minimizing the joint cost function. We introduce novel update rules that solve the optimization problem efficiently for the new regularized NMF problem. This optimization is challenging due to using energy normalization and GMM for prior modeling, which makes the problem highly nonlinear and non-convex. The experimental results show that the introduced methods improve the performance of single channel source separation for speech separation and speechmusic separation with different NMF divergence functions. The experimental results also show that, using the GMM prior gives better separation results than using the conjugate prior.

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

single-channel source separation
gaussian mixture models
trained prior models


Keypoint based autonomous registration of terrestrial laser point-clouds Registration of terrestrial laser scanning point-clouds involves handling huge datasets, irregular point distribution, multiple views, and relatively low textured surfaces. Common approaches for the registration are based in large on the iterative closest point (ICP) model, which is non-linear and requires good initial values to secure convergence to the actual solution. Computation of the initial approximations to launch the ICP algorithm requires the extraction of distinct features, devising methods for matching them among the datasets, and then computing the transformation parameters. In this paper we present a computational approach for the registration problem. In essence we exploit 3D rigid-body transformation invariant features to reduce significantly the computational load involved in the matching between key features. Generally, with the partial overlap among datasets and among the extracted features the identification of corresponding key features can be viewed as a sub-graph matching problem. This problem is hard to solve, but as the actual matched entities are subjected to a six parameters transformation it becomes manageable. We show that distances, which are invariant to rigid body transformation, can be applied for solving this problem. We then show that by using selected keypoints, the matching process can be optimized. We also show how the information embedded within the range data is utilized to improve the quality of the selected points. Following the presentation of our algorithm, we demonstrate its application on a sequence of scans taken in areas featuring a clutter of objects. Results and the analysis show its efficiency and robustness.

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


Design and implementation of a distributed information system for collaborative product development Collaborative Product Development (CPD) is an engineering process that involves decision-making through iterative communication and coordination among product designers throughout the lifecycle of the product. The high level of collaboration and communication of a CPD environment requires a robust Distributed Information System. In this paper, we review existing research related to CPD and propose an information framework termed VE4PD based on the integration of web services and agent technologies to manage the CPD process. An implementation system is developed to validate the application.

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

collaborative product development
distributed information system
web services


On the decomposition of stochastic cellular automata An effective method for decomposing a stochastic CA into a stochastic mixture of deterministic CAs is presented. An efficient method for obtaining cell-wise probability distributions for stochastic CAs is developed based on continuous CAs. The family of stochastic, totalistic CAs is studied by decomposing them into a stochastic mixture. The efficiency of a stochastic density classifier is studied by relying on continuous CAs.

O O B 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

stochastic cellular automata
decomposition

complexity analysis
continuous cellular automata


Beyond first-order finite element schemes in micromagnetics Magnetization dynamics in ferromagnetic materials is ruled by the LandauLifshitzGilbert equation (LLG). Reliable schemes must conserve the magnetization norm, which is a nonconvex constraint, and be energy-decreasing unless there is pumping. Some of the authors previously devised a convergent finite element scheme that, by choice of an appropriate test space the tangent plane to the magnetization reduces to a linear problem at each time step. The scheme was however first-order in time. We claim it is not an intrinsic limitation, and the same approach can lead to efficient micromagnetic simulation. We show how the scheme order can be increased, and the nonlocal (magnetostatic) interactions be tackled in logarithmic time, by the fast multipole method or the non-uniform fast Fourier transform. Our implementation is called feeLLGood. A test-case of the National Institute of Standards and Technology is presented, then another one relevant to spin-transfer effects (the spin-torque oscillator).

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

landaulifshitz equation
finite elements
micromagnetism
magnetostatic field
non-uniform fast fourier transform
spintronics
spin-torque oscillator


VisualiSAR: a Web-based application for clustering, structure browsing, and structureactivity relationship study1 VisualiSAR is a program designed to display chemical structures, find similarities and differences between them, and highlight relationships that might exist. The program integrates cluster analysis for the grouping of structurally related compounds, modal analysis of molecular fingerprints for the sorting and highlighting of chemical features, and a Web-based interface for flexibility and ease of use. VisualiSAR has proved useful for a number of applications including the discernment of structureactivity relationships (SAR) of high-volume screening data, and general structure browsing. This article discusses the design of the tool and illustrates two 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 O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

world wide web
molecular similarity
modal fingerprints


Feature extraction for one-class classification problems: Enhancements to biased discriminant analysis In many one-class classification problems such as face detection and object verification, the conventional linear discriminant analysis sometimes fails because it makes an inappropriate assumption on negative samples that they are distributed according to a Gaussian distribution. In addition, it sometimes cannot extract sufficient number of features because it merely makes use of the mean value of each class. In order to resolve these problems, in this paper, we extend the biased discriminant analysis (BDA) which was originally developed for one-class classification problems. The BDA makes no assumption on the distribution of negative samples and tries to separate each negative sample as far away from the center of positive samples as possible. The first extension uses a saturation technique to suppress the influence of the samples which are located far away from the decision boundary. The second one utilizes the L1 norm instead of the L2 norm. Also we present a method to extend BDA and its variants to multi-class classification problems. Our approach is considered useful in the sense that without much complexity, it successfully reduces the negative effect of negative samples which are far away from the center of positive samples, resulting in better classification performances. We have applied the proposed methods to several classification problems and compared the performance with conventional methods.

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


Application of neural network in QFD matrix The major challenge for contemporary enterprises is to make products fulfill customers' expectations. Conceptual design is the foundation of the development process, as it starts from the customer needs identification and decides about the whole product life cycle. Quality function deployment (QFD) helps to extract product characteristics from customer demands. Optimization of the product development process requires different product variant information at the early stage of product development. At the early designing stage, designers lack sufficient product information and have difficulty in determining it. The idea of the paper is to provide measurable engineering information for the quality function deployment method. For this purpose, a chosen artificial intelligence method was used. In the experiment, artificial neural network (NN) was applied. The results of analyses show that the intelligent estimation methods are useful and effective. The methods of estimation consist of four stages: goal setting, data acquisition, configuration of NN architecture, fulfilling of the QFD matrix. Finally, to illustrate the procedure of the chosen engineering characteristic estimation, a toothed gear box example was used.

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

qfd
artificial intelligence
neural network


Feedback arc set in bipartite tournaments is NP-complete The FEEDBACK ARC SET problem asks whether it is possible to delete at most k arcs to make a directed graph acyclic. We show that FEEDBACK ARC SET is NP-complete for bipartite tournaments, that is, directed graphs that are orientations of complete bipartite graphs. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

combinatorial problems
computational complexity
feedback set problems


improving the image retrieval system by ranking With the rapid growth of multimedia data, a lot of attention has been recently devoted to the development of multimedia retrieval systems. The research has followed two main directions: The first one applies existing text-search mechanisms to retrieve multimedia data based on its descriptive annotations, the second approach retrieves data by content. In case of text-based searching, the quality of results depends on the quality of text metadata, which is often not very high (especially in large general-purpose collections such as web image galleries). In the content-based approach, data objects are indexed and searched using features extracted from the data that describe their important characteristics. However, this solution suffers from the well-known semantic gap problem, i.e. the discrepancy between the similarity as computed using the descriptors and human understanding of similarity.

O O B I I 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


A novel loss-of-signal detector with programmable assert threshold for intelligent limiting amplifier This paper presents a novel programmable assert threshold loss-of-signal (LOS) detector with fixed optical hysteresis for intelligent limiting amplifier (LA) using 0.5-mu m 2P2M CMOS technology. By adjusting the gain of the LA, a programmable threshold range of 2-20 mV(pp) is implemented. The proposed detector circuit obtains a signal strength indication voltage V (SIG) and a reference voltage V (REF), both of which can be dependent each other. With other special circuit design techniques, the detector circuit achieves stable LOS range, LOS hysteresis and LOS precision, and all of them are completely independent on all process, voltage supply and temperature deviations. This LOS detector is integrated with a 155-Mbps LA operating at a compatible supply voltage of 3.3 and 5.0 V. The measurement results demonstrate that the LOS detector achieves a stable programmable assert threshold and a 2 dB fixed optical hysteresis for a 155 Mbps input pseudo random sequence.

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

los detector
programmable assert threshold


Electrohydrodynamic Convective Heat Transfer in a Square Duct Laminar to weakly turbulent forced convection in a square duct heated from the bottom is strengthened by ion injection from an array of high-voltage points opposite the heated strip. Both positive and negative ion injection are activated within the working liquid HFE-7100 (C4F9OCH3), with transiting electrical currents on the order of 0.1 mA. Local temperatures on the heated wall are measured by liquid crystal thermography. The tests are conducted in a Reynolds number range from 510 to 12,100. In any case, heat transfer is dramatically augmented, almost independently from the flow rate. The pressure drop increase caused by the electrohydrodynamically induced flow is also measured. A profitable implementation of the technique in the design of heat sinks and heat exchangers is foreseen; possible benefits are pumping power reduction, size reduction, and heat exchange capability augmentation.

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

ehd
heat transfer enhancement
liquid crystals


Phylogeny- and parsimony-based haplotype inference with constraints Haplotyping, also known as haplotype phase prediction, is the problem of predicting likely haplotypes based on genotype data. One fast computational haplotyping method is based on an evolutionary model where a perfect phylogenetic tree is sought that explains the observed data. An extension of this approach tries to incorporate prior knowledge in the form of a set of candidate haplotypes from which the right haplotypes must be chosen. The objective is to increase the accuracy of haplotyping methods, but it was conjectured that the resulting formal problem constrained perfect phylogeny haplotyping might be NP-complete. In the paper at hand we present a polynomial-time algorithm for it. Our algorithmic ideas also yield new fixed-parameter algorithms for related haplotyping problems based on the maximum parsimony assumption. (C) 2012 Elsevier Inc. 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 B I O O O O O O O O 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

haplotype inference
perfect phylogeny
maximum parsimony

polynomial-time algorithms
fixed-parameter algorithms


Congruences of Multialgebras The purpose of this paper is the study of congruence and strong congruence of multialgebras. In this regard first we introduce the notion of compatibility and strong compatibility in multialgebras and then we study congruences on multialgebras as a generalization of congruences in ordinary algebras. We investigate some of the important properties of lattices of congruences and strong congruences of multialgebras.

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

multialgebra
factor multialgebra
compatible relation
strongly compatible relation
strong congruence
homomorphism


Using computer software packages to enhance the teaching in Engineering Management Sciencepart 2: Programming techniques This article is the second article in a series of sharing the experience of using different software packages in the delivery of Engineering Management Science coded as ENG4004, in the Bachelor of Engineering and Bachelor of Engineering Technology programs offered by the University of Southern Queensland. The article describes how the authors use different software packages to solve the programming techniques problems of the course. Sometimes more than one package is required for the effective delivery of a topic of the course. The needs for the usage were also explained. The assessments of the course were also studied and reviewed. How the software packages met the objectives of the module were also discussed together with the desired learning outcomes of students. The comparative measure of the two packages used, Excel in MS Office 2007 and Quantitative Methods-Production and Operations Management(POM-QM) for Windows 3 ended with the former as winner. It can be argued that the students' learning experience and satisfaction will be greatly increased with the software packages while the cost to the university will be minimal. 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Comput Appl Eng Educ 20: 114123, 2012

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

quantitative methods-production and operations management(pom-qm) for windows 3


ROUTE PLANNING AND OPTIMIZATION OF ROUTE USING SIMULATED ANT AGENT SYSTEM This research presents an optimization technique for route planning using simulated ant agents for dynamic online route planning and optimization of the route. It addresses the issues involved during route planning in dynamic and unknown environments cluttered with obstacles and objects. A simulated ant agent system (SAAS) is proposed using modified ant colony optimization algorithm for dealing with online route planning. It is compared with evolutionary technique on randomly generated environments, obstacle ratio, grid sizes, and complex environments. The evolutionary technique performs well in simple and less cluttered environments while its performance degrades with large and complex environments. The SAAS generates and optimizes routes in complex and large environments with constraints. The traditional route optimization techniques focus on good solutions only and do not exploit the solution space completely. The SAAS is shown to be an efficient technique for providing safe, short, and feasible routes under dynamic constraints and its efficiency has been tested in a mine field simulation with different environment configurations and is capable of tracking the moving goal and performs equally well as compared to moving target search algorithm.

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

agent
ant colony optimization
optimization
route planning


Denoising methods for thermomechanical decomposition for quasi-equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations In this work, we applied robust denoising methods well established in the signal processing field for the thermomechanical decomposition of velocity data obtained from molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. In the decomposition, the atomic velocity was assumed to be the sum of the mechanical velocity and the thermal velocity, which can be linked to the stress and temperature field at the continuum scale, respectively. For the quasi-equilibrium process, with the thermal velocity treated as the Gaussian distributed stationary noise with zero mean and a positive variance that is linearly proportional to temperature and mechanical velocity as the clean signal, the velocity decomposition can be recasted into a denoising problem, for which powerful denoising methods have been developed to estimate a clean signal from noisy data. We investigated the widely-used linear parametric real-domain, linear nonparametric Fourier-based, and nonlinear nonparametric wavelet-based denoising methods, first on their theoretical properties and then made comparsion among them for denosing some synthetic noisy 1-dimensional (1D) data generated from MD simulations. The nonlinear wavelet-based thresholding estimator possessed better optimality properties than the other estimators, and also outperformed the other estimators in the synthetic data test. A further test comparing the various denoising methods for an adiabatic shear crack nucleation and propagation process simulated using MD simulations showed better performance by the wavelet-based denoisng method. Results from this work reveal good potential of applying wavelet-based denoising method to the study of thermomechanical processes simulated using MD simulations.

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

denoising method
thermomechanical decomposition
molecular dynamics simulations


Nonparametric supervised learning by linear interpolation with maximum entropy Nonparametric neighborhood methods for learning entail estimation of class conditional probabilities based on relative frequencies of samples that are "near-neighbors" of a test point. We propose and explore the behavior of a learning algorithm that uses linear interpolation and the principle of maximum entropy (LIME). We consider some theoretical properties of the LIME algorithm: LIME weights have exponential form; the estimates are consistent; and the estimates are robust to additive noise. In relation to bias reduction, we show that near-neighbors contain a test point in their convex hull asymptotically. The common linear interpolation solution used for regression on grids or look-up-tables is shown to solve a related maximum entropy problem. LIME simulation results support use of the method, and performance on a pipeline integrity classification problem demonstrates that the proposed algorithm has practical value.

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

nonparametric statistics
probabilistic algorithms
pattern recognition


precise pointer reasoning for dynamic test generation Dynamic test generation consists of executing a program while gathering symbolic constraints on inputs from predicates encountered in branch statements, and of using a constraint solver to infer new program inputs from previous constraints in order to steer next executions towards new program paths. Variants of this technique have recently been adopted in several bug detection tools, including our whitebox fuzzer SAGE, which has found dozens of new expensive security-related bugs in many Windows applications and is now routinely used in various Microsoft groups. In this paper, we discuss how to perform precise symbolic pointer reasoning in the context of dynamic test generation. We present a new memory model for representing arbitrary symbolic pointer dereferences to memory regions accessible by a program during its execution, and show that this memory model is the most precise one can hope for in our context, under some realistic assumptions. We also describe how the symbolic constraints generated by our model can be solved using modern SMT solvers, which provide powerful constructs for reasoning about bit-vectors and arrays. This new memory model has been implemented in SAGE, and we present results of experiments with several large Windows applications showing that an increase in precision can often be obtained at a reasonable cost. Better precision in symbolic pointer reasoning means more relevant constraints and fewer imprecise ones, hence better test coverage, more bugs found and fewer redundant test cases.

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

software testing
program verification
automatic test generation


designing adaptive feedback for improving data entry accuracy Data quality is critical for many information-intensive applications. One of the best opportunities to improve data quality is during entry. Usher provides a theoretical, data-driven foundation for improving data quality during entry. Based on prior data, Usher learns a probabilistic model of the dependencies between form questions and values. Using this information, Usher maximizes information gain . By asking the most unpredictable questions first, Usher is better able to predict answers for the remaining questions. In this paper, we use Usher's predictive ability to design a number of intelligent user interface adaptations that improve data entry accuracy and efficiency. Based on an underlying cognitive model of data entry, we apply these modifications before, during and after committing an answer. We evaluated these mechanisms with professional data entry clerks working with real patient data from six clinics in rural Uganda. The results show that our adaptations have the potential to reduce error (by up to 78\%), with limited effect on entry time (varying between -14\% and +6\%). We believe this approach has wide applicability for improving the quality and availability of data, which is increasingly important for decision-making and resource allocation.

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

adaptive interface
repetitive task
form design


performance analysis based upon complete profiles A system for engineering and verifying component-based software must include mechanisms for specifying abstractly not only the complete functionality of components but their exact performance as well. This paper introduces profiles as a first-class construct for complete, independent specification of performance in higher-level languages. Using profiles, a developer can select from an assortment of implementations for a particular functionality the one that best suits his needs with respect to speed and memory usage. Equally importantly, he can define the expected performance of larger scale components using compositions of the profiles of their constituent (possibly as yet unimplemented) components. To support scalability, the profile construct facilitates abstraction in performance specifications as well as performance composition and analysis.

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


Density functional study of structural and electronic properties of small binary Be (n) Cu (m) (n plus m=2 similar to 7) clusters The geometrical structures, electronic properties and relative stabilities of small bimetallic Be (n) Cu (m) (n + m = 2-7) clusters have been systematically investigated by using a density functional method at the B3PW91 level. In the most stable structures of Be (n) Cu (m) , the Be atoms tend to gather together and construct similar configurations to those of pure Be (n) clusters. Meanwhile, there is a tendency for Cu atoms to segregate toward the Be (n) cluster surface. The successive binding energies, cohesive energies, second difference of energies, the highest occupied-lowest unoccupied molecular orbital energy gaps and chemical hardness of Be (n) Cu (m) are also investigated. All of them demonstrate that the clusters with even number of copper atoms present relatively higher stabilities. The natural population analyses on the Be (n) Cu (m) clusters reveal that, the charge transfers from Be to Cu when the average coordination numbers (Nc) of Be atom is less than 3, whereas the charge-transferring direction reverses when Nc(Be) increases.

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

be-cu cluster
coordination number
density functional theory
stability
structural feature


Synchronization driven by correlated inputs We consider how correlated inputs can ensure a group of neurons (the integrate-and-fire model or the HodgkinHuxley model) to synchronize their activities. Without interactions, the shortest synchronization time occurs when the coefficient of variation of efferent spike trains of single neuron is greater than 0.5. The application of synchronization driven by correlated inputs to signal detection is also taken into account.

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

the hodgkinhuxley model
coefficient of variation
synchronization
signal detection


Lifetime properties of a cumulative shock model with a cluster structure This paper studies a generalized cumulative shock model with a cluster shock structure. The system considered is subject to two types of shocks, called primary shocks and secondary shocks, where each primary shock causes a series of secondary shocks. The lifetime behavior of such a system becomes more complicated than that of a classical model with only one class of shocks. Under a non-homogeneous Poisson process of primary shocks, we analyze the lifetime behavior of the system with light-tailed and heavy-tailed distributed secondary shocks. We show some important characteristics of lifetime of this type of system. Our model, as an extension of the classical shock models, has wide applications in maintenance engineering, operations management, and insurance risk assessment.

B O O O B I 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 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 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

cluster point process
light-tailed distribution
regular-tailed distribution


iCAN: A tablet-based pedagogical system for improving communication skills of children with autism ? Our system aims to alleviate the problems encountered by caregivers of children with autism in using traditional PECS. Incorporates advantageous features such as support for digital, visualization, and voice capabilities. Provides both convenience and portability factors. Brings greater seamless interaction between children with autism and their caregivers. Enhances children with autism?s willingness to learn and interact with others.

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

assistive technology
child-computer interaction
tablet applications
picture exchange communication system


Intestinal Epithelial Cells Control Dendritic Cell Function Dendritic cells (DCs) comprise a family of cells specializing in antigen capture and presentation to T cells. We have recently shown that DC play an active role in bacterial uptake across mucosal surfaces. Indeed, DC are able to open tight junctions and to sample antigens directly across epithelia, both in vitro and in vivo. Because DC express tight junction proteins, the integrity of the epithelial barrier is preserved. In this study we have analyzed the possible involvement of epithelial cells in controlling DC function. We developed an in vitro model in our laboratory consisting of a three-player system of dendritic cells, epithelial cell monolayers, and bacteria. The crosstalk between epithelial cells and dendritic cells was analyzed, and epithelial cells were tested for their capacity to release cytokines and chemokines that induce the migration and activation of DC. We show that the capacity of epithelial cells to produce cytokines and activate DC is dependent on the invasiveness of the bacteria tested. In particular, invasive bacteria stimulate epithelial cells to release proinflammatory cytokines and to induce the maturation state of DC. By contrast, noninvasive bacteria are unable to stimulate epithelial cells, but can activate DC directly when DC translocate to the apical side. In conclusion, epithelial cells are not simply a barrier to bacteria entering via the oral route, but actively influence the activating properties of bystander DC.

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

dendritic cells
epithelial cells
bacteria
tight junctions


Lightweight service-oriented grid application toolkit With the growing requirement. of computational power and hardware resources, Grid has become the major role in several researches and business areas. With the advanced capabilities of mobile, lightweight, and thin devices, Grid computing has, recently, migrated to pervasive and utility computing. To address these problems, we designed and implemented an agent-based lightweight Grid application toolkit, which is called MAGE (Mobile Agent-based Grid Environment). It consists of several hierarchical layers with dynamically controllable agents for archiving isolation of dependency among communication, message interpretation, and actual jobs. Because an agent represents a set-vice in MAGE, each element of application can be replaced with a new task without intervention of other tasks. In this paper, we will describe the design issues and advantages in using our system.

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

service-oriented architecture
reconfiguration
mobile agent
grid monitoring


A sublinear-time approximation scheme for bin packing The bin packing problem is defined as follows: given a set of n items with sizes 0 0, we present an algorithm A, that has sampling access to the input instance and outputs a value k such that C(opt) <= k <= (1 + epsilon) . C(opt) + 1, where C(opt) is the cost of an optimal solution. It is clear that uniform sampling by itself will not allow a sublinear-time algorithm in this setting; a small number of items might constitute most of the total weight and uniform samples will not hit them. In this work we use weighted samples, where item i is sampled with probability proportional to its weight: that is, with probability w(i)/Sigma w(i). In the presence of weighted samples, the approximation algorithm runs in (O) over tilde root n . poly(1/epsilon)) +g(1/x) time, where g(x) is an exponential function of x. When both weighted sampling and uniform sampling are allowed, (O) over tilde (n(1/3).poly(1/epsilon)) + g(1/epsilon) time suffices. In addition to an approximate value to Copt, our algorithm can also output a constant-size "template" of a packing that can later be used to find a near-optimal packing in linear time. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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


Incorporating uncertainty in optimal decision making: Integrating mixed integer programming and simulation to solve combinatorial problems We introduce a novel methodology that integrates optimization and simulation techniques to obtain estimated global optimal solutions to combinatorial problems with uncertainty such as those of facility location, facility layout, and scheduling. We develop a generalized mixed integer programming (MIP) formulation that allows iterative interaction with a simulation model by taking into account the impact of uncertainty on the objective function value of previous solutions. Our approach is generalized, efficient, incorporates the impact of uncertainty of system parameters on performance and can easily be incorporated into a variety of applications. For illustration, we apply this new solution methodology to the NP-hard multi-period multi-product facility location problem (MPP-FLP). Our results show that, for this problem, our iterative procedure yields up to 9.4% improvement in facility location-related costs over deterministic optimization and that these cost savings increase as the variability in demand and supply uncertainty are increased. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

combinatorial optimization
hybrid solution methodology


Introducing intelligent sensors in presses for plastic material injection This paper presents some theoretical and experimental results concerning the introduction of advanced sensors in the design and development of a new generation of presses for plastic material injection used to produce washing machine tubs. The architecture of the control system for the presses is based on a distributed solution and relies on fieldbus communications to obtain a graceful migration path to the adoption of sensors of a new generation. This enables a dramatic decrease in both the cabling complexity and cost, together with a significant improvement in the performance of the whole machine. The adoption of the field network to connect sensors and actuators to the controller has been carefully evaluated by means of a preliminary theoretical analysis. Then, two test systems have been implemented to collect data and performance figures by carrying out experiments and measures on some of the real devices selected for the design of press control equipment.

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 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

controller area network (can)
fieldbuses
mts sensors
profibus dp
real-time communications


extensional polymorphism We present the extensional polymorphism, a framework to type check ad hoc polymorphic functions. This formalism is compatible with parametric polymorphism, and supports a large class of functions defined by structural pattern matching on types.

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

framework formalism polymorphism types class

genericity
structure
dynamics
ad-hoc polymorphism
pattern match
debugging
ml
parametric polymorphism
caml
functional language
type checking
ad-hoc


regularized discriminant analysis for high dimensional, low sample size data Linear and Quadratic Discriminant Analysis have been used widely in many areas of data mining, machine learning, and bioinformatics. Friedman proposed a compromise between Linear and Quadratic Discriminant Analysis, called Regularized Discriminant Analysis (RDA), which has been shown to be more flexible in dealing with various class distributions. RDA applies the regularization techniques by employing two regularization parameters, which are chosen to jointly maximize the classification performance. The optimal pair of parameters is commonly estimated via cross-validation from a set of candidate pairs. It is computationally prohibitive for high dimensional data, especially when the candidate set is large, which limits the applications of RDA to low dimensional data.In this paper, a novel algorithm for RDA is presented for high dimensional data. It can estimate the optimal regularization parameters from a large set of parameter candidates efficiently. Experiments on a variety of datasets confirm the claimed theoretical estimate of the efficiency, and also show that, for a properly chosen pair of regularization parameters, RDA performs favorably in classification, in comparison with other existing classification methods.

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

regularization
quadratic discriminant analysis


Approximate Bayes factors for image segmentation: The Pseudolikelihood Information Criterion (PLIC) We propose a method for choosing the number of colors or true gray levels in an image; this allows fully automatic segmentation of images. Our underlying probability model is a hidden Markov random field. Each number of colors considered is viewed as corresponding to a statistical model for the image, and the resulting models are compared via approximate Bayes factors. The Bayes factors are approximated using BIC (Bayesian Information Criterion), where the required maximized likelihood is approximated by the Qian-Titterington pseudolikelihood. We call the resulting criterion PLIC (Pseudolikelihood Information Criterion). We also discuss a simpler approximation, MIMIC (Marginal Mixture Information Criterion), which is based only on the marginal distribution of pixel values. This turns out to be useful for initialization and it also has moderately good performance by itself when the amount of spatial dependence in an image is low. We apply PLIC and MMIC to a medical image segmentation problem.

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

bic
image segmentation
markov random field
pseudolikelihood

color image quantization
icm algorithm
medical image
mixture model
posterior model probability
satellite image


Current-sensing and repeater hybrid circuit technique for on-chip interconnects In this paper, hybrids based on current-sensing and repeaters are proposed for on-chip interconnects in an effort to overcome the limitations of these techniques. A novel receiver for current-sensing results in static power savings and allows an easier transition from current-sensing to traditional full rail voltage signals. Measurements of hybrids on a 0.18-mu m CMOS technology show significant gains over repeater insertion in delay across wire lengths. Hybrids can also be used in placement constrained and low-noise scenarios to achieve delay and power benefits.

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

low-swing signaling
placement constraint


Structure-preserving and query-biased document summarisation for web searching Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to develop a new summarisation approach, namely structure-preserving and query-biased summarisation, to improve the effectiveness of web searching. During web searching, one aid for users is the document summaries provided in the search results. However, the summaries provided by current search engines have limitations in directing users to relevant documents. Design/methodology/approach - The proposed system consists of two stages: document structure analysis and summarisation. In the first stage, a rule-based approach is used to identify the sectional hierarchies of web documents. In the second stage, query-biased summaries are created, making use of document structure both in the summarisation process and in the output summaries. Findings - In structural processing, about 70 per cent accuracy in identifying document sectional hierarchies is obtained. The summarisation method is tested on a task-based evaluation method using English and Turkish document collections. The results show that the proposed method is a significant improvement over both unstructured query-biased summaries and Google snippets in terms of f-measure. Practical implications - The proposed summarisation system can be incorporated into search engines. The structural processing technique also has applications in other information systems, such as browsing, outlining and indexing documents. Originality/value - In the literature on summarisation, the effects of query-biased techniques and document structure are considered in only a few works and are researched separately. The research reported here differs from traditional approaches by combining these two aspects in a coherent framework. The work is also the first automatic summarisation study for Turkish targeting web search.

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

data structures
document delivery
markup languages
worldwide web


Where does model-driven engineering help? Experiences from three industrial cases There have been few experience reports from industry on how Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) is applied and what the benefits are. This paper summarizes the experiences of three large industrial participants in a European research project with the objective of developing techniques and tools for applying MDE on the development of large and complex software systems. The participants had varying degrees of previous experience with MDE. They found MDE to be particularly useful for providing abstractions of complex systems at multiple levels or from different viewpoints, for the development of domain-specific models that facilitate communication with non-technical experts, for the purposes of simulation and testing, and for the consumption of models for analysis, such as performance-related decision support and system design improvements. From the industrial perspective, a methodology is considered to be useful and cost-efficient if it is possible to reuse solutions in multiple projects or products. However, developing reusable solutions required extra effort and sometimes had a negative impact on the performance of tools. While the companies identified several benefits of MDE, merging different tools with one another in a seamless development environment required several transformations, which increased the required implementation effort and complexity. Additionally, user-friendliness of tools and the provision of features for managing models of complex systems were identified as crucial for a wider industrial adoption of MDE.

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

model-driven engineering
domain-specific language
experience report
eclipse


Cardiovascular Disease Delay in Centenarian Offspring: Role of Heat Shock Proteins Cardiovascular disease is a major cause of morbidity and mortality of older Americans. We have demonstrated recently that centenarian offspring, when compared with age-matched controls, avoid and/or delay cardiovascular disease and cardiovascular risk factors. Given recent evidence suggesting that higher circulating levels of HSP70 predict the future development of cardiovascular disease in established hypertensives and a recent study demonstrating a decrease in HSP60 and HSP70 with advancing age, we hypothesized that HSP70 levels would be lower in centenarian offspring compared with controls. The circulating serum concentration of HSP70 in 20 centenarian offspring and 9 spousal controls was analyzed using a modified HSP70 ELISA method. Centenarian offspring showed approximately 10-fold lower levels of circulating serum HSP70 compared with spousal controls (P < .001). The exact biological significance of the extremely low levels of circulating serum HSP70 observed in centenarian offspring thus far is not clear. However, circulating HSP has been shown to correlate in diseases or disorders in which there is destruction or damage to target tissues or organs, including cardiovascular diseases and numerous autoimmune disorders. We hypothesize that low levels of circulating serum HSP70 may be an indicator of a healthy state and point to longevity of the host; therefore, our results suggest that levels of circulating serum HSP70 may be a marker for longevity.

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

cardiovascular disease
centenarian
heat shock proteins
longevity


A survey of innovative technology processes in manufacturing The focus of this investigation is to distinguish the difference between technologies and processes found in manufacturing environments. where the magnitude and order of these associations may provide insight into the degree that each may require from a "push-pull" perspective. Each organization is divided into two differing parameters of communication: internal and external. The results suggest that advanced manufacturing technologies (AMTs) and advanced manufacturing processes (AMPs) are positively related, while a technology such as EDI is not equally distributed between the concepts of internal and external communications. The predominant research design for analyzing the impact of a new technology on an organization has been the case study design, which does not provide a consistent basis for comparing and generalizing results. This study em ploys the survey design and provides a better insight into the effects of AMTs and AMPs.

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

electronic data interchange
computer-aided manufacturing
manufacturing resource planning


Object recognition based on image sequences by using inter-feature-line consistencies An image sequence-based framework for appearance-based object recognition is proposed in this paper. Compared with the methods of using a single view for object recognition, inter-frame consistencies can be exploited in a sequence-based method, so that a better recognition performance can be achieved. We use the nearest feature line (NFL) method (IEEE Trans. Neural Networks 10 (1999) 439) to model each object. The NFL method is extended in this paper by further integrating motion-continuity information between features lines in a probabilistic framework. The associated recognition task is formulated as maximizing an a posteriori probability measure. The recognition problem is then further transformed to a shortest-path searching problem, and a dynamic-programming technique is used to solve it.

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

appearance-based object recognition
nearest feature lines
sequence-based object recognition


dynamic media arts programming in impromptu Dynamic software systems for generative art have particular requirements around rapid development and manipulation of ideas and real-time computational processes. Impromptu is an innovative new programming environment created by Andrew Sorensen, and is designed to facilitate the fluid flow of creative ideas and their expression in software. It has been used for our recent projects, including a variety of Collaborative Music Jamming Systems, because it supports creative processes by leveraging the audio, graphic and video capabilities of the modern operating system within a dynamic programming environment. In our projects collaboration is supported through a synthesis of media types, numerous communication protocols, and facilities for inter-system communications and control. The demonstration will show these environments and how Impromptu supported their development.

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

media arts
programming environment
generative art

interactivity
live coding
multimedia
software development
collaborative systems


using the balanced scorecard process to compute the value of software applications This paper describes a method that will provide practical help for IT managers and other enterprise executives who want to determine the value of their software projects. A set of measures is described that can help the IT manager determine the value of IT projects, either at the time a project is initiated or at the time the project is operational. This paper identifies relevant performance measures used in the balanced scorecard process and then maps them to IT benefits: which are categorized by strategic, informational, and transactional dimensions. The appropriate measure can be identified and value quantified based upon the expected IT benefit.

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


Unified user interface design: designing universally accessible interactions Designing universally accessible user interfaces means designing for diversity in end-users and contexts of use, and implies making alternative design decisions, at various levels of the interaction design, inherently leading to diversity in the final design outcomes. Towards this end, a design method leading to the construction of a single interface design instance is inappropriate, as it cannot accommodate for diversity of the resulting dialogue artifacts. Therefore, there is a need for a systematic process in which alternative design decisions for different design parameters may be supported. The outcome of such a design process realizes a design space populated with appropriate designed dialogue patterns, along with their associated design parameters (e.g. user- and usage-context-attribute values). This paper discusses the Unified Interface Design Method, a process-oriented design method enabling the organization of diversity-based design decisions around a single hierarchical structure, and encompassing a variety of techniques such as task analysis, abstract design, design polymorphism and design rationale. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

dialogue design
polymorphic task analysis
interface adaptation
unified user interfaces


Dealing with Nonuniformity in Data Centric Storage for Wireless Sensor Networks In-network storage of data in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) is considered a promising alternative to external storage since it contributes to reduce the communication overhead inside the network. Recent approaches to data storage rely on Geographic Hash Tables (GHT) for efficient data storage and retrieval. These approaches, however, assume that sensors are uniformly distributed in the sensor field, which is seldom true in real applications. Also they do not allow tuning the redundancy level in the storage according to the importance of the data to be stored. To deal with these issues, we propose an approach based on two mechanisms. The first is aimed at estimating the real network distribution. The second exploits data dispersal method based on the estimated network distribution. Experiments through simulation show that our approach approximates quite closely the real distribution of sensors and that our dispersal protocol sensibly reduces data losses due to unbalanced data load.

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

wireless sensor networks
data centric storage


Hopf bifurcation control of congestion control model in a wireless access network The main purpose of this paper is to analyze the problem of Hopf bifurcation control for a congestion control model in a wireless access network with time delay. By choosing communication delay as a bifurcation parameter, it is shown that when delay passes through a critical value, the Hopf bifurcation occurs. The bifurcation behavior may cause heavy oscillation and induce network instability. In order to control the undesirable Hopf bifurcation, a hybrid control strategy is proposed. By using a linear stability analysis, we show that adjusting the control parameters of the hybrid control strategy properly, the Hopf bifurcation can be delayed or even eliminated completely without changing the equilibrium point of the system. Therefore, this method can effectively control the Hopf bifurcation for the TCP/AQM wireless network model. Theoretical analysis and numerical simulation results show that this method is effective in controlling Hopf bifurcation of congestion control model in wireless network.

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

hopf bifurcation
wireless access network
hybrid control strategy


Comments on "Reduction of fuzzy rule base via singular value decomposition" In this paper, several comments are presented for the reduction of the fuzzy rule base in the paper of Yam et al. In their paper, the approach to determine the number of singular values necessary for the reduction process to obtain the effective and most efficient fuzzy rule base is not provided. Although the output error of the fuzzy controller is bounded, the performance of the system output may not be satisfied. Moreover, the computation load is increased for each input of the fuzzy mechanism since the input membership functions are modified.

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


an interleaved cache clustered vliw processor Clustered microarchitectures are becoming a common organization due to their potential to reduce the penalties caused by wire delays and power consumption. Fully-distributed architectures are particularly effective to deal with these constraints, and besides they are very scalable. However, the distribution of the data cache memory poses a significant challenge and may be critical for performance. In this work, a distributed data cache VLIW architecture based on an interleaved cache organization along with cyclic scheduling techniques are proposed. Moreover, the use of Attraction Buffers for such an architecture is introduced. Attraction Buffers are a novel hardware mechanism to increase the percentage of local accesses. The idea is to allow the movement of some data towards the clusters that need it.Performance results for 9 Mediabench benchmarks show that our scheduling techniques are able to hide the increased memory latency when accessing data mapped in a remote cluster. In addition, the local hit ratio is increased by 15\% and stall time is reduced by 30\% when using the same scheduling techniques with an interleaved cache clustered processor with Attraction Buffers. Finally, the proposed architecture is compared with a state-of-the-art distributed architecture such as the multiVLIW. Results show that the performance of an interleaved cache clustered VLIW processor with Attraction Buffers is similar to that of the multiVLIW architecture, whereas the former has a lower hardware complexity.

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

challenge
scheduling
attraction buffers
clustered microarchitectures
use
performance
processor
organization
cache
latency
power consumption
architecture
data
hardware
distributed
cluster

vliw processors
scalability
benchmark
delay
modulo scheduling
art
timing
constraint
buffers
locality
distributed cache
data cache
memorialized
effect


Coordinated design and performance evaluation of UPFC supplementary modulation controllers Mitigation of low-frequency electro-mechanical oscillations is essential for secure operation of power systems. The fast acting, power electronics based FACTS controllers which are capable of improving both steady state and dynamic performance permit newer approaches to system stabilization. The objective of the work presented in this paper is to carry out a coordinated design of supplementary modulation controllers (SMCs) for UPFC and to evaluate their performance. The effectiveness of the SMCs in damping the critical modes is tested on a four machine, 10 bus system.

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

supplementary modulation controller
low-frequency oscillations


dynamic overlay of scratchpad memory for energy minimization The memory subsystem accounts for a significant portion of the aggregate energy budget of contemporary embedded systems. Moreover, there exists a large potential for optimizing the energy consumption of the memory subsystem. Consequently, novel memories as well as novel algorithms for their efficient utilization are being designed. Scratchpads are known to perform better than caches in terms of power, performance, area and predictability. However, unlike caches they depend upon software allocation techniques for their utilization. In this paper, we present an allocation technique which analyzes the application and inserts instructions to dynamically copy both code segments and variables onto the scratchpad at runtime. We demonstrate that the problem of dynamically overlaying scratchpad is an extension of the Global Register Allocation problem. The overlay problem is solved optimally using ILP formulation techniques. Our approach improves upon the only previously known allocation technique for statically allocating both variables and code segments onto the scratchpad. Experiments report an average reduction of 34\% and 18\% in the energy consumption and the runtime of the applications, respectively. A minimal increase in code size is also reported.

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

applications
register allocation
performance
reduction
energy minimization
paper
runtime
minimal
software
energy consumption
size
code
aggregate
dynamic
overlay
energy
scratchpad
demonstrate
budget
power
caches
ilp
global
embedded systems
allocation

efficiency
dynamic allocation
experience
extensibility
account
predict
variability
optimality
instruction
segmentation
memorialized
scratchpad memory
algorithm


Finding

linear

dependencies

in

integration-by-parts

equations:

A

Monte

Carlo

approach

The

reduction

of

a

large

number

of

scalar

integrals

to

a

small

set

of

master

integrals

via

Laportas

algorithm

is

common

practice

in

multi-loop

calculations.

It

is

also

a

major

bottleneck

in

terms

of

running

time

and

memory

consumption.

It

involves

solving

a

large

set

of

linear

equations

where

many

of

the

equations

are

linearly

dependent.

We

propose

a

simple

algorithm

that

eliminates

all

linearly

dependent

equations

from

a

given

system,

reducing

the

time

and

space

requirements

of

a

subsequent

run

of

Laportas

algorithm.

Program

title:

ICEthe

IBP

Chooser

of

Equations

Catalogue

identifier:

Program

summary

Program

obtainable

from:

CPC

Program

Library,

Queens

University,

Belfast,

N.

Ireland

Licensing

provisions:

GNU

General

Public

License,

version

No.

of

lines

in

distributed

program,

including

test

data,

etc.:

No.

of

bytes

in

distributed

program,

including

test

data,

etc.:

Distribution

format:

tar.gz

Programming

language:

Haskell.

Computer:

any

system

that

hosts

the

Haskell

Platform.

Operating

system:

GNU/Linux,

Windows,

OS/X.

Classification:

Nature

of

problem:

find

linear

dependencies

in

a

system

of

linear

equations

with

multivariate

polynomial

coefficients.

To

be

used

on

Integration-By-Parts

identities

before

running

Laportas

Algorithm.

Solution

method:

map

the

system

to

a

finite

field

and

solve

there,

keeping

track

of

the

required

equations.

Restrictions:

typically

less

than

the

restrictions

imposed

by

the

requirement

of

being

able

to

process

the

output

with

Laportas

Algorithm.

Unusual

features:

complexity

increases

only

very

mildly

with

the

number

of

kinematic

invariants.

Running

time:

depends

on

the

individual

problem.

Fractions

of

a

second

to

a

few

minutes

have

been

observed

in

tests.

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

feynman diagram reduction
laporta algorithm
redundancy
dependent systems of linear equations
homomorphic images


A scalable and collision-free MAC protocol for all-optical ring networks In this paper, we propose a collision free MAC protocol for an all-optical WDM ring network where packets remain in optical domain from source to destination. The protocol prevents the contention for shared data-channels and the destination by sharing global status information among the nodes. The proposed protocol which we call reserve-transmit-release (RTR) is based on a reservation scheme and requires no synchronization among the nodes. The node architecture in this scheme uses a tunable transceiver and, thus, makes the scheme scalable. We study the performance of the algorithm by network simulation. We consider both the Poisson and Pareto distributions for modeling the traffic. We present results for both the models and compare. It is observed that the delay is much higher for bursty traffic and the performance degrades gracefully with increase in nodes as well as the traffic. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

optical ring network
wavelength division multiplexing
pareto distribution