Talking about my generation: a state-of-the-art review of health information for men in the andropause The focus of this article is the availability and use of information in the UK about the male menopause or as its beginning to be known by the general public and health professionals, the andropause. The experiences of men suffering from the andropause today are reflective of menopausal women some 20 or 30years ago. Ignorance and fear of the andropause condition abounds in the general public and amongst health professionals. There is a paucity of information in the literature about the symptoms and condition of the andropause. The review considers the provision and use of information available for men in the andropause in the public domain, examining both NHS and condition specific sources. The use of electronic sources is specifically reviewed, including an online forum. The use of electronic sources is indicative of other health information users. The reviewer concludes by suggesting that increased knowledge sharing is required by health professionals and the general public about the symptoms and condition of the andropause. It is recommended that men in the andropause identify a champion to assist their cause. This will help in gaining greater recognition and understanding of the condition and attract the most appropriate treatment.

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


Reducing Register Pressure in SMT Processors through L2-Miss-Driven Early Register Release The register file is one of the most critical datapath components limiting the number of threads that can be supported on a simultaneous multithreading (SMT) processor. To allow the use of smaller register files without degrading performance, techniques that maximize the efficiency of using registers through aggressive register allocation/deallocation can be considered. In this article, we propose a novel technique to early deallocate physical registers allocated to threads which experience L2 cache misses. This is accomplished by speculatively committing the load-independent instructions and deallocating the registers corresponding to the previous mappings of their destinations, without waiting for the cache miss request to be serviced. The early deal-located registers are then made immediately available for allocation to instructions within the same thread as well as within other threads, thus improving the overall processor throughput. On the average across the simulated mixes of multiprogrammed SPEC 2000 workloads, our technique results in 33% improvement in throughput and 25% improvement in terms of harmonic mean of weighted IPCs over the baseline SMT with the state-of-the-art DCRA policy. This is achieved without creating checkpoints, maintaining per-register counters of pending consumers, performing tag rebroadcasts, register remappings, and/or additional associative searches.

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

performance
simultaneous multithreading
register file


Ontology-based context modeling for emotion recognition in an intelligent web We describe an ontological model for representation and integration of electroencephalographic (EEG) data and apply it to detect human emotional states. The model (BIO_EMOTION) is an ontology-based context model for emotion recognition and acts as a basis for: (1) the modeling of users' contexts, including user profiles, EEG data, the situation and environment factors, and (2) supporting reasoning on the users' emotional states. Because certain ontological concepts in the EEG domain are ill-defined, we formally represent and store these concepts, their taxonomies and high-level representation (i.e., rules) in the model. To evaluate the effectiveness for inferring emotional states, DEAP dataset is used for model reasoning. Result shows that our model reaches an average recognition ratio of 75.19 % on Valence and 81.74 % on Arousal for eight participants. As mentioned above, the BIO-EMOTION model acts like a bridge between users' emotional states and low-level bio-signal features. It can be integrated in user modeling techniques, and be used to model web users' emotional states in human-centric web aiming to provide active, transparent, safe and reliable services to users. This work aims at, in other words, creating an ontology-based context model for emotion recognition using EEG. Particularly, this model completely implements the loop body of the W2T data cycle once: from low-level EEG feature acquisition to emotion recognition. A long-term goal for the study is to complete this model to implement the whole W2T data cycle.

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

context modeling
reasoning
emotion recognition
eeg


Storage and retrieval of database constraints First order static database constraints are expressed in terms of updates that may violate them, and the updates that will block those violations. Such simple necessary conditions for violations, and sufficient conditions for validations ore useful in storing database constraints on secondary storage devices, maintaining them using relational database management systems, and retrieving them using database query languages. Considerable efficiency in constraint management is achieved by retrieving only the relevant constraints for each database stransaction. A large proportion of constraints are eliminated fi om consideration without retrieval from the storage device, and without any significant processing. Storage structure provides indexing with respect to relations, constants, quantifiers, and arbitrary join conditions. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. Ail rights reserved.

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

constraint storage and retrieval
constraint maintenance
constraint specification


Organizational evaluation of the benefits, constraints, and satisfaction of business-to-business electronic commerce Organizations that wish to be competitive must engage successfully in business-to-business (B2B) electronic commerce, but there has been little research on how organizations evaluate their B2B e-commerce investments, the extent to which they benefit from their investments, and how these factors relate to their satisfaction with B2B e-commerce systems. A multi-case approach is used to determine where and how organizations evaluate their B2B e-commerce initiatives. The relationships between constraints, evaluation practices, benefits, and satisfaction with B2B e-commerce investments are explored. The results show that (I) the level of constraint affects the degree of evaluation undertaken and the use of evaluation methodologies, (2) the use of evaluation methodologies affects the level of benefits obtained from B2B e-commerce, and (3) organizations that use evaluation methodologies are more satisfied with their B2B e-commerce. A B2B e-commerce evaluation-satisfaction model is developed that can enable organizations to adopt and effectively use evaluation methodologies in order to enter a cycle of continuous B2B e-commerce improvement that will result in high levels of satisfaction with their systems.

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

benefits realization
b2b e-commerce
e-commerce
e-commerce impacts
investment evaluation


Losses in the axial-flux permanent-magnet machine housing Purpose - The purpose of this paper is the investigation of eddy currents induced in the axial-flux permanent-magnet machine housing by the leakage flux and the introduction of permanent magnets in the steady-state AC finite-element analysis and coupling their effects with the transient thermal analysis. Design/methodology/approach - The proposed approach is based on the finite-element method as well as on using the basic analytical equations. The approach was first applied in the magneto transient analyses. Because of the different physical transient-time constants, the steady-state AC analysis coupled with transient thermal should be used. Findings - The permanent magnets in the steady-state AC analysis coupled with the transient thermal analysis can be simulated by coils with an imposed current of a frequency depending on the number of pole pairs and rotation speed. Using any of the electrically conductive materials for the axial-flux inner slotless stator permanent-magnet machine housing should be avoided. Originality/value - The leakage flux induced by permanent magnets and spreading into the axial-flux permanent-machine housing is first defined by using the magneto-transient finite-element analysis and further used in the steady-state AC analysis coupled with the transient thermal analyses, all in 3D. Based on the results of these analyses, the temperature distribution in entire machine is calculated and compared with the measurement results.

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

currents
machine housing
permanent magnets
transient thermal
flux

finite element method
finite element analysis


Description and comparison of documentation of nursing assessment between paper-based and electronic systems in Australian aged care homes Assessment documentation practices are varying across aged care organizations. EHRs produce higher amount and more comprehensive assessment data. Electronic assessment forms are better signed and dated than the paper forms. EHRs need to improve the completeness and timeliness of assessment documentation.

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

electronic health records
paper records
audit
evaluation
quality


TIMED CHI: MODELING, SIMULATION AND VERIFICATION OF HARDWARE SYSTEMS Timed Chi (chi) is a timed process algebra, designed for Modeling; simulation, verification and real-time control. Its application domain consists of large and complex manufacturing systems. The straightforward syntax and semantics are also highly suited to architects, engineers and researchers from the hardware design community. There are many different tools for timed Chi that support the analysis and manipulation of timed Chi specifications; and such tools are the results of software engineering research with a very strong foundation in formal theories/methods. Since timed Chi is a well-developed algebraic theory from the field of process algebras with timing, we have the idea that timed Chi is also well-suited for addressing various aspects of hardware systems (discrete-time systems by nature). To show that timed Chi is useful for the formal specification and analysis of hardware systems, we illustrate the use of timed Chi with several benchmark examples of hardware systems.

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

formal methods
formal languages
formal semantics
real-time systems


Fast learning Circular Complex-valued Extreme Learning Machine (CC-ELM) for real-valued classification problems In this paper, we present a fast learning fully complex-valued extreme learning machine classifier, referred to as Circular Complex-valued Extreme Learning Machine (CC-ELM) for handling real-valued classification problems. CC-ELM is a single hidden layer network with non-linear input and hidden layers and a linear output layer. A circular transformation with a translational/rotational bias term that performs a one-to-one transformation of real-valued features to the complex plane is used as an activation function for the input neurons. The neurons in the hidden layer employ a fully complex-valued Gaussian-like (sech) activation function. The input parameters of CC-ELM are chosen randomly and the output weights are computed analytically. This paper also presents an analytical proof to show that the decision boundaries of a single complex-valued neuron at the hidden and output layers of CC-ELM consist of two hyper-surfaces that intersect orthogonally. These orthogonal boundaries and the input circular transformation help CC-ELM to perform real-valued classification tasks efficiently. Performance of CC-ELM is evaluated using a set of benchmark real-valued classification problems from the University of California, Irvine machine learning repository. Finally, the performance of CC-ELM is compared with existing methods on two practical problems, viz., the acoustic emission signal classification problem and a mammogram classification problem. These study results show that CC-ELM performs better than other existing (both) real-valued and complex-valued classifiers, especially when the data sets are highly unbalanced.

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

acoustic emission and mammogram classification


Towards Utilizing GPUs in Information Visualization: A Model and Implementation of Image-Space Operations Modern programmable GPUs represent a vast potential in terms of performance and visual flexibility for information visualization research, but surprisingly few applications even begin to utilize this potential. In this paper, we conjecture that this may be due to the mismatch between the high-level abstract data types commonly visualized in our field, and the low-level floating-point model supported by current GPU shader languages. To help remedy this situation, we present a refinement of the traditional information visualization pipeline that is amenable to implementation using GPU shaders. The refinement consists of a final image-space step in the pipeline where the multivariate data of the visualization is sampled in the resolution of the current view. To concretize the theoretical aspects of this work, we also present a visual programming environment for constructing visualization shaders using a simple drag-and-drop interface. Finally, we give some examples of the use of shaders for well-known visualization techniques.

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

gpu-acceleration
shader programming
interaction
high-performance visualization


Robust Sparse PCA via Weighted Elastic Net In principal component analysis (PCA), l(2)/l(1)-norm is widely used to measure coding residual. In this case, it assume that the residual follows Gaussian/Laplacian distribution. However, it may fail to describe the coding errors in practice when there are outliers. Toward this end, this paper propose a Robust Sparse PCA (RSPCA) approach to solve the outlier problem, by modeling the sparse coding as a sparsity-constrained weighted regression problem. By using a series of equivalent transformations, we show the proposed RSPCA is equivalent to the Weighted Elastic Net (WEN) problem and thus the Least Angle Regression Elastic Net (LARS-EN) algorithm is used to yield the optimal solution. Simulation results illustrated the effectiveness of this approach.

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

principal component analysis
elastic net


Numerical modelling of mass transfer in slits with semi-permeable membrane walls A mathematical model to predict the concentration polarisation in nanofiltration/ reverse osmosis is described It incorporates physical modelling for mass transfer, laminar hydrodynamics and the membrane rejection coefficient. The SIMPLE algorithm solves the discretised equations derived from the governing differential equations. The convection and diffusive terms of those equations are discretised by the upwind, the hybrid and the exponential schemes for comparison purposes. The hybrid scheme appears as the most suitable one for the type of flows studied herein The model is first applied to predict the concentration polarisation in a slit, for which mathematical solutions for velocities and concentrations exist. Different grids are used within the hybrid scheme to evaluate the model sensitivity to the grid refinement. The 55x25 grid results agree excellently for engineering purposes with the known solutions. The model, incorporating a variation law for the membrane intrinsic rejection coefficient, was also applied to the predictions of a laboratory slit where experiments are performed and reported, yielding excellent results when compared with the experiments.

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

predictive techniques
filtration
membranes


Computing multiscale curve and surface skeletons of genus 0 shapes using a global importance measure We present a practical algorithm for computing robust multiscale curve and surface skeletons of 3D objects of genus zero. Based on a model that follows an advection principle, we assign to each point on the skeleton a part of the object surface, called the collapse. The size of the collapse is used as a uniform importance measure for the curve and surface skeleton, so that both can be simplified by imposing a single threshold on this intuitive measure. The simplified skeletons are connected by default, without special precautions, due to the monotonicity of the importance measure. The skeletons possess additional desirable properties: They are centered, robust to noise, hierarchical, and provide a natural skeleton-to-boundary mapping. We present a voxel-based algorithm that is straightforward to implement and simple to use. We illustrate our method on several realistic 3D objects.

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


Time-reversal MUSIC imaging of extended targets This paper develops, within a general framework that is applicable to rather arbitrary electromagnetic and acoustic remote sensing systems, a theory of time-reversal "MUltiple SIgnal Classification" (MUSIC)-based imaging of extended (nonpoint-like) scatterers (targets). The general analysis applies to arbitrary remote sensing geometry and sheds light onto how the singular system of the scattering matrix relates to the geometrical and propagation characteristics of the entire transmitter- target- receiver system and how to use this effect for imaging. All the developments are derived within exact scattering theory which includes multiple scattering effects. The derived time-reversal MUSIC methods include both interior sampling, as well as exterior sampling (or enclosure) approaches. For presentation simplicity, particular attention is given to the time-harmonic case where the informational wave modes employed for target interrogation are purely spatial, but the corresponding generalization to broadband fields is also given. This paper includes computer simulations illustrating the derived theory and algorithms.

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

extended target
inverse scattering
shape reconstruction
signal subspace
time reversal


Low-complexity high-throughput decoding architecture for convolutional codes Sequential decoding can achieve a very low computational complexity and short decoding delay when the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is relatively high. In this article, a low-complexity high-throughput decoding architecture based on a sequential decoding algorithm is proposed for convolutional codes. Parallel Fano decoders are scheduled to the codewords in parallel input buffers according to buffer occupancy, so that the processing capabilities of the Fano decoders can be fully utilized, resulting in high decoding throughput. A discrete time Markov chain (DTMC) model is proposed to analyze the decoding architecture. The relationship between the input data rate, the clock speed of the decoder and the input buffer size can be easily established via the DTMC model. Different scheduling schemes and decoding modes are proposed and compared. The novel high-throughput decoding architecture is shown to incur 3-10% of the computational complexity of Viterbi decoding at a relatively high SNR.

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

architecture
scheduling
sequential decoding

convolutional code
fano algorithm
high-throughput decoding
wirelesshd


Dose optimization in 125I permanent prostate seed implants using the Monte Carlo method The aim of this work consisted in using the Monte Carlo code MCNP and computational phantoms to assess the absorbed dose distributions in the prostate, due to a radiotherapy treatment using 125I radioactive seeds. The intention was to develop a tool that can serve as a complement of the treatment planning system of radiotherapy procedures, reproducing accurately the exact geometry of the sources and the composition of the media where the seeds are inserted. The radiation activities of the simulated seeds varied from 0.27 mCi to 0.38 mCi, for hypothetical treatments employing 80, 88 or 100 125I sources, typical parameters for this technique. The prostate volumes where the seeds were virtually inserted were simulated with spherical or voxel computational phantoms. The configuration containing 88 seeds with initial radiation activity of 0.27 mCi resulted in a final absorbed dose near 144 Gy, in accordance with the recommendations of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM). Based on this configuration, it was possible to obtain the radiation absorbed dose distributions for the voxel phantom, which allowed the determination of treatment quality indicators. The obtained results are in good agreement with experimental data presented by other authors.

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


Performance study of a distributed genetic algorithm with parallel cooperative-competitive genetic operators In this work we study the performance of a distributed GA that incorporates in its core parallel cooperative-competitive genetic operators. A series of controlled experiments are conducted using various large and difficult 0/1 multiple knapsack problems to test the robustness of the distributed GA. Simulation results verify that the proposed distributed GA compared with a canonical distributed GA significantly gains in search speed and convergence reliability with less communication cost for migration.

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

distributed genetic algorithms
parallel cooperative-competitive
adaptive mutation


making nested parallel transactions practical using lightweight hardware support Transactional Memory (TM) simplifies parallel programming by supporting parallel tasks that execute in an atomic and isolated way. To achieve the best possible performance, TM must support the nested parallelism available in real-world applications and supported by popular programming models. A few recent papers have proposed support for nested parallelism in software TM (STM) and hardware TM (HTM). However, the proposed designs are still impractical, as they either introduce excessive runtime overheads or require complex hardware structures. This paper presents filter-accelerated, nested TM (FaNTM). We extend a hybrid TM based on hardware signatures to provide practical support for nested parallel transactions. In the FaNTM design, hardware filters provide continuous and nesting-aware conflict detection, which effectively eliminates the excessive overheads of software nested transactions. In contrast to a full HTM approach, FaNTM simplifies hardware by decoupling nested parallel transactions from caches using hardware filters. We also describe subtle correctness and liveness issues that do not exist in the non-nested baseline TM. We quantify the performance of FaNTM using STAMP applications and microbenchmarks that use concurrent data structures. First, we demonstrate that the runtime overhead of FaNTM is small (2.3\% on average) when applications use only single-level parallelism. Second, we show that the incremental performance overhead of FaNTM is reasonable when the available parallelism is used in deeper nesting levels. We also demonstrate that nested parallel transactions on FaNTM run significantly faster (e.g., 12.4x) than those on a nested STM. Finally, we show how nested parallelism is used to improve the overall performance of a transactional microbenchmark.

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

transactional memory
parallel programming
nested parallelism


Theories of initial segments of standard models of arithmetics and their complete extensions We investigate families of finite initial segments of standard models for various arithmetics. We give an axiomatization of the theory of sentences true in almost all finite models with addition. We also characterize its complete extensions and relate its infinite models to models of Presburger arithmetic. We also estimate the complexity of complete extensions of the arithmetic with addition and multiplication. (c) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

finite arithmetic
presburger arithmetic
decidability


Using continuous features in the maximum entropy model ? We investigate the problem of using continuous features in the maximum entropy (MaxEnt) model. We explain why the MaxEnt model with the moment constraint (MaxEnt-MC) works well with binary features but not with the continuous features. We describe how to enhance constraints on the continuous features and show that the weights associated with the continuous features should be continuous functions instead of single values. We propose a spline-based solution to the MaxEnt model with non-linear continuous weighting functions and illustrate that the optimization problem can be converted into a standard log-linear model at a higher-dimensional space. The empirical results on two classification tasks that contain continuous features are reported. The results confirm our insight and show that our proposed solution consistently outperforms the MaxEnt-MC model and the bucketing approach with significant margins.

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

maximum entropy principle
spline interpolation
continuous feature
distribution constraint


Applying ergonomics to systems: Some documented lessons learned Based on evidence accumulated during the author's 45 years of professional experience, the author presents 23 important lessons learned regarding applying ergonomics to systems. Documented results from reported cases or other evidence are presented to validate each of these practical learning points.

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

ergonomics lessons learned
macroergonomics


The seven levels of identification: An overview of the current state of identifying objects within digital libraries Purpose - This article aims to describe the state of the art of bibliographic identifiers used in digital libraries. Design/methodology/approach - A model with seven layers is used to define the scope of the identifiers that exist within the digital library field. Findings - Based on an analysis of the identifiers a conclusion is drawn that many new identifiers must be developed in order to cater to the growing needs of libraries and other organisations involved with creation and dissemination of publications. Also, traditional identifiers must be modified in order to make them more suitable to the needs of electronic publishing. Originality/value - A useful overview of the work of international standards bodies in the area of identification of digital objects.

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

digital libraries
international standards
electronic publishing


Modelling and verification of weighted spiking neural systems This paper presents spiking neural P systems with weighted synapses, a class of distributed parallel neural-like computing models, abstracted from the way in which the complex system of neurons processes information and communicates to ensure a proper functioning of the brain. Neurons communicate with each other through synapses endowed with an integer weight denoting the number of synapses for each pair of connected neurons. We translate the spiking neural P systems with weighted synapses into a class of timed safety automata, proving that such a translation is formally correct. This relationship allows the verification of several kinds of properties, both qualitative and quantitative, using tools and techniques developed for timed automata.

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

spiking neural p systems
weighted synapses

networks of timed automata
model checking software tools


Wavelet-based approach to character skeleton Character skeleton plays a significant role in character recognition. The strokes of a character may consist of two regions, i.e., singular and regular regions. The intersections and junctions of the strokes belong to singular region, while the straight and smooth parts of the strokes are categorized to regular region. Therefore, a skeletonization method requires two different processes to treat the skeletons in theses two different regions. All traditional skeletonization algorithms are based on the symmetry analysis technique. The major problems of these methods are as follows. 1) The computation of the primary skeleton in the regular region is indirect, so that its implementation is sophisticated and costly. 2) The extracted skeleton cannot be exactly located on the central line of the stroke. 3) The captured skeleton in the singular region may be distorted by artifacts and branches. To overcome these problems, a novel scheme of extracting the skeleton of character based on wavelet transform is presented in this paper. This scheme consists of two main steps, namely: a) extraction of primary skeleton in the regular region and b) amendment processing of the primary skeletons and connection of them in the singular region. A direct technique is used in the first step, where a new wavelet-based symmetry analysis is developed for finding the central line of the stroke directly. A novel method called smooth interpolation is designed in the second step, where a smooth operation is applied to the primary skeleton, and, thereafter, the interpolation compensation technique is proposed to link the primary skeleton, so that the skeleton in the singular region can be produced. Experiments are conducted and positive results are achieved, which show that the proposed skeletonization scheme is applicable to not only binary image but also gray-level image, and the skeleton is robust against noise and affine transform.

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

interpolation compensation
skeleton
wavelet transform


Inter-domain movement of functionality as a repartitioning strategy for hardware/software co-design This paper describes how initial hardware/software partitions can be modified by moving functionality between hardware and software. This inter-domain movement of functionality combined with a transformation-based design methodology enables the use of repartitioning as an optimization technique for co-design. This is made possible because of a unified co-design representation where Petri nets are used to represent controllers of both hardware and software module. To model data manipulation we use datapaths in hardware and instruction dependence graphs in software. We demonstrate in this paper how datapaths can be mapped into instruction dependence graphs and vice versa. Using this technique, systems may be repartitioned whithout the complex and time-consuming resynthesis of the functionality to be moved or the whole design.

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

hardware/software co-design
inter-domain movement


VOLUNTARY DISCONNECTED OPERATIONS FOR ENERGY EFFICIENT MOBILE DEVICES IN PERVASIVE COMPUTING ENVIRONMENTS It is important to support disconnected operations in mobile computing, because wireless communication requires substantial power consumption by mobile devices. Suitable usage of voluntary disconnected operations with pre-fetching of data in mobile environments can effectively save energy and money for mobile devices in wireless pervasive computing. In this paper, we analyze energy expenditure, including voluntary disconnected operations, to evaluate the energy efficiency of mobile computing. We estimate the energy expenditure using various parameters. The results of our analysis will assist efficient employment of disconnected operations and performance prediction.

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

pervasive and mobile computing
disconnected operation
energy conservation


a research agenda for distributed software development In recent years, a number of business reasons have caused software development to become increasingly distributed. Remote development of software offers several advantages, but it is also fraught with challenges. In this paper, we report on our study of distributed software development that helped shape a research agenda for this field. Our study has identified four areas where important research questions need to be addressed to make distributed development more effective. These areas are: collaborative software tools, knowledge acquisition and management, testing in a distributed set-up and process and metrics issues. We present a brief summary of related research in each of these areas, and also outline open research issues.

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

research agenda
distributed software development
testing
process
metrics


Image Transformation Based on Learning Dictionaries across Image Spaces In this paper, we propose a framework of transforming images from a source image space to a target image space, based on learning coupled dictionaries from a training set of paired images. The framework can be used for applications such as image super-resolution and estimation of image intrinsic components (shading and albedo). It is based on a local parametric regression approach, using sparse feature representations over learned coupled dictionaries across the source and target image spaces. After coupled dictionary learning, sparse coefficient vectors of training image patch pairs are partitioned into easily retrievable local clusters. For any test image patch, we can fast index into its closest local cluster and perform a local parametric regression between the learned sparse feature spaces. The obtained sparse representation (together with the learned target space dictionary) provides multiple constraints for each pixel of the target image to be estimated. The final target image is reconstructed based on these constraints. The contributions of our proposed framework are three-fold. 1) We propose a concept of coupled dictionary learning based on coupled sparse coding which requires the sparse coefficient vectors of a pair of corresponding source and target image patches to have the same support, i.e., the same indices of nonzero elements. 2) We devise a space partitioning scheme to divide the high-dimensional but sparse feature space into local clusters. The partitioning facilitates extremely fast retrieval of closest local clusters for query patches. 3) Benefiting from sparse feature-based image transformation, our method is more robust to corrupted input data, and can be considered as a simultaneous image restoration and transformation process. Experiments on intrinsic image estimation and super-resolution demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of our proposed method.

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 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

image mapping
intrinsic images
super-resolution


Prehistoric Graph in Modal Derivations and Self-Referentiality By terms-allowed-in-formulas capacity, Artemovs Logic of Proofs LP Artemov includes self-referential formulas of the form t:?(t) that play a crucial role in the realization of modal logic S4 in LP, and in the BrouwerHeytingKolmogorov semantics of intuitionistic logic via LP. In an earlier work appeared in the Proceedings of CSR2010 the author defined prehistoric loop in a sequent calculus of S4, and verified its necessity to self-referentiality in S4?LP realization. In this extended version we generalize results there to T and K4, two modal logics smaller than S4 that yet call for self-referentiality in their realizations into corresponding justification logics JT and J4.

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


Unexpectedness as a measure of interestingness in knowledge discovery Organizations are taking advantage of data-mining techniques to leverage the vast amounts of data captured as they process routine transactions. Data mining is the process of discovering hidden structure or patterns in data. However, several of the pattern discovery methods in data-mining systems have the drawbacks that they discover too many obvious or irrelevant patterns and that they do not leverage to a full extent valuable prior domain knowledge that managers have. This research addresses these drawbacks by developing ways to generate interesting patterns by incorporating managers' prior knowledge in the process of searching for patterns in data. Specifically, we focus on providing methods that generate unexpected patterns with respect to managerial intuition by eliciting managers' beliefs about the domain and using these beliefs to seed the search for unexpected patterns in data. Our approach should lead to the development of decision-support systems that provide managers with more relevant patterns from data and aid in effective decision making.

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 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

interestingness of patterns
belief-driven rule discovery


programming the logic theory machine A companion paper has discussed a system, called the Logic Theory Machine (LT), that discovers proofs for theorems in symbolic logic in much the same way as a human does. It manipulates symbols, it tries different methods, and it modifies some of its processes in the light of experience.

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


Double-residue modular range reduction for floating-point hardware implementations In this paper, we present a novel algorithm and the corresponding architecture for performing range reduction, which is a preprocessing task required for the evaluation of some elementary functions such as trigonometric and exponential-based functions. The proposed algorithm introduces a modification to the Modular Range Reduction algorithm which increases the speed of computation and allows us to design an architecture for the floating-point case. The implementation presented admits as an input argument any representable number of the standard single precision IEEE 754 floating-point representation and provides the maximum accuracy to the final result. This supposes a hardware solution to the problem of having an input argument close to a multiple of the constant. A final comparison with other implementations is presented.

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

range-reduction
elementary function evaluation
floating
point arithmetic


Micromacro numerical modelling of bone regeneration in tissue engineering Bone tissue regeneration using scaffolds inherently attends to two well-differentiated scales, i.e., the tissue level where the scaffold is implanted and the scaffold pore level where bone regeneration occurs. In this paper, this phenomenon is mathematically described and implemented as a two-length-scale coupled problem. Mechanical and fluid flow scaffold properties are macroscopically derived by means of the homogenization technique while the variables at the microscopic level are obtained by invoking the localization problem. As a first approach, cell migration within the scaffold is macroscopically modelled as a diffusion process based on the Ficks law, with the diffusion coefficient depending on the size and spatial distribution of pores. At the microscopic scale, bone growth at the scaffold surface is considered to be proportional to the cell concentration and regulated by the local strain energy density. The mathematical model proposed has been numerically implemented using the finite element method (FEM) and the Voxel-FEM at the macroscopic and microscopic scales, respectively. The model has been qualitatively compared with experimental results found in the literature for a scaffold implanted in the femoral condyle of a rabbit achieving a good agreement.

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

multi-scale analysis
bone growth and remodelling
porous scaffolds


Multiview Image Coding Using Depth Layers and an Optimized Bit Allocation In this paper, we present a novel wavelet-based compression algorithm for multiview images. This method uses a layer-based representation, where the 3-D scene is approximated by a set of depth planes with their associated constant disparities. The layers are extracted from a collection of images captured at multiple viewpoints and transformed using the 3-D discrete wavelet transform (DWT). The DWT consists of the 1-D disparity compensated DWT across the viewpoints and the 2-D shape-adaptive DWT across the spatial dimensions. Finally, the wavelet coefficients are quantized and entropy coded along with the layer contours. To improve the rate-distortion performance of the entire coding method, we develop a bit allocation strategy for the distribution of the available bit budget between encoding the layer contours and the wavelet coefficients. The achieved performance of our proposed scheme outperforms the state-of-the-art codecs for several data sets of varying complexity.

B I I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 solution to mass information storage With the explosive growing of network information, there is a critical demand for mass information storage in e-Commerce. Traditional storage systems are created based on local area network and difficult to satisfy the requirements of newly emerged e-Commerce applications. The concept of IP-SWAN (Storage Wide Area Network) is proposed, which is a kind of storage network that can implement data access at block level globally through IP storage protocols. The architecture of IP-SWAN system based on iSCSI protocol is presented and the prototype of IP-SWAN is developed for performance evaluation. Experimental results show that the IP-SWAN system works with good performance. It offers a novel solution to mass information storage for enterprise e-Commerce applications.

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

ip storage
mass information storage
storage wide area network


On piercing sets of axis-parallel rectangles and rings We consider the p-piercing problem for axis-parallel rectangles. We are given a collection of axis-parallel rectangles in the plane and wish to determine whether there exists a set of p points whose union intersects all the given rectangles. We present efficient algorithms for finding a piercing set (i.e., a set of p points as above) for values of p = 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. The result for 4 and 5-piercing improves an existing result of O(n log(3) n) and O(n log(4) n) to O(n log n) time. The result for 5-piercing can be applied find an O(n log(2) n) time algorithm for planar rectilinear 5-center problem, in which we are given a set S of n points in the plane, and wish to find 5 axis-parallel congruent squares of smallest possible size whose union covers S. We improve the existing algorithm for general (but fixed) p to O(n(p-4) log n) running time, and we also extend our algorithms to higher dimensional space. We also consider the problem of piercing a set of rectangular rings.

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


Equational approximations for tree automata completion In this paper we deal with the verification of safety properties of infinite-state systems modeled by term rewriting systems. An over-approximation of the set of reachable terms of a term rewriting system,R is obtained by automatically constructing a finite tree automaton. The construction is parameterized by a set E of equations on terms, and we also show that the approximating automata recognize at most the set of R/E-reachable terms. Finally, we present some experiments carried out with the implementation of our algorithm. In particular, we show how some approximations from the literature can be defined using equational approximations. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

verification
term rewriting systems
tree automata


Sequence Analysis of Three Ehrlichia ruminantium LambdaGEM-11 Clones Three Lambda GEM11 clones were isolated from a large-insert Ehrlichia ruminantium Welgevonden library. The inserts were amplified, sequenced, and analyzed. A total of 39 827 bp was obtained, and 18 different open reading frames (ORFs) were identified. Long repeats (100-200 kbp) were found in all three sequences. These repeats may play a role in the induction of antigenic variation. Along with a 20-kbp sequence of a clone from the E. ruminantium cosmid library, these sequences are the first large sequences to be yielded by the E. ruminantium genome sequencing project.

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

genome sequencing of e. ruminantium
lambdagem-11 clones


RAVEN: Real-time analyzing and verification environment In this paper we present the real-time verification and analysis tool RAVEN. RAVEN is developed for verifying timed systems on various levels of abstraction. It integrates a real-time model checker for real-time specifications, it offers algorithms for analyzing critical delay times, for inspecting data values and event occurrences and for detecting dead-locks and live-locks. The counter example generator provides helpful information for error recovering by printing system execution paths (failing a given specification) to the integrated wave-form browser. All included algorithms are based on a common data structure enabling a compact representation and possibilities for acceleration. By some examples we show that our approach outperforms some state-of-the-art verification tools.

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

formal verification
model checking
real-time systems


reverse generation and refactoring of fit acceptance tests for legacy code The Fit framework is a well established tool for creating early and automated acceptance tests. Available Eclipse plug-ins like FITPro support the writing of test data and the creation of test stubs quite well for new requirements and new code. In our project we faced the problem, that a large legacy system should undergo a major refactoring. Before this, acceptance tests had to be added to the system to ensure equivalent program behavior before and after the changes. Writing acceptance tests manually for existing code is very laborious, cumbersome and very costly. However reverse generation of fit tests based on legacy code is not foreseen in the current Fit framework, and there are no other tools available to do so. So we decided to develop a tool which allows generation of the complete Fit test code and test specification based on existing code. The tool also includes automatic refactoring of test data when refactoring production code and vice versa, when changing the Fit test specification, it also updates production code accordingly. This reduces the maintenance effort of Fit tests in general and we hope, this will help to spread the usage of Fit for acceptance and integration testing even more.

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


Interpolating EFGM for computing continuous and discontinuous electromagnetic fields Purpose - This paper proposes an interpolating approach of the element-free Galerkin method (EFGM) coupled with a modified truncation scheme for solving Poisson's boundary value problems in domains involving material non-homogeneities. The suitability and efficiency of the proposed implementation are evaluated for a given set of test cases of electrostatic field in domains involving different material interfaces. Design/methodology/approach - The authors combined an interpolating approximation with a modified domain truncation scheme, which avoids additional techniques for enforcing the Dirichlet boundary conditions and for dealing with material interfaces usually employed in meshfree formulations. Findings - The local electric potential and field distributions were correctly described as well as the global quantities like the total potency and resistance. Since, the treatment of the material interfaces becomes practically the same for both the finite element method (FEM) and the proposed EFGM, FEM-oriented programs can, thus, be easily extended to provide EFGM approximations. Research limitations/implications - The robustness of the proposed formulation became evident from the error analyses of the local and global variables, including in the case of high-material discontinuity. Practical implications - The proposed approach has shown to be as robust as linear FEM. Thus, it becomes an attractive alternative, also because it avoids the use of additional techniques to deal with boundary/interface conditions commonly employed in meshfree formulations. Originality/value - This paper reintroduces the domain truncation in the EFGM context, but by using a set of interpolating shape functions the authors avoided the use of Lagrange multipliers as well Mathematics in Engineering high-material discontinuity.

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


RF breast cancer detection employing a noncharacterized vivaldi antenna and a MUSIC-inspired algorithm A novel microwave breast cancer detection system consisting of an Evolutionary Global Optimized Vivaldi antenna and an algorithm inspired by MUltiple SIgnal Classification (MUSIC) is presented. Its performance is assessed by using a simplified numerical breast phantom for a number of critical conditions including the presence of fibroglandular tissues. 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE, 2013.

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

electromagnetic inverse scattering
wide band antennas


Disjoint multipath routing using colored trees Multipath routing (MPR) is an effective strategy to achieve robustness, load balancing, congestion reduction, and increased throughput in computer networks. Disjoint multipath routing (DMPR) requires the multiple paths to be link- or node-disjoint. Both MPR and DMPR pose significant challenges in terms of obtaining loop-free multiple (disjoint) paths and effectively forwarding the data over the multiple paths, the latter being particularly significant in IP datagram networks. This paper develops a two-disjoint multipath routing strategy using colored trees. Two trees, red and blue, that are rooted at a designated node, called the drain, are formed. The paths from a given source to the drain on the two trees are link- or node-disjoint. The colored tree approach requires every node to maintain only two preferred neighbors for each destination, one on each tree. This paper (1) formulates the problem of colored-trees construction as an integer linear program (ILP); and (2) develops the first distributed algorithm to construct the colored trees using only local information. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the distributed algorithm by evaluating it on grid and random topologies and comparing to the optimal obtained by solving the ILP.

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


A global optimizing approach for waveform inversion of receiver functions A global optimizing approach is developed and implemented to retrieve one-dimensional crustal structure by waveform inversion of teleseismic receiver functions. The global optimization for the inversion is performed using a Differential Evolution (DE) algorithm. This modeling approach allows the user to perturb, within a preset range of reasonable bounds, multiple parameters such as V(p), V(p)/V(s), thickness and anisotropy of each layer to fit the receiver function waveforms. Compared with linear modeling methods, the global optimal solution can be achieved with fewer model parameters (e.g., a small number of layers) and hence eliminate potential artifacts in the final model. Receiver function bins with small ray parameter intervals are used in the inversion, which can reduce distortion caused by modeling a single receiver function stacked from many recordings spread over a wide range of epicenter distance. The efficacy of this global optimizing approach is demonstrated with synthetic datasets and real receiver functions from the permanent seismic station BJT. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

differential evolution
receiver function
global optimization
anisotropy


Periodic review and continuous ordering Exploration of periodic inventory review and continuous ordering. Derivation of newsvendor optimality conditions. Insightful, exact results on when to optimally order during a review. Large cost savings compared to periodic ordering at review moments.

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

inventory
periodic review
continuous ordering


Distributed leadership in the operating room: a naturalistic observation study Previous research shows that distributed leadership can improve performance and safety. Studies of leadership in the operating room have not considered distributed leadership, and the focus has primarily been on the leadership of the surgeon. The aim of this study was to explore leadership behaviors in the operating room and to test an approach to study leadership in complex socio-technical healthcare systems based on a distributed process perspective on leadership. Using an explorative naturalistic approach, ten surgical procedures were video recorded and observed. Based on predefined criteria, 248 leadership behaviors were identified and described. For each behavior, the person who was considered to be the leader was assigned according to profession. An inductive iterative process was used to develop nine leadership behavior categories grounded in the data. Our results show that while the surgeons conducted the most leadership, nurse anesthetists and scrub nurses also conducted leadership. The distribution of leadership differed from previous studies of surgeons leadership alone. Some behavior categories were more associated with specific professions, others more distributed over the whole team. Leadership behaviors associated with patient safety appeared to be more distributed. A distributed leadership perspective, as applied here, could give a more holistic view of work processes. To better use the potential of distributed leadership in relation to performance and safety, the distributed nature of leadership should be considered. With this in mind, it becomes obvious that a distributed leadership perspective can complement a traditional leader-centered perspective when studying complex socio-technical healthcare systems.

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


Hybrid-Trefftz finite element method for heat conduction in nonlinear functionally graded materials Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to develop a hybrid-Trefftz (HT) finite element model (FEM) for simulating heat conduction in nonlinear functionally graded materials (FGMs) which can effectively handle continuously varying properties within an element. Design/methodology/approach - In the proposed model, a T-complete set of homogeneous solutions is first derived and used to represent the intra-element temperature fields. As a result, the graded properties of the FGMs are naturally reflected by using the newly developed Trefftz functions (T-complete functions in some literature) to model the intra-element fields. The derivation of the Trefftz functions is carried out by means of the well-known Kirchhoff transformation in conjunction with various variable transformations. Findings - The study shows that, in contrast to the conventional FEM, the HT-FEM is an accurate numerical scheme for FGMs in terms of the number of unknowns and is insensitive to mesh distortion. The method also performs very well in terms of numerical accuracy and can converge to the analytical solution when the number of elements is increased. Originality/value - The value of this paper is twofold: a T-complete set of homogeneous solutions for nonlinear FMGs has been derived and used to represent the intra-element temperature; and the corresponding variational functional and the associated algorithm has been constructed.

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

finite element analysis
materials management


Automatic thermal analysis of gravity dams with fast boundary face method It is well recognized that the dam's construction schedule has significant influences in long-term concrete temperature, whose variations may produce local thermal stress and thus result in damage and cracking. This paper describes a methodology for predicting the thermal evolution of dams during their construction by the boundary face method (BFM). This work involves the following aspects: (1) the BFM is integrated into the UG-NX, making the analysis performed entirely within the CAD environment; (2) two kinds of new elements, i.e. tube element and element with negative parts are proposed to deal with cooling water pipes embedded in dams; (3) a domain number sequence optimization method is proposed for multi-domain problems for the best band of the assembling system matrix; (4) a geometric mapping cross approximation (GMCA) method is proposed to make the low-rank representation of the BIE more convenient and efficient; (5) the quasi-initial condition method for transient thermal problems is implemented and a time step scaling method is proposed to solve the instability problem in case of short time steps. Benchmark examples are presented and compared with other solutions by the FEM.

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 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

gravity dam
transient thermal analysis
hierarchical matrix
aca


NARROW PROOFS MAY BE SPACIOUS: SEPARATING SPACE AND WIDTH IN RESOLUTION The width of a resolution proof is the maximal number of literals in any clause of the proof. The space of a proof is the maximal number of clauses kept in memory simultaneously if the proof is only allowed to infer new clauses from clauses currently in memory. Both of these measures have previously been studied and related to the resolution refutation size of unsatisfiable conjunctive normal form (CNF) formulas. Also, the minimum refutation space of a formula has been proven to be at least as large as the minimum refutation width, but it has been open whether space can be separated from width or the two measures coincide asymptotically. We prove that there is a family of k-CNF formulas for which the refutation width in resolution is constant but the refutation space is nonconstant, thus solving a problem mentioned in several previous papers.

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

proof complexity
separation
lower bound
pebble game
pebbling contradiction


Technology diffusion: analysing the diffusion of agent technologies Despite several examples of deployed agent systems, there remain barriers to the large-scale adoption of agent technologies. In order to understand these barriers, this paper considers aspects of marketing theory which deal with diffusion of innovations and their relevance to the agents domain and the current state of diffusion of agent technologies. In particular, the paper examines the role of standards in the adoption of new technologies, describes the agent standards landscape, and compares the development and diffusion of agent technologies with that of object-oriented programming. The paper also reports on a simulation model developed in order to consider different trajectories for the adoption of agent technologies, with trajectories based on various assumptions regarding industry structure and the existence of competing technology standards. We present details of the simulation model and its assumptions, along with the results of the simulation exercises.

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


On centralized and distributed algorithms for minimizing data aggregation time in duty-cycled wireless sensor networks We study the problem of minimizing data aggregation time in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) under the practical duty-cycle scenario where nodes switch between active states and dormant states periodically for energy efficiency. Under the protocol interference model, we show that the problem is NP-hard and present a lower bound of delay for any data aggregation scheme. To solve the problem efficiently, we then construct a routing tree based on connected dominator set and propose two aggregation scheduling algorithms, which are the centralized Greedy Aggregation Scheduling (GAS) and the distributed Partitioned Aggregation Scheduling (PAS), so as to generate collision-free transmission schedules for data aggregation in duty-cycled WSNs. To minimize the total delay, GAS tries to achieve maximal concurrent transmissions in each time-slot during each frame by using global information, while PAS leverages a network partition based strategy and local information to ensure the largest degree of channel reuse across space and time domains. Theoretical analysis indicates that each algorithm consumes at most \(O(R+\varDelta)\) frames and achieves nearly constant factor approximation on the optimal delay. Here R and \(\varDelta\) are the network radius and the maximum node degree, respectively. We also evaluate the practicability of our algorithms by extensive simulations under various network conditions and the results corroborate our theoretical analysis.

O O O O O O O B I O O O B I I O O O O O O B I O O B I I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I I O O O O B O O O O O O O B 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 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 aggregation
scheduling
protocol interference model
connected dominator set
wireless sensor networks


Extension of the VIKOR method to dynamic intuitionistic fuzzy multiple attribute decision making ? In this paper, we extend the VIKOR method for dynamic intuitionistic fuzzy multiple attribute decision making (DIF-MADM). Two new aggregation operators called dynamic intuitionistic fuzzy weighted geometric (DIFWG) operator and uncertain dynamic intuitionistic fuzzy weighted geometric (UDIFWG) operator are presented. Based on the DIFWA and UDIFWA operators respectively, we develop two procedures to solve the DIF-MADM problems where all attribute values are expressed in intuitionistic fuzzy numbers or interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy numbers, which are collected at different periods. Finally, a numerical example is used to illustrate the applicability of the proposed approach.

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

dynamic intuitionistic fuzzy multiple attribute decision making (dif-madm)

dynamic intuitionistic fuzzy weighted geometric (difwg) operator

uncertain dynamic intuitionistic fuzzy weighted geometric (udifwg) operator


statistical clock tree routing for robustness to process variations Advances in VLSI technology make clock skew more susceptible to process variations. Notwithstanding efficient zero skew routing algorithms, clock skew still limits post-manufacturing performance. Process-induced skew presents an ever-growing limitation for high speed, large area clock networks. To achieve multi-GHz operation for high-end designs, clock networks must be constructed to tolerate variations in various interconnect parameters. We propose statistical centering based clock routing algorithm built upon DME that greatly improves skew tolerance to interconnect variations. The algorithm achieves the improvement by: i) choosing the best center measure which is dynamically based on the first three moments of the skew distribution, and ii) designing for all sink pairs in the subtrees simultaneously. In addition, a variation aware abstract topology generation algorithm is proposed in this paper. Experiments on benchmark circuits demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed method in reducing the number of skew violations by 12\%-37\%.

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

clock tree
routing
robustness
process variations


Use of Cymelarsan in Goats Chronically Infected with Trypanosoma evansi Toxicity and therapeutic trials using Cymelarsan (an arsenical compound) against Trypanosoma evansi infection were carried out using chronically infected goats. For the toxicity trial, 40 goats were divided into four groups of 10 animals each; the first three groups received s.c. injections of 5, 10, and 15 mg/kg bw of Cymelarsan, respectively, and the last one served as control. No systemic reaction was observed in any goat throughout the experiment. For the therapeutic trial, 15 adult female goats were inoculated intravenously with at least 1 105T. evansi isolated in the Canary Islands. Six months after inoculation, the animals were treated with Cymelarsan at single dose of 0.3 mg/kg (5 animals), 0.5 mg/kg (5 animals), and 0.625 mg/kg (5 animals). At 4 and 6 weeks after treatment, two goats belonging to 0.3 mg/kg group showed recurrence of trypanosomes. Parasitemia, however, was negative in all animals belonging to 0.5 and 0.625 mg/kg groups until the end of the experiment (6 months after treatment). Thus, it can be concluded that Cymelarsan is a safe trypanocidal drug for goats and that the curative dose is 0.5 mg/kg or above.

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

trypanosoma evansi
goats
cymelarsan
arsenical compound


Bootstrap methods for assessing the performance of near-infrared pattern classification techniques Two parametric bootstrap techniques were applied to near-infrared (NIR) pattern classification models for two classes of microcrystalline cellulose, Avicel(R) PH101 and PH102, which differ only in particle size. The development of pattern classification models for similar substances is difficult, since their characteristic clusters overlap. Bootstrapping was used to enlarge small test sets for a better approximation of the overlapping area of these nearly identical substances, consequently resulting in better estimates of misclassification rates. A bootstrap that resampled the residuals, referred to as the outside model space bootstrap in this paper, and a novel bootstrap that resampled principal component scores, referred to as the inside model space bootstrap, were studied. A comparison revealed that classification rates for both bootstrap techniques were similar to the original test set classification rates. The bootstrap method developed in this study, which resampled the principal component scores, was more effective for estimating misclassification volumes than the residual-resampling method. Copyright (C) 2002 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.

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


Crawling the infinite web Many publicly available Web pages are generated dynamically upon request, and contain links to other dynamically generated pages. Web sites that are built with dynamic pages can create, in principle, a very large amount of Web pages. This poses a problem for the crawlers of Web search engines, as the network and storage resources required for indexing Web pages are neither infinite nor free. In this article, several probabilistic models for user browsing in "infinite" Web sites are proposed and studied. These models aim at predicting how deep users go while exploring; Web sites. We use these models to estimate how deep a crawler must go to download a significant portion of the Web site content that is actually visited. The proposed models are validated against real data on page views in several Web sites, showing that, in both theory and practice, a crawler needs to download just a few levels, no more than 3 to 5 "clicks" away from the start page, to reach 90% of the pages that users actually visit.

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


Economic off-line quality control strategy with two types of inspection errors A commonly used quality control method is to inspect products to identify their quality and to perform the related disposition of acceptance, salvage or rejection based on the findings. While the issue of finding the most economical inspection/disposition policy has been studied for a batch of units produced from an unreliable system, previous studies assumed the inspections to be perfect. In this study, we further extend the inspection/disposition model to consider two types of inspection errors in order to facilitate the adaptation of this economic inspection/disposition model to real world applications. We first describe an inspection/disposition policy for the two types of inspection errors and then obtain the related mathematical formulae. An algorithm is presented for determining the optimal inspection/disposition policy. Finally, numerical examples are given to illustrate the effect of inspection errors on the optimal inspection/disposition policy under the following three quality control policies: cost minimizing, zero-defects and perfect information policy.

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


Point-to-periodic and periodic-to-periodic connections In this work we consider computing and continuing connecting orbits in parameter dependent dynamical systems. We give details of algorithms for computing connections between equilibria and periodic orbits, and between periodic orbits. The theoretical foundation for these techniques is given by the seminal work of Beyn in 1994, "On well-posed problems for connecting orbits in dynamical systems", where a numerical technique is also proposed. Our algorithms consist of splitting the computation of the connection from that of the periodic orbit(s). To set up appropriate boundary conditions, we follow the algorithmic approach used by Demmel, Dieci, and Friedman, for the case of connecting orbits between equilibria, and we construct and exploit the smooth block Schur decomposition of the monodromy matrices associated to the periodic orbits. Numerical examples illustrate the performance of the algorithms.

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

projection boundary conditions
continuation of invariant subspaces
monodromy matrix


A note on Two-warehouse inventory model with deterioration under FIFO dispatch policy A recently published paper by Lee [C.C. Lee, Two-warehouse inventory model with deterioration under FIFO dispatching policy, European Journal of Operational Research 174 (2006) 861873] considers different dispatching models for the two-warehouse inventory system with deteriorating items, in which Pakkala and Acharys LIFO (last-infirst-out) model [T.P.M. Pakkala, K.K. Achary, A deterministic inventory model for deteriorating items with two warehouses and finite replenishment rate, European Journal of Operational Research 57 (1992) 7176] is first modified, and then the author concludes that the modified LIFO model always has a lower cost than Pakkala and Acharys LIFO model under a particular condition specified by him. The present note points out that this conclusion is incorrect and misleading. Alternatively, we provide a new sufficient condition such that the modified LIFO model always has a lower cost than Pakkala and Acharys model. Besides, we also compare Pakkala and Acharys original LIFO model with Lees FIFO (first-infirst-out) model for the special case where the two warehouses have the same deteriorating rates. Finally, numerical examples are provided to investigate and examine the impact of corresponding parameters on policy choice. The results in this note give a much clearer picture than those at Lees paper about the relationships between the different dispatching policies for the two-warehouse inventory system with deterioration items.

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


Electrical field effects in n-type MOSFET and metalnonmetal transition The effects of disorder, correlation, external electric field, impurity concentration, and impurity location near and at the Si/SiO2 interface of a metal-oxide semiconductor field effect transistor (MOSFET), have been investigated. The binding and correlation energies are strongly dependent on the electric field and impurity location. The HubbardMott like model provides further evidence of a MNM transition in agreement with recent experimental findings.

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

metal-oxide semiconductor field effect transistors


Joint equalization and decoding for QAM block transmissions A method of joint equalization and decoding for block transmission with coding across blocks is presented. It is well suited for bandwidth efficient QAM transmission using large transmit symbol alphabets, whereby the blocking structure can be arbitrary in principle. The method consists in multiple iterations of equalization and decoding, whereby information is exchanged back and forth between the decoder and the equalizer. The equalizer is based on Cholesky factorization of the equivalent discrete-time channel matrix (Eur. Trans. Telecommun 10 (1999) 351; Grundlagen der Kommunikationstechnik, Springer, Berlin, 2004). The convergence behavior of the iterative equalization and decoding method is analyzed by means of an upper bound on the extrinsic information transfer. It is shown that the method has improved bit error performance versus separate equalization and decoding without decoder feedback and, thus, yields superior power efficiency.

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

block transmission
equalization
decoding
qam
cholesky factorization
extrinsic information

log likelihood ratio
exit chart
coded modulation


Saliency sequential surface organization for free-form object recognition We introduce an efficient, robust means of obtaining reliable surface descriptions, suitable for object recognition, at multiple scales from range data. Mean and Gaussian curvatures are used to segment the surface into regions of four Saliency classes, each based on curvature consistency. We evaluate curvature consistency in a robust multivoting scheme. Contiguous regions consistent in both mean and Gaussian curvature are identified as the most homogeneous, and therefore (probably) the most salient, followed by those consistent in mean curvature only, followed by those consistent in Gaussian curvature only. Segments at each level of the hierarchy are extracted in the order of size, large to small, such that the most salient features of the surface are recovered first. To demonstrate an application of the work, we present an effective recognition system for free form objects based on attributed graphs constructed from the surface segmentation. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science (USA).

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

surface organization
segmentation
object recognition
range data


Cyber-Physical Systems for Optimal Energy Management Scheme of Autonomous Electric Vehicle Recently, cyber-physical systems (CPSs) have emerged as a cutting edge technology for next-generation industrial applications, and are undergoing rapid development and inspiring numerous application domains. In this article, we propose a novel CPS application for energy management framework (EMF) toward autonomous electric vehicle (AEV) in smart grid. We first give a brief overview of related technologies, including open research issues of CPS, enabling wireless communication technologies for CPS, smart grid, AEV and its path planning, energy-efficient design for AEV, etc. Then we design EMF from the following aspects, such as AEV with wireless sensor networks (WSNs) navigation, smart grid communication architecture for EMF and AEV charging station. The proposed EMF is able to collect the real-time power consumption status and demand from AEV and charging stations. We also address EMF to overcome some issues, such as real-time traffic information. Subsequently, the energy-efficient design schemes for AEV are proposed and formulated from the point of view of path planning and event-based control technique. Finally, we outline the issues and challenges for EMF.

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

wireless sensor networks
autonomous electric vehicle
energy management

cyber-physical systems
event-based control


cultural versioning of mobile user experience Most current user interfaces and services are based on psychological and social models drawn from European and American research traditions. After identifying preferences and value orientations in different cultures from a series of user studies, this research tries to form a theoretical base for understanding local cultures and designing different user experiences for people from different cultures. The goal of this research is to explore cost-effective strategies for developing multiple versions of user interfaces and services for different cultures, perhaps through cultural templates or through special versioning tools.

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

interaction design
cross-cultural design
cultural model
cultural template
cultural repository
versioning tool
cultural differences


Fostering transfer of websearchers evaluation skills: A field test of two transfer theories Transfer of complex cognitive skills is important when stimulating students to become life long learners. An example of a complex cognitive skill is the skill of evaluating results, information and source while solving information problems using the WWW. Especially the knowledge and use of evaluation criteria is crucial in this matter. Two educational programs to foster this skill in students were designed and evaluated. The programs were based on two different transfer theories. The first program was based on the theory that transfer of complex cognitive skills is fostered through the development of a rich knowledge structure. The second program is based on the theory that transfer is fostered by paying explicit attention to the various steps that have to be taken in a problem solving process. Effects of the two programs on increase in knowledge and use of criteria and degree of transfer were determined. Results show that both programs enable transfer.

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

information-problem solving
evaluation of information
instruction


Electrophoretic properties of charged colloidal suspensions: Application of a hybrid MD/LB method Electrophoretic properties of charged colloidal suspensions are investigated using a hybrid simulation method. In this method, the colloidal particles are propagated via Newton's equations of motion using molecular dynamics (MD), while they are coupled to a structureless solvent that is modelled by the Lattice-Boltzmann (LB) method. (c) 2006 IMACS. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

electrophoretic properties
colloidal suspensions


Hybrid method coupling AIS and zeroth order deterministic search Purpose - The paper presents an hybrid optimization technique which couples the artificial immune system (AIS) algorithm with a zeroth order deterministic method. Design/methodology/approach - AIS has been developed to tackle multi-modal optimization problems and it has shown a great ability to explore the objective function space. The algorithm is subdivided into two phases: an outer and an inner cycle. The outer cycle is devoted to the exploration of the space while the inner is a local exploration of the objective function. The new hybrid method proposes to replace the local search by a zeroth order deterministic search to speed up the overall convergence. Findings - Results on two multi-modal analytical objective functions show an increase of speed of the new procedure with respect to the standard AIS. The method is also tested on the TEAM 22 numerical problem and some a posteriori techniques for the analysis of multimodal blind objective functions are discussed. Originality/value - The new Multimodal optimization algorithm has allowed to explore thoroughly feasibility space giving rise to a partition of the whole space, the use of hybrid technique increases the performances of standard AIS increasing the convergence to the optimal points.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 techniques
body systems and organs
numerical analysis


using messy genetic algorithms for solving the winner determination problem The paper presents a study on the application of messy genetic algorithms for the winner determination problem in the combinatorial auction realm. Messy genetic algorithms operate explicitly on building blocks in order to obtain good solutions. Since the winner determination is a constrained problem, the Ordering Messy Genetic Algorithm is used in order to preserve the validity of chromosomes. Experiments on instances generated with the CATS system are presented to illustrate and compare the effectiveness of the approach. The approach is compared against a simple genetic algorithm, which is a random-key genetic algorithm. Other well-known algorithms from literature are used in experiments. Conclusions are drawn on the advantages of using a messy genetic algorithm for this problem.

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