The placement method of resources and applications based on request prediction in cloud data center The cloud computing data center has numerous hosts as well as application requests. It needs to allocate resources dynamically according to the varied demands of users. It should not only provide QoS such as short response time and high throughput but also achieve efficient power consumption. This paper first puts forward a reconfiguration framework based on a request prediction, which anticipates the application request volume in advance. To determine the objective of relatively optimal configuration, it can work out the allocation scheme which can improve the resource utilization ratio as well as lower energy consumption. In addition, a concept of Utility Ratio Matrix (URM) is put forward to represent allocations of hosts and Virtual Machines (VMs), and a reconfiguration algorithm based on request prediction is also presented. The algorithm will predict the application requests so as to work out the allocation scheme in advance. The algorithm can separate the reconfiguration computing from the real allocation so that it can avoid a time delay between the reconfiguration result and the varied demands, and can also reduce the energy consumption in data center. The corresponding analysis and experimental results indicate the feasibility of the reconfiguration algorithm in this paper.

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

cloud computing
cloud data center
request prediction
utility ratio matrix


Three-dimensional numerical simulations of human pulmonary cilia in the periciliary liquid layer by the immersed boundary method The airway surface liquid of human respiratory system consists of two layers which are the innermost watery periciliary liquid layer (PCL) and the uppermost non-Newtonian mucus layer. A three-dimensional numerical model is developed to simulate the human pulmonary cilia motion in the PCL. The governing equations are solved using the immersed boundary method combined with the projection method. The cilia beating pattern is imposed as an input for the simulations. The ciliary forces on the fluid are computed by the direct forcing method. The effects of the phase difference between cilia, the cilia beating frequency, the viscosity of PCL, the PCL height, and the ciliary length on the PCL motion are investigated. The numerical results show that the maximum PCL velocity in the stream-wise direction occurs if cilia have phase differences in both stream-wise and span-wise directions. Further numerical investigations demonstrate that the PCL velocity is proportionally dependent on the cilia beat frequency while the average PCL velocity increases at a decreasing rate if the PCL height increases. Moreover, shortened cilia significantly reduce PCL velocity while the PCL velocity depends rather insignificantly if the PCL viscosity varies within the order of the typical viscosity of PCL (0.01 P). (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

cilia
periciliary liquid layer
immersed boundary method


A library compatible driver output model for on-chip RLC transmission lines This paper presents a new library-compatible,approach to gate-level timing characterization in the presence of resistive/inductive/capacitive (RLC) interconnect loads. We show that for a gat e driving an RLC interconnect the driver-output waveform exhibits inflection points and, hence, the traditional approach of approximating driver output with a saturated ramp is highly inaccurate. We describe a two-ramp model based on transmission-line theory that accurately predicts both the 50% delay and waveform shape (slew rate),a! the driver output when inductive effects are significant., The approach does not rely on piecewise linear Thevenin voltage sources and is,compatible with existing library characterization methods. Results-are compared with SPICE and demonstrate typical errors under 10% for both delay and slew rate. We,also propose a new criterion for evaluating the importance of on-chip inductance by comparing rise time at the driver output with the time of flight.

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


Bacterial colony foraging algorithm: Combining chemotaxis, cell-to-cell communication, and self-adaptive strategy Inspired by the colony foraging behavior of Escherichia coli bacteria, this paper proposes a novel bacterial colony foraging optimization (BCFO) algorithm for complex optimization problems. The main idea of BCFO is to develop an adaptive and cooperative life-cycle model by combining bacterial chemotaxis, cell-to-cell communication, and self-adaptive searching strategies. The proposed BCFO is a more bacterially-realistic model that the bacteria split and die dynamically throughout the foraging process and the population size varies as the algorithm runs. The cell-to-cell communication enables the bacteria tumble towards better directions in the chemotactic steps to speed up convergence. With the self-adaptive searching strategy, each bacterium can maintain an appropriate balance between exploration and exploitation. Seven versions of BCFO combined by different strategies under the model were proposed and tested on both static and dynamic benchmarks. Then the proposed algorithm is applied to a real-world application of dynamic RFID network optimization. Statistical analysis of all these tests highlights the significant performance improvement due to the beneficial combination and shows that the proposed algorithm outperforms the reference algorithms.

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

life-cycle model
self-adaptation
cell-to-cell communication


Modelling and designing a low-cost high-fidelity mobile crane simulator The interactive visual simulation is the integration of real-time computer graphics with multimodalities, such as acoustic display and force feedback, to create a realistic simulation scenario to the user. This paper presents a method to design an interactive visual simulation on a cluster of desktop computers for the mobile crane training. This mobile crane training simulation is a project sponsored by Employment and Vocational Training Administration, Council of Labor Affair, Executive Yuan, Taiwan, to build a low-cost yet effective vehicle for training and licensing. To achieve this goal, a set of locally networked PCs is employed to form a parallel computing environment for the mobile crane simulation. The most important issue of developing a high-fidelity interactive visual simulator is its integration system for communication and monitoring among functional modules. This paper presents a peer-to-peer architecture on a cluster of PCs to develop the required integration system for the mobile crane simulator. In addition, the developed integration system uses the push-and-pull model to seamlessly communicate the messages among distributed functional modules. This push-and-pull model effectively achieves the parallelism among the distributed functional modules of a mobile crane simulator. With the push-and-pull model on the peer-to-peer architecture, we can easily achieve the modularity and reusability of the functional modules of the simulating system. The presented push-and-pull model satisfies four essential attributes for the parallel computing, which are concurrency, scalability, locality and modularity. Our experience also successfully verifies the effectiveness of the presented simulator with the system response rate of 16 times per second which is larger than human acceptable perception rate as suggested by the human factors studies.

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

interactive visual simulation
mobile crane simulation


A Chronicle-based Diagnosability Approach for Discrete Timed-event Systems: Application to Web-Services This paper addresses the problem of diagnosability analysis in Web Services. In particular, it focuses on the analysis of the impact of time to the diagnostic capabilities in Web Service workflows. The diagnosability analysis that is proposed in this paper aims at determining the diagnostic capabilities of a previously developped algorithm for the diagnosis of Web Services. This diagnostic algorithm is based on chronicle recognitions. Faults that can occur during the execution of service workflows are described by means of chronicles. To perform this diagnosability analysis, the problem is firstly defined as a language-based analysis which leads to the definition of exclusiveness tests between the languages represented by the chronicles. To deal with the time aspects inherent to the chronicles, we then propose to perform the automatic analysis by the use of time Petri nets. Exclusiveness tests are then defined on reachability graphs of time Petri nets which implicitly represent chronicle languages.

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

web service
diagnosis
diagnosability
chronicle
time petri nets


Fuzzy reputation-based trust model We present PATROL-F (comPrehensive reputAtion-based TRust mOdeL with Fuzzy subsystems) as a comprehensive model for reputation-based trust incorporating fuzzy subsystems to protect interacting hosts in distributed systems. PATROL-F is the fuzzy version of our previous model PATROL, and aims at achieving a truly unique model incorporating various concepts that are important for the calculation of reputation values and the corresponding decisions of whether or not to trust. Among the incorporated concepts are direct experiences and reputation values, the credibility of a host to give recommendations, the decay of information with time based on a dynamic decay factor, first impressions, and a hierarchy of host systems. The model also implements the concepts of similarity, popularity, activity, and cooperation among hosts. In addition, PATROL-F's fuzzy subsystems account for humanistic and subjective concepts such as the importance of a transaction, the decision in the uncertainty region, and setting the result of interaction. We present simulations of PATROL-F and show its correctness and reliability.

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


Characterization of graph properties for improved Pareto fronts using heuristics and EA for bi-objective graph coloring problem Bi-objective graph coloring problem (BOGCP) is a generalized version in which the number of colors used to color the vertices of a graph and the corresponding penalty which incurs due to coloring the end-points of an edge with the same color are simultaneously minimized. In this paper, we have analyzed the graph density, the interconnection between high degree nodes of a graph, the rank exponent of the standard benchmark input graph instances and observed that the characterization of graph instances affects on the behavioral quality of the solution sets generated by existing heuristics across the entire range of the obtained Pareto fronts. We have used multi-objective evolutionary algorithm (MOEA) to obtain improved quality solution sets with the problem specific knowledge as well as with the embedded heuristics knowledge. To establish this fact for BOGCP, hybridization approach is used to construct recombination operators and mutation operators and it is observed from empirical results that the embedded problem specific knowledge in evolutionary operators helps to improve the quality of solution sets across the entire Pareto front; the nature of problem specific knowledge differentiates the quality of solution sets.

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

hybridization
graph coloring problem
graph density
pareto front

evolutionary algorithms
multi-objective optimization
rank histogram
multi-objective evolutionary algorithm


Optimal siting of DG units in power systems from a probabilistic multi-objective optimization perspective Along with the increasing demand for electrical power, distributed generations (DGs) have so far found their pivotal roles in the restructured environment of power distribution systems. As an indispensable step toward a more reliable power system, the DGs optimal allocation strategy, deemed to be the most techno-economically efficient scheme, comes to the play and is profoundly taken under concentration in this study. This paper devises a comprehensive multi-objective (MO) optimization approach by which all the crucial and maybe contradictory aspects of great influence in the placement process can be accounted for. Total imposed costs, total network losses, customer outage costs as well as absorbed private investments are those considered objectives in the proposed scheme. Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm II (NSGAII), as a robust widely-used method of multi-objective dilemmas, is employed to cope with the optimization problem. Point Estimation Method (PEM) has also lent the authors a hand in probabilistically approaching the involved uncertain criteria. In the light of the proposed methodology being implemented on the 37-Bus IEEE standard test system, the anticipated efficiency of the proposed method is well verified.

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

non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (nsgaii)


A web-based multi-agent system for distributed digital manufacturing A framework for a web-based multi-agent system (WebMAS) is proposed to facilitate collaborative product development and production among geographically distributed functional agents using digitalized information. Considering the complexity of products created in a distributed manufacturing scenario, this often requires close collaboration among a number of facilities. In this research, a prototype system where different distributed functional agents, namely, a manufacturability evaluation agent, manufacturing resource agent, process-planning agent, manufacturing scheduling agent, shop-floor agent, fault diagnosis agent, etc., interact coherently to realize the development of physical parts. With specific agents having unique functionalities, a manufacturing managing agent acts as the centre of the system thus coordinating the activities of the participating agents while ensuring seamless work flow and collaboration. This facilitates optimization of the part production cycle from product design to final manufacturing because all the production procedures are correlated and considered logically. The agents communicate through the knowledge query manipulation language, which includes many pre-defined performatives to aid the participating agents in carrying out their tasks intelligently by interpreting commands from one another. In this paper, a case study based on the developed prototype WebMAS system is discussed to illustrate the system.

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

distributed manufacturing
framework
prototype system
case study


The influence of species' number and the density of vacant sites on the defensive alliance The multi-species ecological system with cyclic dominance and vacant sites is studied. The theme is the forming problem of species' defensive alliances in the corresponding systems. Gyorgy Szabo and Gustavo Arial Sznaider have discussed the forming problem of species' defensive alliance in Phys. Rev. E 69, 031911 (2004). Now, this problem is discussed in depth. The following conclusions are obtained: Firstly, the necessary and sufficient condition of forming defensive alliances is that the number of species is even. Secondly, in the condition where the number of species is an even number, for any density of vacant sites, there is three forms of defensive alliance as follow: Deadlock - the habitats of specie's individuals in each alliance interweave together. Relative preponderance - the different of the number of species' individuals between the two defensive alliances keeps steadily. Absolute preponderance - the different of the number of species' individuals between the two defensive alliances enlarges continuously. This paper discusses the relations between the number of species and the forming of the defensive alliances, and shows the corresponding three statistical distributions of discrete density of vacant sites when there are four species.

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


Tests of a simulation method for a system of Boltzmann equations We report on numerical tests of a convergent simulation scheme for the solutions of a class of nonlinear kinetic equations for rarefied gas mixtures. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

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


Trust and distrust aggregation enhanced with path length incorporation Trust networks are social networks in which users can assign trust scores to each other. In order to estimate these scores for agents that are indirectly connected through the network, a range of trust score aggregators has been proposed. Currently, none of them takes into account the length of the paths that connect users; however, this appears to be a critical factor since longer paths generally contain less reliable information. In this paper, we introduce and evaluate several path length incorporating aggregation strategies in order to strike the right balance between generating more predictions on the one hand and maintaining a high prediction accuracy on the other hand. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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


Ontology of collaborative manufacturing: Alignment of service-oriented framework with service-dominant logic The transformation from a goods-based economy to a services-based economy suggests that firms need to redirect the production and marketing strategy that they have adopted for manufactured goods. A fundamental shift in worldview from goods-dominant (G-D) logic to service-dominant (S-D) logic has been proposed to match the analogous shift in the economy. At the same time, service computing is one of the new information technology (IT) paradigms that is transforming the way corporations organize their information resources. Because of the differences and relationships between service computing and service management, the different role of service computing technologies and service-oriented management logic deserves attentions. In this paper, we first discuss the relationship between service-oriented architecture and service-dominant logic based on strategic alignment model. Then, we propose an ontology of service-oriented collaborative manufacturing to organize the concepts and knowledge on a fit between service-oriented architecture and service-dominant logic. This ontology provides an understanding of the collaborative manufacturing domain from a service orientation perspective, which is important for successful Business-IT alignment. Furthermore, this ontology will increase the level of automation in service discovery, invocation, composition and interoperation. A case study based on a customized bicycle buying scenario is used to provide a preliminary validation and design evaluation of this ontology. The case study shows the improvement and benefit of our approach, which can lead to promising new business opportunities.

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

collaborative manufacturing
service orientation
ontology


Bounds on the Sum Capacity of Synchronous Binary CDMA Channels In this paper, we obtain a family of lower bounds for the sum capacity of code-division multiple-access (CDMA) channels assuming binary inputs and binary signature codes in the presence of additive noise with an arbitrary distribution. The envelope of this family gives a relatively tight lower bound in terms of the number of users, spreading gain, and the noise distribution. The derivation methods for the noiseless and the noisy channels are different but when the noise variance goes to zero, the noisy channel bound approaches the noiseless case. The behavior of the lower bound shows that for small noise power, the number of users can be much more than the spreading gain without any significant loss of information (overloaded CDMA). A conjectured upper bound is also derived under the usual assumption that the users send out equally likely binary bits in the presence of additive noise with an arbitrary distribution. As the noise level increases, and/or, the ratio of the number of users and the spreading gain increases, the conjectured upper bound approaches the lower bound. We have also derived asymptotic limits of our bounds that can be compared to a formula that Tanaka obtained using techniques from statistical physics; his bound is close to that of our conjectured upper bound for large scale systems.

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

binary code-division multiple access (cdma)


Note: Combinatorial Alexander Duality-A Short and Elementary Proof Let X be a simplicial complex with ground set V. Define its Alexander dual as the simplicial complex X* = {sigma subset of V vertical bar V \ sigma is not an element of X}. The combinatorial Alexander duality states that the ith reduced homology group of X is isomorphic to the (vertical bar V vertical bar - i - 3) th reduced cohomology group of X* (over a given commutative ring R). We give a self-contained proof from first principles accessible to a nonexpert.

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

simplicial complex
homology
cohomology
alexander dual


the 10th workshop on domain-specific modeling Domain-Specific Modeling raises the level of abstraction beyond programming by specifying the solution directly using visual models to express domain concepts. In many cases, final products can be generated automatically from these high-level specifications. This automation is possible because both the language and generators fit the requirements of only one domain. This paper introduces Domain-Specific Modeling and describes the related 2-day workshop (17th and 18th October 2010).

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

metamodeling
code generation
modeling languages
domain-specific languages


Chromatic adaptation model using the relationship between the cone responses under change in illuminants In this paper, a chromatic adaptation model (CAM) based on the dependence on LMS cone responses of the human visual system (HVS) is proposed for TV and PC monitors under a variety of viewing conditions. We derived the proposed CAM based on Breneman's corresponding color data. The results of the experiments were carried out to assess the proposed model performance in terms of color fidelity by comparing complex images on a LCD monitor. We confirmed that the proposed model performed better to predict corresponding colors under various viewing conditions. Therefore, the reproduced colors, which are viewed in real surround viewing conditions, are perceived the same as original object colors, when the proposed CAM was applied to color display devices such as CRT, LCD, and PDP.

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

chromatic adaptation
corresponding color


Bayesian inference for additive mixed quantile regression models Quantile regression problems in practice may require flexible semiparametric forms of the predictor for modeling the dependence of responses on covariates. Furthermore, it is often necessary to add random effects accounting for overdispersion caused by unobserved heterogeneity or for correlation in longitudinal data. We present a unified approach for Bayesian quantile inference on continuous response via Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) simulation and approximate inference using integrated nested Laplace approximations (INLA) in additive mixed models. Different types of covariate are all treated within the same general framework by assigning appropriate Gaussian Markov random field (GMRF) priors with different forms and degrees of smoothness. We applied the approach to extensive simulation studies and a Munich rental dataset, showing that the methods are also computationally efficient in problems with many covariates and large datasets.

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

integrated nested laplace approximations

asymmetric laplace distribution
gaussian markov random fields
gibbs sampling


High power and low cross-polarization microstrip patch array antenna at S-band This article reports the design and development of high power, low cross-polarization, and high efficiency circularly polarized microstrip patch array antenna at S-band, proposed for Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System payload. A novel feeding mechanism for truncated corner square patch based on square coaxial line for broadband impedance matching is discussed. Sequential rotation scheme for axial ratio improvement in an array is implemented. High power handling margins in critical regions of square coaxial line for multipaction breakdown is brought out. Measured 19 dB return loss bandwidth of array antenna is 15.6%. Axial ratio of 0.78 dB over global coverage is achieved in the desired frequency band of operation. 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE, 2012.

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

microstrip patch
multipaction
square coaxial line
sequential rotation


the darwin software-evolution environment The main goal of the Darwin software development environment is to establish a rigorous authorization-based discipline which can be used to impose constraints on the structure and operations of software systems as well as on their process of development Such constraints might be desirable to serve the following needs: The need to provide support and enforcement for such software engineering techniques as informationhiding, data abstraction and modularization, even when these techniques are not offered by the programming language itself. The need to support rules which govern the real enterprise being served by the system, and which must be invariant of the evolutionary behaviou of the system. The need to enforce managerial policies concerning the process of system development itself.

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

software
structure
systems
enterprise
abstraction
data
process
support
system development
rules
programming language

software evolution
policy
author
environments
invariance
developer
software development
operability
modular
constraint
software engineering


Treelet kernel incorporating cyclic, stereo and inter pattern information in chemoinformatics Inclusion of chemical information into treelet kernel. Adaptation of multiple kernel learning to graph kernels based on bags of patterns. Two new molecular representations encoding explicit cyclic information. New relationship between maximum structural common subgraph and graph edit distance. Stereoisomerism is encoded in treelet kernel.

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


Modeling and emergence of flapping flight of butterfly based on experimental measurements The objective of this paper is to clarify the principle of stabilization in flapping-of-wing flight of a butterfly, which is a rhythmic and cyclic motion. For this purpose, a dynamics model of a butterfly is derived by Lagranges method, where the butterfly is considered as a rigid multi-body system. For the aerodynamic forces, a panel method is applied. Validity of the mathematical models is shown by an agreement of the numerical result with the measured data. Then, periodic orbits of flapping-of-wing flights are searched in order to fly the butterfly models. Almost periodic orbits are obtained, but the model in the searched flapping-of-wing flight is unstable. This research, then, studies how the wake-induced flow and the flexibly torsional wings effect on the flight stability. Numerical simulations demonstrate that both the wake-induced flow and the flexible torsion reduces the flight instability. Because the obtained periodic flapping-of-wing flight is unstable, a feedback control system is designed, and a stable flight is realized.

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

modeling
flapping flight
butterfly
experimental measurements


Conversion between triangular and rectangular Bezier patches This paper presents an explicit formula that converts a triangular Bezier patch of degree n to a degenerate rectangular Bezier patch of degree n x n by reparametrization. Based on this formula, we develop a method for approximating a degenerate rectangular Bezier patch by three nondegenerate Bezier patches; more patches can be introduced by subdivision to meet a user-specified error tolerance. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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 O O O O O O O


Preserving privacy by de-identifying face images In the context of sharing video surveillance data, a significant threat to privacy is face recognition software, which can automatically identify known people, such as from a database of drivers' license photos, and thereby track people regardless of suspicion. This paper introduces an algorithm to protect the privacy of individuals in video surveillance data by de-identifying faces such that many facial characteristics remain but the face cannot be reliably recognized. A trivial solution to de-identifying faces involves blacking out each face. This thwarts any possible face recognition, but because all facial details are obscured, the result is of limited use. Many ad hoc attempts, such as covering eyes, fail to thwart face recognition because of the robustness of face recognition methods. This paper presents a new privacy-enabling algorithm, named k-Same, that guarantees face recognition software cannot reliably recognize de-identified faces, even though many facial details are preserved. The algorithm determines similarity between faces based on a distance metric and creates new faces by averaging image components, which may be the original image pixels (k-Same-Pixel) or eigenvectors (k-Same-Eigen). Results are presented on a standard collection of real face images with varying k.

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

privacy-preserving data mining
k-anonymity


Experimental verification of a GPC-LPV method with RLS and P1-TS fuzzy-based estimation for limiting the transient and residual vibration of a crane system The new GPC-LPV approach is proposed for limiting transient and residual oscillations in a flexible crane system. The RLS method and P1-TS fuzzy-based interpolation are applied in the presence of operating conditions variation. The GPC-LPV strategy is compared with scheduling control scheme developed through incorporating the P1-TS fuzzy theory. The control techniques are tested on a laboratory stand with and without a sensor of payload deflection.

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

residual and transient vibration
gpc
lpv
fuzzy gain scheduling
p1-ts theory


Analysis of colour constancy algorithms using the knowledge of variation of correlated colour temperature of daylight with solar elevation In this article, we present an investigation of possible improvement of the colour constant reflectance features that can be obtained from daylight illuminated scenes using pixel-level colour constancy algorithms (model-based algorithm: S Ratnasingam, S Collins, J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 27, 286294 (2010) and Projection-based algorithm: GD Finlayson, MS Drew, IEEE ICCV, 2001, pp. 473480). Based on the investigation we describe a method to improve the performance of the colour constancy algorithms using the correlation between the correlated colour temperature of measured daylight with the solar elevation and phase of the day (morning, midday and evening). From this observation, the data from 1 year are used to create a solar elevation and phase of day-dependant method of interpreting the information obtained the colour constancy algorithms. Test results show that using the proposed method with 40-dB signal-to-noise ratio the performance of the projection-based algorithm and model-based algorithm can be improved on average by 33.7 and 45.4%, respectively. More importantly, a larger improvement (85.9 and 113.7%) was obtained during the middle period of each day which is defined as when the solar elevation is larger than 20.

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


Evolutionary multiobjective optimization using an outranking-based dominance generalization One aspect that is often disregarded in the current research on evolutionary multiobjective optimization is the fact that the solution of a multiobjective optimization problem involves not only the search itself, but also a decision making process. Most current approaches concentrate on adapting an evolutionary algorithm to generate the Pareto frontier. In this work, we present a new idea to incorporate preferences into a multi-objective evolutionary algorithm (MOEA). We introduce a binary fuzzy preference relation that expresses the degree of truth of the predicate x x is at least as good as y y . On this basis, a strict preference relation with a reasonably high degree of credibility can be established on any population. An alternative x x is not strictly outranked if and only if there does not exist an alternative y y which is strictly preferred to x x . It is easy to prove that the best solution is not strictly outranked. For validating our proposed approach, we used the non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm II (NSGA-II), but replacing Pareto dominance by the above non-outranked concept. So, we search for the non-strictly outranked frontier that is a subset of the Pareto frontier. In several instances of a nine-objective knapsack problem our proposal clearly outperforms the standard NSGA-II, achieving non-outranked solutions which are in an obviously privileged zone of the Pareto frontier.

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

multicriteria optimization
evolutionary algorithms
fuzzy preferences
outranking relations


Characterizing and optimizing human anticancer drug targets based on topological properties in the context of biological pathways The biological pathway is valuable and powerful for optimizing the drug targets. We characterized the pathway-level topological properties of drug targets. We optimized drug targets based on pathway-level topological properties. Our approach offers a new sight for the discovery of novel anticancer drug targets.

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 O B I 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 B I


reverted indexing for feedback and expansion Traditional interactive information retrieval systems function by creating inverted lists, or term indexes. For every term in the vocabulary, a list is created that contains the documents in which that term occurs and its relative frequency within each document. Retrieval algorithms then use these term frequencies alongside other collection statistics to identify the matching documents for a query. In this paper, we turn the process around: instead of indexing documents, we index query result sets. First, queries are run through a chosen retrieval system. For each query, the resulting document IDs are treated as terms and the score or rank of the document is used as the frequency statistic. An index of documents retrieved by basis queries is created. We call this index a reverted index. With reverted indexes, standard retrieval algorithms can retrieve the matching queries (as results) for a set of documents (used as queries). These recovered queries can then be used to identify additional documents, or to aid the user in query formulation, selection, and feedback.

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


All-terrain vehicle use in agriculture: Exposure to whole body vibration and mechanical shock Whole body vibration (WBV) and mechanical shock were measured in 12 New Zealand farmers during their daily use of all-terrain vehicles (ATVs). As per the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) guidelines for WBV exposure, frequencies between 0 and 100Hz were recorded via a seat-pad tri-axial accelerometer during 20min of ATV use. The farmers were also surveyed to estimate seasonal variation in daily ATV usage as well as 7-day and 12-month prevalence of spinal pain. Frequency-weighted vibration exposure and total riding time were calculated to determine the daily vibration dose value (VDV). The daily VDV of 16.6m/s1.75 was in excess of the 9.1m/s1.75 action limit set by ISO guidelines suggesting an increased risk of low back injury from such exposure. However, the mean shock factor R, representing cumulative adverse health effects, was 0.31 indicating that these farmers were not exposed to excessive doses of mechanical shock. Extrapolation of daily VDV data to estimated seasonal variations of farmers in ATV riding time demonstrated that all participants would exceed the ISO recommended maximum permissible limits during the spring lambing season, as compared to lower exposures calculated for summer, autumn and winter. Low back pain was the most commonly reported complaint for both 7 day (50%) and 12 month prevalence (67%), followed by the neck (17% and 42%) and the upper back (17% and 25%) respectively. The results demonstrate high levels of vibration exposure within New Zealand farmers and practical recommendations are needed to reduce their exposure toWBV.

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

farmers
vibration dose value
low back pain
seasonal variation


Impact of CPU-bound Processes on IP Forwarding of Linux and Windows XP These days, commodity-off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware and software are used to build high-end and powerful workstations and servers to be deployed in today's local area networks of private homes and small- to medium-sized business. Typically, these servers are multipurpose and shared - running networking functionalities involving IP packet forwarding in addition to other CPU intensive applications. In this paper we study and investigate the impact of running CPU-bound applications on the performance of IP packet forwarding. We measure and compare the impact and performance for the two operating systems of choice for home and small-business users, namely Linux and Windows XP. The performance is studied in terms of key performance metrics which include throughput, packet loss, round-trip delay, and CPU availability. For our measurements, we consider today's typical home network hosts of modern processors and Gigabit network cards. We also consider different configuration setups and utilize open-source tools to generate relatively high traffic rates. Our empirical results show that Linux exhibits superior performance over Windows XP in terms of IP forwarding performance. Results also show that, unlike Windows XP, the IP forwarding performance of Linux is not significantly impacted by running CPU-bound applications.

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

ip forwarding
operating systems
linux
windows


design of a user-microprogrammable building block A user-microprogrammable computer has been developed for use as a building block in general-purpose and dedicated computer systems. The architecture is designed to be easily microprogrammed and features a 32-bit, vertically oriented microinstruction. The processor has a 135-nanosecond cycle time, either 16- or 20-bit macro data paths, and 1024 hardware registers. A significant fraction of the processor bandwidth may be budgeted for I/O processing to allow the substitution of microcode for expensive peripheral controllers. Furthermore, the micromachine is well suited to the emulation of other computer architectures in that it provides a large writable microcode memory and a minimum of special processor data paths. The design goals and strategies which determined the machine architecture are discussed, as well as an overview of the architecture and hardware organization. Finally, we report a number of specific applications developed to date.

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

processor
emulation
organization
applications
strategies
use
systems
goals
architecture
design
building block
bandwidth
data
hardware

computer architecture
macros
computation
memorialized
process
general
timing
feature
control
user


Mining associations between web stock news volumes and stock prices The significant increases of web stock news volumes (WSNVs) are often associated with the significant changes of stock prices. When the WSNV for a firm increases insufficiently, the stock price movement is often placid. When the WSNV increases significantly, the stock price movement is often oscillatory. A method of determining the amplitude of worth-noting significant increase on the WSNV is presented, by automatically inflating the standard deviations with different scales for the firms of different sizes. A measure of significant changes of stock prices is defined. Based on statistics and neural networks, the associations between these measures are mined through experiments. The results of the study provide us with the new clues to the microstructure of the stock market from the vision of the Internet news.

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

web stock news volumes
stock prices
neural networks


a general framework for accurate statistical timing analysis considering correlations The impact of parameter variations on timing due to process and environmental variations has become significant in recent years. With each new technology node this variability is becoming more prominent. In this work, we present a general Statistical Timing Analysis (STA) framework that captures spatial correlations between gate delays. Our technique does not make any assumption about the distributions of the parameter variations, gate delay and arrival times. We propose a Taylor-series expansion based polynomial representation of gate delays and arrival times which is able to effectively capture the non-linear dependencies that arise due to increasing parameter variations. In order to reduce the computational complexity introduced due to polynomial modeling during STA, we propose an efficient linear-modeling driven polynomial STA scheme. On an average the degree-2 polynomial scheme had a 7.3x speedup as compared to Monte Carlo with 0.049 units of rms error w.r.t Monte Carlo. Our technique is generic and can be applied to arbitrary variations in the underlying parameters.

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


Potential information fields for mobile robot exploration ? ?? Novel exploration method based on joint path and map entropy minimization. Minimizing both map and path entropies produces more reliable maps. Exploration is pursued by gradient descent over the potential information field.

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


Developing an integration architecture for process portals Many companies still use portals to mange link lists or to present HTML pages to an anonymous group of users. This paper argues that a portal's benefits strongly depend on its personalisation along the individual user processes. Besides customer profiles and histories relevant design issues are also the operational collaboration processes and the link of the embedded services to the internal and/or external providers in the upstream supply chain. These process portals not only require an in-depth process analysis, but also the efficient integration of heterogeneous applications on the information systems level. The goal is to provide an integrated, role-based and process-oriented access to all relevant applications. For this purpose integration architectures add one layer to existing application architectures and need to be linked to existing process and application architectures. In view of an estimated growing diffusion of process portals, this article argues that the available approaches to integration architecture in the literature and in practice do not adequately address inter-organisational requirements, and develops an extended architecture model. The components required to implement this architecture are illustrated using an example of a major automobile manufacturer.

O O B I 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 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 B 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

inter-organisational integration
business networking


Novartis Malaria Initiative: best practice example of pharmaceutical industry's engagement in the fight against malaria Despite considerable advances in the treatment and prevention of malaria, Plasmodium falciparum is still a threat to millions of people across the world, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, with infants and young children bearing the greatest burden in terms of morbidity and mortality. Since 1999, the artemisinin-based combination therapy artemether-lumefantrine (AL; Coartem) has been made available. A wealth of evidence supports consistently high efficacy of AL, and a favorable safety and tolerability profile has been demonstrated. The child-friendly dispersible formulation of AL has proven to be as effective and well tolerated as the standard tablets, and will encourage ease of administration and improved adherence to the drug regimen. This article reviews the significant impact made by AL on the progress in malaria control and describes the way forward for the Novartis Malaria Initiative in leading the fight against malaria.

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


Laying the foundations for a world wide argument web This paper lays theoretical and software foundations for a World Wide Argument Web (WWAW): a large-scale Web of interconnected arguments posted by individuals to express their opinions in a structured manner. First, we extend the recently proposed Argument Interchange Format (AIF) to express arguments with a structure based on Walton's theory of argumentation schemes. Then, we describe an implementation of this ontology using the RDF Schema Semantic Web-based ontology language, and demonstrate how our ontology enables the representation of networks of arguments on the Semantic Web. Finally, we present a pilot Semantic Web-based system, ArgDF, through which users can create arguments using different argumentation schemes and can query arguments using a Semantic Web query language. Manipulation of existing arguments is also handled in ArgDF: users can attack or support parts of existing arguments, or use existing parts of an argument in the creation of new arguments. ArgDF also enables users to create new argumentation schemes. As such, ArgDF is an open platform not only for representing arguments, but also for building interlinked and dynamic argument networks on the Semantic Web. This initial public-domain tool is intended to seed a variety of future applications for authoring, linking, navigating, searching, and evaluating arguments on the Web. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

argumentation
argument interchange format
semantic web


Average path length of binary decision diagrams The traditional problem in binary decision diagrams (BDDs) has been to minimize the number of nodes since this reduces the memory needed to store the BDD. Recently, a new problem has emerged: minimizing the average path length (APL). APL is a measure of the time needed to evaluate the function by applying a sequence of variable values. It is of special significance when BDDs are used in simulation and design verification. A main result of this paper is that the APL for benchmark functions is typically much smaller than for random functions. That is, for the set of all functions, we show that the average APL is close to the maximum path length, whereas benchmark functions show a remarkably small APL. Surprisingly, however, typical functions do not achieve the absolute maximum APL. We show that the parity functions are unique in having that distinction. We show that the APL of a BDD can vary considerably with variable ordering. We derive the APL for various functions, including the AND, OR, threshold, Achilles' heel, and certain arithmetic functions. We show that the unate cascade functions uniquely achieve the absolute minimum APL.

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

binary decision diagrams
bdd
average path length
apl


Scalable extensions of the ReliefF algorithm for weighting and selecting features on the multi-label learning context Multi-label learning has become an important area of research due to the increasing number of modern applications that contain multi-label data. The multi-label data are structured in a more complex way than single-label data. Consequently the development of techniques that allow the improvement in the performance of machine learning algorithms over multi-label data is desired. The feature weighting and feature selection algorithms are important feature engineering techniques which have a beneficial impact on the machine learning. The ReliefF algorithm is one of the most popular algorithms to feature estimation and it has proved its usefulness in several domains. This paper presents three extensions of the ReliefF algorithm for working in the multi-label learning context, namely ReliefF-ML, PPT-ReliefF and RReliefF-ML. PPT-ReliefF uses a problem transformation method to convert the multi-label problem into a single-label problem. ReliefF-ML and RReliefF-ML adapt the classic ReliefF algorithm in order to handle directly the multi-label data. The proposed ReliefF extensions are evaluated and compared with previous ReliefF extensions on 34 multi-label datasets. The results show that the proposed ReliefF extensions improve preceding extensions and overcome some of their drawbacks. The experimental results are validated using several nonparametric statistical tests and confirm the effectiveness of the proposal for a better multi-label learning.

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

relieff algorithm
feature weighting
feature selection

multi-label learning
multi-label classification
label ranking


A Dynamic Self-Scheduling Scheme for Heterogeneous Multiprocessor Architectures Today's heterogeneous architectures bring together multiple general-purpose CPUs and multiple domain-specific GPUs and FPGAs to provide dramatic speedup for many applications. However, the challenge lies in utilizing these heterogeneous processors to optimize overall application performance by minimizing workload completion time. Operating system and application development for these systems is in their infancy. In this article, we propose a new scheduling and workload balancing scheme, HDSS, for execution of loops having dependent or independent iterations on heterogeneous multiprocessor systems. The new algorithm dynamically learns the computational power of each processor during an adaptive phase and then schedules the remainder of the workload using a weighted self-scheduling scheme during the completion phase. Different from previous studies, our scheme uniquely considers the runtime effects of block sizes on the performance for heterogeneous multiprocessors. It finds the right trade-off between large and small block sizes to maintain balanced workload while keeping the accelerator utilization at maximum. Our algorithm does not require offline training or architecture-specific parameters. We have evaluated our scheme on two different heterogeneous architectures: AMD 64-core Bulldozer system with nVidia Fermi C2050 GPU and Intel Xeon 32-core SGI Altix 4700 supercomputer with Xilinx Virtex 4 FPGAs. The experimental results show that our new scheduling algorithm can achieve performance improvements up to over 200% when compared to the closest existing load balancing scheme. Our algorithm also achieves full processor utilization with all processors completing at nearly the same time which is significantly better than alternative current approaches.

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

algorithms
dynamic self-scheduling
gp-gpus


how to turn the page Can digital libraries provide a reading experience that more closely resembles a real book than a scrolled or paginated electronic display? This paper describes a prototype page-turning system that realistically animates full three-dimensional page-turns. The dynamic behavior is generated by a mass-spring model defined on a rectangular grid of particles. The prototype takes a PDF or E-book file, renders it into a sequence of PNG images representing individual pages, and animates the pageturns under user control. The simulation behaves fairly naturally, although more computer graphics work is required to perfect it.

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

grid
simulation
prototype
dynamic
behavior
digital libraries
experience
paper
model
control
sequence
user
computer graphics


Dermal Mast Cell Counts in F2 Holstein x Gir Crossbred Cattle Artificially Infested with the Tick Boophilus microplus (Acari: Ixodidae) The role of dermal mast cells (DMC) in the host resistance to ticks has been studied but it is not totally explained yet. Studies have proposed that zebuine cattle breeds, known as highly resistant to ticks, have more DMC than taurine breeds. In the present study, we compared the number of adult female ticks Boophilus microplus and the mast cells' countings in the skin of F2 crossbred Gir Holstein cattle, before and after tick infestation. F2 crossbred cattle (n = 148) were divided into seven groups and artificially infested with 1.0 104B. microplus larvae and, 21 days afterwards, adult female-fed ticks attached to the skin were counted. Skin biopsies were taken and examined under light microscopy with a square-lined ocular reticulum in a total area of 0.0625 mm2 in both the superficial and deep dermis. Results demonstrated that infested F2 crossbred cattle acquired resistance against the cattle-tick B. microplus probably associated to an increase in the dermal mast cell number. It is concluded that the tick infestation may lead to an environmental modification in the dermis of parasitized hosts due to the massive migration of mast cells or their local proliferation

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

dermal mast cells
resistance
crossbred cattle


A wavelet "time-shift-detail" decomposition We show that, with respect to an orthonormal wavelet psi((.)) is an element of L-2 (R) any f((.)) is an element of L-2 (R) is, on the one hand, the sum of its "layers of details" over all time-shifts, and on the other hand, the sum of its layers of details over all scales. The latter is well known and is a consequence of a wandering subspace decomposition of L-2(R) which, in turn, resulted from a wavelet multiresolution analysis (MRA). The former has not been discussed before. We show that it is a consequence of a decomposition of L-2(R) in terms of reducing subspaces of the dilation-by-2 shift operator. (C) 2003 IMACS. Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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

scale and time-shift-details
shift-wandering subspace decomposition
shift reducing subspaces decomposition


Modeling car dealership credit operations using arena as a business process reengineering demonstration An experiment was conducted in the Management Department at GMI which involved teaching management concepts by creating business models. An important part of this effort is the development of student projects taken from their co-op experiences. One of these projects is the Car Dealership Credit Operations model. This paper describes how these operations were quite nicely modeled using Arena as a class project. A dealership processing 200 people per week was selected for the initial modeling effort. The model includes preliminary credit checks, including prequalifying the buyer at the dealer. Further interactions between the car dealer finance officer and as many as seven banks are modeled to show how this credit approval process works.

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


Clustering analysis prioritization of automobile logistics services Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to provide a clustering approach to segment supply chain partners in the automobile industry and prioritize services offered by third party logistics service (3PL) providers. Design/methodology/approach - In total, 98 automobile and auto-parts manufacturers are surveyed to identify service needs, preferences, and outsourcing commitments. By applying a two-stage clustering approach combined with Ward's minimum-variance method and the K-means algorithm, the logistics companies prioritize their services to better satisfy groups of customers with specific preferences. Findings - Four distinctive groups of manufacturers are identified using the two-stage clustering approach. The clusters separate logistic preferences and outsourcing patterns of after market parts suppliers, original equipment service parts suppliers, original equipment manufacturer parts suppliers, and tier one car makers. The paper finds that distribution and delivery services hold the highest percentage of services outsourced among the manufacturers. Originality/value - This paper models logistic services as customizable services and develops a data system methodology to define the profiles of automobile manufacturers and their preferred logistic services. Through the analysis of service preferences and clustering, the paper identifies the key logistic services that can be customized for members of the automobile supply chain. A case is provided which demonstrates how a logistics company can provide customized service designs for specific target markets and customers.

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

automotive industry
distribution channels and markets
channel relationships
cluster analysis


A framework for anonymous but accountable self-organizing communities In this paper we propose a novel architecture and approach to provide accountability for Web communities that require a high-level of privacy. A two-layered privacy protection architecture is proposed, that supports (i) registration of participants and enforcement of community rules, called internal accountability, and (ii) rule-based interaction with real world organizations, called external accountability. Our security protocols build upon community-based trust and limit the exposure of private data on trusted third parties. The two-layered architecture protects the mappings between real users and their virtual identities, and among the virtual users, while guaranteeing internal and external accountability. We target Web communities that are dynamic and self-organizing, i.e. roles and contributions of participants may change over time. The proposed concepts and protocols are implemented in our SyllabNet project that supports anonymous course evaluations by university students.

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


Efficient, High-Quality, GPU-Based Visualization of Voxelized Surface Data with Fine and Complicated Structures This paper proposes a GPU based method that can visualize voxelized surface data with fine and complicated features has high rendering quality at interactive frame rates and provides low memory consumption The surface data is compressed using run length encoding (RLE) for each level of detail (LOD) Then the loop for the rendering process is performed on the GPU for the position of the viewpoint at each time instant The scene is raycasted in planes where each plane is perpendicular to the horizontal plane in the world coordinate system and passes through the viewpoint For each plane one ray is cast to rasterize all RLE elements intersecting this plane starting from the viewpoint and ranging up to the maximum view distance This rasteritization process projects each RLE element passing the occlusion test onto the screen at a LOD that decreases with the distance of the RLE element from the viewpoint Finally the smoothing of voxels in screen space and full screen anti aliasing is performed To provide lighting calculations without storing the normal vector inside the RLE data structure our algorithm recovers the normal vectors from the rendered scene s depth butter After the viewpoint changes the same process is re executed for the new viewpoint Experiments using different scenes have shown that the proposed algorithm is faster than the equivalent CPU implementation and other related methods Our experiments further prove that this method is memory efficient and achieves high quality results.

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

volume data
raycasting
splatting
view transform run


CER Hub: An informatics platform for conducting comparative effectiveness research using multi-institutional, heterogeneous, electronic clinical data ? The CER Hub provides standardized access to EHR data across organizations. The CER Hub provides access to coded and text data in the EHR. The CER Hub provides distributed data and study governance processes. The CER Hub provides a library of sharable clinical data processing applications.

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

natural language processing
electronic health records


Delay Attack-Resilient Clock Synchronization for Wireless Sensor Networks This paper presents the design and performance evaluation of a delay attack-resilient clock synchronization scheme (abbreviated to DARCS) for wireless sensor networks. In order to provide both synchronization accuracy and robustness, we propose a novel three-way handshake-based protocol, which completely excludes non-deterministic factors such as random backoff durations and unexpected hardware interrupts in a software manner and, in this way, the node can accurately estimate the relative clock offset and the end-to-end delay between a pair of nodes. Consequently, DARCS makes it possible to correct time synchronization errors as well as to detect delay attacks precisely. The simulation results show that DARCS achieves a higher synchronization accuracy and is more resilient to delay attacks than the other popular time synchronization schemes.

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

time synchronization
wireless sensor networks


Long-term study of safe Internet use of young children The Internet is an evolving medium that continuously presents new functionalities. Accordingly, also children's Internet usage changes continuously. This requires being vigilant about related Internet risk behavior and safe Internet use. The present article presents a structured overview of Internet risks and summarizes approaches to foster safe Internet behavior. Based on a long-term cross-sectional study. Internet usage of young children has been researched. The focus is on contact risks and content risks. Based on the analysis of survey data from 10000 children, trends in their (un)safe Internet usage are studied in the years 2005-2006,2007-2008, and 2008-2009. An Unsafe Internet Usage Index (UIUI) is calculated. The average results point at a rather low level of unsafe Internet usage. But these average results hide between-subject differences and a number of children clearly reflect risky unsafe Internet usage. Also, no consistent reduction in unsafe Internet behavior is being observed over the years. Parental and teacher control hardly increase, and hardly seem to impact the level of unsafe Internet behavior. Considering a number of limitations of the present study, directions for future research are discussed. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

internet
content risks
contact risks
teacher control


Behavioral circuit models of power BAW resonators and filters A nonlinear circuit model taking into account the parasitics of the resonator connection to the measurement bench is presented; the measured data agree with the simulation results, except some undulations in the frequency dependence of the 2f harmonic component of the reflected power. New models for the anti-series and the anti-parallel connections of two resonators are proposed. The frequency warping effect is discussed together with its elimination using the Gear methods up to the sixth order.

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

behavioral models
nonlinear circuit models
simulation of high q circuits


Electro-thermal finite element analysis and verification of power module with aluminum wire The electro-thermal FE analysis of a power module is conducted in a numerical investigation. The maximum current density may induce electromigration or failure behavior. The test sample is designed and manufactured to validate the temperature distribution. The numerical analysis can reduce experiment number and to quickly predicate the behavior.

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

insulated gate bipolar transistor (igbt)


An intelligent approach to machine tool selection through fuzzy analytic network process In this study, we utilize analytic network process (ANP), a more general form of AHP, for justifying stand-alone machine tools out of available alternatives in market due to the fact that AHP cannot accommodate the variety of interactions, dependencies and feedback between higher and lower level elements. However, due to the vagueness and uncertainty on judgments of a decision-maker, the crisp pair wise comparison in the conventional ANP seems to be insufficient and imprecise to capture the right judgments of the decision-maker. That is why, also in this paper, fuzzy number logic is introduced in the pair wise comparison of ANP to make up for this deficiency in the ANP. In short, here, an intelligent approach to machine tool selection (MTS) problem through fuzzy ANP is proposed to improve the imprecise ranking of company's requirements which is based on the conventional ANP. In order to reach to final solution, a preference ratio (PR) analysis is done by using the results of the fuzzy ANP, and investment costs of alternatives. In addition, a numerical example is presented to illustrate the proposed approach.

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 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

multiple-criteria decision making (mcdm)


Distributed speculative execution for reliability and fault tolerance: an operational semantics This paper examines the use of speculations, a form of distributed transactions, for improving the reliability and fault tolerance of distributed systems. A speculation is defined as a computation that is based on an assumption that is not validated before the computation is started. If the assumption is later found to be false, the computation is aborted and the state of the program is rolled back; if the assumption is found to be true, the results of the computation are committed. The primary difference between a speculation and a transaction is that a speculation is not isolated-for example, a speculative computation may send and receive messages, and it may modify shared objects. As a result, processes that share those objects may be absorbed into a speculation. We present a syntax, and an operational semantics in two forms. The first one is a speculative model, which takes full advantage of the speculative features. The second one is a nonspeculative, nondeterministic model, where aborts are treated as failures. We prove the equivalence of the two models, demonstrating that speculative execution is equivalent to failure-free computation.

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

speculations
operational semantics
distributed systems
fault tolerance
transactions


Protection and administration of XML data sources EXtensible Markup Language (XML) security has become a relevant research topic due to the widespread use of XML as the language for information interchange and document definition over the Web. In this context, developing an access control mechanism in terms of XML is an important step for Web information security. In this paper, we present the protection and administration facilities of Author-X, a Java-based system for discretionary access control to XML documents. Relevant features of Author-X are both a set-oriented and a document-oriented credential-based document protection, a differentiated protection of document/document type contents through the support of multi-granularity protection objects and positive/negative authorizations, and the support for different access control strategies. In this paper, we focus on the strategies we have developed for enforcing access control. Additionally, we provide a description of the environment we have developed to help the Security Officer in performing administrative activities related to both security policy and subject credential management. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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

xml security
access control
administration facilities


An implementation of enhanced public key infrastructure In this paper, we present the implementation of an enhanced public key infrastructure (PKI) which supports not only conventional public key cryptography (PKC) but also identity-based cryptography (IBC). In addition, we discuss the possible way of placing together IBC and PKI as well as solving the problems of user secret key revocation of PKI and IBC. As a proof of concept, an IBC framework is incorporated into Enterprise Java Bean Certified Authority (EJBCA) and the performance is reported.

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


Anisotropic field-of-views in radial imaging Radial imaging techniques, such as projection-reconstruction (PR), are used in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for dynamic imaging, angiography, and short-T-2 imaging. They are robust to flow and motion, have diffuse aliasing patterns, and support short readouts and echo times. One drawback is that standard implementations do not support anisotropic field-of-view (FOV) shapes, which are used to match the imaging parameters to the object or region-of-interest. A set of fast, simple algorithms for 2-D and 3-D PR, and 3-D cones acquisitions are introduced that match the sampling density in frequency space to the desired FOV shape. Tailoring the acquisitions allows for reduction of aliasing artifacts in undersampled applications or scan time reductions without introducing aliasing in fully-sampled applications. It also makes possible new radial imaging applications that were previously unsuitable, such as imaging elongated regions or thin slabs. 2-D PR longitudinal leg images and thin-slab, single breath-hold 3-D PR abdomen images, both with isotropic resolution, demonstrate these new possibilities. No scan time to volume efficiency is lost by using anisotropic FOVs. The acquisition trajectories can be computed on a scan by scan basis.

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

anisotropic field-of-view (fov)
projection-reconstruction (pr)
three-dimensional (3-d) cones


Evolutionary optimization of coercive functionals defined on Euler-Monge surfaces with fixed boundary curves A new evolutionary multimodal optimization technique is applied for coercive functionals defined on a set of functions of the type u is an element of C-2 (Omega, R), where Omega is a non-empty compact subset of R-2. u defines an Euler-Monge surface, which has fixed boundary curves. In our approach these boundaries are approximated by a C-2-continuous curve.

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

roaming technique
coercive energy functionals


A comprehensive approach to optimal software rejuvenation Software aging is caused by resource exhaustion and can lead to progressive performance degradation or result in a crash. We develop experiments that simulate an on-line bookstore application, using the standard configuration of TPC-W benchmark. We study application failures due to memory leaks, using the accelerated life testing (ALT). ALT significantly reduces the time needed to estimate the time to failure at normal level. We then select the Weibull time to failure distribution at normal level, to be used in a semi-Markov model so as to optimize the software rejuvenation trigger interval. Then we derive the optimal rejuvenation schedule interval by fixed point iteration and by an alternative non-parametric estimation algorithm. Finally, we develop a simulation model using importance sampling (IS) to cross validate the ALT experimental results and the semi-Markov model, and also we apply the non-parametric method to cross validate the optimized trigger intervals by comparing the availabilities obtained from the semi-Markov model and those from IS simulation using the non-parametric method.

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 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 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

memory leaks
optimal software rejuvenation
importance sampling

accelerated life tests
non-parametric estimation
semi-markov process


Heuristic algorithms for packing of multiple-group multicasting Multicast communication is an efficient routing method for multimedia data distribution, since it can save network bandwidth during the communication session. Thus, the multicast routing problems have received much attention from many researchers. In this paper, we consider a multicast routing problem with multiple multicast sessions under a capacity limited constraint. This problem is formulated as a tree packing problem. We propose two heuristic algorithms, Steiner-tree-based heuristic (STH) algorithm and cut-set-based heuristic (CSH) algorithm, for solving this problem. The simulation results show that the STH algorithm can find a better approximate solution in a shorter computation time compared to CSH. In addition, if the available bandwidth for the service is just enough, the STH and CSH algorithms may fail to find a solution even if the solution exists. The simulation results also indicate that CSH has a higher probability than STH to find a solution. Thus, it is suggested that one can apply the STH algorithm first to solve the tree packing problem. In case STH fails, CSH algorithm will be used instead. Several new applications in multimedia networks have been developed in recent years, such as video conferencing, video on demand and network TV. The routing problem for these multimedia services is primarily concerned with efficiently delivering data to multiple destinations. Multicast communication which delivers data along a tree is a preferred routing method because it can reduce network traffic and save network resources, e.g., bandwidth. Most of the current researches for the multicast routing problems only consider a single multicast session. However, several multicast sessions may occur simultaneously in a network and these multicast sessions will contend for the limited network bandwidth. This creates a new network optimization problem. In this research, we studied an optimal tree packing problem. The goal of this study is to arrange the multiple multicast trees in the network such that the bandwidth constraint is maintained and the overall transmission cost is minimized. We believe that the results are useful for improving network utilization in multimedia networks which have multicast services.

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

steiner tree problem
shortest path problem


Improved sound source localization in horizontal plane for binaural robot audition An improved sound source localization (SSL) method has been developed that is based on the generalized cross-correlation (GCC) method weighted by the phase transform (PHAT) for use with binaural robots equipped with two microphones inside artificial pinnae. The conventional SSL method based on the GCC-PHAT method has two main problems when used on a binaural robot platform: 1) diffraction of sound waves with multipath interference caused by the contours of the robot head, which affects localization accuracy, and 2) front-back ambiguity, which limits the localization range to half the horizontal space. The diffraction problem was overcome by incorporating a new time delay factor into the GCC-PHAT method under the assumption of a spherical robot head. The ambiguity problem was overcome by utilizing the amplification effect of the pinnae for localization over the entire azimuth. Experiments conducted using two dummy heads equipped with small or large pinnae showed that localization errors were reduced by 8.91 (3.21 vs. 12.12) on average with the new time delay factor compared with the conventional GCC-PHAT method and that the success rate for front-back disambiguation using the pinnae amplification effect was 29.76 % (93.46 % vs. 72.02 %) better on average over the entire azimuth than with a conventional head related transfer function (HRTF)-based method.

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

intelligent robot audition
human-robot interaction
front-back disambiguation


Convergence of discrete Laplace-Beltrami operators over surfaces The convergence property of the discrete Laplace-Beltrami operator is the foundation of convergence analysis of the numerical simulation process of some geometric partial differential equations which involve the operator. The aim of this paper is to review several already-used discrete Laplace-Beltrami operators over triangulated surface and study numerically, as well as theoretically, their convergent behavior. We show that none of them is convergent in general, but two of them, proposed by Desbrun et al. and Meyer et al., are convergent in a special case. We point out that this special case is very important in the numerical simulation of geometric partial differential equations. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

laplace-beltrami operator
surface triangulation


Evaluation of patient satisfaction with tailored online patient education information Patients are using the Internet for access to standardized health information in ever-growing numbers. Although increased access to health information can be helpful, the quality of information varies widely. All too often, the information retrieved is incomplete, inaccurate, or inappropriate. An interdisciplinary team of clinicians, librarians, software engineers, and multimedia designers developed an online patient education system that enables clinicians to "prescribe" tailored, evidence-based health information. The system provides access to text and video that patients can adapt for language, vision, and hearing preferences. Usability testing was conducted with eight patients in a usability laboratory using the "think-aloud" method, surveys, and interviews. Results indicated that patients were highly satisfied and that the site has the potential to become a valuable resource in disease management. Patients made several recommendations regarding system appearance, function, and content that will have application for other groups developing online patient education 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 B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

educational technology
health services research
medical informatics
needs assessment


Heuristics for the phylogeny problem A phylogeny is a tree that relates taxonomic units, based on their similarity over a set of characters. The problem of finding a phylogeny with the minimum number of evolutionary steps (the so-called parsimony criterion) is one of the main problems in comparative biology. In this work, we study different heuristic approaches to the phylogeny problem under the parsimony criterion. New algorithms based on metaheuristics are also proposed. All heuristics are implemented and compared under the same framework, leading to consistent and thorough comparative results. Computational results are reported for benchmark instances from the literature.

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

phylogenetic trees
evolutionary trees
local search
frameworks


The HF-SCF energy of HIV-1 MNgp120 V3 hairpin loop conformers The purpose of this study is to analyze the structure of the V3 loop of the HIV-1 gp120 molecule at the atomic level. The total energy of each member of the antibody-complexed 16-mer V3 conformer data set of Sharon et al. (PDB 1NJ0) was determined by the Hartree-Fock-self-consistent field (HF-SCF) method and with the GROMOS96 force field. There was no correlation between the results of the classical GROMOS96 force field analysis and the ab initio HF-SCF quantum mechanical analysis of the energy of the V3-loop-peptide conformers. HF-SCF optimization (AM1) of conformer geometries yielded structures in which HIS315 is displaced from its original position in the combining site of human antibody fragment 447-52D, but with the hairpin turn intact. The hairpin shape of the V3 loop remained detectable, albeit distorted, even with perturbation by a lithium dicationic electrostatic force field and by substitution of the PRO320 at the crown of the V3 hairpin by a GLY. These data suggest that the hairpin conformation is at least partially stable to long-range electrostatic perturbations, either with or without PRO in the tip of the crown of the V3-hairpin loop.

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