Consistency of discrete Bayesian learning Bayes' rule specifies how to obtain a posterior from a class of hypotheses endowed with a prior and the observed data. There are three fundamental ways to use this posterior for predicting the future: marginalization (integration over the hypotheses w.r.t. the Posterior), MAP (taking the a posteriori most probable hypothesis), and stochastic model selection (selecting a hypothesis at random according to the posterior distribution). if the hypothesis Class is Countable, and contains the data generating distribution (this is termed the "realizable case"), strong consistency theorems are known for the former two methods in a sequential prediction framework, asserting almost Sure convergence of the predictions to the truth as well as loss bounds. We prove corresponding results for stochastic model selection, for both discrete and continuous observation spaces. As a main technical tool, we will use the concept of a potential: this quantity, which is always positive, measures the total possible amount of future prediction errors. Precisely, in each time step, the expected potential decrease tipper bounds the expected error. We introduce the entropy potential of a hypothesis class as its worst-case entropy, with regard to the true distribution. Our results are proven within a general stochastic online prediction framework, that comprises both online classification and prediction of non-i.i.d. sequences. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

bayesian learning
consistency
stochastic model selection
marginalization
almost sure convergence
entropy potential


analysis of timing failures due to random ac defects in vlsi modules This paper presents an analytical model for projecting the yield loss due to random delay defects for modules or VLSI packages containing multiple semiconductor chips. A module to be analyzed is characterized by distribution of path delays. Statistical analysis is applied to obtain the distribution of delays caused by defects in logic circuits of LSI chips. The model uses these two distributions to calculate the probability that a module contains a path that does not meet the system timing requirements. All inputs to the model can be obtained much earlier than the availability of modules for actual testing. Therefore expected module yield loss due to delay defects can be projected before the modules are actually manufactured.

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

requirements yield availability analysis delay module probability logic timing model paper circuits

analytic models
systems
test
packaging
distributed
randomization
statistical analysis
failure


A robust multiframe super-resolution algorithm based on half-quadratic estimation with modified BTV regularization Multiframe image super-resolution is a technique to reconstruct a high-resolution image by fusing a sequence of low-resolution images of the same scene. In this paper, we propose a new multiframe image super-resolution algorithm built on the regularization framework. The objective functional to be minimized for the regularization framework consists of a fidelity term and a regularization term. A new adaptive norm combining the advantages of traditional L1 L 1 and L2 L 2 norms is used in both terms. The fidelity term is then formed by an adaptive strategy depending on the accuracies of the estimated low-resolution image observation models. This strategy serves to adaptively weight low-resolution images according to their reliability and can add robustness in practical implementation of super-resolution. The proposed regularization term can preserve sharp edges well without producing visual artifacts. Our experimental results using both synthetic and real data show the performance improvement of the proposed algorithm over other methods.

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

bilateral total variation
influence function
super-resolution


Efficient maximal Poisson-disk sampling and remeshing on surfaces A simple algorithm for maximal Poisson-disk sampling and remeshing one triangular mesh surfaces. Efficient local conflict checking without any 3D grid, using a subdivided mesh as the main structure to track empty regions. A local clustering-based approach for mesh extraction, and a mesh optimization strategy for high quality remeshing.

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 B

maximal poisson-disk sampling
blue-noise


The effects of gender differences on operational performance and satisfaction with car navigation systems This study investigates whether gender differences have an impact on the definition of good interface design and whether manufacturers should develop interfaces that fit small-display portable car navigation systems (CNSs) based on gender. This work adopted an experimental design for collecting data from three tasks locating points, planning routes, and searching polygons each emphasizing a different aspect of way-finding. Study results show that gender, the CNS interface the participant used, and a combination of the two predict a persons operational performance and satisfaction with a CNS. This studys results provide a better understanding of whether manufacturers should develop interfaces that fit a CNSs small display based on gender.

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

car navigation system
user interface
gender difference


Metropolis-Hastings from a stochastic population dynamics perspective The development and application of Markov chain Monte Carlo methods based on the celebrated Metropolis-Hastings algorithm has played a major role in the recent advancement of statistical procedures. However, the approach has made relatively little impact on stochastic population modelling in spite of this field being central to many processes studied in biology, physics and chemistry. Attention is almost exclusively focussed on sampling and the construction of distributions and parameter estimates, with virtually no consideration being given to the structure of the process trajectories. This paper therefore tackles the inverse problem of determining whether there is an optimal method of selecting a proposal matrix corresponding to a given set of equilibrium probabilities, both in terms of trajectory characteristics and the coverage of the range of support. Using the discrete Cauchy distribution as a benchmark, simple and general random walk schemes are compared with the 'small world' scenario. It is then shown that these are all outperformed by a direct P-matrix approach based on a mass annihilation and immigration process. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

cauchy distribution
mass annihilation and immigration

metropolis-hastings algorithm
small world phenomena
stochastic trajectories


Improved iterative joint detection and estimation through variational Bayesian inference We propose an improved variational Bayesian (VB) receiver for orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) systems over frequency-selective block-fading channels. Conventional VB receivers provide distribution-estimates for the channel and information symbols iteratively and jointly. The proposed scheme is different from conventional VB inference in that the VB iterative receiver also exploits the hard channel estimate extracted from previous iterations to update the channel and symbol distributions. In this way, we reduce the impact of channel uncertainty on the decoder performance by means of a modified formulation of the VB formalism. The adequacy of the proposed approach compared to classically used VB receivers is demonstrated by simulations.

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

joint iterative detection and channel estimation


A dynamic formulation for the analysis of thick elastic plates by the boundary element method A dynamic formulation for the analysis of thick elastic plates that is based on Reissner's theory is presented. The main objective is to include in the formulation the contribution of a new term of additional translational inertia that is commonly disregarded, and study its influence on the responses of thick elastic plate theory. Moreover, the boundary element method (BEM) formulation used to carry out time-domain analysis employs the static fundamental solution of the problem, while for the time marching the Houbolt's acceleration operator is considered. Thus, a system of equations is solved for the boundary and the domain simultaneously. To verify the importance of the new terms, the present methodology is compared with responses found in the literature.

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 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

dynamic analysis of thick elastic plates


Spherical Radon transform and the average of the condition number on certain Schubert subvarieties of a Grassmannian We study the average complexity of certain numerical algorithms when adapted to solving systems of multivariate polynomial equations whose coefficients belong to some fixed proper real subspace of the space of systems with complex coefficients. A particular motivation is the study of the case of systems of polynomial equations with real coefficients. Along these pages, we accept methods that compute either real or complex solutions of these input systems. This study leads to interesting problems in Integral Geometry: the question of giving estimates on the average of the normalized condition number along great circles that belong to a Schubert subvariety of the Grassmannian of great circles on a sphere. We prove that this average equals a closed formula in terms of the spherical Radon transform of the condition number along a totally geodesic submanifold of the sphere. (C) 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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

approximate zero theory
smale's 17th problem
computational complexity
probabilistic polynomial time


Capturing customer judgments of product category Typicality refers to the extent to which natural objects exhibit the essential qualities or features representative of a group or category. People perceive the members of a product category in terms of typicality. Products with higher typicality of product category are with stronger brand associations and are learned faster than less typical ones by consumers. Viswanathan and Childers [22] introduced the direct and indirect measures methods to evaluate the gradedness of category membership at the product attribute level based on consumer perception. However, these two measures weigh each product attribute equally and lack membership of product attributes and product categories for the evaluation of product typicality. We in the present study extend the two original measures via the incorporation of the weights and preference ratings of the product attributes perceived by consumers through fuzzy synthetic analysis and evaluations to precisely probe the membership of product and category. Furthermore, the weights and ratings of product attributes were compromised to reduce membership variations between product and product category. The relevance of our advanced measures of product typicality is then illustrated with a case study of Taiwan shoes market to theoretically and empirically demonstrate its plausibility.

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

product position
fuzzy preference
marketing communication


Improved Dead-Beat Predictive DPC Strategy of Grid-Connected DC-AC Converters With Switching Loss Minimization and Delay Compensations This paper presents an improved dead-beat predictive direct power control (DPC) strategy for grid-connected dc-ac converters. In order to minimize switching losses and to alleviate power oscillations, a new voltage vectors' sequence is proposed for the predictive DPC strategy based on the angular location of the required converter voltage vector rather than the grid voltage vector. Thus, low-order harmonics in ac currents and periodic oscillations in the reactive power are removed with the feature of minimum switching losses kept. Further, in order to reduce steady-state errors of active and reactive powers, compensation methods are proposed in practical systems for both power errors and angular shifts caused by sampling delays. Experimental results on a 1.5 kW grid-connected dc-ac converter are provided to validate the feasibility of the proposed voltage vectors' sequence and compensation methods for the predictive DPC strategy.

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 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 B O O

dc-ac converter
dead-beat
delay compensation
direct power control (dpc)
vector sequence


Distributed Teaching Presence and communicative patterns in asynchronous learning: Name versus reply networks This work explores some methodological challenges in the application of Social Network Analysis (SNA) to the study of Asynchronous Learning Networks (ALN). Our interest in the SNA is situated within the framework of the study of Distributed Teaching Presence (DTP), understood as the exercise of educational influence, through a multi-method approach that integrates structural analysis of the activity and content analysis of the participants' contributions. Within the first of these analyses, our aim is twofold: to present a set of indices of the participants' communicative patterns oriented toward the study of DTP, and to discuss the most appropriate data source for calculating such indices. The indices are illustrated through the analysis of a didactic sequence (DS) based on two data sources: the activity logs (log files) and personal references or allusions to others that can be found in each participant's contributions. Our results show that the proposed set of indices enables the identification of the level of DTP in the ALN as well as of different communicative patterns potentially associated to a higher or lower degree of teaching presence exertion. Furthermore, the results show that the analysis based on explicit references offer an interesting and complementary alternative to the analysis based on the log files. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

B I I O B 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 B I I 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 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 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

asynchronous learning networks
communicative patterns
distributed teaching presence
educational influence
social network analysis


novel swapping technique for background calibration of capacitor mismatching in pipeline adcs A novel swapping technique for calibration of the stage non-linear errors in Pipeline ADCs is proposed in this paper. The algorithm obtains an estimation of the mismatching between sampling capacitors in practical SC implementations of the multiplying-DAC without the necessity of interrupting the converter operation, and therefore, suitable for both foreground and background calibration applications. This work overcomes the practical limitations of previous adaptive approaches based on the capacitor swapping introducing a novel modulation scheme which minimizes the impact on the analogue part and employs a simple calibration logic.

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

pipeline adc
capacitor swapping technique
foreground (off-line) calibration
background (on-line) calibration
adaptive system
analogue-to-digital converter


Nonlinear goal programming models quantifying the bullwhip effect in supply chain based on ARIMA parameters In less than half a century, the supply chain management (SCM) imposed itself as a strategic expertise. Today, it lands a new era, more complex, and must be the synonymous of competitive advantage. The supply chain has essentially served as a link between customers and products, producers and suppliers. The generation of the new supply chain (SC) should be evolutionary, and should be adjusted quickly to the rise or the decrease of the various customers demands. Several problems of the supply chain are superimposed such as the amplification of the demand, also called the bullwhip effect (BWE). This latter is a distortion in the market demand when this demand propagates from enterprise to enterprise. Finally, at the end of the chain, the supplier of raw materials receives completely uncertain commands. Our research aims to reduce, or even eliminate, the bullwhip effect in two respects-namely increase of the stock level and reduction of the service given back to customers. The solution that we propose to the bullwhip rests on, firstly, the use of the preference functions based on a statistical chronological series analysis (Box and Jenkins method) in order to construct the different models such as demand, stock level, and the order quantity. Secondly, the integration of the decision maker preference in the demand forecast and inventory management processes.

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

supply chain management
bullwhip effect
preference functions

supply chain performance
goal programming (gp)
arima models


Survivable System by Critical Service Recovery Model: Single Service Analysis This paper reported another recovery model to enhance system survivability. The model focuses on how to preserve the system and resume its critical service while, incident occurs by reconfiguring the damaged critical service resources based on available resources without affecting the stability and functioning of the system. There are three critical requisite conditions in this recovery model: the number of pre-empted non-critical service resource, the response little of resource allocation, and the cost of reconfiguration, which are used in some scenarios to find and re-allocate the available resource for the reconfiguration. To validate the viability of the approach, one instance case is provided. The adoption of fault-tolerance and survivability using redundancy re-allocation in this recovery model is discussed from a new perspective.

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


Coded packets over lossy links: A redundancy-based mechanism for reliable and fast data collection in sensor networks In wireless sensor networks (WSNs), many applications require a high degree of reliability with low delay. Due to the lossy nature of wireless channels, achieving reliable communication can be very challenging. The most commonly adopted approach for achieving reliability is the acknowledgment based retransmission mechanism; however, this approach is inefficient in terms of end-to-end delay especially when there are a large number of hops from a sensor to the sink node. In this paper, we propose a redundancy-based approach that achieves high reliability and low end-to-end delay. The proposed protocol employs a network coding-based approach to improve packet redundancy when a link is unreliable or there is a strict end-to-end delay requirement. The protocol adaptively changes the redundancy level according to the application requirements and link loss rate. The protocol can be implemented easily because modification of the application layer at the source node and destination node is the only mandatory requirement. We implement the proposed mechanism on a real testbed which consists of IRIS motes, and evaluate the performance of the proposed mechanism using real-world experiments, network simulations and theoretical analysis.

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


Using the World Wide Web for teaching improvement The World Wide Web has impacted the educational model in a fundamental way and forced educators to think of ways that this technology can be used to improve teaching effectiveness. This paper describes an implementation of the continuous improvement philosophy in a graduate level Operations Analysis class by using the web to obtain immediate and systematic feedback from students on lecture and other course activities. The feedback obtained is analyzed to determine how the delivery and content of the course can be improved. In the short-term the response is to address immediate problems or diffculties encountered by students. In the long-term a fully searchable web site with references to readings, audio/visual modules of class lectures. problem solutions and frequently asked questions (FAQ) materials is to be developed. Technology issues and the lessons learned from the experiment are discussed. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

computer-mediated communication
evaluation methodologies
improving classroom teaching
teaching/learning strategies


Impact of the non-uniform angular sampling on mechanical signals We recall the angular and temporal sampling principle and show their limits. We study the impact of these limits by using the non-uniform sampling model. We show that non-uniform sampling introduces second order cyclostationarity. We show that non-uniform sampling can act like an anti-aliasing filter. A test bench was used to corroborate some conclusions.

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


Bipanconnectivity and Bipancyclicity in k-ary n-cubes In this paper, we give precise solutions to problems posed by Wang et al. and by Hsieh et al. In particular, we show that Qkn is bipanconnected and edge-bipancyclic, when k >= 3 and n >= 2, and we also show that when k is odd, Q(n)(k) is m-panconnected, for m = n(k-1)+2k-6/2 and (k-1) pancyclic (these bounds are optimal). We introduce a path-shortening technique, called progressive shortening, and strengthen existing results, showing that when paths are formed using progressive shortening, then these paths can be efficiently constructed and used to solve a problem relating to the distributed simulation of linear arrays and cycles in a parallel machine whose interconnection network is Q(n)(k), even in the presence of a faulty processor.

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


a blob detector in color images In this paper, we propose a novel and efficient framework for the extension of multi-scale blob detection for the color domain to prevent information loss due to gray scale transformation and to allow us to exploit the photometric information. The framework also works well in gray scale space, it is mostly composed of i) a weighted multi-scale blob detector using a hybrid Laplacian and determinant of the Hessian operator, ii) a blob filter, includes a color-based Forstner operator for roundness calculation and a hue-based color histogram. The experimental results on stamp images in blob detection demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed detector.

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


Weighted Projective Spaces and a Generalization of Eves Theorem For a certain class of configurations of points in space, Eves Theorem gives a ratio of products of distances that is invariant under projective transformations, generalizing the cross-ratio for four points on a line. We give a generalization of Eves theorem, which applies to a larger class of configurations and gives an invariant with values in a weighted projective space. We also show how the complex version of the invariant can be determined from classically known ratios of products of determinants, while the real version of the invariant can distinguish between configurations that the classical invariants cannot.

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


Kernel Low-Rank Representation for face recognition Face recognition is one of the fundamental problems of computer vision and pattern recognition. Based on the recent success of Low-Rank Representation (LRR), we propose a novel image classification method for robust face recognition, named Low-Rank Representation-based Classification (LRRC). Based on seeking the lowest-rank representation of a set of test samples with respect to a set of training samples, the algorithm has the natural discrimination to perform classification. We also propose a Kernel Low-Rank Representation-based Classification (KLRRC), which is a nonlinear extension of LRRC. KLRRC is firstly utilized to face recognition. By using the kernel tricks, we implicitly map the input data into the kernel feature space associated with a kernel function. We construct a transformation matrix to reduce the dimensionality of the kernel feature space, where LRRC is performed. Experimental results on several face data sets demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of our methods.

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

low rank representation
kernel method
sparse representation
feature extraction


An evaluation of one-on-one advanced proficiency training in clinicians use of computer information systems Objective: We examined the effectiveness of a one-on-one training strategy for advanced proficiency in computer information systems (CIS) by clinicians in a large Health Maintenance Organization (HMO). Specifically, this study assessed the level of self-reported improvement in CIS efficiency following one-on-one training, and assessed the perceived value of one-on-one training compared to other teaching methods. Design: We performed a cross-sectional study using a paper-based survey of 129 clinicians practicing in the HMO. Measurements: We used a multi-item satisfaction index to measure clinician satisfaction with the one-on-one training. We measured whether clinicians thought they were more efficient using the system after training. Results: The one-on-one method was significantly preferred over other teaching methods. Compared to other CIS components, use of the electronic medical record (EMR) improved most following one-on-one training. Sixty-one percent of the clinicians reported major improvements (i.e., >3 on a 5-point Likert scale; five being the highest score) in using the EMR. Conclusion: Perceived effectiveness of one-on-one training and overall satisfaction were ranked high by clinicians. The findings support the assumption that clinicians value one-on-one training and value this training method above other methods.

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

computer training
one-on-one education
electronic health records
attitude to computers
attitude of health personnel


Auditory, visual and audiovisual clear speech The speech intelligibility of syllables spoken under conditions of conversational and clear speech was compared. The stimuli were 18 monosyllables (/C-v/) and 18 bisyllables (/v-C-v/) consisting of six voiced-consonants (/b, d, g, v, z, 3/) presented in each of three vowel contexts (/a, i, y/). Six female adults were recorded while they produced four iterations of the stimulus set in each of the two speaking styles. The 1728 videotaped test items were edited, randomized and presented to 12 subjects with normal hearing and normal visual acuity under three conditions: visual-only, auditory-only and audiovisually. A broadband noise was mixed with the signal for the latter two conditions. The results revealed a significant three-way interaction of talker, speaking style and perceptual modality. Post-hoc analyses revealed intra and interspeaker differences in speech intelligibility for both speaking styles, in all three perceptual modalities. Overall, positive clear speech effects were observed in all three modalities. Intermodality comparisons revealed differences in the pattern of clear speech effects displayed by individual talkers. This finding indicates that there is not a direct association between the beneficial effects of clear speech in one perceptual modality and its effects on speech intelligibility in another perceptual modality. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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

intraspeaker variability
interspeaker variability
auditory-speech perception
visual-speech perception
audiovisual-speech perception


mda-based tool chain for web services development One of the challenges in Model Driven Architecture (MDA) is the variety of tools which are not interoperable with each other. Also, a design flow supporting different phases of MDA-based development is often missing. This paper presents a tool chain and design flow for MDA-based Web Services development. The presented tool chain covers modelling with domain-specific Unified Modelling Language (UML) profiles, transformation of the UML models into Web Services Definition Language (WSDL) files, and Java code generation. The tool chain is validated in a case study where it is used in the development of a web service called Resource Availability Service (RAS). In the validation, the tool chain worked well, since the proportion of generated code in RAS is over 95\%. The residual 5\% of the code includes manual integration and business logic. User experiences indicate that using the tool chain improves the developer productivity in Web Services development.

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


A geometric and topological system for supporting agricultural subsidies in Slovenia This paper presents a system for supporting agricultural subsidies in Slovenia. First, an overview is given of specific areas of Slovenias land, considered as zones. Then, the system, which explores the computational power of todays clients is briefly introduced. Some features of the geometric and topological system (GTS), is introduced. This application has been used successfully for 3 years and has turned out to be effective and stable.

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

geographic information system
compensatory payments
computational geometry
polygons
map-overlay problem
polygon split


Encapsulating intelligent interactive behaviour in unified user interface artefacts Intelligence at the level of the user interface is currently being supported through a number of prevalent strands, including adaptive user interfaces, model-based user interface development and interface agents. Moreover, the term intelligent user interface typically implies the notion of dynamically enhancing the interaction with a single implemented artefact to suit different usage patterns, user groups, or contexts of use. This article extends this notion and describes how unified design artefacts can support the development of accessible and high quality user interfaces exhibiting the characteristics of multiple metaphor environments. To this effect, the article outlines the principles of unified user interface development and discusses how it can be used to advance Intelligent Interface Technology to account for diverse user requirements and interaction contexts. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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

unified user interface development method


Discrete Cosine Transform based fusion of multi-focus images for visual sensor networks Method presents a simple and efficient multi-focus image fusion scheme in DCT domain. It is explicitly designed for resource constrained wireless visual sensor systems. The fusion rule does not involve any complex arithmetic floating point operations like mean or variance calculations. Simulations are performed using Atmel Atmega128 processor of Mica 2 mote. Extensive experiments verify the efficiency improvement in terms of image quality and computation energy.

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


Multipartite concurrence for \(X\) states under decoherence In this paper, the dynamics evolution of multipartite entanglement for each qubit interacting with a local decoherence channel, such as phase damping, phase flip, bit flip and bit-phase flip channel, is investigated. It is shown that the initial concurrence monotonously decreases much faster with the number of qubit increases and there exists entanglement sudden death (ESD) only for the bit flip channel and bit-phase flip channels. Meanwhile, the time of ESD decreases with the increases of the number of qubit in the multipartite system.

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

multipartite concurrence
decoherence
x states


Dietary fibers as immunoregulatory compounds in health and disease Many nonstarch polysaccharides (NSPs) classified as dietary fibers have been reported to possess immunoregulatory properties. The fibers reported to activate or by other means modulate immune responses originate from both plant, fungal, and microbial sources and constitute highly distinct structures. In order to enhance our understanding of factors important for the immunoregulatory activities, this article addresses the importance of chemical structure, origin, and purity of fibers for their capacity to interact with key regulatory immune cells. Furthermore, we assess bioavailability, and discuss possible mechanisms involved. The binding of some NSPs to carbohydrate receptors on immune cells is well established and this event leads to activation or other changes. Especially, certain ?-glucans and some mannans have demonstrated immunomodulatory capacity with the specific structure being important for the activity. Within ?-glucans the activity varies according to structure, molecular weight, and solubility. As many of the preparations tested constitute crude extracts or partly purified NSPs, the risk of contaminants holding immunoregulatory activities should not be ignored. To what extent NSPs enter systemic circulation has been difficult to assess, partly due to lack of sensitive analytical methods. The presence of NSPs in blood and Peyer's patches in the gut has been demonstrated, supporting encounter between NSPs and immune cells, but bioavailability studies still constitute a major challenge. Studies demonstrating in vivo effects of ?-glucans on microbial infections and cancer treatment strongly indicate an immunoregulatory mechanism behind the effects. However, the potential of NSPs as immunoregulatory food ingredients is still far from fully explored.

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 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 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

immune modulation
dendritic cells
c-type lectin receptor
?-glucan
mannan


Improving multicut in directed trees by upgrading nodes In this paper, we consider the network improvement problem for multicut by upgrading nodes in a directed tree T=(V,E) with multiple sources and multiple terminals. In a node based upgrading model, a node v can be upgraded at the expense of c(v) and such an upgrade reduces weights on all edges incident to v. The objective is to upgrade a minimum cost subset S?V of nodes such that the resulting network has a multicut in which no edge has weight larger than a given value D. We first obtain a minimum cardinality node multicut Vc for tree T, then find the minimum cost upgrading set based on the upgrading sets for the subtrees rooted at the nodes in Vc. We show that our algorithm is polynomial when the number of sourceterminal pairs is upper bounded by a given value.

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


Patents in nanotechnology: an analysis using macro-indicators and forecasting curves In this study, we evaluated future trends of worldwide patenting in nanotechnology and its domains using logistic growth curves while the patent activity from the main countries, technological domains and subdomains were assessed in four different contexts: worldwide, patents filed in the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), and patents applications in the triadic (TRIAD) and in the tetradic (TETRAD) countries. The indicators were developed based on a set of records recovered from the Derwent Innovation Index database. Nanotechnology has recently emerged as a new research field, with logistic trend behaviors generating interesting discussions since they suggest that technological development in nanotechnology and its domains has reached an initial maturation stage. Future scenarios were compiled due to the difficult to establish upper limits to forecasting curves. Although Chinas share of patents is small in some cases, it was the only country to constantly increase the number of patents from a worldwide perspective. In contrast, the USA and the EU were the most active in the USPTO, TRIAD and TETRAD cases, followed by Japan and Korea. The technological subdomains of main interest from countries/region changed according to the perspective adopted, even though there was a clear bias towards semiconductors, surface treatments, electrical components, macromolecular chemistry, materialsmetallurgy, pharmacycosmetics and analysismeasurementcontrol subdomains. We conclude that monitoring nanotechnology advances should be constantly reviewed in order to confirm the evidence observed and forecasted.

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


Pace-sync shoes: intuitive walking-pace guidance based on cyclic vibro-tactile stimulation for the foot We propose a walking guidance method with a sandal-shaped vibration interface and describe two experiments we performed to formulate the design principles of the interface. In the interface, a vibrating motor presents timing information to the foot, and pressure sensors measure walking pace. Our method is a combination of the walking-state monitoring and vibro-tactile feedback to maintain or promote a walking pace. Vibration stimuli with a constant presentation interval are alternately and repeatedly given to the right or left foot of the user according to the measured walking pace, and then the walking pace gradually conforms to the presented interval of the vibration. In the experiments, we specified the effective timing and intervals of the vibration stimuli for efficient inductance of walking pace. The method is applicable for training and coaching in sports and rehabilitation in health care.

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

foot stimulation
vibro-tactile stimulation
sensory-motor synchronization


Identification and Characterization of Five New Fibrinogen Gene Polymorphisms It is clear that plasma fibrinogen levels are strongly influenced by genetic factors. To date 14 polymorphic sites have been identified within the fibrinogen gene cluster, mainly by restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) and single-stranded conformation polymorphism (SSCP) analyses. Since elevated plasma fibrinogen is an independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease, these and other polymorphisms are of practical interest in defining haplotypes that correlate with fibrinogen levels. Here, DNA sequencing of fibrinogen genes from four patients led to the identification of 17 variations from the published sequence. Nine of these occurred in all chromosomes sequenced and were considered to be errors in the published data. Of the remaining eight, five represented novel variations, three having been previously described. The population frequency of the five novel variations, together with six known polymorphisms, was estimated by genotyping 50 normal individuals at each locus. The five new variations were all found at polymorphic frequencies in this group. Two of these new polymorphisms, B? intron 2 and B? codon 159, belong to the B? linkage group defined by Behague et al.,1 since their rare alleles occurred in complete concordance with the rare alleles of B?Mnl I and B?Bcl I. Calculation of pairwise linkage disequilibrium coefficients showed that the three remaining novel polymorphisms, A?Dde I, B?Hinf I, and ? intron 9 exhibited linkage equilibrium with respect to all other loci examined, including nearby polymorphisms that are themselves in strong linkage disequilibrium. This data indicates that these polymorphisms occur randomly with respect to background haplotype, and suggests that they are mutational hot spots.

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

polymorphisms
haplotype
linkage disequilibrium


Taut-string algorithm and regularization programs with G-norm data fit In this paper we derive a unified framework for the taut-string algorithm and regularization with G-norm data fit. The G-norm data fit criterion (popularized in image processing by Y. Meyer) has been paid considerable interest in regularization models for pattern recognition. The first numerical work based on G-norm data fit has been proposed by Osher and Vese. The taut-string algorithm has been developed in statistics (Mammen and van de Geer and Davies and Kovac) for denoising of one dimensional sample data of a discontinuous function. Recently Hinterberger et al. proposed an extension of the taut-string algorithm to higher dimensional data by introducing the concept of tube methods. Here we highlight common features between regularization programs with a G-norm data fit term and taut-string algorithms (respectively tube methods). This links the areas of statistics, regularization theory, and image processing.

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


Evidential Reasoning Approach for Multiattribute Decision Analysis Under Both Fuzzy and Interval Uncertainty Many multiple attribute decision analysis (MADA) problems are characterized by both quantitative and qualitative attributes with various types of uncertainties. Incompleteness (or ignorance) and vagueness (or fuzziness) are among the most common uncertainties in decision analysis. The evidential reasoning (ER) and the interval grade ER (IER) approaches have been developed in recent years to support the solution of MADA problems with interval uncertainties and local ignorance in decision analysis. In this paper, the ER approach is enhanced to deal with both interval uncertainty and fuzzy beliefs in assessing alternatives on an attribute. In this newly developed fuzzy IER (FIER) approach, local ignorance and grade fuzziness are modeled under the integrated framework of a distributed fuzzy belief structure, leading to a fuzzy belief decision matrix. A numerical example is provided to illustrate the detailed implementation process of the FIER approach and its validity and applicability.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 attribute decision analysis (mada)


Peer-to-Peer and fault-tolerance: Towards deployment-based technical services For effective components, non-functional aspects must be added to application functional code. Likewise, enterprise middleware and component platforms, in the context of Grids, services must be deployed at execution in component containers in order to implement those aspects without modifications in the application code. This paper proposes an architecture for defining, configuring, and deploying such Technical Services in a Grid platform.

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

grid deployment
non-functional service
peer-to-peer
fault-tolerance
load-balancing


Dimensionality reduction for supervised learning with reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces We propose a novel method of dimensionality reduction for supervised learning problems. Given a regression or classification problem in which we wish to predict a response variable Y from an explanatory variable X, we treat the problem of dimensionality reduction as that of finding a low-dimensional "effective subspace" for X which retains the statistical relationship between X and Y. We show that this problem can be formulated in terms of conditional independence. To turn this formulation into an optimization problem we establish a general nonparmetric characterization of conditional independence using covariance operators on reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces. This characterization allows us to derive a contrast function for estimation of the effective subspace. Unlike many conventional methods for dimensionality reduction in supervised learning, the proposed method requires neither assumptions on the marginal distribution of X, nor a parametric model of the conditional distribution of Y. We present experiments that compare the performance of the method with conventional methods.

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

regression
dimensionality reduction
conditional independence

variable selection
feature selection
kernel methods


Fostering Quality and Flow of Online Learning Conversations by Artifact-Centered Discourse Systems Computer-mediated communication has become a major research topic due to the growing number of graduate-level students entirely or partially enrolled in Internet-based degree programs. Drawing on the concept of common ground from Clark's communication theory, we propose a model to investigate the varying quality and flow of online learning conversations. Our investigation centers on three discourse systems in order to isolate the effects of two functional differences: online presence of the learning material and a linking functionality. The first system, which supports parallel artifact-centered discourse, displays the learning material and its related discussion in a single window. The second system, which supports linked artifact-centered discourse, provides a bi-directional linking functionality between these two elements available in a single window. The control system, which supports conventional discourse, offers the two elements in separate windows. We conducted an experiment with 30 doctoral students enrolled in three sections of an introductory research methods seminar. A total of 30 discussion transcripts, 10 for each group, formed the basis of the data analyses. Using an integrated approach that combined content and sequential analyses, we categorized and sequentially plotted all messages. The findings demonstrate that the online presence of the learning material supports sustained discussions centered on understanding the meaning of a text. Moreover, a linking functionality promotes complex forms of interaction with the learning material and re-focuses the discussion when it digresses. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings.

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

artifact-centered discourse systems
epistemic activities
sequential analysis
asynchronous online discussion


Rateless codes with unequal error protection property In this correspondence, a generalization of rateless codes is proposed. The proposed codes provide unequal error protection (UEP). The asymptotic properties of these codes under the iterative decoding are investigated. Moreover, upper and lower bounds on maximum-likelihood (ML) decoding error probabilities of finite-length LT and Raptor codes for both equal and unequal error protection schemes are derived. Further, our work is verified with simulations. Simulation results indicate that the proposed codes provide desirable UEP. We also note that the UEP property does not impose a considerable drawback on the overall performance of the codes. Moreover, we discuss that the proposed codes can provide unequal recovery time (URT). This means that given a target bit error rate, different parts of information bits can be decoded after receiving different amounts of encoded bits. This implies that the information bits can be recovered in a progressive manner. This URT property may be used for sequential data recovery in video/audio streaming.

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

iterative decoding
rateless codes
unequal error protection

asymptotic analysis
finite-length analysis
lossy channels
maximum-likelihood decoding


Applying evolutionary computation to the school timetabling problem: The Greek case In this contribution, an adaptive algorithm based on evolutionary computation techniques is designed, developed and applied to the timetabling problem of educational organizations. Specifically, the proposed algorithm has been used in order to create feasible and efficient timetables for high schools in Greece. The algorithm has been tested exhaustively with real-world input data coming from many different high schools and has been compared with several other effective techniques in order to demonstrate its efficiency and superior performance. Simulation results showed that the algorithm is able to construct a feasible and very efficient timetable more quickly and easily compared to other techniques, thus preventing disagreements and arguments among teachers and assisting each school to operate with its full resources from the beginning of the academic year. Except from that, due to its inherent adaptive behavior it can be used each time satisfying different specific constraints, in order to lead to timetables, thus meeting the different needs that each school may have.

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

school timetabling problem
educational organizations

evolutionary algorithms
computer application
artificial intelligence


Broadcast time and connectivity First, we give an upper bound on the broadcast time of a graph, then a new sufficient condition to have a broadcast graph. This condition will yield numerous broadcast graphs.

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

broadcast time
broadcast graph
connectivity


Bilateral recovering of sharp edges on feature-insensitive sampled meshes A variety of computer graphics applications sample surfaces of 3D shapes in a regular grid without making the sampling rate adaptive to the surface curvature or sharp features. Triangular meshes that interpolate or approximate these samples usually exhibit relatively big error around the insensitive sampled sharp features. This paper presents a robust general approach conducting bilateral filters to recover sharp edges on such insensitive sampled triangular meshes. Motivated by the impressive results of bilateral filtering for mesh smoothing and denoising, we adopt it to govern the sharpening of triangular meshes. After recognizing the regions that embed sharp features, we recover the sharpness geometry through bilateral filtering, followed by iteratively modifying the given mesh's connectivity to form singlewide sharp edges that can be easily detected by their dihedral angles. We show that the proposed method can robustly reconstruct sharp edges on feature-insensitive sampled meshes.

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

boundary representations
geometric algorithms
languages
systems


Inhibition of p38 MAP Kinase Corrects Biochemical and Neurological Deficits in Experimental Diabetic Neuropathy Diabetes is known to activate MAP kinase p38 in sensory neurons in both rats and patients. In vitro, activation of p38 in sensory neurons by combined glucose and oxidant stress causes cell damage or death. Consequently we tested the hypothesis that inhibition of MAP kinase p38 might prevent neuronal dysfunction in rats with experimental diabetes, such as the classical defect of slowed nerve conduction. Thus, treatment of streptozotocin-diabetic rats with the p38 inhibitor SB239063 for the second half of a 12-week diabetes protocol selectively prevented the nerve conduction deficit in sensory neurons. This implicates activation of MAP kinase p38 as an early step in the signal pathway to dysfunction in experimental diabetic neuropathy.

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

diabetes
neuropathy
p38 map kinase
nerve conduction


A boundary-integral model for drop deformation between two parallel plates with non-unit viscosity ratio drops A boundary-integral method is presented for drop deformation between two parallel walls for non-unit viscosity ratio systems. To account for the effect of the walls the Greens functions are modified and all terms for the double-layer potential are derived. The full three-dimensional implementation is validated, and the model is shown to be accurate and consistent. The method is applied to study drop deformation in shear flow. An excellent match with small-deformation theory is found at low capillary numbers, and our results match with other BIM simulations for pressure-driven flows. For shear flow with moderate capillary numbers, we see that the behavior of a low-viscosity drop is similar to that of drop with a viscosity ratio of unity. High-viscosity drops, on the other hand, are prevented from rotating in shear flow, which results in a larger deformation, but less overshoot in the drop axes is observed. In contrast with unconfined flow, high-viscosity drops can be broken in shear flow between parallel plates; for low-viscosity drops the critical capillary number is higher in confined situations.

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

viscous drops
confinements
boundary-integral method


rpartOrdinal: An R Package for Deriving a Classification Tree for Predicting an Ordinal Response This paper describes an R package, rpartOrdinal, that implements alternative splitting functions for fitting a classification tree when interest lies in predicting an ordinal response. This includes the generalized Gini impurity function, which was introduced as a method for predicting an ordinal response by including costs of misclassification into the impurity function, as well as an alternative ordinal impurity function due to Piccarreta (2008) that does not require the assignment of misclassification costs. The ordered twoing splitting method, which is not defined as a decrease in node impurity, is also included in the package. Since, in the ordinal response setting, misclassifying observations to adjacent categories is a less egregious error than misclassifying observations to distant categories, this pack a geal so includes a function for estimating an ordinal measure of association, the gamma statistic.

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

machine learning
classification trees
recursive partitioning


computing the singularities of rational space curves In this paper, we discuss the singularities of rational space curves. Two methods are provided to compute the singularities of arbitrary degree curves. These methods are a generalization of the paper (Chen, Wang and Liu. Computing singular points of plane rational curves. Journal of Symbolic Computation 43, 92--117, 2008), which are based on the ?-basis of the rational space curve and on random technique. The ?-basis induces a matrix M which contains all the information about the singularities including the parameter values corresponding to the singularities, multiplicities and infinitely near singularities. These information can be obtained by computing the Smith form of the matrix M . We compare our methods with previous approaches such as generalized resultants, and provide some examples to illustrate the effectiveness of our methods.

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


Design of fully balanced analog systems based on ordinary and/or modified single-ended opamps The system architectures, which allow a high performance fully balanced (FB) system based on ordinary/modified single-ended opamps to be implemented, are investigated and the basic and general requirements are formulated. Two new methods of an FB analog system design, which contribute towards achieving both a high performance IC system implementation and a great reduction of the design time are presented. It is shown that a single-ended system based on any type of opamp (rail-to-rail, constant g(m), etc.), realized in any technology (CMOS, bipolar, BiCMOS, GaAs), can be easily and effectively converted to its FB counterpart in a very practical way. Using the proposed rules, any FB system implementation with opamps (data converter, modulator, filter, etc.) requires only a single-ended system version design and the drawbacks related to a conventional FB system design are avoided. The principles of the design are pointed out and they are verified by experimental 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 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

fully balanced system
analog circuits
integrated circuits
filters
integrators
amplifiers


Information behavior and value creation potential of information capital: Mediating role of organizational learning This work draws on recent literature concerning information capital and organizational learning to explore how this may affect information behavior and value (IBV) of the healthcare industry in an emerging economy. Whether organizational learning mediates the relationships between information capital and both information behavior and information value (IBV) is also examined. Additionally, a parsimonious and plausible empirical model is proposed to examine the links among contextual variables. Data are collected from full-time medical staff of medical centers in Taiwan, including physicians and nurses. To clarify the relationships among these variables, structural equation modeling (SEM) is conducted to examine the model fit and three hypotheses. The SEM results clearly demonstrate the mediating role of organizational learning in the impact of information capital on both information behavior and information value. Consequently, organizational learning leads to appropriate information behavior and information value (that is, information sharing and information integrity, respectively) only when integrated with organizational learning and information capital for healthcare organizations.

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

organizational learning (ol)
information behaviors and value (ibv)


an ontology-driven ambiguous contexts mediation framework for smart healthcare applications Ubiquitous (or smart) healthcare applications envision sensor rich computing and networking environments that can capture various types of contexts of patients (or inhabitants of the environment), such as their location, activities and vital signs. Such context information is useful in providing health related and wellness management services in an intelligent way so as to promote independent living. However, in reality, both sensed and interpreted contexts may often be ambiguous, leading to fatal decisions if not properly handled. Thus, a significant challenge facing the development of realistic and deployable context-aware services for healthcare applications is the ability to deal with ambiguous contexts to prevent hazardous situations. In this paper, we propose a quality assured ontology-driven context mediation framework, based on efficient context-aware data fusion using resource constrained sensor network. The proposed framework provides a systematic approach based on dynamic Bayesian network to derive context fragments and deal with context ambiguity in a probabilistic manner. It has the ability to represent contexts according to the applications' ontology and easily composable ontological rules to mediate ambiguous contexts. We have also implemented a demonstration of the use of our model using semantic web language. Through simulation, we demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed framework.

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

multi sensor fusion
bayesian networks
health monitoring
context-awareness


Output feedback control of networked control systems with packet dropouts in both channels This paper is concerned with the problem of H? output feedback control for networked control systems with packet dropouts in both sensor-to-controller and controller-to-actuator channels. Packet dropouts in these two links are modeled as two independent Markov chains, whose transition probability matrices are sparse so that it is easy to obtain. Moreover, late arrivals are considered in the model as well. Sufficient conditions for the solvability of design problems of H? output feedback controllers are presented and are dependent on the upper bounds of the number of consecutive packet dropouts. The validity of the proposed approaches are illustrated by a numerical example.

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


Automatic event-level textual emotion sensing using mutual action histogram between entities Automatic emotion sensing in textual data is crucial for the development of intelligent interfaces in many interactive computer applications. This paper describes a high-precision, knowledgebase-independent approach for automatic emotion sensing for the subjects of events embedded within sentences. The proposed approach is based on the probability distribution of common mutual actions between the subject and the object of an event. We have incorporated web-based text mining and semantic role labeling techniques, together with a number of reference entity pairs and hand-crafted emotion generation rules to realize an event emotion detection system. The evaluation outcome reveals a satisfactory result with about 85% accuracy for detecting the positive, negative and neutral emotions.

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


improved query performance prediction using standard deviation Query performance prediction (QPP) is an important task in information retrieval (IR). In this paper, we (1) develop a new predictor based on the standard deviation of scores in a variable length ranked list, and (2) we show that this new predictor outperforms state-of-the-art approaches without the need for tuning.

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

information retrieval
query performance prediction


the effect of windows on man-machine interfaces (or opening doors with windows) A recent development in human-machine interfaces is the partitioning of a computer terminal screen into distinct windows of information. This paper defines the concept of windows and describes its most common features and applicable operations. It then investigates the utility and application of windowing and compares its features with those of existing user interfaces. The emphasis is on improving the human-machine interface.

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

concept interfaces windows paper utility effect

partition
applications
terminals
developer
computation
human
user interface
operability
feature
informal


Integrating an internet-mediated walking program into family medicine clinical practice: a pilot feasibility study Regular participation in physical activity can prevent many chronic health conditions. Computerized self-management programs are effective clinical tools to support patient participation in physical activity. This pilot study sought to develop and evaluate an online interface for primary care providers to refer patients to an Internet-mediated walking program called Stepping Up to Health (SUH) and to monitor participant progress in the program.

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

family medicine
physical activity
walking
primary care

pedometer
internet-mediated intervention
patient-centered medical home


On the existence of a trivariate copula with given values of a trivariate quasi-copula at several points The existence of a (multivariate) copula with a given value of a (multivariate) quasi-copula at a single point is known. In the bivariate case, the existence of a copula with given values of a quasi-copula at two or three arbitrary points is also known. In this paper, we give an alternative proof of the existence of a trivariate copula with a given value of a trivariate quasi-copula at a single point. This proof relies on the reformulation of the existence problem as a linear programming minimization problem and its solution by means of the simplex algorithm. The same method is then used to prove the existence of a trivariate copula with given values of a trivariate quasi-copula at two arbitrary points in the unit cube. We furthermore establish a counter-example showing that the existence for given values at three points is not guaranteed. This completes the analysis of the trivariate case. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

lipschitz condition
quasi-copula
simplex method
trivariate (quasi-)copula


Exact charge conservation scheme for Particle-in-Cell simulation with an arbitrary form-factor The new method of local electric current density assignment in the Particle-in-Cell code in Cartesian geometry is presented. The method is valid for an arbitrary quasi-particle form-factor assuming that quasi-particle trajectory over time step is a straight line. The method allows one to implement the PIC code without solving Poisson equation. The presented formula for the current density associated with the motion of a single quasi-particle is the unique linear combination of form-factor differences in consistency with the discrete continuity equation. The computation scheme is demonstrated in 20D and 3D. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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


A pupil-centric model of image formation This paper has been prompted by observations of some anomalies in the performance of the standard imaging models (pin-hole, thin-lens and Gaussian thick-lens), in the context of composing omnifocus images and estimating depth maps from a sequence of images. A closer examination of the models revealed that they assume a position of the aperture that conflicts with the designs of many available lenses. We have shown in this paper that the imaging geometry and photometric properties of an image are significantly influenced by the position of the aperture. This is confirmed by the discrepancies between observed mappings and those predicted by the models. We have therefore concluded that the current imaging models do not adequately represent practical imaging systems. We have proposed a pupil-centric model of image formation, which overcomes these deficiencies and have given the associated mappings. The impact of this model on some common imaging scenarios is described, along with experimental verification of the better performance of the model on three real lenses.

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

image model
pin-hole
thin-lens
gaussian thick-lens
aperture position
camera design
depth from (de)focus
entrance end exit pupils


Implementation of an implicit shear Alfvn operator in the M3D code A new pair of linear operators is introduced into the partially implicit but largely explicit time advance algorithm for the MHD equations in the M3D code. These operators jointly render the algorithm implicit with respect to propagation of the shear Alfvn wave to leading order. As a result, the maximum stable time step is increased by up to a factor of three for many practical applications. The additional computational cost is trivial for the linear mode of operation and adds only approximately 30% additional execution time per step for nonlinear calculations.

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


Optimization of ATM cash replenishment with group-demand forecasts We decide on the time intervals between two replenishments first. We make the forecasts for time intervals. We propose grouping ATMs into nearby-location clusters, to improve forecast accuracy. Group forecast results are loaded to the ATMs. Example studies show that the proposed framework result in lower costs.

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

aggregation
information based optimization
model quality improvement
logistics scheduling


Calculation of the matrix elements of the Coulomb interaction involving relativistic hydrogenic wave functions A program is presented for calculation of the matrix elements of the Coulomb interaction between a charged particle and an atomic electron, integral Psi (+)(f) (r)/R - r/(-1) Psi (i) (r) dr. Bound-free transitions are considered. Relativistic hydrogenic wave functions are used for the numerical evaluation of the matrix elements. The applied algorithm is based on the multipole series expansion of the Coulomb potential. The radial part of the terms of this series expansion (known as G functions) can also be obtained. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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

coulomb interaction
matrix elements
relativistic hydrogenic wave functions
multipole series expansion


13C metabolic flux analysis shows that resistin impairs the metabolic response to insulin in L6E9 myotubes It has been suggested that the adipokine resistin links obesity and insulin resistance, although how resistin acts on muscle metabolism is controversial. We aimed to quantitatively analyse the effects of resistin on the glucose metabolic flux profile and on insulin response in L6E9 myotubes at the metabolic level using a tracer-based metabolomic approach and our in-house developed software, Isodyn.

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

glucose metabolism
fluxomics
bioinformatics
tracer-based metabolomics


Processing the ground vibration signal produced by debris flows: the methods of amplitude and impulses compared We present the processing of the seismic signal produced by a debris flow. Two methods of seismic data processing, amplitude and impulses, are compared. We process the geophone signal of a debris flow to reveal its main features. The processing of the debris flow seismic signal reveals to be useful for warning. A geophone network allows an early detection of debris flow for warning purposes.

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

debris flow
ground vibration signal
amplitude
impulses


A combined molecular dynamics and finite element method technique applied to laser induced pressure wave propagation Analysis of a variety of dynamic phenomena requires simultaneous resolution at both atomistic and continuum length scales. A combined molecular dynamics and finite element method approach, which we discuss in this paper, allows us to find the balance between the necessary level of detail and computational cost. The combined method is applied to the propagation of a laser-induced pressure wave in a solid. We find good agreement of the wave profile in the molecular dynamics and finite element regions. This computational approach can be useful in cases where a detailed atomic-level analysis is necessary in localized spatially separated regions whereas continuum mechanics and thermodynamics is sufficient in the remainder of the system. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V.

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

multiscale simulation
finite-element method
laser ablation


A new routing scheme to reduce traffic in large scale mobile ad-hoc networks through selective on-demand method Wireless ad-hoc networks have many different characteristics from previous centralized networks. While the infrastructure based networks usually employ the simple routing protocol because every node can reach the coordinator in a single hop, some specific situations, i.e., unplanned dynamic links and multi hop environment, were required in ad-hoc networks. In mobile ad-hoc network, all nodes engaging in communication under the ad-hoc networks should be operated as a router. For this, two routing approaches are previously designed for ad-hoc networks; proactive and reactive routing, and they differently have pros and cons from each other. Moreover, to integrate their advantages in case by case, hybrid approach is consistently researched, and Zone Routing Protocol (ZRP) was motivating many recent hybrid protocols. In ZRP, a node uses proactive routing if it is located within the zone defined by the specific number of hops, but it uses reactive routing in otherwise case. However, ZRP always forms the proactive zone considering only the number of hops, regardless of whether real data communication occurred frequently or not. In this paper, we propose a new routing scheme called Traffic Aware Dynamic Zone Routing (TA-DZR) protocol which employs the zone method but forms customized zone using traffic load, by a new decision method named Dynamic Zone Decision (DZD). The DZD selects nodes that are good to use proactive routing based on the traffic load and forms the proactive zone with them. By considering traffic awareness, TA-DZR can decrease the number of transmissions and can reduce the total energy consumption. After the description of TA-DZR, the performance is demonstrated with simulation results which show that the number of transmissions decreases in overall network, and that the energy consumption is also reduced. Additionally, we validate that the end-to-end delivery delay is reduced and that the packet delivery ratio is improved. These enhancements are caused by reducing overall network congestion.

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

ad-hoc networks
hybrid routing
manet
traffic-aware


SRAM dynamic stability estimation using MPFP and its applications In this paper, an accurate approach for estimating the dynamic stability of static random access memory (SRAM) is proposed. The conventional methods of SRAM stability estimation suffer from two major drawbacks: (1) using static failure criteria, such as SNM, which does not capture the transient and dynamic behavior of SRAM operation, and (2) using quasi-Monte-Carlo simulation, which approximates the failure distribution, resulting in large errors at the tails where the desired failure probabilities exist. These drawbacks are eliminated by employing accurate simulation-based dynamic failure criteria along with a new distribution-independent, Most-probable-failure-point search technique for accurate probability calculation. Compared to previously published techniques, the proposed dynamic stability technique offers orders of magnitude improvement in accuracy. Furthermore, the proposed dynamic stability technique enables the correct evaluation of stability in real operation conditions and for different dynamic circuit techniques, such as dynamic write back, where the conventional methods are not applicable.

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

sram yield
process variations
read assist
dvfs
supply noise effects


Effects of long term polyarthritis and subsequent NSAID treatment on activity with disassociation of tactile allodynia in the mouse Chronic pain has profound effects on activity. Previous reports indicate chronic inflammatory conditions result in reduced activity, which normalizes upon pain treatment. However, there is little systematic investigation of this process. Rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disorder that causes significant joint pain. The K/BxN serum transfer mouse has been characterized as a model for rheumatoid arthritis and chronic pain. We investigated the activity of mice following K/BxN serum transfer vs. control serum and observed the activity changes following delivery of an NSAID, ketorolac. Previous studies have used running wheels and laser beams to monitor activity; we chose to validate a model using cost-effective infrared sensors on individual cages. Each mouse had its baseline activity obtained, which showed significant variation between individual C57Bl/6 mice. Arthritic mice had significantly decreased activity for only the first 11 nights. Conversely, previous work has shown that these animals display tactile allodynia that persists for at least 45 days. Mice were treated with ketorolac in their drinking water (10mg/kg, 15mg/kg, or 20mg/kg) for nights 68. The two highest doses showed significant normalization of activity levels. Four nights after ketorolac was stopped, treated animals were still significantly more active than control. The reversal of the reduced activity provides support that the depression relates to the arthritic pain state of the animal. These results indicate the efficacy of activity monitoring to better investigate behavior in persistent pain states. However, insofar as depressed activity reflects pain and disability, the present work raises questions as to the relevance of the tactile thresholds in defining behaviorally relevant pain states.

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

chronic pain
arthritis
ketorolac
tactile allodynia


Incremental learning of complete linear discriminant analysis for face recognition The complete linear discriminant analysis (CLDA) algorithm has been successfully employed for face recognition. The CLDA method can make full use of the discriminant information of the training samples. However, CLDA suffers from the scalability problem. In this paper, we propose an incremental CLDA (ICLDA) to overcome this limitation. We first propose a new implementation of CLDA in which two steps of QR decomposition, rather than singular value decomposition (SVD), are used to get the orthonormal bases of the range and null spaces of the within-class scatter matrix. Then, by using efficient QR-updating technique, we propose the ICLDA method which can accurately incrementally update the discriminant vectors of CLDA instead of recomputing the CLDA again. Experiments on PIE and FERET face databases show the efficiency of our proposed CLDA algorithms over the original implementation of CLDA.

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

feature extraction
dimensionality reduction
small sample size problem


Radial symmetries based decomposition of cell clusters in binary and gray level images The segmentation of structures of complex cytological and histological images is a necessary intermediate step for image analysis that give rise to binary images. In many cases these binary images can be rather far away from a subsequent object specific quantification because biological structures digitized by optoelectronic devices may situated close together so that they appear as one fused object in the projective image. Such fusions of objects may become complex so that large clusters of biological structures emerge. To quantify individual objects of a cluster they must be separated. The shape, size and intensity variation of cells in complex organs like the brain may breed planar configurations that can be splitted only inadequate by common techniques, e.g., watershed separation or basic morphological processing of images. Considering iteratively object contours suitable features of saliency can be accumulated that give rise to markers of singular objects. Such significant markers may drive a separation process more effective than common approaches. The determination of markers by an iterative method should be scale, translation and rotation invariant and robust with regard to noise due to the variability of biological specimen. We realize a technique that splits cell clumps consisting of different cell sizes and shapes into meaningful parts. The multiscale method applied here is based on the analysis of the contour shape and the object area by iterative voting using oriented kernels. These cone-shaped kernels vote iteratively for the local center of mass of the components of an aggregation. The voting is performed along the gradient of the distance transformation of the binarized image of aggregates. Iterative voting is initialized by voting along the gradient direction where at each iteration the voting direction and shape of the kernel is refined, resp. the kernel topography is refined and reoriented iteratively. It turned out that the kernel topography is unique because it votes for the most likely set of grid points where the gravity center of an individual cluster component may be located. Furthermore, a new procedure is realized to use the local intensities of aggregations for kernel voting. The last voted iteration provides gravitation centers, resp. centers of mass of the clumped cells. These are extracted and used as markers to determine individual cell boundaries by a marker based watershed postprocessing. The subject of this paper is to highlight the basic algorithm of iterative kernel voting and expanding it to process intensities within clusters as well as contour information. The approach is applied to synthetic images that were modified systematically with regard to object topology. Natural aggregates of cells at the light microscopic level and cell clusters derived from high resolution flat bed scanning were splitted. In addition to these examples images from a benchmark databases were investigated. The splittings generated by the iterative voting approach were compared with expected splittings of test persons and with results of the watershed method. Especially the gray level based iterative voting method provides superior results for cell cluster separation in comparison to the watershed procedure.

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

image analysis
saliency
center of mass
iterative voting
decomposition
separation
cell cluster

radial symmetry
points of interest
subdivision
splitting
partitioning