Face recognition based on a novel linear discriminant criterion As an effective technique for feature extraction and pattern classification Fisher linear discriminant (FLD) has been successfully applied in many fields. However, for a task with very high-dimensional data such as face images, conventional FLD technique encounters a fundamental difficulty caused by singular within-class scatter matrix. To avoid the trouble, many improvements on the feature extraction aspect of FLD have been proposed. In contrast, studies on the pattern classification aspect of FLD are quiet few. In this paper, we will focus our attention on the possible improvement on the pattern classification aspect of FLD by presenting a novel linear discriminant criterion called maximum scatter difference (MSD). Theoretical analysis demonstrates that MSD criterion is a generalization of Fisher discriminant criterion, and is the asymptotic form of discriminant criterion: large margin linear projection. The performance of MSD classifier is tested in face recognition. Experiments performed on the ORL, Yale, FERET and AR databases show that MSD classifier can compete with top-performance linear classifiers such as linear support vector machines, and is better than or equivalent to combinations of well known facial feature extraction methods, such as eigenfaces, Fisherfaces, orthogonal complementary space, nullspace, direct linear discriminant analysis, and the nearest neighbor classifier.

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

fisher linear discriminant
pattern classification
face recognition

small sample size problem
multi-objective programming
binary linear classifier


MULTI-CHANNEL SAMPLING ON SHIFT-INVARIANT SPACES WITH FRAME GENERATORS Let phi be a continuous function in L-2(R) such that the sequence {phi(t - n)}(n is an element of Z) is a frame sequence in L-2(R) and assume that the shift-invariant space V (phi) generated by phi has a multi-banded spectrum sigma(V). The main aim in this paper is to derive a multi-channel sampling theory for the shift-invariant space V (phi). By using a type of Fourier duality between the spaces V (phi) and L-2[ 0, 2 pi] we find necessary and sufficient conditions allowing us to obtain stable multi-channel sampling expansions in V (phi).

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

shift-invariant spaces
multi-channel sampling
frames


Focus of B-to-B e-commerce initiatives and related benefits in manufacturing small- and medium-sized enterprises Empirical research into business-to-business e-commerce issues involving manufacturing small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is still embryonic. In an attempt to partially fill this gap, this paper presents empirical data from an electronic survey conducted among 96 manufacturing SMEs to investigate e-commerce initiatives and their related benefits. E-commerce initiatives are assessed using a set of 36 business processes that can be conducted electronically. These processes were classified according to their focus: customer (downstream), supplier (upstream) or in-house. The research findings point to four main profiles of manufacturing SMEs with different e-commerce focuses. The first group seems to lack any focus or may still be exploring e-commerce opportunities. The second and third groups are supplier- and customer-focused, respectively. The fourth group consists of the more involved SMEs that have leveraged their e-commerce initiatives with both their customers and their suppliers. Results also suggest the existence of a close alignment between e-commerce focus and related benefits.

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


Incomplete information-based decentralized cooperative control strategy for distributed energy resources of VSI-based microgrids This paper presents an effective method to control distributed energy resources (DERs) installed in a microgrid (MG) to guarantee its stability after islanding occurrence. Considering voltage and frequency variations after islanding occurrence and based on stability criteria, MG pre-islanding conditions are divided into secure and insecure classes. It is shown that insecure MG can become secure, if appropriate preventive control is applied on the DERs in different operating conditions of the MG. To select the most important variables of MG, which can estimate proper values of output power set points of DERs, a feature selection procedure known as symmetrical uncertainty is used in this paper. Among all the MG variables, critical ones are selected to calculate the appropriate output power of different DERs for different conditions of the MG. The values of selected features are transmitted by the communication system to the control unit installed on each DER to control its output power set point. In order to decrease the communication system cost, previous researchers have used local variables to control the set point of different DERs. This approach decreases the accuracy of the controller because the controller uses incomplete information. In this paper, multi-objective approach is used in order to decrease the cost of the communication system, while keeping the accuracy of the preventive control strategy in an allowable margin. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method in comparison with other methods.

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

incomplete information
cooperative control
distributed energy resources


Modeling and Reasoning with Paraconsistent Rough Sets We present a language for defining paraconsistent rough sets and reasoning about them. Our framework relates and brings together two major fields: rough sets [23] and paraconsistent logic programming [9]. To model inconsistent and incomplete information we use a four-valued logic. The language discussed in this paper is based on ideas of our previous work [21, 32, 22] developing a four-valued framework for rough sets. In this approach membership function, set containment and set operations are four-valued, where logical values are t (true), f (false), i (inconsistent) and u (unknown). We investigate properties of paraconsistent rough sets as well as develop a paraconsistent rule language, providing basic computational machinery for our approach.

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

approximate reasoning
paraconsistent reasoning
four-valued logics


A Dynamical Tikhonov Regularization for Solving Ill-posed Linear Algebraic Systems The Tikhonov method is a famous technique for regularizing ill-posed linear problems, wherein a regularization parameter needs to be determined. This article, based on an invariant-manifold method, presents an adaptive Tikhonov method to solve ill-posed linear algebraic problems. The new method consists in building a numerical minimizing vector sequence that remains on an invariant manifold, and then the Tikhonov parameter can be optimally computed at each iteration by minimizing a proper merit function. In the optimal vector method (OVM) three concepts of optimal vector, slow manifold and Hopf bifurcation are introduced. Numerical illustrations on well known ill-posed linear problems point out the computational efficiency and accuracy of the present OVM as compared with classical ones.

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 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

tikhonov regularization
adaptive tikhonov method

ill-posed linear system
dynamical tikhonov regularization
steepest descent method (sdm)
conjugate gradient method (cgm)
optimal vector method (ovm)
barzilai-borwein method (bbm)
65f10
65f22


Mapping transit-based access: integrating GIS, routes and schedules Accessibility is a concept that is not entirely easy to define. Gould (1969) once stated that it is a 'slippery notion ... one of those common terms that everyone uses until faced with the problem of defining and measuring it'. Considerable research over the last 40 years has been devoted to defining and measuring accessibility, ranging from access to jobs within an hour's travel time to the ease at which given places can be reached. This article is concerned with the measurement of access provided by transit. It includes a review of past work on measuring accessibility in general and with respect to transit services in particular. From this overview of the literature, it can be seen that current methods fall short in measuring transit service access in several meaningful aspects. Based on this review and critique, we propose new refinements that can be used to help overcome some of these shortcomings. As a part of this, we define an extended GIS data structure to handle temporal elements of transit service. To demonstrate the value of these new measures, examples are presented with respect to mapping accessibility of transit services in Santa Barbara, California. Finally, we show how these measures can be used to develop a framework for supporting transit service analysis and planning.

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

public transit
schedule and route information
geographic information systems
urban applications


The complexity of compressing subsegments of images described by finite automata ? We investigate how the compression size of the compressed version of a two-dimensional image changes when we cut off a part of it, e.g. extract a photo of one person from a photo of a group of people, when compression is considered in terms of finite automata. Denote by c(T) the compression size of a square image T in terms of deterministic automata, it is the smallest size of a deterministic acyclic automaton A describing T. The corresponding alphabet of A has only four letters, corresponding to four quadrants. We consider an independent useful combinatorial interpretation of c(T) in terms of regular subsquares of T. Denote by ?(n) the largest compression size c(R) of a square subsegment R of the image T such that c(T)=n. We show that there is a constant c>0 such that: We also show how to construct efficiently (in linear time w.r.t. the total size of the input and the produced output) the compressed representation of subsegments given the compressed representation of the whole image.

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


Accomplishing universal access through system reachabilitya management perspective The aim of this paper is to describe the need of a method by which we can estimate the return on accessibility investments in information technology (IT) systems. This paper reveals some of the reasons why accessibility still is a secondhand criterion when designing digital services. It also describes the authors experiences regarding the concept of accessibility and how it must develop in order to obtain the status of a basic business criterion for the benefit of disabled people who are currently excluded from public services and labour markets. The paper also questions the need of a separate accessibility standard. Additionally, we discuss some of the hindering in the market and limiting perspectives that are blocking further development. One of the problems in the market seems to be that accessibility as a concept has been more of an issue about creating equal opportunities and therefore probably does not have the quality of a business criterion. In order to bridge that gap, we argue for replacing accessibility with reachability, which is a concept based on a measure used by media when estimating the reached percentage of a population or target group.

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


POTHMF: A program for computing potential curves and matrix elements of the coupled adiabatic radial equations for a hydrogen-like atom in a homogeneous magnetic field A FORTRAN 77 program is presented which calculates with the relative machine precision potential curves and matrix elements of the coupled adiabatic radial equations for a hydrogen-like atom in a homogeneous magnetic field. The potential curves are eigenvalues corresponding to the angular oblate spheroidal functions that compose adiabatic basis which depends on the radial variable as a parameter. The matrix elements of radial coupling are integrals in angular variables of the following two types: product of angular functions and the first derivative of angular functions in parameter, and product of the first derivatives of angular functions in parameter, respectively. The program calculates also the angular part of the dipole transition matrix elements (in the length form) expressed as integrals in angular variables involving product of a dipole operator and angular functions. Moreover, the program calculates asymptotic regular and irregular matrix solutions of the coupled adiabatic radial equations at the end of interval in radial variable needed for solving a multi-channel scattering problem by the generalized R-matrix method. Potential curves and radial matrix elements computed by the POTHMF program can be used for solving the bound state and multichannel scattering problems. As a test desk, the program is applied to the calculation of the energy values, a short-range reaction matrix and corresponding wave functions with the help of the KANTBP program. Benchmark calculations for the known photoionization cross-sections are presented.

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

eigenvalue and multi-channel scattering problems


Completely Lazy Learning Local classifiers are sometimes called lazy learners because they do not train a classifier until presented with a test sample. However, such methods are generally not completely lazy because the neighborhood size k (or other locality parameter) is usually chosen by cross validation on the training set, which can require significant preprocessing and risks overfitting. We propose a simple alternative to cross validation of the neighborhood size that requires no preprocessing: instead of committing to one neighborhood size, average the discriminants for multiple neighborhoods. We show that this forms an expected estimated posterior that minimizes the expected Bregman loss with respect to the uncertainty about the neighborhood choice. We analyze this approach for six standard and state-of-the-art local classifiers, including discriminative adaptive metric kNN (DANN), a local support vector machine (SVM-KNN), hyperplane distance nearest neighbor (HKNN), and a new local Bayesian quadratic discriminant analysis (local BDA). The empirical effectiveness of this technique versus cross validation is confirmed with experiments on seven benchmark data sets, showing that similar classification performance can be attained without any training.

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

lazy learning
cross validation
quadratic discriminant analysis


A tabu search approach for scheduling hazmat shipments ? Vehicle routing and scheduling are two main issues in the hazardous material (hazmat) transportation problem. In this paper, we study the problem of managing a set of hazmat transportation requests in terms of hazmat shipment route selection and actual departure time definition. For each hazmat shipment, a set of minimum and equitable risk alternative routes from origin to destination points and a preferred departure time are given. The aim is to assign a route to each hazmat shipment and schedule these shipments on the assigned routes in order to minimize the total shipment delay, while equitably spreading the risk spatially and preventing the risk induced by vehicles traveling too close to each other. We model this hazmat shipment scheduling problem as a job-shop scheduling problem with alternative routes. No-wait constraints arise in the scheduling model as well, since, supposing that no safe area is available, when a hazmat vehicle starts traveling from the given origin it cannot stop until it arrives at the given destination. A tabu search algorithm is proposed for the problem, which is experimentally evaluated on a set of realistic test problems over a regional area, evaluating the provided solutions also with respect to the total route risk and length.

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

hazmat transportation problem
tabu search algorithm


A comparative study of direct-forcing immersed boundary-lattice Boltzmann methods for stationary complex boundaries In this study, we assess several interface schemes for stationary complex boundary flows under the direct-forcing immersed boundary-lattice Boltzmann methods (IB-LBM) based on a split-forcing lattice Boltzmann equation (LBE). Our strategy is to couple various interface schemes, which were adopted in the previous direct-forcing immersed boundary methods (IBM), with the split-forcing LBE, which enables us to directly use the direct-forcing concept in the lattice Boltzmann calculation algorithm with a second-order accuracy without involving the Navier-Stokes equation. In this study, we investigate not only common diffuse interface schemes but also a sharp interface scheme. For the diffuse interface scheme, we consider explicit and implicit interface schemes. In the calculation of velocity interpolation and force distribution, we use the 2- and 4-point discrete delta functions, which give the second-order approximation. For the sharp interface scheme, we deal with the exterior sharp interface scheme, where we impose the force density on exterior (solid) nodes nearest to the boundary. All tested schemes show a second-order overall accuracy when the simulation results of the Taylor-Green decaying vortex are compared with the analytical solutions. It is also confirmed that for stationary complex boundary flows, the sharper the interface scheme, the more accurate the results are. In the simulation of flows past a circular cylinder, the results from each interface scheme are comparable to those from other corresponding numerical schemes. Copyright (C) 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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

interface scheme
stationary complex boundary

immersed boundary-lattice boltzmann method

split-forcing lattice boltzmann equation


Precise Euclidean distance transforms in 3D from voxel coverage representation ? We propose a method for computing Euclidean distance transform (EDT) in 3D images. The method utilizes voxel coverage information to increase precision of EDT. The method can be used with any vector propagation based EDT in 3D. Synthetic tests confirm significant improvement in achieved precision. Both the related binary and the existing coverage based methods are outperformed.

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 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

distance transform
precision
coverage representation

vector propagation dt algorithm
sub-voxel accuracy


can we trust digital image forensics? Compared to the prominent role digital images play in nowadays multimedia society, research in the field of image authenticity is still in its infancy. Only recently, research on digital image forensics has gained attention by addressing tamper detection and image source identification. However, most publications in this emerging field still lack rigorous discussions of robustness against strategic counterfeiters, who anticipate the existence of forensic techniques. As a result, the question of trustworthiness of digital image forensics arises. This work will take a closer look at two state-of-the-art forensic methods and proposes two counter-techniques; one to perform resampling operations undetectably and another one to forge traces of image origin. Implications for future image forensic systems will be discussed.

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

digital image forensics
image source identification
tamper detection


Max-optimal and sum-optimal labelings of graphs Given a graph G, a function f: V (G) -> {1, 2, ..., k} is a k-ranking of G if f (u) = f (v) implies that every u - v path contains a vertex w such that f (w) > f (u). A k-ranking is minimal if the reduction of any label greater than 1 violates the described ranking property. We consider two norms for minimal rankings. The max-optimal norm parallel to f(G)parallel to(infinity) is the smallest k for which G has a minimal k-ranking. This value is also referred to as the rank number chi(r)(G). In this paper we introduce the sum-optimal norm parallel to f(G)parallel to(1) which is the minimum sum of all labels over all minimal rankings. We investigate similarities and differences between the two norms. In particular we show rankings for paths and cycles that are sum-optimal are also max-optimal. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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


2-\((v,k,1)\) Designs with a point-primitive rank 3 automorphism group of affine type 2-\((v,k,1)\) Designs with a point-primitive rank 3 automorphism group of affine type are investigated and several new examples are provided.

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


Increase in the releasable pool of synaptic vesicles underlies facilitation Facilitation is the ability of presynaptic terminals to release neurotransmitter more efficiently following repetitive stimulation. We demonstrated that facilitation can be explained by Ca2+-dependent vesicles priming and the increase in the number of synaptic vesicles activated for release. Employing the model with two Ca2+ sensors, we computed Ca2+ concentration at the sites of priming and release, the size of the releasable pool of vesicles, and the rate of transmitter release during repetitive nerve stimulation. The calculated rates of vesicle release and the increase in the releasable pool during facilitation were in agreement with the results of electrophysiology experiments.

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

lobster neuromuscular junction
synaptic plasticity
neurosecretion
calcium


Viscoelastic fracture of multiple cracks in functionally graded materials In this paper, the viscoelastic fracture of multiple cracks in a functionally graded strip is studied. The solution of linear elastic crack tip field is investigated at first, using the finite element method. Both applied stress load and applied strain load are taken into account. The effects of the crack length, crack spacing, material gradient index and the loading condition on the crack tip field intensity factor are plotted and discussed. According to the correspondence principle, the viscoelastic crack tip field under applied strain is obtained from the linear elastic results. Variation of stress intensity factor of the viscoelastic functionally graded strip is analyzed. Some useful information for the design of functionally graded materials is provided.

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

stress intensity factor
correspondence principle


Power distribution system optimization by an algorithm for capacitated Steiner tree problems with complex-flows and arbitrary cost functions An algorithm called genetic shortest-path algorithm is presented to solve capacitated minimal Steiner tree problems in graphs with complex flows and arbitrary arc cost functions, but without negative cycles. Voltage constraint can also been taken into consideration by the algorithm. Hence, it can solve various power distribution system optimization problems with detailed mathematical models. In the proposed algorithm, a local optimization method based on shortest-path algorithm and heuristics is used to find the local optimums, in which the minimum cost objective and all constraints are considered and the specialties of the problems are made good use of. Genetic operations are only used to search the global optimum from the local optimums. Therefore, this algorithm overcomes the disadvantage of general genetic algorithm in local searching. An example for distribution system planning problem with large scale is given to demonstrate the power of the algorithm.

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

power distribution system reconfiguration


QMBR(I): INVERSE QUANTIZATION OF MINIMUM BOUNDING RECTANGLES FOR SPATIAL DATA COMPRESSION In this paper, we propose QMBR(i), the inverse representation of the quantized minimum bounding rectangles (MBRs) scheme, which compresses a minimum bounding rectangle key into one byte for spatial-data compression. QMBR(i) is a novel spatial-data compression scheme that is based on inverse quantization and overcomes the shortcomings of conventional relative coordination or quantization schemes. If a spatial data is far from the starting point of the search region, the relative coordination scheme does not guarantee compression. In a quantization scheme, since the MBRs are expanded, the overlapping of MBRs is increased and the search performance is reduced. The proposed scheme overcomes these shortcomings, and simulation results suggest that it performs better than other schemes.

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

spatial-data compression
mbr
rmbr
hmbr
qmbr


Two-dimensional model of base force element method (BFEM) on complementary energy principle for geometrically nonlinear problems Based on the concept of the base forces by Gao, a new finite element methodthe base force element method (BFEM) on complementary energy principle for two-dimensional geometrically nonlinear problems is presented using arbitrary meshes. An arbitrary convex polygonal element model of the BFEM for geometrically nonlinear problem is derived by assuming that the stress is uniformly distributed on each edges of a plane element. The explicit formulations of the control equations for the BFEM are derived using the modified complementary energy principle. The BFEM is naturally universal for small displacement and large displacement problems. A number of example problems are solved using the BFEM and the results are compared with corresponding analytical solutions. A good agreement of the results using the arbitrary convex polygonal element model of BFEM in the large displacement and large rotation calculations, are observed.

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

finite element
complementary energy
geometrically nonlinear
base forces


Theoretical study of [XN5](-) (X=O, S, Se, Te) systems A series of [XN5](-) (X=O, S, Se, Te) compounds has been examined with ab initio and Density Functional Theory (DFT) methods. The five-membered nitrogen ring series of structures are global minima and may exist or be characterized due to their significant dissociation barriers (29.7-32.7 kcal mol(-1)). Nucleus-independent chemical shifts (NICS) criteria and the presence of (4n+2) pi-electrons confirmed that the five-membered nitrogen ring in their structures exhibits characteristics of aromaticity. Thus, the strong stability of the five-membered nitrogen ring structures may be attributed partially to their aromaticity.

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


Incremental fault diagnosis Fault diagnosis is important in improving the circuit-design process and the manufacturing yield. Diagnosis of today's complex defects is a challenging problem due to the explosion of the underlying solution space with the increasing number of fault locations and fault models. To tackle this complexity, an incremental diagnosis method is proposed. This method captures faulty lines one at a time using the novel linear-time single-fault diagnosis algorithms. To capture complex fault effects, a model-free incremental diagnosis algorithm is outlined, which alleviates the need for an explicit fault model. To demonstrate the applicability of the proposed method, experiments on multiple stuck-at faults, open-interconnects and bridging faults are performed. Extensive results on combinational and full-scan sequential benchmark circuits confirm its resolution and performance.

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

circuit simulation
open-interconnect
very large scale integration (vlsi)


DIM, a portable, light weight package for information publishing, data transfer and inter-process communication The real-time systems of HEP experiments are presently highly distributed, possibly on heterogeneous CPUs. In many applications, there is an important need to make information available to a large number of other processes in a transparent way. For this purpose the "RPC-like" systems are not suitable, since most of them rely on polling from the client and one-to-one connections. DIM is a very powerful alternative to those systems. It provides a named space for processes to publish information (Publishers) and a very simple API for processes willing to use this information (Subscribers). It fully handles error recovery at the Publisher and Subscriber level, without additional software in the application, DIM is available on a large variety of platforms and operating systems with C and C++ bindings. It is presently used in several HEP experiments, while it was developed in the DELPHI experiment and is maintained at CERN. We shall present its capabilities and examples of its use in HEP experiments in domains ranging from simple data publishing to event transfer, process control or communication layer for an Experiment Control Package (SMI++). We shall also present prospectives for using it as communications layer for future experiment's control systems. (C) 2001 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 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 communications
heterogeneous distributed systems


ROsWeL Workflow Language: A Declarative, Resource-oriented Approach Well defined business processes are a crucial success factor for deploying SOA/SOKU architectures. In this paper, the declarative business process description language-ROsWeL-which supports applications compatible with ROA, is discussed. ROsWeL provides a declarative, reliable and semi-automatic composition of RESTful web services, enriched by the knowledge representation. The paper discusses benefits of ROsWeL, and presents an example of a simple workow that captures essential ROsWeL features.

O O 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


The (1+3)-dimensional Burgers equation and its comparative solutions In this paper, we will carry out an analytic comparative study between the Adomian decomposition method and the differential transformation method. This is achieved by handling the (1 + 3)-dimensional Burgers equation. Two numerical simulations have also been carried out to validate and demonstrate efficiency of the two methods. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

adomian decomposition method
differential transformation method


Modeling the Development of Goal-Specificity in Mirror Neurons Neurophysiological studies have shown that parietal mirror neurons encode not only actions but also the goal of these actions. Although some mirror neurons will fire whenever a certain action is perceived (goal-independently), most will only fire if the motion is perceived as part of an action with a specific goal. This result is important for the action-understanding hypothesis as it provides a potential neurological basis for such a cognitive ability. It is also relevant for the design of artificial cognitive systems, in particular robotic systems that rely on computational models of the mirror system in their interaction with other agents. Yet, to date, no computational model has explicitly addressed the mechanisms that give rise to both goal-specific and goal-independent parietal mirror neurons. In the present paper, we present a computational model based on a self-organizing map, which receives artificial inputs representing information about both the observed or executed actions and the context in which they were executed. We show that the map develops a biologically plausible organization in which goal-specific mirror neurons emerge. We further show that the fundamental cause for both the appearance and the number of goal-specific neurons can be found in geometric relationships between the different inputs to the map. The results are important to the action-understanding hypothesis as they provide a mechanism for the emergence of goal-specific parietal mirror neurons and lead to a number of predictions: (1) Learning of new goals may mostly reassign existing goal-specific neurons rather than recruit new ones; (2) input differences between executed and observed actions can explain observed corresponding differences in the number of goal-specific neurons; and (3) the percentage of goal-specific neurons may differ between motion primitives.

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

action-understanding hypothesis
neural activation patterns
self-organizing map


a framework for designing and implementing the ada standard container library An open issue of the Ada language is the definition of a standard container library. Containers in this library (e.g., sets, maps and lists) shall offer some core functionalities that characterise their behaviour (i.e., different strategies for managing the elements stored therein) as well as other general functionalities. Among these general functionalities, we are interested in alternative ways for accessing the containers, namely direct access by position and traversals using iterators. In this paper, we present the Shortcut-Based Framework (SBF), a framework aimed at providing suitable, uniform, accurate and secure access by position and iterators, while keeping other nice properties such as comprehensibility and changeability. The SBF should be considered as a baseline upon which the Ada standard container library can be built. We assess the feasibility of our proposal defining a quality model for container libraries and evaluating the SBF using some metrics defined with the Goal-Question-Metric approach.

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

iterators
access by position
container libraries


Stability of block LU factorization for block tridiagonal matrices It is showed that if A is I-block diagonally dominant (II-block diagonally dominant), then the reduced matrix S preserves the same property. We also give a sufficient condition for the reduced matrix S also to be a block H-matrix when A is a block H-matrix, and some properties on the comparison matrices mu(I)(A(k)), mu(II)(A(k)), mu(I)(L), mu(I)(U) are obtained. Finally, error analysis of block LU factroization for block tridiagonal matrix is presented. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

block lu factorization
block tridiagonal matrix
stability

block h-matrices
i-block diagonally dominant matrices
ii-block diagonally dominant matrices


Russian-Dutch double-degree Masters programme in computational science in the age of global education We present a new double-degree graduate (Masters) programme in computational science launched in 2012 by the ITMO University, Russia and University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. We discuss the global aspects of integration of different educational systems and list some funding opportunities. We describe our double-degree program curriculum, suggest the timeline of enrollment and studies, and give some examples of student research topics. Finally, we discuss the issues of joint programs with Russia and suggest possible solutions, analyze the results of the first three student intakes and reflect on the lessons learnt, and share our thoughts and experiences that could be of interest to the international community expanding the educational markets to the vast countries like Russia, China or India. The paper is written for education professionals and contains useful information for potential students.

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

computational science
masters programme
curriculum
enrollment
student research
funding opportunities


Techno-economic analysis of EPON and WiMAX for future Fiber-Wireless (FiWi) networks Hybrid Fiber-Wireless (FiWi) networks become rapidly mature and represent a promising candidate for reducing power consumption, costs, and bandwidth bottlenecks of next-generation broadband access networks. Two key FiWi technologies with similar design goals are Ethernet Passive Optical Network (EPON) and WiMAX. In this paper, we develop a powerful and flexible techno-economic analysis to compare the two technologies, taking into account not only equipment and installation costs but also OAM related costs such as power consumption and repairing costs for a wide range of different network failure scenarios, terrain types, and wireless channel conditions. The presented results give insight into the cost-performance trade-offs of current and next-generation EPON and WiMAX networks.

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


insight into goal-directed movement strategies The current paper proposes a novel method of analyzing goal-directed movements by dividing them into distinct movement intervals. We demonstrate how the description of the first and second most prominent movement intervals in terms of duration and length can provide insight into the applied movement strategies under different conditions. This method, although demonstrated for goal-directed movements, has the potential to be generalized to other types of movements, such as steering movements.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 input devices
movement analysis
pointing tasks


Mobius-invariant curve and surface energies and their applications Curvature-based surface energies are frequently used in mathematics, physics, thin plate and shell engineering, and membrane chemistry and biology studies. Invariance under rotations and shifts makes curvature-based energies very attractive for modeling various phenomena. In computer-aided geometric design, the Willmore surfaces and the so-called minimum variation surfaces (MVS) are widely used for shape modeling purposes. The Willmore surfaces are invariant w.r.t conformal transformations (Mobius or conformal invariance), and studied thoroughly in differential geometry and related disciplines. In contrast, the minimum variation surfaces are not conformal invariant. In this paper, we suggest a simple modification of the minimum variation energy and demonstrate that the resulting modified MVS enjoy Mobius invariance (so we call them conformal-invariant MVS or, shortly, CI-MVS). We also study connections of CI-MVS with the cyclides of Dupin. In addition, we consider several other conformal-invariant curve and surface energies involving curvatures and curvature derivatives. In particular, we show how filtering with a conformal-invariant curve energy can be used for detecting salient subsets of the principal curvature extremum curves used by Hosaka and co-workers for shape quality inspection purposes.

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

willmore energy
dupin's cyclides
mobius/conformal invariance


Calculation of delay characteristics for multiserver queues with constant service times We consider a discrete-time infinite-capacity queueing system with a general uncorrelated arrival process, constant-length service times of multiple slots, multiple servers and a first-come-first-served queueing discipline. Under the assumption that the queueing system can reach a steady state, we first establish a relationship between the steady-state probability distributions of the system content and the customer delay. Next, by means of this relationship, an explicit expression for the probability generating function of the customer delay is obtained from the known generating function of the system content, derived in previous work. In addition, several characteristics of the customer delay, namely the mean value, the variance and the tail distribution of the delay, are derived through some mathematical manipulations. The analysis is illustrated by means of some numerical examples.

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

queueing
multiple servers
constant service times


Converting computer-integrated manufacturing into an intelligent information system by combining CIM with concurrent engineering and knowledge management Some industrial organizations using computer-integrated manufacturing (CIM) for managing intelligent product and process data during a concurrent processing are facing acute implementation difficulties. Some of the difficulties are due to the fact that CIM - in the current form - is not able to adequately address knowledge management and concurrent engineering (CE) issues. Also, with CIM, it is not possible to solve problems related to decision and control even though there has been an increasing interest in artificial intelligence (AI), knowledge based systems (KBS), expert systems, etc. In order to improve the productivity gain through CIM, EDS focused its information technology (IT) vision on the combined potential of concurrent engineering (CE), knowledge management (KM) and computer-integrated manufacturing (CIM) technologies. EDS-through a number of IT and CIM implementations - realized that CE, KM and CIM do go hand in hand. The three together provide a formidable base, which is called intelligent information system (IIS) in this paper. Describes the rationales used for creating an IIS framework at EDS, its usefulness to our clients and a make-up of this emerging IIS framework for integrated product development.

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

knowledge management
information technology
product development

computer-integrated manufacturing
information systems
simultaneous engineering


Extending Fre and Zelenyuk (2003) In our recent work, Fre and Zelenyuk (2003) [On aggregate Farrell efficiency scores. European Journal of Operational Research 146 (3), 615620], we have proposed a way of aggregating Farrell-type efficiency scores with weights (and aggregation function) derived from economic-type optimization behaviour. In this comment we correct a mathematical error present in that work as well as generalize the price-independent weights we have proposed earlier.

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


Policy oscillation is overshooting ? A majority of approximate dynamic programming approaches to the reinforcement learning problem can be categorized into greedy value function methods and value-based policy gradient methods. The former approach, although fast, is well known to be susceptible to the policy oscillation phenomenon. We take a fresh view to this phenomenon by casting, within the context of non-optimistic policy iteration, a considerable subset of the former approach as a limiting special case of the latter. We explain the phenomenon in terms of this view and illustrate the underlying mechanism with artificial examples. We also use it to derive the constrained natural actor-critic algorithm that can interpolate between the aforementioned approaches. In addition, it has been suggested in the literature that the oscillation phenomenon might be subtly connected to the grossly suboptimal performance in the Tetris benchmark problem of all attempted approximate dynamic programming methods. Based on empirical findings, we offer a hypothesis that might explain the inferior performance levels and the associated policy degradation phenomenon, and which would partially support the suggested connection. Finally, we report scores in the Tetris problem that improve on existing dynamic programming based results by an order of magnitude.

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

reinforcement learning
approximate dynamic programming
policy gradient
policy oscillation


Configuration and dynamic reconfiguration of components using the coordination paradigm One of the most promising approaches in developing component-based (possibly distributed) systems is that of coordination models and languages. Coordination programming enjoys a number of advantages such as the ability to express different software architectures and abstract interaction protocols, support for multi-linguality, reusability and programming-in-the-large, etc. Configuration programming is another promising approach in developing large scale, component-based systems, with the increasing need for supporting the dynamic evolution of components. In this paper we explore and exploit the relationship between the notions of coordination and (dynamic) configuration and we illustrate the potential of control- or event-driven coordination languages to be used as languages for expressing dynamically reconfigurable software architectures. We argue that control-driven coordination has similar goals and aims with the notion of dynamic configuration and we illustrate how the former can achieve the functionality required by the latter.

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

software engineering for distributed and parallel systems


Upper-level scheduling supporting multimedia traffic in cellular data networks Wireless data networks such as cdma2000 1x EV-DO and UMTS HSDPA use downlink scheduling that exploits channel fading to increase the system throughput. As future wireless networks will eventually support multimedia and data traffic together, we need a proper criterion for scheduling that can count various service requirements such as delay and packet loss. Although some previous approaches proposed opportunistic schedulers at the lower layer, it has not been investigated well whether they are able to meet explicit QoS defined at the upper layer. Hence, in this paper, we develop a hierarchical scheduling model that considers QoS provisioning and the time-varying channel feature separately. We focus on the upper-level QoS scheduling that supports various traffic classes in a unified manner. Supposing that a user gets some satisfaction or utility when served, we introduce a novel concept of opportunity cost, which is defined as the maximum utility loss among users incurred by serving a particular user at the current turn. We obtain each user's net profit by subtracting the opportunity cost from its expected utility, and then select a user with the maximum profit for service. Simulation results reveal that our scheme supports various QoS classes well that are represented by delay and packet loss under various traffic loadings. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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


RepCIDN: A Reputation-based Collaborative Intrusion Detection Network to Lessen the Impact of Malicious Alarms Distributed and coordinated attacks in computer networks are causing considerable economic losses worldwide in recent years. This is mainly due to the transition of attackers operational patterns towards a more sophisticated and more global behavior. This fact is leading current intrusion detection systems to be more likely to generate false alarms. In this context, this paper describes the design of a collaborative intrusion detection network (CIDN) that is capable of building and sharing collective knowledge about isolated alarms in order to efficiently and accurately detect distributed attacks. It has been also strengthened with a reputation mechanism aimed to improve the detection coverage by dropping false or bogus alarms that arise from malicious or misbehaving nodes. This model will enable a CIDN to detect malicious behaviors according to the trustworthiness of the alarm issuers, calculated from previous interactions with the system. Experimental results will finally demonstrate how entities are gradually isolated as their behavior worsens throughout the time.

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

security
trust management
reputation systems
collaboration networks
group reputation


Differential evolution for system identification of self-excited vibrations A competitive version of the differential evolution algorithm is applied to regression on second-order ordinary differential equations from only the original time signal. Specific attention is devoted to application aspects of self-excited vibrations in physics and engineering. Extensive numerical experiments reveal the factors that influence test errors in free optimization. Two novel approaches for a constrained optimization treatment of this inverse problem are proposed. This enables accurate identification of the target coefficients of the dynamical system.

B I O B 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 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

constrained optimization
system identification
differential evolution
ordinary differential equations

evolutionary computing
self-excited vibrations
monte carlo


Mean curvature mapping for detection of corneal shape abnormality Corneal topography is used to measure the anterior surface of the cornea. It is conventionally represented as radial slope, radial curvature, and elevation. In this paper, we introduce the application of mean curvature mapping as an alternative representation of the corneal topography. The purpose is to improve the detection of keratoconus and other diseases characterized by local increase in corneal curvature. Both simulated keratoconic cornea and real keratoconus; data exported from the corneal topography system were analyzed. Four representations of corneal topography were generated and compared. It was found that mean curvature mapping provided the most precise cone location in simulated keratoconus. In both actual and simulated keratoconus cases, the appearance of the cone-like distortion is more consistent on mean curvature maps. Mean curvature mapping may improve the detection and localization of corneal shape abnormalities.

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

cornea
corneal topography
keratoconus
mean curvature


Client-Led Information System Creation (CLIC): navigating the gap Abstract.? This paper offers a new framework to facilitate an interpretive approach to client-led information system development, referred to as CLIC (Client-Led Information System Creation). The challenge of moving seamlessly through a process of information systems (IS) design is still the subject of much research in the IS field. Attempts to address the difficulties of bridging the gap between a client's business needs and an information system definition have hitherto not provided a coherent and practical approach. Rather than attempting to bridge the gap, this paper describes an approach to managing this gap by facilitating the clients navigating through the information system design process (or inquiry process) in a coherent manner. The framework has been developed through practice, and the paper provides an example of navigating through the design phase taken from an Action Research field study in a major UK bank.

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


Markov process based reliability model for laser diodes in space radiation environment Reliability model of irradiated laser diodes in space environment. Degradation process is separated into discrete states. Degradation of laser diodes is described as a Markov process. Reliability characteristics of laser diodes are simulated over 100,000h.

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

laser diodes
space radiation environment
reliability
markov process


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

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


Scan Architecture With Align-Encode Scan architectures that provide compression capabilities have become mandatory due to the unbearable test costs imposed by high test data volume and prolonged test application. To alleviate these test costs, a stimulus decompressor and a response compactor block are inserted between the tester channels and the scan chains. As a result, a few tester channels drive a larger number of scan chains. In such an architecture, whether a particular test pattern can be delivered depends on the care bit distribution of that pattern. In this paper, we introduce a hardware block to be utilized in conjunction with a combinational stimulus decompressor block. This block., namely, Align-Encode, provides a deterministic per pattern control over care bit distribution of test vectors, improving pattern deliverability, and thus, the effectiveness of the particular stimulus decompressor. Align-Encode is reconfigured on a per pattern basis to delay the shift-in operations in selected scan chains. The number of cycles that a chain may be delayed can be between zero and the maximum allowable value, in order to align the scan slices in such a way that originally undeliverable test vectors become encodable. The reconfigurability of Align-Encode provides a test pattern independent solution, wherein any, given set of test vectors can be analyzed to compute the proper delay information. We present efficient techniques for computing the scan chain delay values that lead to pattern encodability. Experimental results also justify the test pattern encodability enhancements that Align-Encode delivers, enabling significant test quality improvements and/or test cost reductions.

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

align-encode
test data compression
test data encoding


Efficient Discovery of Highly Interrelated Users in One-Way Communications In this paper, we introduce a new sequential pattern, the Interactive User Sequence Pattern (IUSP). This pattern is useful for grouping highly interrelated users in one-way communications such as e-mail, SMS, etc., especially when the communications include many spam users. Also, we propose an efficient algorithm for discovering IUSPs from massive one-way communication logs containing only the following information: senders, receivers, and dates and times. Even though there is a difficulty in that our new sequential pattern violates the Apriori property, the proposed algorithm shows excellent processing performance and low storage cost in experiments on a real dataset.

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


A PC cluster system employing IEEE 1394 In this paper, we describe the design and evaluation of a PC cluster system in which IEEE 1394 is applied. Networks for parallel cluster computing require low latency and high bandwidth. It is also important that the networks be commercially available at low cost. Few network devices satisfy all of the above requirements. However, the IEEE 1394 standard provides a good compromise for fulfilling these requirements. We have used IEEE 1394 devices, which support a 400 Mbps data transfer rate, to connect the nodes of a PC cluster system which we have designed and implemented. We have implemented two communication libraries. One is a fast communication library called CF for IEEE 1394. The other is a MPI layer library on the CF library. Experimental results show that CF achieves a 17.2 microsecond round-trip time. On application benchmarks, the system was considerably faster than TCP/IP over Fast Ethernet. Even though the system was constructed at very low cost, it provides good performance. Using the IEEE 1394 standard is thus a good solution for low-cost cluster systems. Copyright (C) 2004 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.

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

cluster computing
ieee 1394
communication libraries


does habituation affect fingerprint quality? Interest in the environmental factors that affect biometric image quality is increasing as biometric technologies are currently being implemented in various business applications. This study aims to determine, through repeated trials, the effects of various external factors on the image quality and usability of prints collected by an electronic reader. These factors include age and gender but also the absence or presence of immediate feedback. A key factor in biometric systems that will be used daily or routinely is habituation. The user's behavior could potentially change as a result of acclimatization; one's input might increase in quality as one learns how to use the system better, or decrease in quality since comfort with the system could translate into carelessness.

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 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


On the relocation problem with a second working crew for resource recycling In this paper, we introduce a variant of the relocation problem, which was formulated from a public house redevelopment project in Boston. In the problem of interest, given some initial resources in a common pool there is a set of jobs to be processed on a two-machine flowshop. Each job acquires a specific number of resources to start its processing and will return a number of resources to the pool at its completion. The resource consumption and resource recycle processes are performed on machine one and machine two, respectively, in a two-machine flowshop style. Abiding by the resource constraints, the problem seeks to find a feasible schedule whose makespan is minimized. In this paper, we first present NP-hardness proofs for some special cases. Three heuristic algorithms are designed to compose approximate schedules. Two lower bounds are developed and then used to test the performance of our proposed heuristics. Numerical results from computational experiments suggest that the proposed heuristics can produce quality solutions in a reasonable time.

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

relocation problem
flowshop
makespan
heuristic algorithms


Equivariant Pieri Rule for the homology of the affine Grassmannian An explicit rule is given for the product of the degree two class with an arbitrary Schubert class in the torus-equivariant homology of the affine Grassmannian. In addition a Pieri rule (the Schubert expansion of the product of a special Schubert class with an arbitrary one) is established for the equivariant homology of the affine Grassmannians of SL n and a similar formula is conjectured for Sp 2n and SO 2n+1. For SL n the formula is explicit and positive. By a theorem of Peterson these compute certain products of Schubert classes in the torus-equivariant quantum cohomology of flag varieties. The SL n Pieri rule is used in our recent definition of k-double Schur functions and affine double Schur functions.

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

affine grassmannian
pieri rule
quantum cohomology


Dual-rail asynchronous logic multi-level implementation A synthesis flow oriented on producing the delay-insensitive dual-rail asynchronous logic is proposed. Within this flow, the existing synchronous logic synthesis tools are exploited to design technology independent single-rail synchronous Boolean network of complex (AND-OR) nodes. Next, the transformation into a dual-rail Boolean network is done. Each node is minimized under the formulated constraint to ensure hazard-free implementation. Then the technology dependent mapping procedure is applied. The MCNC and ISCAS benchmark sets are processed and the area overhead with respect to the synchronous implementation is evaluated. The implementations of the asynchronous logic obtained using the proposed (with AND-OR nodes) and the state-of-the-art (nodes are designed based on DIMS, direct logic and NCL) network structures are compared. A method, where nodes are designed as simple (NAND, NOR, etc.) gates is chosen for a detailed comparison. In our approach, the number of completion detection logic inputs is reduced significantly, since the number of nodes that should be supplied with the completion detection is less than in the case of the network structure that is based on simple gates. As a result, the improvement in sense of the total complexity and performance is obtained.

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


Off-line signature verification and forgery detection using fuzzy modeling Automatic signature verification is a well-established and an active area of research with numerous applications such as bank check verification, ATM access, etc. This paper proposes a novel approach to the problem of automatic off-line signature verification and forgery detection. The proposed approach is based on fuzzy modeling that employs the TakagiSugeno (TS) model. Signature verification and forgery detection are carried out using angle features extracted from box approach. Each feature corresponds to a fuzzy set. The features are fuzzified by an exponential membership function involved in the TS model, which is modified to include structural parameters. The structural parameters are devised to take account of possible variations due to handwriting styles and to reflect moods. The membership functions constitute weights in the TS model. The optimization of the output of the TS model with respect to the structural parameters yields the solution for the parameters. We have also derived two TS models by considering a rule for each input feature in the first formulation (Multiple rules) and by considering a single rule for all input features in the second formulation. In this work, we have found that TS model with multiple rules is better than TS model with single rule for detecting three types of forgeries; random, skilled and unskilled from a large database of sample signatures in addition to verifying genuine signatures. We have also devised three approaches, viz., an innovative approach and two intuitive approaches using the TS model with multiple rules for improved performance.

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

forgery detection
structural parameters
ts model

off-line signature verification
fuzzy logic
bank check recognition


Investigation of Si/SiGe/Si heterostructure implanted by H ion and annealed in vacuum and dry O2 ambient The 20-nm-thick Si cap layer/74-nm-thick Si0.72Ge0.28 epilayer/Si heterostructures implanted by 25keV H+ ion to a dose of 11016cm?2 were annealed in ultra-high vacuum ambient and dry O2 ambient at the temperature of 800C for 30min, respectively. Rutherford backscattering/ion channeling (RBS/C), Raman spectra, high-resolution X-ray diffraction (HRXRD) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) were used to characterize the structural characteristics of the Si0.72Ge0.28 layer. Investigations by RBS/C demonstrated that the crystal quality of the Si/Si0.72Ge0.28/Si heterostructure sample implanted by 25keV H+ in conjunction with subsequent annealing in dry O2 ambient is superior to that of identical sample annealing in ultra-high vacuum ambient. The less strain relaxation of SiGe layer of the Si/Si0.72Ge0.28/Si heterostructures implanted by H ion and annealed in dry O2 ambient at the temperature of 800C for 30min could be doublechecked by Raman spectra as well as HRXRD, which was compared with that in an identical sample annealed in ultra-high vacuum ambient for identical thermal budget. In addition, the SiGe layer of the H-implanted Si/SiGe/Si heterostructural sample annealed in dry O2 ambient accompanied by better crystal quality and less strain relaxation made its surface morphology superior to that of the sample annealed in ultra-high vacuum ambient at the temperature of 800C for 30min, which was also verified by AFM images.

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


Energy-neutral scheduling and forwarding in environmentally-powered wireless sensor networks In environmentally-powered wireless sensor networks (EPWSNs), low latency wakeup scheduling and packet forwarding is challenging due to dynamic duty cycling, posing time-varying sleep latencies and necessitating the use of dynamic wakeup schedules. We show that the variance of the intervals between receiving wakeup slots affects the expected sleep latency: when the variance of the intervals is low (high), the expected latency is low (high). We therefore propose a novel scheduling scheme that uses the bit-reversal permutation sequence (BRPS) a finite integer sequence that positions receiving wakeup slots as evenly as possible to reduce the expected sleep latency. At the same time, the sequence serves as a compact representation of wakeup schedules thereby reducing storage and communication overhead. But while low latency wakeup schedule can reduce per-hop delay in ideal conditions, it does not necessarily lead to low latency end-to-end paths because wireless link quality also plays a significant role in the performance of packet forwarding. We therefore formulate expected transmission delay (ETD), a metric that simultaneously considers sleep latency and wireless link quality. We show that the metric is left-monotonic and left-isotonic, proving that its use in distributed algorithms such as the distributed BellmanFord yields consistent, loop-free and optimal paths. We perform extensive simulations using real-world energy harvesting traces to evaluate the performance of the scheduling and forwarding scheme.

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

energy-harvesting
wireless sensor network
dynamic wakeup scheduling
routing


minimizing downtime in seamless migrations of mobile applications Application migration is a key enabling technology component of mobile computing that allows rich semantics involving location awareness, trust and timeliness of information processing by moving the application where the data is. Seamlessness is one of the key properties of mobile computing and downtime must be eliminated/minimized during the migration to achieve seamlessness. But migration involves large overheads, dominant of which are the overheads due to serialization and de-serialization [1]. To achieve seamless migration, an application state could be pre-serialized during the program's execution, and upon migration, the serialized data could be transmitted and de-serialized to get the execution started. Previous approach to this problem [1] removed dead state but still suffered from large migration overheads due to serialization on-demand that could lead to an unacceptable downtime.In this work, we develop a static compiler analysis plus runtime assisted framework to decrease the migration overhead to almost zero while minimizing the degradation in the program's performance. We achieve such a goal by deciding which data to be pre-serialized through analysis, and pre-serializing the state in the program. A safe state is kept that would allow immediate migration upon the arrival of an interrupt while minimizing frequent pre-serialization. When the migration interrupt comes in, the serialized data can be transmitted directly to the destination machine. This allows an application to resume its execution at the destination machine with almost no interruption (only a small amount of non-serialized data needs to be serialized during migration). The optimization serializes the data in such a way that a maximal number of functions can execute without interruption after migration. Our experiments with multimedia applications show that the migration latency is significantly reduced leading to a small downtime. Thus, the contribution of the paper is to provide an efficient methodology to perform seamless migration while limiting the overhead.

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

mobile computing
compiler
seamless migration


An efficient algorithm based on the differential quadrature method for solving Navier-Stokes equations In this paper, an approach to improve the application of the differential quadrature method for the solution of NavierStokes equations is presented. In using the conventional differential quadrature method for solving NavierStokes equations, difficulties such as boundary conditions' implementation, generation of an ill conditioned set of linear equations, large memory storage requirement to store data, and matrix coefficients, are usually encountered. Also, the solution of the generated set of equations takes a long running time and needs high computational efforts. An approach based on the point pressurevelocity iteration method, which is a variant of the NewtonRaphson relaxation technique, is presented to overcome these problems without losing accuracy. To verify its performance, four cases of two-dimensional flows in single and staggered double lid-driven cavity and flows past backward facing step and square cylinder, which have been often solved by researchers as benchmark solution, are simulated for different Reynolds numbers. The results are compared with existing solutions in the open literature. Very good agreement with low computational efforts of the approach is shown. It has been concluded that the method can be applied easily and is very time efficient. Copyright (c) 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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

ns equations
lid-driven cavity flow
simple strategy


Optimal transmission schemes for parallel and fading Gaussian broadcast channels with an energy harvesting rechargeable transmitter We consider an energy harvesting transmitter sending messages to two users over parallel and fading Gaussian broadcast channels. Energy required for communication arrives (is harvested) at the transmitter and a finite-capacity battery stores it before being consumed for transmission. Under off-line knowledge of energy arrival and channel fading variations, we obtain the trade-off between the performances of the users by characterizing the maximum departure region in a given interval. We first analyze the transmission with an energy harvesting transmitter over parallel broadcast channels. We show that the optimal total transmit power policy that achieves the boundary of the maximum departure region is the same as the optimal policy for the non-fading broadcast channel, which does not depend on the priorities of the users, and therefore is the same as the optimal policy for the non-fading scalar single-user channel. The optimal total transmit power can be found by a directional water-filling algorithm. The optimal splitting of the power among the parallel channels is performed in each epoch separately. Next, we consider fading broadcast channels and obtain the transmission policies that achieve the boundary of the maximum departure region. The optimal total transmit power allocation policy is found using a specific directional water-filling algorithm for fading broadcast channels. The optimal power allocation depends on the priorities of the users unlike in the case of parallel broadcast channels. Finally, we provide numerical illustrations of the optimal policies and maximum departure regions for both parallel and fading broadcast channels. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

rechargeable wireless networks
finite-capacity battery
off-line scheduling
throughput maximization


Efficient detection in hyperspectral imagery Hyperspectral sensors collect hundreds of narrow and contiguously spaced spectral bands of data. Such sensors provide fully registered high resolution spatial and spectral images that are invaluable in discriminating between man-made objects and natural clutter backgrounds. The price paid for this high resolution data is extremely large data sets, several hundred of Mbytes for a single scene, that make storage and transmission difficult, thus requiring fast onboard processing techniques to reduce the data being transmitted. Attempts to apply traditional maximum likelihood detection techniques for in-flight processing of these massive amounts of hyperspectral data suffer from two limitations: first, they neglect the spatial correlation of the clutter by treating it as spatially white noise; second, their computational cost renders them prohibitive without significant data reduction like by grouping the spectral bands into clusters, with a consequent loss of spectral resolution. This paper presents a maximum likelihood detector that successfully confronts both problems: rather than ignoring the spatial and spectral correlations, our detector exploits them to its advantage; and it is computationally expedient, its complexity increasing only linearly with the number of spectral bands available. Our approach is based on a Gauss-Markov random held (GMRF) modeling of the clutter, which has the advantage of providing a direct parameterization of the inverse of the clutter covariance, the quantity of interest in the test statistic. We discuss in detail two alternative GMRF detectors: one based on a binary hypothesis approach, and the other on a 'single' hypothesis formulation. We analyze extensively with real hyperspectral imagery data (HYDICE and SEBASS) the performance of the detectors, comparing them to a benchmark detector, the RX-algorithm. Our results show that the GMRF 'single' hypothesis detector outperforms significantly in computational cost the RX-algorithm, while delivering noticeable detection performance improvement.

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

gauss-markov random field
hyperspectral sensor imagery
maximum-likelihood detection
'single' hypothesis test


two-way eye contact between humans and robots Eye contact is an effective means of controlling human communication, such as in starting communication. It seems that we can make eye contact if we simply look at each other. However, this alone does not establish eye contact. Both parties also need to be aware of being watched by the other. We propose a method of two-way eye contact for human-robot communication. When a human wants to start communication with a robot, he/she watches the robot. If it finds a human looking at it, the robot turns to him/her, changing its facial expressions to let him/her know its awareness of his/her gaze. When the robot wants to initiate communication with a particular person, it moves its body and face toward him/her and changes its facial expressions to make the person notice its gaze. We show several experimental results to prove the effectiveness of this method. Moreover, we present a robot that can recognize hand gestures after making eye contact with the human to show the usefulness of eye contact as a means of controlling communication.

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

embodied agent
human-robot interface
nonverbal behavior
gesture recognition


program representations for testing wireless sensor network applications Because of the growing complexity of wireless sensor network applications (WSNs), traditional software development tools are being developed that are specifically designed for their special characteristics. However, testing tools have yet to be proposed. One problem in developing testing tools is the need for a program representation that expresses the execution behavior. Due to characteristics of WSN applications that use a concurrent, event-based execution model, a representation is challenging to develop. In this paper, we present novel representations for WSNs applications that express the execution behavior of event and tasks, the major components of a WSN application. Our representations include a task posting graph, an event graph and finally an application graph that expresses the relationships among events and tasks as well as both timing and environmental interrupts. These representations are the first step in developing testing tools for WSN applications. Based on the graphs, traditional and event-based coverage criteria can be evaluated. When combined with individual Control Flow Graphs(CFGs) of events and tasks, the graphs' paths can be used as a criterion for evaluating the completeness of the test cases.

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Equalising stamp and substrate deformations in solid parallel-plate UV-based nanoimprint lithography We deal with solid parallel-plate UV-based nanoimprint lithography (UV-NIL) using rigid quartz stamps and spin coated substrates. Achieving a conformal contact of stamp and substrate in a parallel-plate setup is challenging, since the solid stamp and the substrate usually are not perfectly flat. Finite element simulations and experimental results show that a correctly designed compliant layer underneath the substrate guarantees a conformal contact of stamp and substrate and therefore imprints of a high quality with a homogeneous and thin residual layer down to 10nm can be achieved.

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uv-nil
deformation
finite element simulation


Optimal inventory policies for profit maximizing EOQ models under various cost functions In this paper, we establish and analyze three EOQ based inventory models under profit maximization via geometric programming (GP) techniques. Through GP, we find optimal order quantity and price for each of these models considering production (lot sizing) as well as marketing (pricing) decisions. We also investigate the effects on the changes in the optimal solutions when different parameters are changed. In addition, a comparative analysis between the profit maximization models is conducted. By investigating the error in the optimal price, order quantity, and profit of these models, several interesting economic implications and insights can be observed.

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Augmented state GM-PHD filter with registration errors for multi-target tracking by Doppler radars We build the linear Gaussian dynamics and measurement model of the augmented state. We derive related equations for the augmented state GM-PHD filter with sensor biases. To effectively utilize the Doppler, we propose the sequential processing method. The proposed GM-PHD-R-D is compared with the GM-PHD-R for varying clutter rates.

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augmented state
registration errors
doppler

gaussian mixture probability hypothesis density filter


Restoring Solvability of the Electric Network Equations: An Approach Based on the Augmented Lagrangean Algorithm This paper presents and discusses a new, robust approach for restoring solvability of the electric network equations in power systems. The unsolvable power flow is modelled as a constrained optimization problem. The cost function is the squared sum of the real and reactive power mismatches at the electric system buses which are subject to suffer load shedding. The equality constraints are the real and reactive power mismatches at null injection buses and/or at buses whose power demands must be integrality supplied due to technical and/or economical criteria. The mathematical model is solved using an algorithm based on Augmented Lagrangean function method which takes into account the special structure of the proposed problem. The inner iterations of the proposed methodology are solved using the Levenberg-Marquardt (LM) algorithm. Numerical results for both IEEE test systems and a real equivalent electric system corresponding to Brazil South-Southeast region are presented in order to analyze and test the performance of the proposed methodology.

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

augmented lagrangean method
levenberg-marquardt algorithm


Combination of independent component analysis and support vector machines for intelligent faults diagnosis of induction motors This paper studies the application of independent component analysis (ICA) and support vector machines (SVMs) to detect and diagnose of induction motor faults. The ICA is used for feature extraction and data reduction from original features. The principal components analysis is also applied in feature extraction process for comparison with ICA does. In this paper, the training of the SVMs is carried out using the sequential minimal optimization algorithm and the strategy of multi-class SVMs-based classification is applied to perform the faults identification. Also, the performance of classification process due to the choice of kernel function is presented to show the excellent of characteristic of kernel function. Various scenarios are examined using data sets of vibration and stator current signals from experiments, and the results are compared to get the best performance of classification process.

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

independent component analysis
support vector machines
feature extraction
induction motor

fault diagnosis
principal component analysis
vibration signal
current signal