a framework for diagnosing changes in evolving data streams In recent years, the progress in hardware technology has made it possible for organizations to store and record large streams of transactional data. This results in databases which grow without limit at a rapid rate. This data can often show important changes in trends over time. In such cases, it is useful to understand, visualize and diagnose the evolution of these trends. When the data streams are fast and continuous, it becomes important to analyze and predict the trends quickly in online fashion. In this paper, we discuss the concept of velocity density estimation, a technique used to understand, visualize and determine trends in the evolution of fast data streams. We show how to use velocity density estimation in order to create both temporal velocity profiles and spatial velocity profiles at periodic instants in time. These profiles are then used in order to predict three kinds of data evolution: dissolution, coagulation and shift. Methods are proposed to visualize the changing data trends in a single online scan of the data stream, and a computational requirement which is linear in the number of data points. In addition, batch processing techniques are proposed in order to identify combinations of dimensions which show the greatest amount of global evolution. The techniques discussed in this paper can be easily extended to spatio-temporal data, changes in data snapshots at fixed instances in time, or any other data which has a temporal component during its evolution.

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

framework order use evolution concept temporal paper scan online predict component spatial data hardware profiles global

requirements
point
estimates
data streaming
computation
timing
change
records
organization
visualization
method
technologies
process
snapshot
transaction
continuation
database


Algorithms for minimum-cost paths in time-dependent networks with waiting policies We study the problem of computing minimum-cost paths through a time-varying network, in which the travel time and travel cost of each arc are known functions of one's departure time along the arc. For some problem instances, the ability to wait at nodes may allow for less costly paths through the network. When waiting is allowed, it is constrained by a (potentially time-varying) waiting policy that describes the length of time one may wait and the cost of waiting at every node. In discrete time, time-dependent shortest path problems with waiting constraints can be optimally solved by straightforward dynamic programming algorithms; however, for some waiting policies these algorithms can be computationally impractical. In this article, we survey several broad classes of waiting policies and show how techniques for speeding up dynamic programming can be effectively applied to obtain practical algorithms for these different problem variants. (C) 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

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

shortest paths
time-dependent networks
time-varying networks


A survey on game theory applications in wireless networks While the Quality of Service (QoS) offered to users may be enhanced through innovative protocols and new technologies, future trends should take into account the efficiency of resource allocation and network/terminal cooperation as well. Game theory techniques have widely been applied to various engineering design problems in which the action of one component has impact on (and perhaps conflicts with) that of any other component. Therefore, game formulations are used, and a stable solution for the players is obtained through the concept of equilibrium. This survey collects applications of game theory in wireless networking and presents them in a layered perspective, emphasizing on which fields game theory could be effectively applied. To this end, several games are modeled and their key features are exposed.

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

wireless networks
game theory
resource allocation

payoff
coalition
nash equilibrium
power control
call admission control
routing
cooperation incentives


An improved scheme of an interactive finite element model for 3D soft-tissue cutting and deformation As a safe and feasible alternative to enriching and enhancing traditional surgical training, virtual-reality-based surgical simulators have been investigated for a long time. But it is still a challenge for researchers to accurately depict the behavior of human tissue without losing the flexibility of simulation. In this paper, we propose an improved scheme of an interactive finite element model for simulating the surgical process of organ deformation, cutting, dragging, and poking, which can maximally compromise the flexibility and reality of soft-tissue models. The scheme is based on our hybrid condensed finite element model for surgical simulation, which consists of the operational region and nonoperational region. Different optimizing methods applied to these regions make a contribution to the speedup of the calculation. Considering in a real surgical operation, dragging or poking operations are also necessary for surgeons to examine surrounding tissues of the pathological focus. The calculation within the area newly applied with forces in the nonoperational region is handled in our new scheme. The algorithm is modified accordingly in order to cope with this aspect. The design and implementation of the approach are presented. Finally, we provide two models to test our scheme. The results are analyzed and discussed to show the efficiency of our scheme.

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 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 B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 model
surgical simulation

condensation
graphics processing unit
soft-tissue deformation


A Survey of Techniques for Achieving Metadata Interoperability Achieving uniform access to media objects in heterogeneous media repositories requires dealing with the problem of metadata interoperability. Currently there exist many interoperability techniques, with quite varying potential for resolving the structural and semantic heterogeneities that can exist between metadata stored in distinct repositories. Besides giving a general overview of the field of metadata interoperability, we provide a categorization of existing interoperability techniques, describe their characteristics, and compare their quality by analyzing their potential for resolving various types of heterogeneities. Based on our work, domain experts and technicians get an overview and categorization of existing metadata interoperability techniques and can select the appropriate approach for their specific metadata integration scenarios. Our analysis explicitly shows that metadata mapping is the appropriate technique in integration scenarios where an agreement on a certain metadata standard is not possible.

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

design
management
standardization
metadata standards


Global exponential stability of impulsive delayed reactiondiffusion neural networks via HardyPoincar inequality This work addresses the stability of impulsive cellular neural networks with time-varying delays and reactiondiffusion terms. By means of HardyPoincar inequality and GronwallBellman-type impulsive integral inequality, we summarize, under mild conditions, some new and concise algebraic criteria ensuring the global exponential stability of the equilibrium point. The provided stability criteria are true to Dirichlet boundary condition and concerned with the reactiondiffusion coefficients, the regional feature and the first eigenvalue of the Dirichlet Laplacian. Two examples are finally illustrated to demonstrate the effectiveness of our obtained results.

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

global exponential stability
reactiondiffusion
integral inequality
hardypoincar inequality


On the distributivity between t-norms and t-conorms The main result presented here concerns the distributivity between triangular norms and conorms understood in an extended meaning, that is, maps defined on an interval [a,b] instead of the classical interval [0,1]. As a secondary result, the bidistributivity has been used to characterize the union and the intersection of fuzzy sets by means of algebraic conditions. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

fuzzy measure
decomposability
triangular norm
triangular conorm
uninorms


A cluster expansion model for predicting activation barrier of atomic processes We introduce a procedure based on cluster expansion models for predicting the activation barrier of atomic processes encountered while studying the dynamics of a material system using the kinetic Monte Carlo (KMC) method. Starting with an interatomic potential description, a mathematical derivation is presented to show that the local environment dependence of the activation barrier can be captured using cluster interaction models. Next, we develop a systematic procedure for training the cluster interaction model on-the-fly, which involves: (i) obtaining activation barriers for handful local environments using nudged elastic band (NEB) calculations, (ii) identifying the local environment by analyzing the NEB results, and (iii) estimating the cluster interaction model parameters from the activation barrier data. Once a cluster expansion model has been trained, it is used to predict activation barriers without requiring any additional NEB calculations. Numerical studies are performed to validate the cluster expansion model by studying hop processes in Ag/Ag(100). We show that the use of cluster expansion model with KMC enables efficient generation of an accurate process rate catalog.

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

cluster expansions
activation energies
diffusion


Learning in the feed-forward random neural network: A critical review The Random Neural Network (RNN) has received, since its inception in 1989, considerable attention and has been successfully used in a number of applications. In this critical review paper we focus on the feed-forward RNN model and its ability to solve classification problems. In particular, we paid special attention to the RNN literature related with learning algorithms that discover the RNN interconnection weights, suggested other potential algorithms that can be used to find the RNN interconnection weights, and compared the RNN model with other neural-network based and non-neural network based classifier models. In review, the extensive literature review and experimentation with the RNN feed-forward model provided us with the necessary guidance to introduce six critical review comments that identify some gaps in the RNNs related literature and suggest directions for future research.

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

gradient descent
multi-layer perceptron
error functions
evolutionary neural networks
art
svm
cart
multi-objective optimization


Open- vs. Restricted-Domain QA Systems in the Biomedical Field Question answering systems (QA systems) stand as a new alternative for information retrieval systems. We conducted a study to evaluate the efficiency of QA systems as terminological sources for physicians, specialized translators and users in general. To this end we analysed the performance of two open-domain and two restricted-domain QA systems. The research entailed a collection of 150 definitional questions from WebMed. We studied the sources that QA systems used to retrieve the answers, and later applied a range of evaluation measures to mark the quality of answers. Through analysing the results obtained by asking the 150 questions in the QA systems MedQA, START, QuALiM and HONqa, it was possible to evaluate the systems' operation through applying specific metrics (MRR, FHS, TRR, Precision, Recall). Despite the limitations demonstrated by these systems, it has been confirmed that these four QA systems are valid and useful for obtaining definitional medical information in that they offer coherent and precise answers.

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 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

restricted-domain question answering systems


Supply chain structure in a market with deceptive counterfeits Deceptive counterfeits lower the price and the sales of authentic products. The general retailer will carry counterfeits as long as the quality is high enough. A company can change its channel structure to mitigate the risk of counterfeits. It may be optimal to sell through the general channel along with a certified one.

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

supply chain management
deceptive counterfeit


Scheduling with bus access optimization for distributed embedded systems In this paper, we concentrate on aspects related to the synthesis of distributed embedded systems consisting of programmable processors and application-specific hardware components. The approach is based on an abstract graph representation that captures, at process level, both dataflow and the flow of control, Our goal is to derive a worst case delay by which the system completes execution, such that this delay is as small as possible; to generate a logically and temporally deterministic schedule; and to optimize parameters of the communication protocol such that this delay is guaranteed. We have further investigated the impact of particular communication infrastructures and protocols on the overall performance and, specially, how the requirements of such an infrastructure have to be considered for process and communication scheduling. Not only do particularities of the underlying architecture have to be considered during scheduling but also the parameters of the communication protocol should be adapted to fit the particular embedded application, The optimization algorithm, which implies both process scheduling and optimization of the parameters related to the communication protocol, generates an efficient bus access scheme as well as the schedule tables for activation of processes and communications.

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

distributed embedded systems
process scheduling

communication synthesis
real-time systems
system synthesis
time-triggered protocol


Selecting sub-set autoregressions from outlier contaminated data The presence of outliers can have a profound effect on model selection, parameter estimation and prediction for a wide range of models. We consider the problem of identifying the lag structure of a sub-set autoregression from data contaminated by additive outliers. We assume that the latter are generated by non-systematic changes to the system under study. We focus on backward selection algorithms, and describe a number of new procedures based on data cleaning (the process of replacing outliers by more moderate values) and robust model selection criteria. We evaluate our suggestions in a numerical experiment which shows that they give significant insurance against outliers. This is in stark contrast to conventional techniques which experience catastrophic reductions in performance in outlier contaminated data. While no robust procedure gave the best performance for all models, we note that techniques based on cleaning out performed criterion-based techniques in outlier contaminated data. However, all robust procedures generally experience reductions in performance in outlier free data. Crown Copyright (C) 2001 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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

backward selection
data cleaning
model selection
robust procedures


id-eCK Secure ID-Based Authenticated Key Exchange on Symmetric and Asymmetric Pairing In this paper, we propose an identity-based authenticated key exchange (ID-AKE) protocol that is secure in the identity-based extended Canetti-Krawczyk (id-eCK) model in the random oracle model under the gap Bilinear Diffie-Hellman assumption. The proposed ID-AKE protocol is the most efficient among the existing ID-AKE protocols that is id-eCK secure, and it can be extended to use in asymmetric pairing.

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

identity-based extended canetti-krawczyk model


Using local density information to improve IB algorithms The Information Bottleneck principle provides a systematic method to extract relevant features from complex data sets, and it models features extraction as data compression and quantifies the relevance of extracted feature by how much information it preserved about a specified feature. How to construct an optimal solution to IB remains a problem. The current Information Bottleneck (IB) algorithms only utilize the information between element pairs, and ignore the information among the neighborhood of elements. This is one of the major reasons for most IB algorithms failure to preserve as much relative information as possible, which further limits IB applicability in many areas. In this paper, we present the concept of density connectivity component, by which the information loss among the neighbors of an element, rather than the information loss between paired elements, can be considered. Then, we introduce this concept into the current agglomerative IB algorithm (aIB) and sequential IB algorithm (sIB), and propose two density-based IB algorithms, DaIB and DsIB. The experiment results on the benchmark data sets indicate that the DaIB and DsIB algorithm can preserve more relevant information and achieve higher precision than the aIB and sIB algorithm, respectively.

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

neighborhood information
hierarchical tree-structure


Information extraction from calls for papers with conditional random fields and layout features For members of the research community it is vital to stay informed about conferences, workshops, and other research meetings relevant to their field. These events are typically announced in calls for papers (CFPs) that are distributed via mailing lists. We employ Conditional Random Fields for the task of extracting key information such as conference names, titles, dates, locations and submission deadlines from CFPs. Extracting this information from CFPs automatically has applications in building automated conference calendars and search engines for CFPs. We combine a variety of features, including generic token classes, domain-specific dictionaries and layout features. Layout features prove particularly useful in the absence of grammatical structure, improving average F1 by 30% in our experiments.

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

information extraction
layout features
conditional random fields


collaborative beamforming and dirty paper coding assisted transmission strategy for e-health wireless sensor networks Very recently, the advancements of these years in the realms of sensors, wireless communications, and pervasive computing have been proposed to facilitate the health-care service and/or disaster relief. As essential components of these tele-medical systems, the wireless sensor networks for medical purpose become a growing sub-field in the Wireless and Pervasive Communications, aiming to provide both reliable signal propagation and low network latency for physiological information. However, a substantial number of existing systems reveal that the two merits typically contradict each other, which calls for a reasonable tradeoff between them. In this paper, we propose a novel transmission strategy that allows retransmissions while still maintaining low latency for E-health wireless sensor networks. The newly developed strategy incorporates the techniques of collaborative beamforming (CB) and dirty paper (DP) coding, which simultaneously facilitate a successive information flow and allow timely retransmission of unsuccessfully decoded message. As will be shown in this paper, the two aspects of requirements on E-health sensor networks, i.e. high reliability and low latency, come to a reasonably desirable tradeoff in our CB-DP scheme. Then, we derive an explicit expression of outage probability of this scheme as a function of wireless channel characteristics, the number of participating sensor nodes, transmission power and retransmission power budget. Finally, some numerical results demonstrating the effectiveness of this transmission strategy are also provided.

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

dirty paper coding
collaborative beamforming


A probabilistic feature-based parsing model for head-final languages In this paper, we propose a probabilistic feature-based parsing model for head-final languages, which can lead to an improvement of syntactic disambiguation while reducing the parsing cost related to lexical information. For effective syntactic disambiguation, the proposed parsing model utilizes several useful features such as a syntactic label feature, a content feature, a functional feature, and a size feature. Moreover, it is designed to be suitable for representing word order variation of non-head words in head-final languages. Experimental results show that the proposed parsing model performs better than previous lexicalized parsing models, although it has much less dependence on lexical information.

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

natural language processing
probabilistic parsing models


Web 2.0 applications in government web sites Prevalence, use and correlations with perceived web site quality Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent to which Web 2.0 applications are prevalent in government web sites, the ways in which Web 2.0 applications have been used in government web sites, as well as whether the presence of Web 2.0 applications correlates with the perceived quality of government web sites. Design/methodology/approach - Divided equally between developing and advanced economies, a total of 200 government web sites were analysed using content analysis and multiple regression analysis. Findings - The prevalence of seven Web 2.0 applications in descending order was: RSS, multimedia sharing services, blogs, forums, social tagging services, social networking services and wikis. More web sites in advanced countries include Web 2.0 applications than those in developing countries. The presence of Web 2.0 applications was found to have a correlation with the overall web site quality, and in particular, service quality. Research limitations/implications - This paper only covers government web sites in English. Emerging genres of Web 2.0 applications such as mashups and virtual worlds have not been included. Moreover the data were drawn solely from the public domain. Practical implications - Decision makers and e-government web developers may benchmark their own efforts in deploying Web 2.0 applications against this study. The numerous exemplars cited here serve as a springboard to generate more ideas on how Web 2.0 applications could be used and harnessed to improve the overall quality of government web sites. Originality/value - This paper unites two research interests: Web 2.0 and web site quality. It also extends previous studies by investigating the suite of Web 2.0 applications found in government web sites around the world.

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


Performance evaluation of a remote memory system with commodity hardware for large-memory data processing The explosion of data and transactions demands a creative approach for data processing in a variety of applications. Research on remote memory systems (RMSs), so as to exploit the superior characteristics of dynamic random access memory (DRAM), has been performed for many decades, and today's information explosion galvanizes researchers into shedding new light on the technology. Prior studies have mainly focused on architectural suggestions for such systems, highlighting different design rationale. These studies have shown that choosing the appropriate applications to run on an RMS is important in fully utilizing the advantages of remote memory. This article provides an extensive performance evaluation for various types of data processing applications so as to address the efficacy of an RMS by means of a prototype RMS with reliability functionality. The prototype RMS used is a practical kernel-level RMS that renders large memory data processing feasible. The abstract concept of remote memory was materialized by borrowing unused local memory in commodity PCs via a high speed network capable of Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) operations. The prototype RMS uses remote memory without any part of its computation power coming from remote computers. Our experimental results suggest that an RMS can be practical in supporting the rigorous demands of commercial in memory database systems that have high data access locality. Our evaluation also convinces us of the possibility that a reliable RMS can satisfy both the high degree of reliability and efficiency for large memory data processing applications whose data access pattern has high locality.

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

remote memory system
large memory data processing


Elevator-Assisted Sensor Data Collection for Structural Health Monitoring Sensor networks nowadays are widely used for structural health monitoring; for example, the sensor monitoring system deployed on the Guangzhou New TV Tower, China. While wired systems still dominate, it is commonly believed that wireless sensors will play a key role in the near future. One key difficulty for such systems is the data transmission from the sensor nodes to the base station. Given the long span of the civil structures, neither a strategy of long-range one-hop data transmission nor short-range hop-by-hop communication is cost-efficient. In this paper, we propose a novel scheme of using the elevators to assist data collection. A base station is attached to an elevator. A representative node on each floor collects and transmits the data to the base station using short range communication when the elevator stops at or passes by this floor. As such, communication distance can be minimized. To validate the feasibility of the idea, we first conduct an experiment in an elevator of the Guangzhou New TV Tower. We observe steady transmission when elevator is in movement. To maximize the gain, we formulate the problem as an optimization problem where the data traffic should be transmitted on time and the lifetime of the sensors should be maximized. We show that if we know the movement pattern of the elevator in advance, this problem can be solved optimally. We then study the online version of the problem and show that no online algorithm has a constant competitive ratio against the offline algorithm. We show that knowledge of the future elevator movement will intrinsically improve the data collection performance. We discuss how the information could be collected and develop online algorithms based on different level of knowledge of the elevator movement patterns. Theoretically, given that the links capacity assumptions we made, we can prove that our online algorithm can guarantee data delivery on time. In practice, we may set a buffer zone to minimize the possible data delivery violation. A comprehensive set of simulations and MicaZ testbed experiments have demonstrated that our algorithm substantially outperforms conventional multihop routing and naive waiting for elevator scheme. The performance of our online algorithm is close to the optimal offline solution.

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


Large-signal device simulation in time- and frequency-domain: a comparison Purpose - The aim of this paper is to compare the most common time- and frequency-domain numerical techniques for the determination of the steady-state solution in the physics-based simulation of a semiconductor device driven by a time-periodic generator. Design/methodology/approach - The shooting and harmonic balance (FIB) techniques are applied to the solution of the discretized drift-diffusion device model coupled to the external circuit embedding the semiconductor device, thus providing a fully nonlinear mixed mode simulation. Findings - The comparison highlights the strong and weak points of the two approaches, basically showing that the time-domain solution is more robust with respect to the initial condition, while the HB solution provides a more rapid convergence once the initial datum is close enough to the solution itself Originality/value - The contribution compares two numerical techniques for the determination of the steady-state solution of nonlinear dynamical systems, popular in the area of RF circuit analysis but rarely applied to device simulation. In particular, this is the first application of the shooting method to forced devices.

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

semiconductors
modelling
microwave transistors


Combining fuzzy AHP with MDS in identifying the preference similarity of alternatives Multidimensional scaling (MDS) analysis is a dimension-reduction technique that is used to estimate the coordinates of a set of objects. However, not every criterion used in multidimensional scaling is equally and precisely weighted in the real world. To address this issue, we use fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP) to determine the weighting of subjective/perceptive judgments for each criterion and to derive fuzzy synthetic utility values of alternatives in a fuzzy multi-criteria decision-making (FMCDM) environment. Furthermore, we combine FAHP with MDS to identify the similarities and preferences of alternatives in terms of the axes of the space, which represent the perceived attributes and characteristics of those alternatives. By doing so, the visual dimensionality and configuration or pattern of alternatives whose weighted distance structure best fits the input data can be obtained and explained easily. A real case of expatriate assignment decision-making was used to demonstrate that the combination of FAHP and MDS results in a meaningful visual map.

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

fuzzy multi-criteria decision-making (fmcdm)


daily demand forecasting of new products utilizing diffusion models and genetic algorithms New high technology consumer products are released frequently. The manufacturers have to avoid dead stock because the value of the products drops sharply after the launch of new products. Thus, the importance of daily demand forecasting is increasing. In this paper, we propose a daily demand forecasting method for new products. The method uses diffusion models to forecast demand. A Genetic Algorithm (GA) is used to estimate the parameters of the model. In order to apply the diffusion model to daily demand forecast, we introduce time-variant parameters, which depend on the day of the week. The proposed method is applied to the daily demand forecasting of high technology consumer products. The result shows that the proposed method has an excellent daily demand forecasting ability.

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

genetic algorithm
diffusion model
demand forecast


Fehlerschutzmanahme Nullung im Licht zunehmender dezentraler Energieerzeugung: Grenzen und Lsungsanstze Nach einem berblick ber Schutzziel und -konzept der Nullung wird auf die Einstufung des Fehlerstromes als einpoliger Kurzschlussstrom im Sinn der VE/NORM EN 60909-0 und deren Konsequenzen hingewiesen, weiters werden die Methoden fr den Nachweis ber die Einhaltung der zulssigen Ausschaltzeit verglichen, Grenzen der traditionellen Ausfhrungsart der Fehlerschutzmanahme Nullung in Netzstrukturen mit berwiegend Wechselrichter-basierten DEAs (dezentralen Energieerzeugungsanlagen, z. B. Inselnetzen) aufgezeigt, Hinweise fr die experimentelle Analyse der Schleifenimpedanz gegeben sowie grundstzliche Anstze zur Fehlererkennung skizziert.

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

dezentrale energieerzeugung
inselnetz
wechselrichter-basierte dea
dispersed generation
island grid
fault protection measure tn-system
inverter-based der


Soft nexuses In this paper, we define soft nexuses over a nexus N N . After that we define the notions cyclic soft nexus, prime and maximal soft subnexuses and we obtain some results about the above definitions. Finally, we define the integer number induced by soft nexus (?,A) ( ? , A ) and denoted by |(?,A)| | ( ? , A ) | and show that for any n?? n ? ? , there exists soft nexus (?,A) ( ? , A ) , such that |(?,A)|=n | ( ? , A ) | = n .

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


On the expressibility of priority This short note offers results confirming that the priority operator of Baeten, Bergstra and Klop cannot be expressed using positive rule formats for operational semantics. Although expected, this inexpressibility result does not seem to have appeared before in the literature. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

expressiveness
structural operational semantics
concurrency
formal semantics


Ferromagnetic ordering of n-type (Ga,Mn)N epitaxial films The magnetic and magnetotransport properties of epitaxial (Ga1?xMnx)N films with low Mn concentration (x=0.060.5%) grown by plasma-enhanced molecular beam epitaxy have been investigated. Ferromagnetic ordering for the GaMnN is clearly seen in the temperature range 4300 K. The MT curves were fitted with theoretical equations based on the mean field theory in order to estimate Curie temperature (Tc), providing Tc?550 K and Tc?700 K, respectively, for the (Ga,Mn)N films with x=0.16% and x=0.50%. Temperature dependence of sheet resistance is found to show negative magnetoresistance in the temperature range 4300 K, indicative of ferromagnetic semiconducting (Ga,Mn)N films.

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

wide bandgap ferromagnetic semiconductor


verifying linearizability with hindsight We present a proof of safety and linearizability of a highly-concurrent optimistic set algorithm. The key step in our proof is the Hindsight Lemma, which allows a thread to infer the existence of a global state in which its operation can be linearized based on limited local atomic observations about the shared state. The Hindsight Lemma allows us to avoid one of the most complex and non-intuitive steps in reasoning about highly concurrent algorithms: considering the linearization point of an operation to be in a different thread than the one executing it. The Hindsight Lemma assumes that the algorithm maintains certain simple invariants which are resilient to interference, and which can themselves be verified using purely thread-local proofs. As a consequence, the lemma allows us to unlock a perhaps-surprising intuition: a high degree of interference makes non-trivial highly-concurrent algorithms in some cases much easier to verify than less concurrent ones.

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


Development and function of interleukin 17producing ?? T cells Interleukin (IL) 17 is a phylogenetically ancient cytokine that has been adopted by the adaptive immune system, and the investigation of adaptive T helper (Th) 17 cells has substantially contributed to our understanding of the molecular requirements for the induction, regulation, and function of IL-17. However, IL-17 is in fact produced by a large variety of innate immune cells and exerts its most significant biological functions at the interface of the organism with its environment, such as, for example, at epithelial surfaces, where ?? T cells are a prominent source of IL-17. In this review, we will give an overview on the concepts of commitment of ?? T cells to effector phenotypes, focusing on IL-17producing ?? T cells (??T17 cells). The role of ??T17 cells in animal models of autoimmunity will be discussed as well as the prerequisites for the development of human ??T17 cells and their potential importance for human disease conditions.

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


Logic and Memory Design Based on Unequal Error Protection for Voltage-scalable, Robust and Adaptive DSP Systems In this paper, we propose a system level design approach considering voltage over-scaling (VOS) that achieves error resiliency using unequal error protection of different computation elements, while incurring minor quality degradation. Depending on user specifications and severity of process variations/channel noise, the degree of VOS in each block of the system is adaptively tuned to ensure minimum system power while providing just-the-right amount of quality and robustness. This is achieved, by taking into consideration block level interactions and ensuring that under any change of operating conditions, only the less- crucial computations, that contribute less to block/system output quality, are affected. The proposed approach applies unequal error protection to various blocks of a systemlogic and memoryand spans multiple layers of design hierarchyalgorithm, architecture and circuit. The design methodology when applied to a multimedia sub-system shows large power benefits (up to 69% improvement in power consumption) at reasonable image quality while tolerating errors introduced due to VOS, process variations, and channel noise.

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

low power
variation aware design
supply voltage scaling


Data Structures in the Design of Interfaces Computer science algorithms can be used to improve user interfaces. Using data structures as a source of design ideas, a new interface was constructed for a cellular telephone handset. Once implemented, a user experiment was conducted which showed that predicted improvements in usability were confirmed with real users doing realistic tasks.

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

cellular handset interaction
menu design


Determining simplicity and computing topological change in strongly normal partial tilings of R-2 or R-3 A convex polygon in R-2, or a convex polyhedron in R-3, Will be called a tile. A connected set P of tiles is called a partial tiling if the intersection of any two of the tiles is either empty, or is a vertex or edge (in R-3: or face) of both. P is called strongly normal (SN) if, for any partial tiling P subset of or equal to P and any tile P is an element of P, the neighborhood N(P, P) of P (the union of the tiles of P' that intersect P) is simply connected. Let P be SN, and let N*(P, P) be the excluded neighborhood of P in P (i.e., the union of the tiles of P, other than P itself, that intersect P). We call P simple in P if N(P, P) and N*(P, P) are topologically equivalent. This paper presents methods of determining, for an SN partial tiling P, whether a tile P is an element of P' is simple, and if not, of counting the numbers of components and holes tin R3: components, tunnels and cavities) in N*(P, P). (C) 1999 Pattern Recognition Society. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

simple tile
simply connected neighborhood
strong normality


A 2D non-linear "grey-box" model dedicated to microwave thawing: Theoretical and experimental investigation A grey-box model, based on a priori knowledge about heat transfer with phase change and on microwave effects approached by a continuous function, is proposed to simulate the thawing of food in a microwave guide in fundamental TE1,0 mode. The partial differential equation describing heat transfer with phase change is reduced into a lumped parameters system using a 2D finite volumes scheme. The heating due to the microwaves is considered in the heat equation as the spatial variation of the microwave power flux. Flux variation is approached by a continuous function of temperature and of the wave power, whose coefficients are estimated via reverse techniques. Finally, the model is validated during the thawing of a block of tylose filling the section of the wave guide. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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


The distribution of the number of arrivals in a subinterval of a busy period of a single server queue (vol 53, pg 105, 2006) The purpose of this corrigendum is two-fold. First, we acknowledge that two results in our paper (Novak et al. in Queueing Syst. 53:105-114, 2006) can be obtained from earlier results of Prabhu and Bhat. Second, we make corrections to Theorem 2.2, Corollary 2.1 and Theorem 4.2 of Novak et al. (Queueing Syst. 53:105-114, 2006).

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


A changing society and problems of method: a politically committed research type This essay examines a politically engaged research genre, which follows the biography of the author who founded two journals: one on mathematical models published in English (Quality and Quantity) and one on politically committed social and economic research published in Italian (Inchiesta). The research considered focuses on Italy in the 1950s, the research by Lazarsfeld in Vienna in the 1920s and in the United States in the 1950s and 1960s, and post-1968 politically committed research in Italy. The analysis of such politically committed types of research (all very different from one another in terms of the interpretative model of reality, the methods used and the relations with the tendering party and the people observed) allows one to understand how this kind of research can be performed with very different methodsall of which do, however, seek to modify reality on the grounds of the research results. The metaphor of the crystal and the flame presented by Italo Calvino in order to classify facts and ideas and styles and feelings can also be used to visualise the polarity (and the difficulty/impossibility of contact) that has always been present in sociology between two different tendencies: towards a discipline that offers the most abstract and objective interpretative model of reality possible with the use of mathematical models (the crystal), and, instead, towards a discipline in which an interpretative model of reality is central, one that produces a social change and in which the qualitative and quantitative methods utilised are at the service of this change (the flame). This polarity thus allows us to separate first and foremost all the politically committed research performed by others for different purposes (market research, research to verify some theoretical hypotheses, etc.) but the same polarity also lies within the politically committed research. We can, indeed, identify a type of politically committed research in an area that has, at one extreme, research tending towards the utmost objectivity and scientific quality of the results and where the co-ordinators try to have all the information on the subjects maintaining the greatest possible distance (the subjects must not know they are being observed); at the other extreme, there is a type of research in which the coordinator completely involves the subjects in the gathering of information that will serve to realise a piece of research whose political aims are explicitly shared. For the identification of a sufficiently articulated typology it has been important to consider five dimensions of politically committed research: (a) the characteristics of the research coordinator (his/her belonging to the type and the academic/non-academic professional status) and his/her interpretative model of reality (b) some general characteristics of the research (the tender and funding, the topic choice, the aims, the contributions to the sociological theory, the duration); (c) the research coordinators relations with the political actors (the intensity of the relations, the political use of the research); (d) the relations of the research co-ordinator with the research subjects; (e) the methodological choices (the basic strategies, the methods used, the use of mathematical procedures). The research that exemplifies this typology is all politically committed to the left and was realised in different times and contexts. I start by considering a kind of politically engaged research (co-research) that appeared in Italy in the 1950s; I then analyse two types of politically engaged research realised in Austria at the end of the 1920s and one in the United States in the 1950s; there then follow two kinds of research realised in the 1960s and 1970s in the United States and a further two kinds realised in Italy in the 1970s and early 1980s. In order to have other kinds of research please refer to the two Journals of which I am the editor: one is an English language journal of mathematical models (Quality and Quantity, International Journal of Methodology, founded in 1966 and published today by Kluwer of Amsterdam), and a politically engaged review (Inchiesta, founded in 1971 and still published today by Dedalo of Bari).

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

gender
radical sociology
trade unions research


Boundary conditions at the interface between fluid layer and fibrous medium The flow through a channel partially filled with fibrous porous medium was analyzed to investigate the interfacial boundary conditions. The fibrous medium was modeled as a periodic array of circular cylinders, in a hexagonal arrangement, using the boundary element method. The area and volume average methods were applied to relate the pore scale to the representative elementary Volume scale. The permeability of the modeled fibrous medium was calculated from the Darcy's law with the volume-averaged Darcy velocity. The slip coefficient, interfacial velocity, effective viscosity and shear jump coefficients at the interface were obtained with the averaged velocities at various permeabilities or Darcy numbers. Copyright (c) 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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 B I 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

fibrous porous medium
slip coefficient
effective viscosity
shear jump


On the difficulty of approximately maximizing agreements ? We address the computational complexity of learning in the agnostic framework. For a variety of common concept classes we prove that, unless P=NP, there is no polynomial time approximation scheme for finding a member in the class that approximately maximizes the agreement with a given training sample. In particular our results apply to the classes of monomials, axis-aligned hyper-rectangles, closed balls and monotone monomials. For each of these classes, we prove the NP-hardness of approximating maximal agreement to within some fixed constant (independent of the sample size and of the dimensionality of the sample space). For the class of half-spaces, we prove that, for any ?>0, it is NP-hard to approximately maximize agreements to within a factor of (418/415??), improving on the best previously known constant for this problem, and using a simpler proof. An interesting feature of our proofs is that, for each of the classes we discuss, we find patterns of training examples that, while being hard for approximating agreement within that concept class, allow efficient agreement maximization within other concept classes. These results bring up a new aspect of the model selection problemthey imply that the choice of hypothesis class for agnostic learning from among those considered in this paper can drastically effect the computational complexity of the learning process.

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

machine learning
computational learning theory
neural networks
inapproximability
hardness
half-spaces
axis-aligned hyper-rectangles


Multilabel predictions with sets of probabilities: The Hamming and ranking loss cases We consider the problem of multilabel prediction with probability sets. We show that efficient approximations can be obtained for the Hamming loss. We show that efficient approximations can be obtained for the ranking loss. We perform first experiments confirming the expected behaviour of the approximations.

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


Of bits and wows: A Bayesian theory of surprise with applications to attention The amount of information contained in a piece of data can be measured by the effect this data has on its observer. Fundamentally, this effect is to transform the observers prior beliefs into posterior beliefs, according to Bayes theorem. Thus the amount of information can be measured in a natural way by the distance (relative entropy) between the prior and posterior distributions of the observer over the available space of hypotheses. This facet of information, termed surprise, is important in dynamic situations where beliefs change, in particular during learning and adaptation. Surprise can often be computed analytically, for instance in the case of distributions from the exponential family, or it can be numerically approximated. During sequential Bayesian learning, surprise decreases as the inverse of the number of training examples. Theoretical properties of surprise are discussed, in particular how it differs and complements Shannons definition of information. A computer vision neural network architecture is then presented capable of computing surprise over images and video stimuli. Hypothesizing that surprising data ought to attract natural or artificial attention systems, the output of this architecture is used in a psychophysical experiment to analyze human eye movements in the presence of natural video stimuli. Surprise is found to yield robust performance at predicting human gaze (ROC-like ordinal dominance score ?0.7 compared to ?0.8 for human inter-observer repeatability, ?0.6 for simpler intensity contrast-based predictor, and 0.5 for chance). The resulting theory of surprise is applicable across different spatio-temporal scales, modalities, and levels of abstraction.

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

information
surprise
relative entropy
attention
eye movements


An integrated method of adaptive enhancement for unsupervised segmentation of MRI brain images This paper presents an integrated method of the adaptive enhancement for an unsupervised global-to-local segmentation of brain tissues in three-dimensional (3-D) MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) images. Three brain tissues are of interest: CSF (CerebroSpinal Fluid), GM (Gray Matter), WM (White Matter). Firstly, we de-noise the images using a newly proposed versatile wavelet-based filter, and segment the images with minimum error global thresholding. Subsequently, we combine a spatial-feature-based FCM (Fuzzy C-Means) clustering with 3-D clustering-result-weighted median and average filters, so as to further achieve a locally adaptive enhancement and segmentation. This integrated strategy yields a robust and accurate segmentation, particularly in noisy images. The performance of the proposed method is validated by four indices on MRI brain phantom images and on real MRI images. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

adaptive enhancement
unsupervised segmentation
brain tissues
mri


AppTCP: The design and evaluation of application-based TCP for e-VLBI in fast long distance networks We introduce the Closed-Loop Control theory into the TCP congestion control. The Closed-Loop Control theory is adopted to keep the constant transmission rate. Tackling the problem of e-VLBI data transmissions in fast long distance networks. The realistic national and international networks are used for validation.

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

bulk data transmission
high speed network
e-vlbi


study of different interactive editing operations in an assisted transcription system To date, automatic handwriting recognition systems are far from being perfect. Therefore, once the full recognition process of a handwritten text image has finished, heavy human intervention is required in order to correct the results of such systems. As an alternative, an interactive system has been proposed in previous works. This alternative follows an Interactive Predictive paradigm and the results show that significant amounts of human effort can be saved. So far only word substitutions and pointer actions have been considered in this interactive system. In this work, we study different interactive editing operations that can allow for more effective, ergonomic and friendly interfaces.

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 O O O

handwritten text recognition
computer assisted transcription


On the input problem for massive modularity Jerry Fodor argues that the massive modularity thesis - the claim that (human) cognition is wholly served by domain specific, autonomous computational devices, i.e., modules - is a priori incoherent, self-defeating. The thesis suffers from what Fodor dubs the 'input problem': the function of a given module (proprietarily understood) in a wholly modular system presupposes non-modular processes. It will be argued that massive modularity suffers from no such a priori problem. Fodor, however, also offers what he describes as a 'really real' input problem (i.e., an empirical one). It will be suggested that this problem is real enough, but it does not selectively strike down massive modularity - it is a problem for everyone.

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


Using 'core documents' for the representation of clusters and topics The notion of 'core documents', first introduced in the context of co-citation analysis and later re-introduced for bibliographic coupling, refers to the representation of the core of a publication set according to given criteria. In the present study, the notion of core documents is extended to the combination of citation-based and textual links. It is shown that core documents defined this way can be used to represent and describe document clusters and topics at different levels of aggregation. Methodology is illustrated using the example of two ISI Subject Categories selected from applied and social sciences.

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

cluster analysis
hybrid clustering
text mining


Spatial interpolation of McArthur's Forest Fire Danger Index across Australia: Observational study ? The spatial distribution of a Fire Weather Index for Australia was calculated. The McArthur Forest Fire Danger Index (FFDI) was utilised. Fire Weather Danger was quantified by calculating return periods of FFDI. The FFDI distribution was found by using an advanced interpolation algorithm. Maps of 50 and 100-year return periods of FFDI were presented.

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

natural hazards
return period
wildfires
random forest


capacitance modeling of optically gated mosfet Optical and electronic interactions can easily be merged in semiconductor devices. Special features of Optical devices make them attractive for information processing. Present paper will be focused on the investigation of dependence of of optical illumination on intrinsic capacitances of short-channel MOSFET's. Optical effects are mainly due to the lowering of surface potential barrier in presence of illumination called photon induced barrier lowering (PIBL). The simulation results indicate that there is lowering of capacitances in desired area of interest. This is likely to make the device emerge for high speed application in photo-detectors, optical switching and imaging.

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

optoelectronics
photo detector
n-mosfet
photo voltage


Analogical insight: toward unifying categorization and analogy The purpose of this paper is to present two kinds of analogical representational change, both occurring early in the analogy-making process, and then, using these two kinds of change, to present a model unifying one sort of analogy-making and categorization. The proposed unification rests on three key claims: (1) a certain type of rapid representational abstraction is crucial to making the relevant analogies (this is the first kind of representational change; a computer model is presented that demonstrates this kind of abstraction), (2) rapid abstractions are induced by retrieval across large psychological distances, and (3) both categorizations and analogies supply understandings of perceptual input via construing, which is a proposed type of categorization (this is the second kind of representational change). It is construing that finalizes the unification.

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

analogy
abstraction
categorization
insight
representational change

concepts
knowledge change
knowledge representation
mapping
psychological distance
retrieving
understanding


Lot-sizing decisions under trade credit depending on the ordering quantity This paper deals with the problem of determining the economic order quantity for exponentially deteriorating items under the conditions of permissible delay in payments. The delay in payments depends on the quantity ordered. When the order quantity is less than at which the delay in payments is permitted, the payment for the product must be made immediately. Otherwise, the fixed trade credit period is permitted. Based upon the above arguments, this paper incorporates both Hwang and Shinn (Comput. Oper. Res. 24 (1997) 539) and Khouja and Mehrez (J. Manuf. Systems 15 (1996) 334) under above conditions. In addition, the objective function is modeled as a total variable cost-minimization problem. An algorithm to determine the economic order quantity is developed. Examples are solved to illustrate the results given in this paper. Finally, the results in this paper generalize some already published results.

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

permissible delay in payments
order quantity


Using ambient intelligence for physiological monitoring Ambient intelligence is a way of subtly gathering information from an environment and acting on it. In the field of physiological monitoring, there are several goals that ambient intelligence can help us achieve. First, when patients are anxious, unobtrusive monitoring does not aggravate their anxiety. Second, when patients are at risk and there are insufficient caregivers to attend to each patient individually in a timely manner, unobtrusive pervasive monitoring can reassure patients that they are being cared for. Furthermore, caregivers appreciate being able to monitor more patients. The SMART system was developed to monitor patients' vital signs and locations in the waiting area of a hospital's emergency department. This paper reviews the SMART system and compares it to several other systems in related areas.

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

ambient intelligence
physiological monitoring


construction of a chinese-english wordnet and its application to clir This paper integrates five linguistic resources, including Cilin, a Chinese-English dictionary, ASBC corpus, SemCor, and WordNet, to construct a Chinese-English WordNet. The result is employed in Chinese-English information retrieval. Under TREC-6 text collection, TREC topics 301-350, and Smart information retrieval system, the model for CLIR achieves 69.23\% of monolingual information retrieval. It also gains 10.02\% increase relative to a model that resolves translation ambiguity and target polysemy together using a Chinese-English dictionary.

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

target polysemy
wordnet
clir
translation ambiguity


Impacts of device architecture and low current operation on resistive switching of HfOx nanoscale devices A highly scaling feasibility of resistance memory with a via-hole structure including Ti/HfOx is demonstrated in this work. An empirical model is used to predict the correlation between the forming voltage of 5nm-thick HfOx devices with concave configuration and their cell size. The forming voltage of the nano-devices fit well with the empirical model of dielectric breakdown. Owing to the parasitic capacitance of the support oxide, the resistance memory with a series transistor still suffers a serious current overshoot during the forming process. The first reset current in the concave device increase as the scaling down of their cell size. The 30nm concave device with a compliance current of 0.18mA exhibits a good operation window (ON/OFF resistance ratio >30), a satisfactory reliabilities including a thermal stability at 150C for 500min lifetime and switching cycles of 104. The operation current for 50nm concave device can be lowered to 30?A. The first reset current in the pillar device through increasing the dielectric thickness in the parasitic capacitance can be eliminated.

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


An empirical comparison of permutation methods for tests of partial regression coefficients in a linear model This study compared empirical type I error and power of different permutation techniques for the test of significance of a single partial regression coefficient in a multiple regression model, using simulations. The methods compared were permutation of raw data values, two alternative methods proposed for permutation of residuals under the reduced model, and permutation of residuals under the full model. The normal-theory t-test was also included in simulations. We investigated effects of (1) the sample size, (2) the degree of collinearity between the predictor variables, (3) the size of the covariable's parameter, (4) the distribution of the added random error and (5) the presence of an outlier in the covariable on these methods. We found that two methods that had been identified as equivalent formulations of permutation under the reduced model were actually quite different. One of these methods resulted in consistently inflated type 1 error. In addition, when the covariable contained an extreme outlier, permutation of raw data resulted in unstable (often inflated) type 1 error. There were no significant differences in power among the three permutation methods (raw data permutation, reduced-model permutation and full-model permutation), but all had greater power than the normal-theory t-test when errors were non-normal. The reduced model permutation method had the most consistent and reliable results of the methods investigated here for the test of a partial regression coefficient. However, reasonably extreme situations needed to be simulated in order to distinguish methods from the normal-theory t-test and from one another. Permutation of raw data, permutation under the reduced model, and permutation under the full model are generally asymptotically equivalent.

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

permutation of residuals
multiple regression
linear model
type i error
power
partial regression


Eigenvalue of fourth-order m m -point boundary value problem with derivatives This paper deals with the existence of positive solutions for the fourth-order nonlinear ordinary differential equation

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

multi-point boundary value problems
fixed-point theorem
cone


middleware for smart gateways connecting sensornets to the internet There is an increasing trend to integrate sensor networks into the Internet, eventually resulting in an Internet of Things. Recent efforts of porting IPv6 to sensor networks turn sensor nodes into equitable Internet peers and RESTful Web Services on sensor nodes allow a distribution of the application logic among sensor nodes and more powerful Internet nodes. The touching point between a sensor network and the Internet is the gateway which translates between the link-layer protocols used in the Internet (Ethernet, Wi-Fi) and sensor networks (IEEE 802.15.4). So far, the functionality of those gateways was fixed and simple. We propose to turn these gateways into smart gateways by enabling them to execute application code. As only the gateway has full knowledge of and control over both the sensor network and the Internet, smart gateways can act as performance-enhancing proxies and intelligent caches to preserve the limited resources of the sensor network. Also, the smart gateway can perform application-specific protocol conversion between highly optimized but non-standard protocols in the sensor network and standardized, but less efficient protocols in the Internet. In this paper we present the design of a middleware for smart gateways that allows the execution of application code on the gateway by offering simplified interfaces to the sensor network and the Internet. We also report preliminary performance results for key functions of the middleware.

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

wireless sensor networks
future internet
search
integration


Comparison of MANET routing protocols using a scaled indoor wireless grid Predicting the performance of ad-hoc networking protocols has typically been performed by making use of software based simulation tools. Experimental study and validation of such predictions is vital to obtaining more realistic results, but may not be possible under the constrained environment of network simulators. This paper presents experimental comparisons of routing protocols using a 7 x 7 grid of closely spaced WiFi nodes. It firstly demonstrates the usefulness of the grid in its ability to emulate a real world multi-hop ad-hoc network. It specifically compares hop count, routing traffic overhead, throughput, delay and packet loss for three protocols which are listed by the Internet Engineering Task Force Mobile Ad-hoc Networks (MANET) working group. These are the Ad-hoc on demand distance vector routing protocol (AODV), the optimized link state routing protocol (OLSR) and the dynamic MANET on demand routing protocol (DYMO).

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

ad-hoc networks
ieee 802
11 standard
wireless grid test bed


Combining the evidence of different relevance feedback methods for information retrieval It has been known that retrieval effectiveness can be significantly improved by combining multiple evidence from different query or document representations, or multiple retrieval techniques. In this paper, we combine multiple evidence from different relevance feedback methods, and investigate various aspects of the combination. We first generate multiple query vectors for a given information problem in a fully automatic way by expanding an initial query vector with various relevance feedback methods. We then perform retrieval runs for the multiple query vectors, and combine the retrieval results. Experimental results show that combining the evidence of different relevance feedback methods can lead to substantial improvements of retrieval effectiveness.

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


Handwritten numeral string recognition: Effects of character normalization and feature extraction The performance of integrated segmentation and recognition of handwritten numeral strings relies on the classification accuracy and the non-character resistance of the underlying character classifier, which is variable depending on the techniques of pattern normalization, feature extraction, and classifier structure. In this paper, we evaluate the effects of 12 normalization functions and four selected feature types on numeral string recognition. Slant correction (deslant) is combined with the normalization functions and features so as to create 96 feature vectors, which are classified using two classifier structures. In experiments on numeral string images of the NIST Special Database 19, the classifiers have yielded very high string recognition accuracies. We show the superiority of moment normalization with adaptive aspect ratio mapping and the gradient direction feature, and observed that slant correction is beneficial to string recognition when combined with good normalization methods.

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

numeral string recognition
integrated segmentation and recognition
normalization
feature extraction
slant correction


Improving the transfer of near infrared prediction models by orthogonal methods Eight calibration transfer methods based on the removal of orthogonal signal were compared for the standardization of whole soybean protein and oil models. Dynamic orthogonal projection (DOP), transfer by orthogonal projection (TOP). error removal by orthogonal subtraction (EROS). orthogonal signal correction (OSC), and orthogonal projections to latent structures (O-PLS) as well as the modification and extension of some of these methods were compared in the transfer of models in intra and inter-brand situations using two Foss Infratecs and two Bruins OmegAnalyzerGs For each brand. a master was designated and its models transferred onto the second unit of its network and the two units of the second brand. Calibration models were transferable from brand to brand with similar or better precision than when each instrument was calibrated on its own calibration set (for Infratec 1229. the relative predictive determinant (RPD) increased in intra and inter-brand calibration transfer situations from 10.42 to 11.45 and 10.57, with DOP and EROS respectively). Performance of each method was different across parameters, instruments. and validation sets. DOP modifications on the determination of the difference matrix showed promising results while TOP and EROS extensions to include variability specifically present in certain crop years did not bring any beneficial effects (C) 2009 Elsevier B V. All rights reserved

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

error removal by orthogonal subtraction (eros)


Distance in Digraphs The (directed) distance d?(u, v) from a vertex u to a vertex v in a strong digraph D is the length of a shortest u-v path in D. Although this is the standard distance in digraphs, it is not a metric. Two other distances in digraphs are introduced, each of which is a metric. The maximum distance md(u, v) between two vertices u and v in a strong digraph is defined as md(u, v) = max{d?(u, v), d?(v, u)}. The sum distance sd(u, v) is defined as sd(u, v) = d?(u, v) + d?(v, u). Several results and problems concerning these metrics and such parameters as centers, medians, and peripheries are described.

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


Turning knowledge into new product creativity: an empirical study Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between knowledge acquisition, dissemination, and innovation and new product creativity and to identify different hidden patterns in which knowledge acquisition, dissemination, and innovation affect new product creativity. Design/methodology/approach - The paper employs additivity and variance stabilization analysis. Findings - The new product creativity is significantly related to knowledge management. Practical implications - The paper implies that if organizations fail to understand the subtle ways by which different dimensions of knowledge acquisition, dissemination, and innovation influence new product creativity, they may fail to harvest the full value of knowledge management in creativity improvement. Originality/value - It is one of the first to assess the link between knowledge management and new product creativity.

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


online conversation mining for author characterization and topic identification The increasing popularity of online-based services (Twitter, Facebook, IRC, Myspace, blogs, just to mention few of them) results in a production of a huge amount of novel documents. These documents present properties that can not be found in standard edited documents. In particular the messages generated during the use of Instant Messages Services (IM) like chat-rooms or Twitter are short, user-generated and "noisy". We are investigating two different but related aspect of the content of these colloquial messages: the topic identification and the author identification tasks. In the first case we would like to answer the question what is the conversation about? while in the second case the question is who are the people involved in the conversation? . The combination of these two tasks into a unique model is a novel and interesting research problem that is the main topic of our research.

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

topic identification
author characterization
conversation mining

online documents
user-generated documents


Direct digital-RF amplitude modulator in CMOS 90nm Two different wireless transmitter topologies based on an direct digital-RF amplitude modulator (DAM) are presented: a polar modulator and a direct digital-RF IQ modulator prototype. The DAM consists of 255 basic cells digitally activated by an 8-bit amplitude code to shape a non-constant envelope RF output. The cells are segment-addressed resulting in a very compact 0.007 mm(2) chip area in CMOS 90nm. In order to reduce the spectral images due to the discrete-time to continuous-time conversion a 2-fold interpolation has been implemented. The DAM reaches a peak output power of 5 dBm at 2.45 GHz with 23% drain efficiency. Both direct digital modulator architectures fulfill WLAN 802.11g linearity constrains at 2.45 GHz.

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

direct digital-rf amplitude modulator
direct digital iq modulator
polar transmitter
linear interpolation approximation
dac segmented digital decoding


on-line steiner trees in the euclidean plane Suppose we are given a sequence of n points v 1 ,, v n in the Euclidean plane, and our objective is to construct, on-line, a connected graph that connects all of them, trying to minimize the total sum of lengths of its edges. We assume that the points appear one at a time, v i arriving at step i . At the end of step i , the on-line algorithm must construct a connected graph T i -1 . This can be done by joining v i (not necessarily by a straight line) to any point of T i -1, which need not necessarily be one of the previously given points v j . The performance of our algorithm is measured by its competitive ratio: the supremum, over all sequences v 1 ,, v n as above, of the ratio between the total length of the graph constructed by our algorithm and the total length of the best Steiner tree that connects all the points v 1 ,, v n . There are known on-line algorithms whose competitive ratio is O (log n ), but there is no known nontrivial lower bound for the best possible competitive ratio. Here we prove that the upper bound is almost tight by establishing an &OHgr;(log n /log log n ) lower bound for the competitive ratio of any on-line algorithm. The lower bound holds for deterministic algorithms as well as for randomized ones, and obviously holds in any Euclidean space of dimension greater than 2 as well.

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

tree
point
lower bound
space
log
performance
trees
graph
algorithm
sequence


On-line edge-coloring algorithms for degree-bounded bipartite graphs A kind of online edge-coloring problems on bipartite graphs is considered. The input is a graph (typically with no edges) and a sequence of operations (edge addition and edge deletion) under the restriction that at any time the graph is bipartite and degree-bounded by k, where k is a prescribed integer. At the time of edge addition; the added edge can be irrevocably assigned a color or be left uncolored. No other coloring or color alteration is allowed. The problem is to assign colors as many times as possible using k colors. Two algorithms are presented: one with competitiveness coefficient 1/4 against oblivious adversaries; and one with competitiveness coefficient between 1/4 and 1/2 with the cost of requiring more random bits than the former algorithm, also against oblivious adversaries.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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-line algorithm
randomization
edge-coloring


scalable target detection for large robot teams In this paper, we present an asynchronous display method, coined image queue , which allows operators to search through a large amount of data gathered by autonomous robot teams. We discuss and investigate the advantages of an asynchronous display for foraging tasks with emphasis on Urban Search and Rescue. The image queue approach mines video data to present the operator with a relevant and comprehensive view of the environment in order to identify targets of interest such as injured victims. It fills the gap for comprehensive and scalable displays to obtain a network-centric perspective for UGVs. We compared the image queue to a traditional synchronous display with live video feeds and found that the image queue reduces errors and operator's workload. Furthermore, it disentangles target detection from concurrent system operations and enables a call center approach to target detection. With such an approach we can scale up to very large multi-robot systems gathering huge amounts of data that is then distributed to multiple operators.

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

multi-robot system
evaluation
human-robot interaction
metrics


Evaluation of layered tunnel barrier charge trapping devices for embedded non-volatile memories This paper presents experimental results on band gap engineered charge trapping devices for embedded non-volatile memories. Different material systems with high-k dielectrics and metal gates were fabricated using 193nm lithography and the electrical evaluation was performed on 256 bits mini-arrays. The structure relies essentially on a layered tunnel ONO (oxide-nitride-oxide) barrier that replaces the tunnel oxide in conventional SONOS devices. In addition, we have implemented high-k dielectrics, metal gates and sealing layer in order to achieve low programming voltage and improve the data retention especially at elevated temperature. Whereas, high-k and metal gate systems allow low programme/erase voltages attractive for embedded non-volatile memories, the conventional band gap engineered SONOS (BE-SONOS) offers better high-temperature data retention. However, compared to a SONOS device with a standard thick tunnel oxide of 6nm close to the EOT of the layered tunnel ONO barrier, it appears that BE-SONOS memories suffer from charge loss toward the channel and therefore we believe that the band gap engineered feature of the ONO barrier requires alternative materials.

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

charge-trapping memory device
high-k
band gap engineering
non-volatile memory
flash
eeprom
reliability


A 10-bit 50MS/s SAR ADC in 65nm CMOS with on-chip reference voltage buffer The limitation posed by incomplete DAC settling in medium-to-high speed SAR ADCs is addressed. The design details of a high-speed reference voltage buffer (RVBuffer) are elaborated. Estimation of key performance parameters of the RV Buffer are provided. Post-layout simulation of the full ADC including device noise and IO pad parasitics has been reported.

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

on-chip reference voltage buffer
bootstrapped switches


Coordinated learning by exploiting sparse interaction in multiagent systems Multiagent learning provides a promising paradigm to study how autonomous agents learn to achieve coordinated behavior in multiagent systems. In multiagent learning, the concurrency of multiple distributed learning processes makes the environment nonstationary for each individual learner. Developing an efficient learning approach to coordinate agents' behavior in this dynamic environment is a difficult problem especially when agents do not know the domain structure and at the same time have only local observability of the environment. In this paper, a coordinated learning approach is proposed to enable agents to learn where and how to coordinate their behavior in loosely coupled multiagent systems where the sparse interactions of agents constrain coordination to some specific parts of the environment. In the proposed approach, an agent first collects statistical information to detect those states where coordination is most necessary by considering not only the potential contributions from all the domain states but also the direct causes of the miscoordination in a conflicting state. The agent then learns to coordinate its behavior with others through its local observability of the environment according to different scenarios of state transitions. To handle the uncertainties caused by agents' local observability, an optimistic estimation mechanism is introduced to guide the learning process of the agents. Empirical studies show that the proposed approach can achieve a better performance by improving the average agent reward compared with an uncoordinated learning approach and by reducing the computational complexity significantly compared with a centralized learning approach. Copyright (c) 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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

multiagent learning
coordination
sparse interaction