Dual and multiple token based approaches for load balancing In distributed systems uneven arrivals of the tasks may overload a few hosts while some of the hosts may be lightly loaded. This load imbalance prevents distributed systems from delivering its performance to its capacity. Load balancing has been advocated as a means of improving performance and reliability of distributed systems. We propose a distributed load balancing algorithm LoGTra to deal with this problem. LoGTra uses load graph and token based policy. The extensions to LoGTra based on dual tokens DTLB and multiple tokens m-LoGTra are proposed in this paper. m-LoGTra allows host to generate multiple tokens. This allows system to search host for load balancing in multiple directions and can avoid starvation of remote hosts. Local maxima and local minima are responsible for initiating transfer and that limits the number of hosts generating tokens at a time. As overheads are kept under control by limiting number of tokens, the algorithm promises for improved performance.

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


synthetic topiary The paper extends Lindenmayer systems in a manner suitable for simulating the interaction between a developing plant and its environment. The formalism is illustrated by modeling the response of trees to pruning, which yields synthetic images of sculptured plants found in topiary gardens.

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

interaction systems formalism topiary trees response paper

modeling of plants
image synthesis
environments
l-system
imaging
model
prune


On the application of graph colouring techniques in round-robin sports scheduling The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it explores the issue of producing valid, compact round-robin sports schedules by considering the problem as one of graph colouring. Using this model, which can also be extended to incorporate additional constraints, the difficulty of such problems is then gauged by considering the performance of a number of different graph colouring algorithms. Second, neighbourhood operators are then proposed that can be derived from the underlying graph colouring model and, in an example application, we show how these operators can be used in conjunction with multi-objective optimisation techniques to produce high-quality solutions to a real-world sports league scheduling problem encountered at the Welsh Rugby Union in Cardiff, Wales.

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


certified in-lined reference monitoring on .net MOBILE is an extension of the .NET Common Intermediate Language that supports certified In-Lined Reference Monitoring. Mobile programs have the useful property that if they are well-typed with respect to a declared security policy, then they are guaranteed not to violate that security policy when executed. Thus, when an In-Lined Reference Monitor (IRM) is expressed in Mobile, it can be certified by a simple type-checker to eliminate the need to trust the producer of the IRM.Security policies in Mobile are declarative, can involve unbounded collections of objects allocated at runtime, and can regard infinite-length histories of security events exhibited by those objects. The prototype Mobile implementation enforces properties expressed by finite-state security automata - one automaton for each security-relevant object - and can type-check Mobile programs in the presence of exceptions, finalizers, concurrency, and non-termination. Executing Mobile programs requires no change to existing .NET virtual machine implementations, since Mobile programs consist of normal managed CIL code with extra typing annotations stored in .NET attributes.

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

security automata
object
presence
attributes
virtual machine
runtime
change
histories
prototype
code
language
concurrency
implementation
monitor
trust

reference monitors
mobility
program rewriting
event
collect
extensibility
relevance
exception
normalization
in-lined reference monitoring
management
security policies
program
terminals
annotation
execution monitoring
secure
automata


Mechanical stimulation to stimulate formation of a physiological collagen architecture in tissue-engineered cartilage: a numerical study The load-bearing capacity of today's tissue-engineered (TE) cartilage is insufficient. The arcade-like collagen network in native cartilage plays an important role in its load-bearing properties. Inducing the formation of such collagen architecture in engineered cartilage can, therefore, enhance mechanical properties of TE cartilage. Considering the well-defined relationship between tensile strains and collagen alignment in the literature, we assume that cues for inducing this orientation should come from mechanical loading. In this study, strain fields prescribed by loading conditions of unconfined compression, sliding indentation and a novel loading regime of compression-sliding indentation are numerically evaluated to assess the probability that these would trigger a physiological collagen architecture. Results suggest that sliding indentation is likely to stimulate the formation of an appropriate superficial zone with parallel fibres. Adding lateral compression may stimulate the formation of a deep zone with perpendicularly aligned fibres. These insights may be used to improve loading conditions for cartilage tissue engineering.

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

cartilage
tissue engineering
collagen architecture


A novel statistical generative model dedicated to face recognition In this paper, a novel statistical generative model to describe a face is presented, and is applied to the face authentication task. Classical generative models used so far in face recognition, such as Gaussian Mixture Models (GMMs) and Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) for instance, are making strong assumptions on the observations derived from a face image. Indeed, such models usually assume that local observations are independent, which is obviously not the case in a face. The presented model hence proposes to encode relationships between salient facial features by using a static Bayesian Network. Since robustness against imprecisely located faces is of great concern in a real-world scenario, authentication results are presented using automatically localised faces. Experiments conducted on the XM2VTS and the BANCA databases showed that the proposed approach is suitable for this task, since it reaches state-of-the-art results. We compare our model to baseline appearance-based systems (Eigenfaces and Fisherfaces) but also to classical generative models, namely GMM, HMM and pseudo-2DHMM.

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

local features
statistical models
bayesian networks


2-Rainbow domination number of Cn?C5 C n ? C 5 In this paper we prove that ?r2(Cn?C5)?2n ? r 2 ( C n ? C 5 ) ? 2 n . This, together with the result of St?pie? and Zwierzchowski (2014), gives ?r2(Cn?C5)=2n ? r 2 ( C n ? C 5 ) = 2 n . Since for n=5k n = 5 k we have ?(Cn?C5)=n ? ( C n ? C 5 ) = n (see Klavar and Seifter (1995)), it follows that a product Cn?C5 C n ? C 5 is an example of a graph class for which ?r2=2? ? r 2 = 2 ? . Moreover, Cn?C5 C n ? C 5 is an example of a graph class for which ?w2=?r2 ? w 2 = ? r 2 , where ?w2 ? w 2 is a weak {2}-domination number introduced in Brear etal. (2008).

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

rainbow domination
cartesian product of graphs


A real-time motion estimation FPGA architecture A motion estimation architecture allowing the execution of a variety of block-matching search techniques is presented in this paper. The ability to choose the most efficient search technique with respect to speeding up the process and locating the best matching target block leads to the improvement of the quality of service and the performance of the video encoding. The proposed architecture is pipelined to efficiently support a large set of currently used block-matching algorithms including Diamond Search, 3-step, MVFAST and PMVFAST. The proposed design executes the algorithms by providing a set of instructions common for all the block-matching algorithms and a few instructions accommodating the specific actions of each technique. Moreover, the architecture supports the use of different search techniques at the block level. The results and performance measurements of the architecture have been validated on FPGA supporting maximum throughput of 30 frames/s with frame size 1,024 768.

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


Towards an ontology of waste water treatment plants: the identification phase Water pollution in Mexico is an important issue in spite of the benefits obtained by current waste water treatment plants; more heuristic knowledge is required to adequately design and operate new plants. This paper discusses the role of the identification phase in the attainment of a knowledge base to obtain a domain ontology of waste water treatment plants. Two examples of waste water plants are discussed: an activated sludge facility and a stabilization lagoon, the knowledge bases developed by the authors are discussed to support the thesis that a most difficult part of the task is the gathering and ordering of the necessary data and therefore one must take care in interviewing skilled operators and maintain good logs of the operation. The results obtained so far can be qualified as successful, they have helped novice operators to reduce their learning curve.

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

knowledge acquisition
ontologies
inference rules


Responsive on-line gateway load-balancing for wireless mesh networks We propose an adaptive online load-balancing protocol for multi-gateway Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) which, based on the current network conditions, balances load between gateways. Traffic is balanced at the TCP flow level and, as a result, the aggregate throughput, average flow throughput and fairness of flows improves. The proposed scheme (referred to as Gateway Load-Balancing, GWLB) is highly responsive, thanks to fast gateway selection and the fact that current traffic conditions are maintained up-to-date at all times without any overhead. It also effectively takes into account intra-flow and inter-flow interference when switching flows between gateway domains. We have found the performance achievable by routes used after gateway selection to be very close to the performance of optimal routes found by solving a MINLP formulation under the protocol model of interference. Through simulations, we analyze performance and compare with a number of proposed strategies, showing that GWLB outperforms them. In particular, we have observed average flow throughput gains of 128% over the nearest gateway strategy.

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

wireless mesh network
load-balancing
internet gateway
single-source unsplittable flow


Bias, efficiency, and agreement for group-testing regression models Group testing involves pooling individual items together and testing them simultaneously for a rare binary trait. Whether the goal is to estimate the prevalence of the trait or to identify those individuals that possess it, group testing can provide substantial benefits when compared with testing subjects individually. Recently, group-testing regression models have been proposed as a way to incorporate covariates when estimating trait prevalence. In this paper, we examine these models by comparing fits obtained from individual and group testing samples. Relative bias and efficiency measures are used to assess the accuracy and precision of the resulting estimates using different grouping strategies. We also investigate the agreement of individual and group-testing regression estimates for various grouping strategies and the effects of group size selection. Depending on how groups are formed, our results show that group-testing regression models can perform very well when compared with the analogous models based on individual observations. However, different grouping strategies can provide very different results in finite samples.

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

binary data
diagnostic test
generalized linear model
unobserved data


Numerical solutions of strain localization with nonlocal softening plasticity Softening plasticity, when it is deprived of a characteristic length, often leads to boundary value problems that are ill-posed and produce unreliable numerical solutions. As meshes are refined, plastic strains localize into bands that become narrower and narrower, and generate loaddisplacement responses with excessive softening, which may even degenerate into unrealistic snapbacks. In the case of discrete systems, the underlying reasons for this poor numerical performance can be examined using a spectral analysis of the tangential stiffness matrix derived from incremental equilibrium equations. In one-dimensional boundary-valued problems, the introduction of a weak softening element into a mesh of elasto-plastic elements produces a dominant eigenvector that clearly exhibits a strain localization width directly related to the weak element size. The dominant eigenvector that controls the incremental solution varies spuriously when the mesh is refined, which results in mesh dependency. Over-nonlocal softening plasticity introduces a length scale, forces more elements to become plastic, and preserves the width of the plastic zone when the mesh is refined. When one-dimensional meshes are refined, spectral analysis shows that the dominant eigenvector does not vary erratically, and that its deformation patterns are smooth and display a constant localization width. This explains why the spatial distribution of plastic strains and the global loaddisplacement responses converge to analytical solutions in one dimension. The generalization to higher dimensions will be the object of future studies.

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

nonlocal
softening plasticity
characteristic length
strain localization
spectral analysis


web 2.0 geospatial visual analytics for improved urban flooding situational awareness and assessment Situational awareness of urban flooding during storm events is important for disaster and emergency management. However, no general purpose tools yet exist for rendering rainfall accumulations in real-time at the resolution of hydrologic units used for modeling. This demonstration will exhibit a novel web 2.0 visual analytical approach for understanding and adaptively managing urban flooding issues. The approach generates a geospatial-temporal map of rainfall within urban hydrologic units (sewer-sheds) in real-time. The polygon-averaged rainfall data is generated using virtual sensors which provide customized real-time data products derived from National Weather Service weather radar data using NCSA's workflow tools. Time-series KML (Keyhole Markup Language) layers are generated, where each KML layer represents a particular slice of the geospatial color-coded sewershed map. Such time-aware KML can be replayed as a movie in the web-based Google Earth environment. This geospatial visual analytic approach can provide decision markers and communities a powerful resource for assessment of neighborhood flooding issues. We will demonstrate our technology using historical and real-time rainfall data in the metropolitan Chicago area to show the effectiveness of such approach. Future work by combining additional ground-truth flooding data will allow us move towards real-time improved decision support for flooding and stormwater management.

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

keyhole markup language
rainfall
workflow
geospatial visual analytics


Performance evaluation of a broadband wireless access system subjected to heavy load Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) systems use new network architectures to deliver broadband services in a fixed point-to-point or point-to-multipoint configuration to residential and business customers. These systems support voice, data, video distribution services and emerging interactive multimedia communications. This paper presents a performance evaluation of BWA networks as well as a detailed model, which captures all relevant aspects of such networks in a concise way. This model is evaluated by simulation and compared with the results obtained from measurements on the real system. Simulation results show that this model can be used in an accurate way to characterize base station configuration when it is subjected to heavy data and voice loads. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

broadband wireless access
performance evaluation

time-division multiplexing
time-division multiple access
traffic characteristics


Global optima for the Zhou-Rozvany problem We consider the minimum compliance topology design problem with a volume constraint and discrete design variables. In particular, our interest is to provide global optimal designs to a challenging benchmark example proposed by Zhou and Rozvany. Global optimality is achieved by an implementation of a local branching method in which the subproblems are solved by a special purpose nonlinear branch-and-cut algorithm. The convergence rate of the branch-and-cut method is improved by strengthening the problem formulation with valid linear inequalities and variable fixing techniques. With the proposed algorithms, we find global optimal designs for several values on the available volume. These designs can be used to validate other methods and heuristics for the considered class of problems.

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

topology optimization
minimum compliance optimization
global optimization
branch-and-cut


The signed Roman k k -domatic number of a graph Let k?1 k ? 1 be an integer. A signed Roman k k -dominating function on a graph G G is a function f:V(G)?{?1,1,2} f : V ( G ) ? { ? 1 , 1 , 2 } such that ?u?N[v]f(u)?k ? u ? N [ v ] f ( u ) ? k for every v?V(G) v ? V ( G ) , where N[v] N [ v ] is the closed neighborhood of v v , and every vertex u?V(G) u ? V ( G ) for which f(u)=?1 f ( u ) = ? 1 is adjacent to at least one vertex w w for which f(w)=2 f ( w ) = 2 . A set {f1,f2,,fd} { f 1 , f 2 , , f d } of distinct signed Roman k k -dominating functions on G G with the property that ? i = 1 d f i ( v ) ? k for each v?V(G) v ? V ( G ) , is called a signed Roman k k -dominating family (of functions) on G G . The maximum number of functions in a signed Roman k k -dominating family on G G is the signed Roman k k -domatic number of G G , denoted by d s R k ( G ) . In this paper we initiate the study of signed Roman k k -domatic numbers in graphs, and we present sharp bounds for d s R k ( G ) . In particular, we derive some NordhausGaddum type inequalities. In addition, we determine the signed Roman k k -domatic number of some graphs.

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

signed roman k k -dominating function k k k k k

signed roman k k -domination number k k k k k

signed roman k k -domatic number k k k k k


Timing analysis of asynchronous systems using time separation of events This paper describes a pseudo-polynomial time algorithm for timing analysis of a class of choice-free asynchronous systems, called tightly coupled systems, with both min and max-type timing constraints and bounded component delays. The algorithm consists of two phases: I) long-term behavior analysis, that computes bounds on the time separation of events after the system has run for a sufficiently long period of time, and 2) startup behavior analysis, that computes time separations between events during an initial startup period after the system is powered up. The results of the analysis are conservative in the worst case; nevertheless, they are found to be exact in our experiments. To demonstrate the practical utility of the approach, an asynchronous differential equation solver chip has been modeled and analyzed using the proposed algorithm. We report results of datapath timing verification, intercontroller protocol timing verification and performance analysis of the chip using the proposed technique.

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

asynchronous logic circuits
computer-aided analysis
pseudopolynomial algorithm


AN ASSESSMENT OF N-PHONEME STATISTICS IN PHONEME GUESSING ALGORITHMS WHICH AIM TO INCORPORATE PHONOTACTIC CONSTRAINTS This paper presents statistics relating to various phoneme guessing algorithms. The N-phoneme statistics were obtained by exhaustive analysis of a lexicon of 96,998 phonetic words. The results show that by incorporating detailed phonotactic knowledge, coupled with broad phonetic knowledge, an algorithm can be formulated which successfully guesses the correct phoneme with mean success rates of up to 67%. This implies that. as far as the computer is concerned, spoken English is, at a minimum, 67% redundant. The results also show that the ability to guess correctly depends on word length and position; phoneme type and the number of unknown phonemes in the word have very little effect on the final results.

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

n-phonemes
speech recognition
entropy
redundancy
positional analysis of phonemes


Aircraft taxi time prediction: Comparisons and insights Important problem for researchers and practitioners at airports. Improves accuracy for taxi time predictions for aircraft. Analysis compares different regression approaches to determine the best. A TSK fuzzy rule-based system outperformed the other approaches. New insights: dependencies of distance and amount of traffic upon taxi-in times.

O O O 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

data mining
fuzzy rule-based system
airport ground movement
decision support system


Parallel discrete differential dynamic programming for multireservoir operation Time cost is crucial to operations of large-scale hydropower systems (LSHSs). Parallelism of discrete differential dynamic programming (PDDDP) is proposed. PDDDP enhances the computing efficiency and makes full use of multi-core resources. PDDDP shows its potential practicability and validity for operations of LSHSs.

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


transactifying apache's cache module Apache is a large-scale industrial multi-process and multithreaded application, which uses lock-based synchronization. We report on our experience in modifying Apache's cache module to employ transactional memory instead of locks, a process we refer to as transactification; we are not aware of any previous efforts to transactify legacy software of such a large scale. Along the way, we learned some valuable lessons about which tools one should use, which parts of the code one should transactify and which are better left untouched, as well as on the intricacy of commit handlers. We also stumbled across weaknesses of existing software transactional memory (STM) toolkits, leading us to identify desirable features they are currently lacking. Finally, we present performance results from running Apache on a 32-core machine, showing that, there are scenarios where the performance of the STM-based version is close to that of the lock-based version. These results suggest that there are applications for which the overhead of using a software-only implementation of transactional memory is insignificant.

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


IEEE Latin America Transactions Volume 11 Issue 3 May 2013 This is the 2st special issue of the IEEE Latin America Transactions magazine of the year 2013. The special issues are published out of the four months that have regular issues. The regular issues are in March, June, September and December of each year.

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

ieee latin america transactions
special issue
volume 11
issue 3
may 2013

ieee xplore
region 9
impact factor
isi
doi
qualis


fractal coding of color images using earth mover's distance Fractal theory gained attention by mathematicians and engineers during the last two decades as a promising technique to obtain compression of signals. Fractals also provides interesting interpolation features that can be used to zoom images or to achieve slow motions of video sequences. This paper proposes a fractal coding technique based on Iterated Function Systems (IFS) to encode color image signals. IFS aim to exploit the redundancy given by the self-similarity always contained in natural images. The novelty of this work is on the use of Earth Mover's Distance (EMD) measure to identify similarities within color images. The results obtained show that the proposed approach allows achieving better quality in the decoded images than a classic fractal coding based on Root Mean Square Error (RMS) measure.

O O O O O O O O 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 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


Numerical solution of linear fuzzy Volterra integro-differential equations by variational iteration method In this paper, we focus on linear fuzzy Volterra integro-differential equations and propose a new method, namely "variational iteration method (VIM)" for numerical solving them. Also, we provide the convergence of VIM when it is applied to system of linear Volterra integro-differential equations. Finally, using the proposed method, we give some illustrative examples and compare the solutions obtained by VIM with those obtained by homotopy perturbation method (HPM). The results reveal that the VIM is more powerful than the HPM.

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

variational iteration method
homotopy perturbation method

system of linear volterra integro-differential equations


Fast maximum likelihood estimation using continuous-time neural point process models A recent report estimates that the number of simultaneously recorded neurons is growing exponentially. A commonly employed statistical paradigm using discrete-time point process models of neural activity involves the computation of a maximum-likelihood estimate. The time to computate this estimate, per neuron, is proportional to the number of bins in a finely spaced discretization of time. By using continuous-time models of neural activity and the optimally efficient Gaussian quadrature, memory requirements and computation times are dramatically decreased in the commonly encountered situation where the number of parameters p is much less than the number of time-bins n. In this regime, with q equal to the quadrature order, memory requirements are decreased from O(n p) to O(q p), and the number of floating-point operations are decreased from O(n p 2) to O(q p 2). Accuracy of the proposed estimates is assessed based upon physiological consideration, error bounds, and mathematical results describing the relation between numerical integration error and numerical error affecting both parameter estimates and the observed Fisher information. A check is provided which is used to adapt the order of numerical integration. The procedure is verified in simulation and for hippocampal recordings. It is found that in 95 % of hippocampal recordings a q of 60 yields numerical error negligible with respect to parameter estimate standard error. Statistical inference using the proposed methodology is a fast and convenient alternative to statistical inference performed using a discrete-time point process model of neural activity. It enables the employment of the statistical methodology available with discrete-time inference, but is faster, uses less memory, and avoids any error due to discretization.

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

fast
point process
estimation
gaussian quadrature

neural spiking
statistical analysis
continuous-time


Leveraging downlink for efficient uplink allocation in a single-hop wireless network In this correspondence, we consider joint uplink and downlink rate allocations over a multiaccessibroadcast channel pair in a single-cell system. We assume a network of heterogeneous users, where the uplink utility of each user is held as private information and is unknown to the base station. The challenge is to design an optimal rate allocation scheme in the presence of such incomplete information when considering strategic users. Here, we provide an incentive-compatible mechanism that leverages downlink demand to ensure that users truthfully reveal their uplink utilities, enabling the socially optimal uplink rate allocation. In addition, we give numerical results on a kind of efficiency of downlink allocations for two specific uplink multiple-access channels (MACs): information theoretic additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN), MAC, and code-division multiple-access (CDMA)-based uplink.

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

game theory
implementation in dominant strategies
mechanism design
rate control
utility maximization


rational enforcement of digital oblivion Digital storage in the information society allows perfect and unlimited remembering. Yet, the right of an individual to enforce oblivion for pieces of information about her is part of her fundamental right to privacy. We propose a solution to digital forgetting based on anonymously fingerprinting expiration dates. In our solution, people who learn information about an individual are rationally interested in helping the individual enforce her oblivion policy. Thanks to this rational involvement, even services for content spreading like Facebook or YouTube would be interested in fingerprinting downloads, thereby effectively enforcing the right of content owners to canceling content.

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

privacy
digital oblivion
digital forgetting
fingerprinting


On Learning and Cross-Validation with Decomposed Nystrom Approximation of Kernel Matrix The high computational costs of training kernel methods to solve nonlinear tasks limits their applicability. However, recently several fast training methods have been introduced for solving linear learning tasks. These can be used to solve nonlinear tasks by mapping the input data nonlinearly to a low-dimensional feature space. In this work, we consider the mapping induced by decomposing the Nystrom approximation of the kernel matrix. We collect together prior results and derive new ones to show how to efficiently train, make predictions with and do cross-validation for reduced set approximations of learning algorithms, given an efficient linear solver. Specifically, we present an efficient method for removing basis vectors from the mapping, which we show to be important when performing cross-validation.

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

cross-validation
empirical kernel map
reduced set method


Color image watermarking scheme based on linear discriminant analysis A novel oblivious color image watermarking scheme based on Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) is proposed in this paper. The watermark accompanied with a reference is embedded into the RGB channels of color images. By applying the embedded reference watermark, a linear discriminant matrix is obtained. The watermark can be correctly extracted under several different attacks. Experimental results show that the proposed scheme has good performance against several attacks. Especially when the watermarked image is enhanced in luminance and contrast at a rate of 50%, the proposed method can extract the watermark with few bit errors.

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


An energy conservative difference scheme for the nonlinear fractional Schrdinger equations ? In this paper, an energy conservative CrankNicolson difference scheme for nonlinear Riesz space-fractional Schrdinger equations is studied. We give a rigorous analysis of the conservation properties, including mass conservation and energy conservation in the discrete sense. Based on Brouwer fixed point theorem, the existence of the difference solution is proved. By virtue of the energy method, the difference solution is shown to be unique and convergent at the order of O(?2+h2) O ( ? 2 + h 2 ) in the l2 l 2 -norm with time step ? and mesh size h. Finally a linearized iterative algorithm is presented and numerical experiments are given to confirm the theoretical results.

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

fractional schrdinger equation
cranknicolson scheme
solvability
convergence


Modelling and simulation of substrate elasticity sensing in stem cells Recently, we have developed a multiscale soft matter cell model aiming at improving the understanding of mechanotransduction mechanism of stem cells, which is responsible for information exchange between cells and their extracellular environment. In this paper, we report the preliminary results of our research on multiscale modelling and simulation of soft contact and adhesion of stem cells. The proposed multiscale soft matter cell model may be used to model soft contact and adhesion between cells and their extracellular substrates. To the authors' best knowledge, this may be the first time that a soft matter model has been developed for cell contact and adhesion. Moreover, we have developed and implemented a Lagrange-type meshfree Galerkin formulation and related computational algorithms for the proposed cell model. Comparison study with experimental data has been conducted to validate the parameters of the cell model. By using the soft matter cell model, we have simulated the soft adhesive contact process between cells and extracellular substrates. The simulation shows that the cell can sense substrate elasticity by responding it in different manners from cell spreading to cell contact configuration and molecular conformation changes.

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

focal adhesion
hyperelasticity
liquid crystal
meshfree method
multiscale simulations


Extending the reflexion method for consolidating software variants into product lines Software variants emerge from ad-hoc copying in-the-large with adaptations to a specific context. As the number of variants increases, maintaining such software variants becomes more and more difficult and expensive. In contrast to such ad-hoc reuse, software product lines offer organized ways of reuse, taking advantage of similarities of different products. To re-gain control, software variants may be consolidated as organized software product lines. In this paper, we describe a method and supporting tools to compare software variants at the architectural level extending the reflexion method to software variants. Murphys reflexion method allows one to reconstruct the module view, a static architectural view describing the static components, their interfaces and dependencies and their grouping as layers and subsystems. The method consists of the specification of the module view and the mapping of implementation components onto the module view. An automatic analysis determines differences between the module view and its implementation. We extend the reflexion method from single systems to software variants. Because software variants share a very large amount of code, we can expect components of one variant to re-occur in the other variant either identically or at least similarly. We use similarity metrics to determine this type of correspondence among implementation components between two variants. Because the similarity metrics are expensive to compute, we use clone detection techniques to reduce the number of candidate pairs of implementation components for which the similarity is computed. The correspondence is then used to transfer as much as possible of the mapping for the analyzed variants to the next variant to be analyzed. Furthermore, we describe how to unify the individual product architectures into a software product line architecture.

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

software variants
software product lines

architecture reconstruction
reverse engineering


Analysis of test suite reduction with enhanced tie-breaking techniques ? Test suite minimization techniques try to remove redundant test cases of a test suite. However, reducing the size of a test suite might reduce its ability to reveal faults. In this paper, we present a novel approach for test suite reduction that uses an additional testing criterion to break the ties in the minimization process. We integrated the proposed approach with two existing algorithms and conducted experiments for evaluation. The experiment results show that our approach can improve the fault detection effectiveness of reduced suites with a negligible increase in the size of the suites. Besides, under specific conditions, the proposed approach can also accelerate the process of minimization.

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

test suite reduction
test suite minimization
fault detection effectiveness


Automatic transformation of iterative loops into recursive methods In software engineering, taking a good election between recursion and iteration is essential because their efficiency and maintenance are different. In fact, developers often need to transform iteration into recursion (e.g., in debugging, to decompose the call graph into iterations); thus, it is quite surprising that there does not exist a public transformation from loops to recursion that can be used in industrial projects (i.e., it is automatic, it handles all kinds of loops, it considers exceptions, etc.). This article describes an industrial algorithm implemented as a Java library able to automatically transform iterative loops into equivalent recursive methods. The transformation is described for the programming language Java, but it is general enough as to be adapted to many other languages that allow iteration and recursion. We describe the changes needed to transform loops of types while/do/for/foreach into recursion. We provide a transformation schema for each kind of loop. Our algorithm is the first public transformation that can be used in industrial projects and faces the whole Java language (i.e., it is fully automatic, it handles all kinds of loops, it considers exceptions, it treats the control statements break and continue, it handles loop labels, it is able to transform any number of nested loops, etc.). This is particularly interesting because some of these features are missing in all previous work, probably, due to the complexity that their mixture introduce in the transformation. Developers should use a methodology when transforming code, specifically when transforming loops into recursion. This article provides guidelines and algorithms that allow them to face different problems such as exception handling. The implementation has been made publicly available as open source.

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


a framework for digital cosmetic system Now-a-days digital camera have become very inexpensive as well as available device to common people and they usually like to see them better in pictures, which requires some post processing. To fulfill this requirement we propose a framework that integrates face detection, facial feature segmentation, intelligent filter design and control mechanisms into a single processing framework that requires minimal user assistance. For the design, selection and control mechanisms of the filters, we adopt the blackboard based expert system architecture. For a specified task, the current conditions of different parts of the image are analyzed and then a specific filter or set of filters are chosen to be applied based on the knowledge accumulated from experts.

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

digital cosmetics
filtering plan
blackboard architecture
expert knowledge


improving 64-bit java ipf performance by compressing heap references 64-bit processor architectures like the Intel ItaniumProcessor Family are designed for large applicationsthat need large memory addresses.When runningapplications that fit within a 32-bit address space, 64-bitCPUs are at a disadvantage compared to 32-bit CPUsbecause of the larger memory footprints for their data.This results in worse cache and TLB utilization, and consequentlylower performance because of increased missratios.This paper considers software techniques for virtualmachines that allow 32-bit pointers to be used on 64-bitCPUs for managed runtime applications that do notneed the full 64-bit address space.We describe ourpointer compression techniques and discuss our experienceimplementating these for Java1 applications.In addition,we give performance results with our techniques forboth the SPEC JVM98 and SPEC JBB2000 benchmarks.We demonstrate a 12\% performance improvement onSPEC JBB2000 and a reduction in the number of garbagecollections required for a given heap size.

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

processor fit software applications cache space size performance reduction demonstrate paper pointers runtime compression

families benchmark architecture addressing memorialized data management


Audio channel constraints in video-mediated communication This study investigated the effects of two types of audio channels upon the effectiveness of task-based interactions in a video-mediated context (VMC). Forty undergraduates completed a collaborative task (The Map Task) using either a full or half-duplex audio channel. Their performance was compared to face-to-face interactions, taken from the Human Communication Research Centre corpus of Map Task Dialogues. Effects of varying the audio channel were explored by comparing task performance, patterns of speech, and establishment of mutual understanding. Users of the full-duplex VMC made insufficient allowance for the VMC context; they completed the task less accurately than face-to-face participants, and interrupted each other more frequently than other participants. Participants in the half-duplex VMC however performed as well as face-to-face participants. They made sensible adaptations to the constraints imposed by the half-duplex VMC context, producing longer dialogues, with more explicit turn-taking management, and taking greater care in establishing mutual knowledge. (C) 2004 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 B I B I I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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

task performance
patterns of speech
adaptations

video-mediated communication
audio channel configuration
discourse analysis


Guided local search for the three-dimensional bin-packing problem The three-dimensional bin-packing problem is the problem of orthogonally packing a set of boxes into a minimum number of three-dimensional bins. In this paper we present a heuristic algorithm based on guided local search. Starting with an upper bound on the number of bins obtained by a greedy heuristic, the presented algorithm iteratively decreases the number of bins, each time searching for a feasible packing of the boxes. The process terminates when a given time limit has been reached or the upper bound matches a pre-computed lower bound. The algorithm can also be applied to two-dimensional bin-packing problems by having a constant depth for all boxes and bins. Computational experiments are reported for two- and three-dimensional instances with up to 200 boxes, showing that the algorithm on average finds-better solutions than do heuristics from the literature.

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

analysis of algorithms
suboptimal algorithms
cutting and packing


Kinematic correction for a spatial offset between sensor and position data in on-the-go sensor applications On-the-go data collection is the basis for many applications that require spatially referenced information at a sub-field scale. A spatial or temporal offset can occur between sensor and position measurements (mostly obtained with global navigation satellite systems such as the Global Positioning System, GPS), e.g. if the antenna of the navigation system cannot be placed on top of the sensor. To correct for such an offset, we present a kinematic model that accounts for the mechanisms underlying the offset. Our model considers a sensor on a cart or sledge towed by a drawing vehicle equipped with a positioning system. The model was applied to a soil electrical conductivity survey on a 135ha site with over 100 000 measured positions. Application of the model halved a nugget effect in semivariograms, significantly (p<0.01) reduced prediction errors and thus substantially improved map quality. The model allows offset correction between sensors and a positioning system mounted independently on agricultural machinery, even retrospectively from the geometric configuration of the positioning system-sensor combination. Thus we propose the model for use in research and practical applications of sensor based mapping.

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

dgps differential global positioning system


visual diversification of image search results Due to the reliance on the textual information associated with an image, image search engines on the Web lack the discriminative power to deliver visually diverse search results. The textual descriptions are key to retrieve relevant results for a given user query, but at the same time provide little information about the rich image content. In this paper we investigate three methods for visual diversification of image search results. The methods deploy lightweight clustering techniques in combination with a dynamic weighting function of the visual features, to best capture the discriminative aspects of the resulting set of images that is retrieved. A representative image is selected from each cluster, which together form a diverse result set. Based on a performance evaluation we find that the outcome of the methods closely resembles human perception of diversity, which was established in an extensive clustering experiment carried out by human assessors.

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

flickr
image clustering
visual diversity


lavaan: An R Package for Structural Equation Modeling Structural equation modeling (SEM) is a vast field and widely used by many applied researchers in the social and behavioral sciences. Over the years, many software packages for structural equation modeling have been developed, both free and commercial. However, perhaps the best state-of-the-art software packages in this field are still closed-source and/or commercial. The R package lavaan has been developed to provide applied researchers, teachers, and statisticians, a free, fully open-source, but commercial-quality package for latent variable modeling. This paper explains the aims behind the development of the package, gives an overview of its most important features, and provides some examples to illustrate how lavaan works in practice.

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

latent variables
path analysis
factor analysis


A unified scheme for generalizing cardinality estimators to sum aggregation ? We discuss cardinality estimation algorithms. We show how to generalize every such an algorithm to a weighted version. To this end, we use properties of the beta distribution.

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


High precision shape control of plates using orthotropic piezoelectric actuators This paper presents high precision control for the specified plate twisting and bending shapes using the orthotropic piezoelectric actuators. Finite element analysis for composite plates with the adhesively bonded piezoelectric stiffeners is derived and verified with the finite element analysis for composite plates with the adhesively bonded piezoelectric patches and the commercial package NASTRAN. This finite element analysis is then used to simulate plate twisting and bending shape control using the orthotropic piezoelectric actuators through the electric potential optimization. The electric potentials needed for the desired plate shapes are obtained using the linear least square method. The numerical results show that the computed plate twisting and bending shapes correlate remarkably well with the relevant desired ones. Mechanisms of the precise shape control are discussed.

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

piezoelectric smart plate
orthotropic actuators


engineering distributed protocols for multi-agent interactions using game theory This thesis considers engineering both protocols and strategies in multi-agent systems comprised of selfish, rational autonomous agents. Mechanisms dealing with failures as well as aspects of decentralisation are designed and applied to a multi-sensor network scenario. A model for designing strategies is also proposed and a risk-based strategy for a continuous double auctions designed.

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

mechanism design
sensor networks
task allocation
trust


Finite-time stability of fractional delayed neural networks In this paper, finite-time stability of a class of fractional delayed neural networks of retarded-type with commensurate order between 0 and 1 is investigated. For such problems in integer-order systems, Lyapunov functions are usually constructed, whereas no specific Lyapunov functions exist in fractional-order cases. By employing inequalities such as Hlder inequality, Gronwall inequalities and inequality scaling skills, some finite-time stability results are derived. For fractional delayed neural models of retarded-type with order 0<?<0.5 0 < ? < 0.5 and 0.5??<1 0.5 ? ? < 1 , sufficient conditions for the finite-time stability are presented. Numerical simulations also verify the theoretical results.

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


The effective stress principle The behaviour of soil at the macroscopic scale depends on the behaviour of its components and on the interactions between them at the microscopic scale. Here, assumptions are made only at the microscopic. scale and, by use of a suitable averaging procedure, consequences at the macroscopic scale are derived. At the microscopic scale, the soil is assumed to be made of bulk phases and interfaces, both having very general constitutive relations. At the microscopic scale, the incompressibility of all bulk phases, incorporated by use of a thermodynamic theory of constrained materials, implies that a given thermokinetic process experienced by the soil does not depend on an arbitrary and uniform variation of the spherical part of the stress tensor field at all points of the soil. At the macroscopic scale, that thermokinetic process appears not to be influenced by certain variations of the macroscopic stresses and exchanges of momentum of the,bulk phases. An extension to the case that one bulk phase is compressible is also presented. Finally, versions of the effective stress principle commonly used in soil mechanics for saturated and unsaturated soils are derived as particular cases. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

microscopic scale
macroscopic scale
incompressibility
soil mechanics
effective stress


Procedural rhythmic character animation: an interactive Chinese lion dance The creation of a stylistic animation through the use of high-level controls has always been a design goal for computer animation software. In this paper, we propose a procedural animation system, called rhythmic character animation playacting (RhyCAP), which allows a designer to interactively direct animated characters by adjusting rhythmic parameters such as tempo, exaggeration, and timing. The motions thus generated reflect the intention of the director and also adapt to environmental obstacle constraints. We use a sequence of martialart steps in the performance of a Chinese lion dance to illustrate the effectiveness of the system. The animation is generated by composition of common motion elements, concisely represented in an action graph. We have implemented an animation control program that allows Chinese lion dance to be choreographed interactively. This authoring tool also serves as a useful means for preserving this part of world cultural heritage. Copyright (c) 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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

rhythmic character animation
chinese lion dance

motion planning
high-level animation control


Pareto optimal flexible alignment of molecules using a non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm The use of multi-objective function optimization to superimpose a flexible source molecule onto a rigid target molecule is explored. The objective functions are the SEAL similarity score between the source and target molecules, which has to be maximized, and the conformational strain of the source molecule, which has to be minimized. The optimization algorithm used is an elitist non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm. The algorithm is tested with the superposition of two non-nucleoside HIV-reverse transcriptase inhibitors and the superposition of methotrexate onto dihydrofolate. (c) 2005 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 B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O B O O O O O O O

optimization algorithm
methotrexate
dihydrofolate


Control of fluid bed tea dryers: control in the context of design and operation conditions A simulation model of a continuous fluid bed tea dryer, previously validated, was used to investigate the options for control of the dryer. Discharge weir height was not a suitable control parameter and should be maintained at 50 mm. The variation in heat available proved to limit the possibilities of compensation for variations in feed rate in practical dryers. If dryers operate under limited control power of the air temperatures it is recommended to control the feed rate into the continuous processing system as tightly as possible, and to correct this for other variations in the system such as feed moisture content.

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


CommMgr: A new inter-process communication management software This paper discusses local and remote IPC (inter-process communication) and Winsock I/O models on Windows platform. A more efficient and secure inter-process communication model based on Winsock I/O models is presented. In this paper, an IPC management software named CommMgr is developed according to this communication model.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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-tasking operating system
local process
remote process
winsock i/o model
inter-process communication


Applications using estimates of forest parameters derived from satellite and forest inventory data From the combination of optical satellite data, digital map data, and forest inventory plot data, continuous estimates have been made for several forest parameters (wood volume, age, and biomass). Five different project areas within Sweden are presented which have utilized these estimates for a range of applications. The method for estimating the forest parameters was a k-nearest neighbor (kNN) algorithm, which used a weighted mean value of k spectrally similar reference plots. Reference data were obtained from the Swedish National Forest Inventory. The output was continuous estimates at the pixel level for each of the variables estimated. Validation results show that accuracy of the estimates for all parameters was low at the pixel level (e.g. for total wood volume root mean square error (RMSE) ranged from 5880%), with a tendency toward the mean, and an underestimation of higher values while overestimating lower values. However, when the accuracy of the estimates is assessed over larger areas, the errors are lower, with best results being 10% RMSE over a 100 ha aggregation, and 17% RMSE over a 19 ha aggregation. Applications presented in this paper include moose and bird habitat studies, county level planning activities, use as input information to prognostic programs, and computation of statistics on timber volume within drainage basins and smaller land holdings. This paper provides a background on the kNN method and gives examples of how end users are currently applying satellite-produced estimation data such as these.

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

applications
forest inventory
continuous estimates
knn


Asymmetrical interval regression using extended epsilon-SVM with robust algorithm In an asymmetrical interval data set, the error ranges of the upper and lower interval ends are different. This situation is common in practice because of the usual presence of uncertain influences. In prior "crisp input and interval output" regression analysis, a crude symmetrical estimation is obtained, and the asymmetrical character of training data cannot be depicted exactly. In this paper, an asymmetrical interval data analysis is proposed for the first time. The two interval ends are studied independently, and a set of regression models and epsilon-insensitive functions are proposed to strengthen the description of the interval ends. The support vector machine (SVM) is imported into this approach (for its model-free character in nonlinear regression) and further extended by epsilon-insensitive functions to the extended epsilon-SVM. A robust algorithm is presented to eliminate the effect of outliers. Experiments are then presented to verify the quality of performance of the extended epsilon-SVM. Advantages over other approaches are considered in the conclusion. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

support vector machine (svm)
possibility theory


Feature selection and parameter optimization for support vector machines: A new approach based on genetic algorithm with feature chromosomes Support vector machines (SVM) are an emerging data classification technique with many diverse applications. The feature subset selection, along with the parameter setting in the SVM training procedure significantly influences the classification accuracy. In this paper, the asymptotic behaviors of support vector machines are fused with genetic algorithm (GA) and the feature chromosomes are generated, which thereby directs the search of genetic algorithm to the straight line of optimal generalization error in the superparameter space. On this basis, a new approach based on genetic algorithm with feature chromosomes, termed GA with feature chromosomes, is proposed to simultaneously optimize the feature subset and the parameters for SVM. To evaluate the proposed approach, the experiment adopts several real world datasets from the UCI database and from the Benchmark database. Compared with the GA without feature chromosomes, the grid search, and other approaches, the proposed approach not only has higher classification accuracy and smaller feature subsets, but also has fewer processing time.

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

feature chromosomes
genetic algorithm
feature selection
support vector machines


Age and Experience Affect the Recruitment of New Neurons to the Song System of Zebra Finches during the Sensitive Period for Song Learning: Ditto for Vocal Learning in Humans? Vocal learning in songbirds and humans is a complex learned skill with sensory, motor, and social aspects. It culminates in the imitation of sounds produced by other, usually older individuals. Song learning and language learning may differ in their cognitive content, but both require coordination of auditory feedback and fine motor control, which may be supported by similar brain structures. Vocal learning in birds as in humans requires the use of forebrain networks; in songbirds these networks are thought to be related, in part, to the frontal association cortex-basal ganglia loops that mature in humans at adolescence.

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

vocal learning
songbirds
forebrain networks
adolescence


A panoply of quantum algorithms This paper's aim is to explore improvements to, and applications of, a fundamental quantum algorithm invented by Grover[1]. Grover's algorithm is a. basic tool that can be applied to a large number of problems in computer science, creating quantum algorithms that axe polynomially faster than fastest, known and fastest possible classical algorithms that solve the same problems. Our goal in this paper is to make these techniques readily accessible to those without a strong background in quantum physics: we achieve this by, providing a set of tools, each of which makes use of Grover's algorithm or similar techniques. which can be used as subroutines in many quantum algorithms. The tools we provide are carefully constructed: they are easy to use, and in many cases they are asymptotically faster than the best, tools previously available. The tools we build on include algorithms by Boyer: Brassard, Hoyer and Tapp[2], Buhrman, Cleve, de Witt and Zalka[3] and Durr and Hoyer [4]. After creating our tools., we create several new quantum algorithms, each of which is faster than the fastest known deterministic classical algorithm that accomplishes the same aim. and some of which are faster than the fastest possible deterministic classical algorithm. These algorithms solve problems front the fields of graph theory and computational geometry, and some employ dynamic programming techniques. We discuss a breadth-first search that is faster than circle minus(edges) (the classical limit) in a dense graph. maximum-points-on-a-line in O(N-3/2 lg N) (faster than the fastest classical algorithm known), as well as several other algorithms that are similarly illustrative of solutions in some class of problem. Through these new algorithms we illustrate the use of our tools. working to encourage their use and the study of quantum algorithms in general.

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

quantum computing
grover's algorithm
bbht
bcwz


Pel reconstruction on FPGA-augmented TriMedia This paper presents a TriMedia processor extended with three reconfigurable designs for entropy decoding (ED), inverse quantization (IQ), and two-dimensional (2-D) inverse discrete cosine transform (IDCT), and assesses the performance gain that is provided by such extensions when performing MPEG2-compliant pel reconstruction. We first describe an extension of the TriMedia architecture, which consists of a multiple-context field programmable gate array (FPGA)-based reconfigurable functional unit (RFU), a configuration unit managing the reconfiguration of the RFU, and their associated instructions. Then, we address the computation of the ED, IQ, and 2-D IDCT tasks, and propose to provide reconfigurable hardware support for a variable-length decoder that can decode two symbols per call (VLD-2), An inverse quantizer that can dequantize four coefficients per call (IQ-4), and an 1-D IDCT (1-D IDCT). The most important aspects concerning the. implementation of the FPGA-mapped VLD-2, IQ-4, and I-D IDCT units, as well as the organization of the software routines calling these FPGA-mapped computing units are outlined. Experimental results indicate that by configuring each of the VLD-2, IQ-4, and 1-D IDCT units on a different FPGA context, and by activating the contexts as needed, the FPGA-augmented TriMedia can perform MPEG2-compliant pel reconstruction with an average speed-up of 1.4 x over the standard TriMedia.

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

very long instruction word (vliw) processors


Differences between potential new and experienced e-customers - Analysis of e-purchasing behaviour Purpose - The purpose of the paper is to analyse the evolution of e-customer purchasing behaviour. Certain perceptions of electronic commerce (EC) may differ according to the purchasing experience of customers. Three groups of e-customers are differentiated: potential, new and experienced. Design/methodology/approach - First of all, the socio-demographic characteristics of each group were analysed using the Chi-squared test. Then, using ANOVA and post hoc analysis (Scheffe's test), the differences that exist in their perceptions were analysed. Findings - Data analyses show that level of experience with Internet and the perceptions about EC differ according to the e-customer. Some variables, like perceived usefulness or attitude, increase significantly as the number of interchanges grows, while others, such as perceived ease of use, tend to stabilise. It can be affirmed that there is an evolving cycle of purchasing that will continue to develop as the individual acquires experience. Practical implications - This research enables the companies that want to compete in the e-market to know the type of customer they are addressing. Moreover, the results obtained show what perceptions must be concentrated on if these companies want to capture new customers (potential e-customers) or if they want to maintain existing customers (new and experienced). The evolution of this behaviour means that the strategies oriented to fomenting EC should stress one or another aspect depending on the target customer. Originality/value - While most research indistinctly analyses the behaviour of any e-customer, this study has considered it necessary to differentiate at least three types of e-customers in function of their purchasing experience. Thus, this is one of the few studies that allows us to know the evolution of the perceptions related to e-commerce.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 semiparametric Bayesian approach to extreme value estimation This paper is concerned with extreme value density estimation. The generalized Pareto distribution (GPD) beyond a given threshold is combined with a nonparametric estimation approach below the threshold. This semiparametric setup is shown to generalize a few existing approaches and enables density estimation over the complete sample space. Estimation is performed via the Bayesian paradigm, which helps identify model components. Estimation of all model parameters, including the threshold and higher quantiles, and prediction for future observations is provided. Simulation studies suggest a few useful guidelines to evaluate the relevance of the proposed procedures. They also provide empirical evidence about the improvement of the proposed methodology over existing approaches. Models are then applied to environmental data sets. The paper is concluded with a few directions for future work.

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

mcmc
threshold estimation
nonparametric estimation of curves


What can clusters tell us about the bulk?: Peacemaker: Extended quantum cluster equilibrium calculations The quantum cluster equilibrium theory and its implementation into the freely available Peacemaker program are described in this paper. The important equations of the quantum cluster equilibrium with a constant mean field potential and an excluded volume are derived. The scheme of the consecutive iterations to obtain both natural variables (volume and particle number) is presented, as well. Further, we describe the implemented method to solve the polynomials arising in each iteration. Additionally, we deal with the question: Which kinds of particles are important for a physically meaningful description of a system. In order to arrive at a systematic classification of these particles, we discuss the important term of a cluster motif. We propose how to determine whether a particle is important for the investigated system and describe the implementation of this method into Peacemaker. Finally, in a case study the thermodynamic properties computed with Peacemaker and the corresponding experimental data are compared with each other.

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

associated liquids
cluster gas
peacemaker peacemaker
statistical thermodynamic
condensed phase
water
hydrogen bond


A New Theoretical Formulation of a General Feedback Amplifier Circuit and Its Fundamental Theorems A new theoretical formulation based on BIBO (Bounded Input Bounded Output) operators is proposed for a general feedback amplifier circuit. Several fundamental theorems are derived in this letter. The main theorem provides a basis for a realization of an inverse of a feedback-branch linear or nonlinear BIBO operator satisfying the associative law.

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

bibo stability
analog electronic circuit


A mathematical approach for studying interconnected earthing systems inside MV networks Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to define a new methodology for studying interconnected ear-thing system inside unearthed medium voltage (MV) networks. Design/methodology/approach - The developed methodology is based on the division of the MV network into simpler sub-systems and its resolution using a multiport approach. Findings - The methodology has been applied to various situations giving precious information on the behaviour of the interconnected earthing systems. The comparison between the results of the simulations and measurements done on a really existing network has shown that the methodology is able to provide accurate results. Research limitations/implications - Some factors can influence the precision of the methodology. Indeed, for a correct simulation of the system it is necessary to know several electrical and geometrical parameters, often obtainable with difficulty. Practical implications - Utilities are quite interested in this topic. The study of interconnected earthing systems in MV networks with the purpose of identifying safe extended areas named Global Earthing Systems has important management and economic consequences. Originality/value - The paper presents a new analysis methodology applicable to MV networks that surpasses the limits of the analysis methodology generally applied for the study of the same topic in high voltage networks.

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

energy technology
systems analysis
network analysis


The cultural evolution of socially situated cognition Because human cognition is creative and socially situated, knowledge accumulates, diffuses, and gets applied in new contexts, generating cultural analogs of phenomena observed in population genetics such as adaptation and drift. It is therefore commonly thought that elements of culture evolve through natural selection. However, natural selection was proposed to explain how change accumulates despite lack of inheritance of acquired traits, as occurs with template-mediated replication. It cannot accommodate a process with significant retention of acquired or horizontally (e.g. socially) transmitted traits. Moreover, elements of culture cannot be treated as discrete lineages because they constantly interact and influence one another. It is proposed that what evolves through culture is the mind; ideas and artifacts are merely reflections of its current evolved state. Interacting minds transform (in part) through a non-Darwinian autopoietic process similar to that by which early life evolved, involving not survival of the fittest but actualization of their potential.

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

acquired traits
cultural evolution
natural selection

autopoiesis
self-replication
social learning


Measurement of the layered compressive properties of trypsin-treated articular cartilage: an ultrasound investigation An ultrasound-compression system has been developed for the study of the layered biomechanical properties of articular cartilage. Cartilage specimens harvested from the bovine patella groove, with and without trypsin digestion, were tested using this system. It was noted that a large ultrasound reflection can be detected in the interface of the trypsin digestion front, This ultrasound reflection signal was used to differentiate the deformations of different portions of the cartilage throughout its depth when a load was applied. The equilibrium compression moduli of the digested, undigested and entire portions of articular cartilage were measured. The modulus of the cartilage without any digestion was 660 +/- 230 kPa. After 1h digestion with 1 mg ml(-1) tryosin solution, the thickness of the digested portion was 0.50 +/-0.06 mm, and the modulus of the entire cartilage layer changed to 125 +/- 42 kPa. The moduli of the digested and undigested portions were 58 +/- 24 kPa and 470 +/- 31 kPa, respectively. Similar results were obtained for the cartilage with trypsin digestion for 2h.

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

biomechanics
elastography
osteoarthritis
ultrasound technique


Efficiency measurement and ranking of the tutorial system using IDEA This paper considers how to conduct the efficiency measurement and ranking problem of the tutorial system of some higher education institutions (HEIs) in Taiwan more convincingly and persuasively. Measuring the efficiencies of tutors and rewarding the outstanding tutors are conducted once each academic year and have become an important part of the administration practices. The current performance evaluation methods consider only the output factors inhered in vagueness, while the input are neglected. In order to better reflect the actual situations that different tutors consume various amounts of input to produce various amounts of outputs, an IDEA (imprecise data envelopment analysis) model is proposed to measure the efficiencies of tutors under different possibility levels by incorporating the current methods to serve as output factors and additionally considering the input factor. The proposed evaluation approach, which contains efficiency measurement, ranking guide and ties broken rule, can be applied easily to obtain objective and fair results of the addressed problem. A numerical example is used to illustrate the implementation of the proposed approach.

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


AR LATTICE l-STEP AHEAD OUTPUT UNCERTAINTY PREDICTION SCHEME WITH UNCERTAINTY INTERVALS In this paper, a lattice l-step ahead output uncertainty prediction algorithm is presented. The proposed prediction scheme is applicable to linear, stable, auto-regressive (AR) systems. The uncertainty predictors utilize the structure of the lattice filters. Subject to the saturation limits of the excitation signal, the measurement of the system output, and the a priori bounds of the reflection coefficients, the set of the feasible predicted output variables is computed. The suggested scheme is recursively computed over an l-step ahead future time window, while the prediction uncertainty intervals are similarly computed over the lattice stages, regarding the forward and the backward prediction errors. Simulation results are presented that prove the efficacy of the employed lattice uncertainty predictors.

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lattice filters
uncertainty intervals
uncertainty predictors


knowledge reuse in genetic programming applied to visual learning We propose a method of knowledge reuse for an ensemble of genetic programming-based learners solving a visual learning task. First, we introduce a visual learning method that uses genetic programming individuals to represent hypotheses. Individuals-hypotheses process image representation composed of visual primitives derived from the training images that contain objects to be recognized. The process of recognition is generative, i.e., an individual is supposed to restore the shape of the processed object by drawing its reproduction on a separate canvas. This canonical method is extended with a knowledge reuse mechanism that allows a learner to import genetic material from hypotheses that evolved for the other decision classes (object classes). We compare the performance of the extended approach to the basic method on a real-world tasks of handwritten character recognition, and conclude that knowledge reuse leads to significant convergence speedup and, more importantly, significantly reduces the risk of overfitting.

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


Algebraic geometrical methods for hierarchical learning machines Hierarchical learning machines such as layered perceptrons, radial basis functions, Gaussian mixtures are non-identifiable learning machines, whose Fisher information matrices are not positive definite. This fact shows that conventional statistical asymptotic theory cannot be applied to neural network learning theory, for example either the Bayesian a posteriori probability distribution does not converge to the Gaussian distribution, or the generalization error is not in proportion to the number of parameters. The purpose of this paper is to overcome this problem and to clarify the relation between the learning curve of a hierarchical learning machine and the algebraic geometrical structure of the parameter space. We establish an algorithm to calculate the Bayesian stochastic complexity based on blowing-up technology in algebraic geometry and prove that the Bayesian generalization error of a hierarchical learning machine is smaller than that of a regular statistical model, even if the true distribution is not contained in the parametric model.

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

algebraic geometry
generalization error
stochastic complexity

resolution of singularities
asymptotic expansion
non-identifiable model


On the computation of analytical solutions of an unsteady magnetohydrodynamics flow of a third grade fluid with Hall effects In this article, a combination of Lie symmetry and homotopy analysis methods (HAM) are used to obtain solutions for the unsteady magnetohydrodynamics flow of an incompressible, electrically conducting third grade fluid, bounded by an infinite porous plate in the presence of Hall current. In particular, similarity reductions are performed on the governing equations in its complex scalar and corresponding vector system forms. Also, nontrivial conservation laws, using the multiplier approach, are constructed for the complex scalar equation. Furthermore, a comparison of the results with numerical results already existing in the literature is done. The analytical solutions are presented through graphs by choosing a range of the relevant physical parameters. The underlying calculations were obtained via a combination of software packages in Mathematica and Maple, in particular, for the Lie symmetry generators, Euler Lagrange operators and homotopy operators; the latter being towards the construction of the conserved flows.

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

magnetohydrodynamics flow
third grade fluid
hall effects
conservation laws

similarity analysis
ham solutions
maple and mathematica


High-order numerical simulations of flow-induced noise In this paper, the flow/acoustics splitting method for predicting flow-generated noise is further developed by introducing high-order finite difference schemes. The splitting method consists of dividing the acoustic problem into a viscous incompressible flow part and an inviscid acoustic part. The incompressible flow equations are solved by a second-order finite volume code EllipSys2D/3D. The acoustic field is obtained by solving a set of acoustic perturbation equations forced by flow quantities. The incompressible pressure and velocity form the input to the acoustic equations. The present work is an extension of our acoustics solver, with the introduction of high-order schemes for spatial discretization and a Runge-Kutta scheme for time integration. To achieve low dissipation and dispersion errors, either Dispersion-Relation-Preserving (DRP) schemes or optimized compact finite difference schemes are used for the spatial discretizations. Applications and validations of the new acoustics solver are presented for benchmark aeroacoustic problems and for flow over an NACA 0012 airfoil. Copyright (C) 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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

computational aeroacoustics
flow/acoustics splitting method
high-order schemes


Biomechanical evaluation of the Eco-Pick lift assist: A device designed to facilitate product selection tasks in distribution centers Developing lift assist devices to aid workers performing case tasks in distribution centers has been challenging given the movement of workers through a distribution facility. The objective of this work was to biomechanically evaluate a lift assist that can be integrated with pallet jacks and thereby move through the facility with the workers. Twelve participants transferred 16.4kg boxes from one pallet to another manually and using the Eco-Pick lift assist. Electromyographic (EMG) activities were measured bilaterally in the Bicep, Deltoid, Latissimus Dorsi, and Erector Spinae muscles. The analysis showed that the 90th percentile normalized EMG values were significantly reduced in 4 of the 8 muscles sampled when using the Eco-Pick. Likewise, the 50th percentile normalized EMG data were significantly reduced for the Erector Spinae, Latissimus Dorsi, and the Bicep muscles when using the assist. For some of the muscles the advantage of the Eco-Pick was dependent upon the initial lift height or the placement height. Overall, it appears that this evaluation of the Eco-Pick's efficacy indicates that the device has the potential to be an effective means of reducing worker exposure to risk factors associated with back and shoulder injuries experienced during manual palletizing tasks found in distribution centers.

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