The black-box fast multipole method A new O(N) O ( N ) fast multipole formulation is proposed for non-oscillatory kernels. This algorithm is applicable to kernels K(x,y) K ( x , y ) which are only known numerically, that is their numerical value can be obtained for any (x,y) ( x , y ) . This is quite different from many fast multipole methods which depend on analytical expansions of the far-field behavior of K , for |x-y| | x - y | large. Other black-box or kernel-independent fast multipole methods have been devised. Our approach has the advantage of requiring a small pre-computation time even for very large systems, and uses the minimal number of coefficients to represent the far-field, for a given L2 L 2 tolerance error in the approximation. This technique can be very useful for problems where the kernel is known analytically but is quite complicated, or for kernels which are defined purely numerically.

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

interpolation
chebyshev polynomials
singular value decomposition


towards tqm in it services In the past five years, more and more information technology (IT) projects have been adopting service-oriented solutions. In addition, more and more traditional business and government organizations are focused on clearly identifying and monitoring the core IT services they are delivering. The remarkable growth of web service technologies and service-oriented architecture (SOA) solutions yields both challenges and opportunities in improving the quality of IT services and has given rise to a variety of IT service management frameworks like IT Infrastructure Library (ITU) and Capability Maturity Model Integrated (CMMJ). This paper presents the problem of total quality management (TQM) in IT services, followed by a review of quality definitions from four levels of perspectives. Based on the comparison of the different definitions, the necessity of integration of quality measurement and improvement approaches is identified and our preliminary work on TQM in IT services is introduced.

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

quality measurement and improvement
tqm
it services


An ELECTRE-based decision aid tool for stepwise benchmarking: An application over EU Digital Agenda targets A multi-criteria stepwise benchmarking method for decision support is proposed. An optimal development path toward the target is assigned to each benchmark unit. Relative path variation depicts the quality of the solution. EU members are benchmarked according to their success against Digital Agenda goals.

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

stepwise benchmarking
development path
digital agenda

electre
intermediate benchmark
decision making
european union


Comparative study of a muscle stiffness sensor and electromyography and mechanomyography under fatigue conditions This paper proposes the feasibility of a stiffness measurement for muscle contraction force estimation under muscle fatigue conditions. Bioelectric signals have been widely studied for the estimation of the contraction force for physical humanrobot interactions, but the correlation between the biosignal and actual motion is decreased under fatigue conditions. Muscle stiffness could be a useful contraction force estimator under fatigue conditions because it measures the same physical quantity as the muscle contraction that generates the force. Electromyography (EMG), mechanomyography (MMG), and a piezoelectric resonance-based active muscle stiffness sensor were used to analyze the biceps brachii under isometric muscle fatigue conditions with reference force sensors at the end of the joint. Compared to EMG and MMG, the change in the stiffness signal was smaller (p<0.05) in the invariable contraction force generation test until failure. In addition, in the various contraction level force generation tests, the stiffness signal under the fatigue condition changed <10% (p<0.05) compared with the signal under non-fatigue conditions. This result indicates that the muscle stiffness signal is less sensitive to muscle fatigue than other biosignals. This investigation provides insights into methods of monitoring and compensating for muscle fatigue.

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

muscle fatigue
muscle stiffness sensor
electromyography
mechanomyography


A note on stutter-invariant PLTL Peled and Wilke proved that every stutter-invariant propositional linear temporal property is expressible in Propositional Linear Temporal Logic (PLTL) without O (next) operators. To eliminate next operators, a translation tau which converts a stutter-invariant PLTL formula phi to an equivalent formula tau(phi) not containing O operators has been given. By T, for any formula O phi. where phi contains no phi operators, a formula with the length of O(4(n) vertical bar phi vertical bar) is always produced, where n is the number of distinct propositions in phi, and vertical bar phi vertical bar is the number of symbols appearing in phi. Etessami presented an improved translation tau'. By tau', for O phi, a formula with the length of O(n x 2(n)vertical bar phi vertical bar) is always produced. We further improve Etessami's result in the worst case to O(n x 2(n)vertical bar phi vertical bar) by providing a new translation tau '', and we show that the worst case will never occur (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

formal language
stutter-invariant
partial order reduction
normal from


An EREC framework for e-contract modeling, enactment and monitoring A contract is an agreement between two or more parties to create mutual business relations or legal obligations. It defines a set of activities to be performed by different parties satisfying a set of terms and conditions (clauses). An e-contract is a contract modeled, specified, executed and enacted (controlled and monitored) by a software system (such as a workflow system). As contracts are complex, their enactment is predominantly established and fulfilled with significant human involvement. This necessitates a comprehensive framework for generic fulfillment of e-contracts. In this paper, we present an EREC framework for designing e-contract processes, a mechanism that allows modeling, enactment and monitoring. This framework centers on the EREC model that bridges between the XML contract document and Web Services based implementation model of an e-contract.

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

electronic contract
er model
meta-model
business process model
exceptions
rules


a qos ontology cooperated with feature models for non-functional requirements elicitation Non-functional requirements (NFRs) are often regarded as the key success factor in building high quality software. However, most of the requirements elicitation methods are centered on discovering functional requirements only. This paper presents a novel NFRs elicitation approach aiming at empowering requirements analysts with a knowledge repository that aids to the process of capturing precise NFRs during elicitation interviews. The knowledge repository is composed of two layers: the upper layer of feature models and the lower layer of the QoS ontology. The case study of the stock trading domain illustrates the relationships and cooperations of the two layers.

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


Symmetric singular boundary method for potential problems with mixed boundary conditions The paper presents a symmetric formulation of the singular boundary method (SBM) for potential problems, whose resultant interpolation matrix is symmetric irrespective of boundary conditions. The SBM is a recent strong-form boundary discretization numerical technique, which is meshless, integration-free, and easy-to-implement. In stark contrast to the method of fundamental solution that requires the fictitious boundary outside physical domain to avoid the singularity of fundamental solution, the SBM can place source points, which coincide with collocation points, on the real physical boundary via the concept of origin intensity factor. The proposed symmetric formulation preserves all the merits of the SBM. The novel idea behind this study is that the unknown solution is represented by both the single and double layer potentials compared with the single layer potential in the original SBM. Numerical solution of three-dimensional potential and two-dimensional fluid flow and heat transfer problems demonstrates the utility and validity of the present SBM symmetric formulation.

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

method of fundamental solution
singular boundary method
meshless
mixed boundary conditions


Fault-free longest paths in star networks with conditional link faults The star network, which belongs to the class of Cayley graphs, is one of the most versatile interconnection networks for parallel and distributed computing. In this paper, adopting the conditional fault model in which each node is assumed to be incident with two or more fault-free links, we show that an n-dimensional star network can tolerate up to 2n - 7 link faults, and be strongly (fault-free) Hamiltonian laceable, where n >= 4. In other words, we can embed a fault-free linear array of length n! - 1 (n! - 2) in an n-dimensional star network with up to 2n - 7 link faults. if the two end nodes belong to different partite sets (the same partite set). The result is optimal with respect to the number of link faults tolerated. It is already known that under the random fault model, an n-dimensional star network can tolerate up to n - 3 faulty links and be strongly Hamiltonian laceable, for n >= 3. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

conditional fault model
random fault model
star network

embedding
fault tolerance
hamiltonian laceability


Building optimal 2D statistical shape models Statistical shape models are used widely as a basis for segmenting and interpreting images. A major drawback of the approach is the need, during training, to establish a dense correspondence across a training set of segmented shapes. We show that model construction can be treated as an optimisation problem, automating the process and guaranteeing the effectiveness of the resulting models. This is achieved by optimising an objective function with respect to the correspondence. We use an information theoretic objective function that directly promotes desirable features of the model. This is coupled with an effective method of manipulating correspondence, based on re-parameterising each training shape, to build optimal statistical shape models. The method is evaluated on several training sets of shapes, showing that it constructs better models than alternative approaches.

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

active shape models
point distribution models


BDD based procedures for a theory of equality with uninterpreted functions The logic of equality with uninterpreted functions has been proposed for verifying abstract hardware designs. The ability to perform fast satisfiability checking over this logic is imperative for such verification paradigms to be successful. We present symbolic methods for satisfiability checking for this logic. The first procedure is based on restricting analysis to finite instantiations of the variables. The second procedure directly reasons about equality by introducing Boolean-valued indicator variables for equality. Theoretical and experimental evidence shows the superiority of the second approach.

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

uninterpreted functions
logic of equality


Algorithms for data migration with cloning Our work is motivated by the problem of managing data on storage devices, typically a set of disks. Such high-demand storage servers are used as Web servers or as multimedia servers for handling high demand for data. As the system is running, it needs to dynamically respond to changes in demand for different data items. In this work we study the data migration problem, which arises when we need to quickly change one storage configuration into another. We show that this problem is NP-hard. In addition, we develop polynomial-time approximation algorithms for this problem and prove a worst-case bound of 9.5 on the approximation factor achieved by our algorithm.

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


Human-centred design methods Developing scenarios for robot assisted play informed by user panels and field trials This article describes the user-centred development of play scenarios for robot assisted play, as part of the multidisciplinary IROMEC(1) project that develops a novel robotic toy for children with special needs The project investigates how robotic toys can become social mediators, encouraging children with special needs to discover a range of play styles, from solitary to collaborative play (with peers carers/teachers parents, etc) This article explains the developmental process of constructing relevant play scenarios for children with different special needs Results are presented from consultation with panel of experts (therapists, teachers parents) who advised on the play needs for the various target user groups and who helped investigate how robotic toys could be used as a play tool to assist in the children s development Examples from experimental investigations are provided which have informed the development of scenarios throughout the design process We conclude by pointing out the potential benefit of this work to a variety of research projects and applications involving human-robot interactions (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved

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

human centred design
assistive technology
human-robot interaction


Quantifying information and performance for flash detection in the blowfly photoreceptor ? Performance on specific tasks in an organism's everyday activities is essential to survival. In this paper, we extend information-theoretic investigation of neural systems to task specific information using a detailed biophysical model of the blowfly photoreceptor. We determine the optimal detection performance using ideal observer analysis and find that detection threshold increases with background light according to a power function. We show how Fisher information is related to the detection performance and compare Fisher information and mutual information in this task-specific context. Our detailed model of the blowfly photoreceptor enables us to detangle the components of phototransduction and analyze the sensitivity of detection performance with respect to biophysical parameters. The biophysical model of the blowfly photoreceptor provides a rich framework for investigation of neural systems.

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

blowfly photoreceptor
biophysical model
ideal observer analysis
flash detection
fisher information


Discrete facility location and routing of obnoxious activities The problem of simultaneously locating obnoxious facilities and routing obnoxious materials between a set of built-up areas and the facilities is addressed. Obnoxious facilities are those facilities which cause exposure to people as well as to the environment i.e. dump sites, chemical industrial plants, electric power supplier networks, nuclear reactors and so on. A discrete combined location-routing model, which we refer to as Obnoxious Facility Location and Routing model (OFLR), is defined. OFLR is a NP-hard problem for which a Lagrangean heuristic approach is presented. The Lagrangean relaxation proposed allows to decompose OFLR into a Location subproblem and a Routing subproblem; such subproblems are then strengthened by adding suitable inequalities. Based on this Lagrangean relaxation two simple Lagrangean heuristics are provided. An effective Branch and Bound algorithm is then presented, which aims at reducing the gap between the above mentioned lower and upper bounds. Our Branch and Bound exploits the information gathered while going down in the enumeration tree in order to solve efficiently the subproblems related to other nodes. This is accomplished by using a bundle method to solve at each node the Lagrangean dual. Some variants of the proposed Branch and Bound method are defined in order to identify the best strategy for different classes of instances. A comparison of computational results relative to these variants is presented.

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


Mathematical analysis of an SIS model with imperfect vaccination and backward bifurcation In this paper, we analyze an SIS epidemic model with partially protective vaccination of efficacy e is an element of [0, 1]. The model exhibits backward bifurcation for certain parameter values. The primary aim of this paper is to investigate the possibility of eliminating the infections in static as well as exponentially growing populations with a public health strategy based solely on vaccination. The critical vaccination rate psi* above which the endemic infection dies out and the conditions on model parameters that ensure its existence are obtained. It has been found that eliminating the infection requires an application of control measures other than vaccination to reduce the basic reproduction number to below the reinfection threshold and then vaccinate susceptible individuals with a rate slightly greater than psi*. The implication is that, generally, even if all newborns get vaccinated immediately after birth, an effective control is not necessarily assured except if the basic reproduction number is reduced to below the reinfection threshold. We further include the fatality of the infection and investigate its impact on the dynamics. Some numerical simulations are given to illustrate the theoretical analysis. (C) 2011 IMACS. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

backward bifurcation
epidemic model
vaccination

controllability
exponentially growing population


multimodal location estimation on flickr videos The following article describes an approach to determine the geo-coordinates of the recording place of Flickr videos based on both textual metadata and visual cues. The system is tested on the MediaEval 2010 Placing Task evaluation data, which consists of 5091 unfiltered test videos. The system presented in this article is less complex, uses less training data, and is at the same time more accurate than the best system presented in the evaluation in August 2010. The performance peaks at being able to classify 14\% of the videos with less than 10m accuracy. The article describes the realization of the system, analyses of the different uses of multimodal cues and gazetteer information.

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


Weighted LCS The Longest Common Subsequence (LCS) of two strings A,B A , B is a well studied problem having a wide range of applications. When each symbol of the input strings is assigned a positive weight the problem becomes the Heaviest Common Subsequence (HCS) problem. In this paper we consider a different version of weighted LCS on Position Weight Matrices (PWM). The Position Weight Matrix was introduced as a tool to handle a set of sequences that are not identical, yet, have many local similarities. Such a weighted sequence is a statistical image of this set where we are given the probability of every symbol's occurrence at every text location. We consider two possible definitions of LCS on PWM. For the first, we solve the LCS problem of z sequences in time O(znz+1) O ( z n z + 1 ) . For the second, we consider the log-probability version of the problem, prove NP NP -hardness and provide an approximation algorithm.

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

string algorithms
approximation algorithms
np-hard problem


Effects of inter-stimulus interval and intensity on the perceived urgency of tactile patterns The feasibility of coding urgency into tactile patterns was examined. A stationary laboratory study and a dynamic field study were conducted. Patterns at the high 23.5 dB intensity had higher urgency and identification rates. Varying ISI at the high 23.5 dB intensity is suitable for providing urgency.

O O O O O O O O B I 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


type analysis of prolog using type graphs Type analysis of Prolog is of primary importance for high-performance compilers, since type information may lead to better indexing and to sophisticated specializations of unification and built-in predicates to name a few. However, these optimizations often require a sophisticated type inference system capable of inferring disjunctive and recursive types and hence expensive in computation time. The purpose of this paper is to describe a type analysis system for Prolog based on abstract interpretation and type graphs (i.e. disjunctive rational trees) with this functionality. The system (about 15,000 lines of C) consists of the combination of a generic fixpoint algorithm, a generic pattern domain, and a type graph domain. The main contribution of the paper is to show that this approach can be engineered to be practical for medium-sized programs without sacrificing accuracy. The main technical contributions to achieve this result are (1) a novel widening operator for type graphs which appears to be accurate and effective in keeping the sizes of the graphs, and hence the computation time, reasonably small; (2) the use of the generic pattern domain to obtain a compact representation of equality constraints between subterms and to factor out sure structural information.

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

unification
use
prolog
analysis
computation
trees
representation
paper
practical
pattern
indexing
compact
accuracy
factor
interpretation
type inference
types
graph
algorithm
generic

recursion high-performance timing constraint informal combinational program structure specialization systems abstraction optimality functional operability compilation effect


The repertory grid technique: A method for the study of cognition in information systems Recent studies have confirmed the importance of understanding the cognition of users and information systems (IS) professionals. These works agree that organizational cognition is far too critical to be ignored as it can impact on IS outcomes. While cognition has been considered in a variety of IS contexts, no specific methodology has dominated. A theory and method suitable to the study of cognition-de fined as personal constructs that individuals use to understand IT in organizations-is Kelly's (1955) personal construct theory and its cognitive mapping tool known as the repertory grid (RepGrid). This article expounds on the potential of this technique to IS researchers by considering the variety of ways the RepGrid may be employed. The flexibility of the RepGrid is illustrated by examining published studies in IS. The diagnostic qualities of the RepGrid and its mapping outcomes can be used for practical intervention at the individual and organizational levels.

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

cognitive mapping
repertory grid
personal construct theory

qualitative research
quantitative research


Data curation practices in institutional repositories: An exploratory study This poster reports on the preliminary findings of a study that examines data curation work in institutional repositories (IR). The study identified three perceived roles played by IR staff (i.e., data curator, IR manager, and metadata specialist) and role-specific sets of activities and skills. The findings of this study can inform the development of best practices and effective infrastructure support for data curation in the context of IRs, as well as teaching data curation in LIS schools.

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

research data
institutional repository
data activities
data skills


The Dial-A-Ride Problem with Transfers The Dial-A-Ride Problem with Transfers (DARPT) consists in defining a set of routes that satisfy transportation requests of users between a set of pickup points and a set of delivery points, in the presence of ride time constraints. Users may change vehicles during their trip. This change of vehicle, called a transfer, is made at specific locations called transfer points. Solving the DARPT involves modeling and algorithmic difficulties. In this paper we provide a solution method based on an Adaptive Large Neighborhood Search (ALNS) metaheuristic and explain how to check the feasibility of a request insertion. The method is evaluated on real-life and generated instances. Experiments show that savings due to transfers can be up to 8% on real-life instances.

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

dial-a-ride problem
simple temporal problem


Toward Automatic Time-Series Forecasting Using Neural Networks Over the past few decades, application of artificial neural networks (ANN) to time-series forecasting (TSF) has been growing rapidly due to several unique features of ANN models. However, to date, a consistent ANN performance over different studies has not been achieved. Many factors contribute to the inconsistency in the performance of neural network models. One such factor is that ANN modeling involves determining a large number of design parameters, and the current design practice is essentially heuristic and ad hoc, this does not exploit the full potential of neural networks. Systematic ANN modeling processes and strategies for TSF are, therefore, greatly needed. Motivated by this need, this paper attempts to develop an automatic ANN modeling scheme. It is based on the generalized regression neural network (GRNN), a special type of neural network. By taking advantage of several GRNN properties (i.e., a single design parameter and fast learning) and by incorporating several design strategies (e. g., fusing multiple GRNNs), we have been able to make the proposed modeling scheme to be effective for modeling large-scale business time series. The initial model was entered into the NN3 time-series competition. It was awarded the best prediction on the reduced dataset among approximately 60 different models submitted by scholars worldwide.

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

artificial neural network
model combination
time-series forecasting


Development of two-axis arm motion generator using active impedance In this research a two-dimensional arm motion generator, composed of two linear motors, was developed. The inertia, damping and/or stiffness characteristics of the motion generator can be changed on the real-time basis by properly regulating the force generated by the linear motors. That is, active impedance is implemented without actual change in the physical structure of the motion generator. Control of the motor force is carried out by regulating the input currents supplied to the linear motors by using a common voltage-driven driver. In the control system, the time delay due to A/D conversion of the current output has an adverse effect on the stability of the system. Furthermore, disturbances caused by characteristics of the motion generator also exist. To cope with these difficulties, a 2-DOF controller combined with LQ-servo and H-infinity controllers was used. The gains of the controller are selected so that disturbance rejection, stability guarantee and tracking performance may be achieved. This motion generator can be used to measure kinesthetic sense associated with the human arm and thus leads to developing the products for which the kinesthetic sense is taken into account. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

O O O B I I 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 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

2-dof controller
h-infinity controller
linear motor


Complete spans on Hermitian varieties Let L be a general linear complex in PG(3, q) for any prime power q. We show that when GF(q) is extended to GF(q(2)), the extended lines of L cover a non-singular Hermitian surface H congruent to H(3, q(2)) of PG(3, q(2)). We prove that if S is any symplectic spread PG(3, q), then the extended lines of this spread form a complete (q(2) + 1)-span of H. Several other examples of complete spans of H for small values of q are also discussed. Finally, we discuss extensions to higher dimensions, showing in particular that a similar construction produces complete (q(3) + 1)-spans of the Hermitian variety H(5, q(2)).

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


Designing creative artificial systems Can artificial systems be creative? Can they be designed to be creative on their own? What are the requirements of such creative artificial systems? To be able to support humans who are expected to deliver creative solutions, or to automate part of their tasks, this paper presents a proposal for creativity requirements that provide a basis for designing creative artificial systems.

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

agent design interactivity learning self-organization


Synchronous vs. asynchronous unison This paper considers the self-stabilizing unison problem in uniform distributed systems. The contribution of this paper is threefold. First, we establish that when any self-stabilizing asynchronous unison protocol runs in synchronous systems, it converges to synchronous unison if the size of the clock K is greater than C (G) , C (G) being the length of the maximal cycle of the shortest maximal cycle basis if the graph contains cycles, 2 otherwise (tree networks). The second result demonstrates that the asynchronous unison in Boulinier et al. (In PODC '04: Proceedings of the twenty-third annual ACM symposium on principles of distributed computing, pp. 150-159, 2004) provides a general self-stabilizing synchronous unison for trees which is optimal in memory space, i.e., it works with any K >= 3, without any extra state, and stabilizes within 2D rounds, where D is the diameter of the network. This protocol gives a positive answer to the question whether there exists or not a general self-stabilizing synchronous unison for tree networks with a state requirement independent of local or global information of the tree. If K=3, then the stabilization time of this protocol is equal to D only, i.e., it reaches the optimal performance of Herman and Ghosh (Inf. Process. Lett. 54:259-265, 1995). The third result of this paper is a self-stabilizing unison for general synchronous systems. It requires K >= 2 only, at least K+D states per process, and its stabilization time is 2D only. This is the best solution for general synchronous systems, both for the state requirement and the stabilization time.

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

computational complexity
self-stabilization
phase synchronization


Ontology of folksonomy: A mash-up of apples and oranges Ontologies are enabling technology for the Semantic Web. They are a means for people to state what they mean by the terms used in data that they might generate, share, or consume. Folksonomies are an emergent phenomenon of the social Web. They arise from data about how people associate terms with content that they generate, share, or consume. Recently the two ideas have been put into opposition, as if they were right and left poles of apolitical spectrum. This is a false dichotomy; they are more like apples and oranges. In fact, as the Semantic Web matures and the social Web grows, there is increasing value in applying Semantic Web technologies to the data of the social Web. This article is an attempt to clarify the distinct roles for ontologies and folksonomies, and preview some new work that applies the two ideas together-an ontology off olksonomy.

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

ontologies
folksonomy
semantic web
social web

web 2. 0
tag ontoogy
collective intelligence
semantic matching
knowledge sharing
global information inftastructure


routeplanner This paper discusses the RoutePlanner , a portable personal training and motivational aide, which displays real-time statistical and locational data. We focus on the iterative design techniques associated with developing requirements and functionality, while looking at the role user testing and feedback played in the refinement of our design.

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


Integrated CNTs thin film for MEMS mechanical sensors This paper reports the top-down fabrication of CNTs thin film on MEMS structure, and characterization of piezoresistive coefficients of aligned single wall carbon nanotube (SWNT) forest film. The film was synthesized by water-assisted chemical vapor deposition (CVD), a process known as super growth. CNTs film was condensed, manually maneuvered and conveniently patterned by EB lithography to form desirable shapes. The longitudinal and transverse gauge factors of the CNTs thin film were measured to be 3.75 and 0.67, respectively.

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

mems process
piezoresistive effect
gauge factor


a self managing secondary memory system A Self Managing Secondary Memory (SMSM) organization is proposed herein, in which hardware directly assists the storage, retrieval and management of arbitrary length records on such devices as fixed head discs or charge coupled devices (CCD's). This paper emphasizes some of the techniques used to implement an SMSM system. In an SMSM, fixed length words are organized into variable length records, and these records are packed into a file. The first word of the record, a label, can be associatively addressed to mark the record. Marked records can be output, erased, or a word or a collection of words can be inserted after the label of such records. Erased words are shifted to the bottom of memory as data words are packed upward, so that new records or extensions of old records can be inserted at the bottom of the file. In this system, although the file appears to be a single one dimensional array of words, it is actually stored on a number m of n word circular access memories, such as CCD's or tracks of a fixed head disc. Larger systems are implemented by increasing m. The access time for the entire system depends only on n. This architecture is self-managing in that no directories are kept, nor is software garbage collection or allocation necessary. The hardware replaces these functions. This appears to be a desirable direction for secondary memory architectures to develop, with special application to their use in computer networks. This paper discusses techniques for implementing an SMSM. These techniques were developed as part of the Context Addressed Segment Sequential Memory (CASSM) system. This paper therefore also describes that part of CASSM that, by itself, forms a useful SMSM. It is hoped that these techniques will be useful in the development of a new class of intelligent secondary memories to meet present and future needs of computing systems.

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

use
memory system
context
paper
access
management
records
organization
label
software
systems
architecture
storage
retrieval
data
hardware
future
class
allocation

applications
intelligence
developer
computation
collect
arrays
direct
extensibility
timing
variability
computer network
device
segmentation
memorialized
tracking


Recent advances in the biology and therapy of muscle wasting The recent advances in our understanding of the biology of muscle, and how anabolic and catabolic stimuli interact to control muscle mass and function, have led to new interest in pharmacological treatment of muscle wasting. Loss of muscle occurs as a consequence of many chronic diseases (cachexia), as well as normal aging (sarcopenia). Although anabolic effects of exercise on muscle have been know for many years, the development of pharmacological treatment for muscle loss is in its infancy. However, there is growing excitement among researchers in this field that developments may yield new treatments for muscle wasting in the future.

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


using web information for creating publication venue authority files Citations to publication venues in the form of journal, conference and workshop contain spelling variants, acronyms, abbreviated forms and misspellings, all of which make more difficult to retrieve the item of interest. The task of discovering and reconciling these variant forms of bibliographic references is known as authority work. The key goal is to create the so called authority files, which maintain, for any given bibliographic item, a list of variant labels (i.e., variant strings) used as a reference to it. In this paper we propose to use information available on the Web to create high quality publication venue authority files. Our idea is to recognize (and extract) references to publication venues in the text snippets of the answers returned by a search engine. References to a same publication venue are then reconciled in an authority file. Each entry in this file is composed of a canonical name for the venue, an acronym, the venue type (i.e., journal, conference, or workshop), and a mapping to various forms of writing its name in bibliographic citations. Experimental results show that our Web-based method for creating authority files is superior to previous work based on straight string matching techniques. Considering the average precision in finding correct venue canonical names, we observe gains up to 41.7\%.

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

canonical name
publication venue
authority file


Screening web breaks in a pressroom by soft computing The objective of this work is to identify the main parameters of the printing press, the printing process, and the paper affecting the occurrence of web breaks in a pressroom. Two approaches are explored. The first one treats the problem as a task of data classification into break and non-break classes. The procedures of classifier design and selection of relevant input variables are integrated into one process based on genetic search. The second approach, targeted for data visualization and also based on genetic search, combines procedures of input variable selection and data mapping into a two-dimensional space. The genetic search-based analysis has shown that the web tension parameters are amongst the most important ones. It was also found that the group of paper related parameters recorded online contain more information for predicting the occurrence of web breaks than the group of traditional parameters recorded off-line at a paper lab. Using the selected set of parameters, on average, 93.7% of the test set data were classified correctly. The average classification accuracy of web break cases was equal to 76.7%.

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 B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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
ga
curvilinear component analysis
svm
paper web break


Two New Clustering Algorithms for Vehicular Ad-Hoc Network Based on Ant Colony System In vehicular ad-hoc network (VANET), vehicles are dynamic nodes communicating with each other by wireless technology in their own transmission range. Consequently, with regard to larger communication due to the greater number of vehicles and high mobility of nodes, communication management and creation of a stable network in VANET are most challenging subjects. Hence, clustering as a possible solution to address this challenge, should take into consideration to produce stable clustering structure. Clustering technique is for organizing nodes into groups, making the network more robust and scalable. This paper introduces two new Improved Ant System-based Clustering algorithm (IASC1 and IASC2) suitable for dynamic environment of the VANET. Simulation is run to evaluate the introduced methods and compare them with the most commonly VANET clustering algorithms as found in the literature review. Results reveal the proposed algorithms have improved the stability and the runtime of VANET clustering algorithm and have a relatively good performance compared with other algorithms.

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

vehicular ad-hoc network (vanet)
intelligent transportation system (its)
clustering analysis
meta-heuristic algorithms


Indexed Swap Matching for Short Patterns Let T be a text of length n and P be a pattern of length m, both strings over a fixed finite alphabet. The Pattern Matching with Swaps problem is to find all occurrences of P in T if adjacent pattern characters can be swapped. In the Approximate Pattern Matching problem with Swaps, one seeks for every text location with a swapped match of P, the number of swaps necessary to obtain a match at the location. In this paper we provide the first off-line solution for the swap matching problem and the approximate pattern matching problem with swaps. We present a new data-structure called a Swap-transforming Tree. And we give a precise upper-bond of the number of the swapped versions of a pattern. By using the swap-transforming tree, we can solve both problems in time O(lambda(m) log(2) n) on an O(nH(k)) bits indexing data structure. Here lambda is a constant. Our solution is more effective when the pattern is short.

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

algorithms
pattern matching with swaps
suffix array
compressed sulfa array


Network support for IP traceback This paper describes a technique for tracing anonymous packet flooding attacks in the Internet back toward their source. This work is motivated by the increased frequency and sophistication of denial-of-service attacks and by the difficulty in tracing packets with incorrect, or "spoofed," source addresses. In this paper, we describe a general purpose traceback mechanism based on probabilistic packet marking in the network. Our approach allows a victim to identify the network path(s) traversed by attack traffic without requiring interactive operational support from Internet Service Providers (ISPs). Moreover, this traceback can be performed "post mortem"-after an attack has completed. We present an implementation of this technology that is incrementally deployable, (mostly) backward compatible, and can be efficiently implemented using conventional technology.

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

computer network management
computer network security
network servers
stochastic approximation
wide-area networks


Selective deposition of gold nanoclusters on silicon by a galvanic displacement process Gold nanoclusters are deposited selectively on silicon substrates by galvanic displacement from reversed micelle microemulsions. The water-in-oil system investigated comprises an organic phase (n-heptane), a surfactant (AOT), and an aqueous solution of hydrofluoric acid and metallic ions. X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy are employed to investigate the correlation between the nominal size of the reversed micelles and the size of the metal clusters formed on the silicon substrate. The measured gold cluster radius is in good quantitative agreement with nominal micelle radius over a wide range of cluster size and deposition time.

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

gold
cluster
silicon
galvanic displacement
aot


Undamped oscillations in fractional-order Duffing oscillator Undamped oscillations of fractional Duffing system is investigated. Parameter region is found using stability theorems. Frequency and amplitude of the limit cycle are estimated using a describing function method. Results are verified using numerical simulations in time domain.

O O O O O O O O O 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

duffing equation
oscillation
fractional order differential equation
parameter range


Parallelization of a dynamic Monte Carlo algorithm: A partially rejection-free conservative approach We experiment with a massively parallel implementation of an algorithm for simulating the dynamics of metastable decay in kinetic Ising models. The parallel scheme is directly applicable to a wide range of stochastic cellular automata where the discrete events (updates) are Poisson arrivals. For high performance, we utilize a continuous-time, asynchronous parallel version of the n-fold way rejection-free algorithm. Each processing element carries an l x l block of spins, and we employ fast one-sided communication routines on a distributed-memory parallel architecture. Different processing elements have different local simulated times. To ensure causality, the algorithm handles the asynchrony in a conservative fashion. Despite relatively low utilization and an intricate relationship between the average time increment and the size of the spin blocks, we find that the algorithm is scalable and for sufficiently large I it outperforms its corresponding parallel Metropolis (non-rejection-free) counterpart. As a sample application, we present results for metastable decay in a model ferromagnetic or ferroelectric film, observed with a probe of area smaller than the total system. (C) 1999 Academic Press.

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

monte carlo methods
parallel discrete-event simulations
rejection-free algorithms
kinetic ising model


Phi-contractor and the solutions for nonlinear operator equations in fuzzy normed spaces In this paper, we introduce the concept of Phi -contractor in fuzzy normed spaces and prove the existence and uniqueness theorems of solutions for set- and single-valued nonlinear operator equations with this kind of contractor. As applications of these theorems, we obtain some new fixed point theorems in fuzzy normed spaces. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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

fuzzy normed space
phi-contractor
operator equation


New RSA-Based (Selectively) Convertible Undeniable Signature Schemes In this paper, we design and analyze some new and practical (selectively) convertible undeniable signature (SCUS) schemes in both random oracle and standard model, which enjoy several merits over existing schemes in the literature. In particular, we design the first practical RSA-based SCUS schemes secure in the standard model. On the path, we also introduce two moduli RSA assumptions, including the strong twin RSA assumption, which is the RSA symmetry of the strong twin Diffie-Hellman assumption (Eurocrypt'08).

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


Capacity improvement with dynamic channel assignment and reuse partitioning in cellular systems In cellular mobile communications, how to achieve optimum system capacity with limited frequency spectrum is one of the main research issues. Many dynamic channel assignment (DCA) schemes have been proposed and studied to allocate the channels more efficiently, thus, the capacity of cellular systems is improved. Reuse partitioning (RP) is another technique to achieve higher capacity by reducing the overall reuse distance. In this paper, we present a network-based DCA scheme with the implementation of RP technique, namely dynamic reuse partitioning with inteference information (DRP-WI). The scheme aims to minimize the effect of assigned channels on the availability of channels for use in the intefering cells and to reduce their overall reuse distances. The performance of DRP-WI is measured in terms of blocking probability and system capacity. Simulation results have confirmed the effectiveness of DRP-WI scheme. Under both uniform and non-uniform traffic distributions, DRP-WI exhibits outstanding performance in improving the system capacity. It can provide about 100% capacity improvement as compared to conventional fixed channel assignment scheme with 70 system channels.

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

cellular mobile communications
dynamic channel assignment
reuse partitioning


Does Treewidth Help in Modal Satisfiability? Many tractable algorithms for solving the Constraint Satisfaction Problem (CSP) have been developed using the notion of the treewidth of some graph derived from the input CSP instance. In particular, the incidence graph of the CSP instance is one such graph. We introduce the notion of an incidence graph for modal logic formulas in a certain normal form. We investigate the parameterized complexity of modal satisfiability with the modal depth of the formula and the treewidth of the incidence graph as parameters. For various combinations of Euclidean, reflexive, symmetric, and transitive models, we show either that modal satisfiability is Fixed Parameter Tractable (FPT), or that it is W[1]-hard. In particular, modal satisfiability in general models is FPT, while it is W[1]-hard in transitive models. As might be expected, modal satisfiability in transitive and Euclidean models is FPT.

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

algorithms
parameterized complexity
satisfiability
treewidth


Planar-Subgraph and Eulerian-Based Techniques for Determining Protection Ring Covers in Mesh Optical Networks Ring architectures have been widely used by telecommunications carriers for the deployment of networks based on synchronous optical network (SONET) and wavelength division multiplexing (WDM). These architectures have several attractive properties that make them desirable for a large number of applications. Even though arbitrary mesh network architectures provide additional degrees of freedom and are more flexible than rings, in a number of applications there are advantages to decomposing the mesh topologies into a set of rings that cover the network. One of the primary uses of ring covers is to provide survivability against link and node failures. This paper investigates novel approaches for establishing ring covers in optical networks with mesh topologies, while minimizing the length of the ring covers.

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


A non-parametric filter for digital image restoration, using cluster analysis We introduce a method to restore digital images with contaminated pixels. One particular characteristic of this method is that it does not change the pixels that are not considered contaminated, thus avoiding excessive intervening of the original image. Each pixel is analyzed by studying its eight point neighborhood. A cluster analysis is performed on the group of eight pixels contained in the neighborhood. After deciding how many clusters there are in the neighborhood, a decision is made whether the center pixel is an outlier or not. If so, to assign a new value, another decision is made, on a probabilistic basis, as to which cluster it belongs. This method can be applied to black and white images as well as to color and multiphase images. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

robust image processing
linage restoration


A co-training-based approach for prediction of remaining useful life utilizing both failure and suspension data We develop a co-training-based approach for data-driven prognostics. The approach utilizes both failure and suspension data for RUL prediction. Two individual algorithms predict RULs of suspension units for each other. We verify the approach effectively exploits suspension data to improve accuracy.

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

co-training
semi-supervised learning
data-driven prognostics


The generalized modified Weibull power series distribution: Theory and applications A new distribution with increasing, decreasing, bathtub-shaped and unimodal failure rate forms called as the generalized modified Weibull power series (GMWPS) distribution is proposed. The new distribution is constructed based on a latent complementary risk problem and is obtained by compounding generalized modified Weibull (GMW) and power series distributions. The new distribution contains, as special submodels, several important distributions which are discussed in the literature, such as generalized modified Weibull Poisson (GMWP) distribution, generalized modified Weibull Geometric (GMWG) distribution, generalized modified Weibull Logarithmic (GMWL) distribution, generalized modified Weibull Binomial (GMWB) distribution, among others. A comprehensive mathematical treatment of the new distribution is provided. We provide closed-form expressions for the density, cumulative distribution, survival function, failure rate function, the r r th raw moment, and also the moments of order statistics. Expressions for the Rnyi and Shannon entropies are also given. Moreover, we discuss maximum likelihood estimation and provide formula for the elements of the Fisher information matrix. We consider the EM-algorithm for computing the estimates. Simulation studies and two real data set applications are also given for illustration of the flexibility and potentiality of the new distribution.

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

generalized modified weibull distribution


libCreme:

An

optimization

library

for

evaluating

convex-roof

entanglement

measures

We

present

the

software

library

libCreme

which

we

have

previously

used

to

successfully

calculate

convex-roof

entanglement

measures

of

mixed

quantum

states

appearing

in

realistic

physical

systems.

Evaluating

the

amount

of

entanglement

in

such

states

is

in

general

a

non-trivial

task

requiring

to

solve

a

highly

non-linear

complex

optimization

problem.

The

algorithms

provided

here

are

able

to

achieve

to

do

this

for

a

large

and

important

class

of

entanglement

measures.

The

library

is

mostly

written

in

the

Matlab

programming

language,

but

is

fully

compatible

to

the

free

and

open-source

Octave

platform.

Some

inefficient

subroutines

are

written

in

C/C++

for

better

performance.

This

manuscript

discusses

the

most

important

theoretical

concepts

and

workings

of

the

algorithms,

focusing

on

the

actual

implementation

and

usage

within

the

library.

Detailed

examples

in

the

end

should

make

it

easy

for

the

user

to

apply

libCreme

to

specific

problems.

Program

title:libCreme

Catalogue

identifier:

Program

summary

Program

obtainable

from:

CPC

Program

Library,

Queen?s

University,

Belfast,

N.

Ireland

Licensing

provisions:

GNU

GPL

version

No.

of

lines

in

distributed

program,

including

test

data,

etc.:

No.

of

bytes

in

distributed

program,

including

test

data,

etc.:

Distribution

format:

tar.gz

Programming

language:

Matlab/Octave

and

C/C++

Computer:

All

systems

running

Matlab

or

Octave

Operating

system:

All

systems

running

Matlab

or

Octave

Classification:

Nature

of

problem:

Evaluate

convex-roof

entanglement

measures.

This

involves

solving

a

non-linear

(unitary)

optimization

problem.

Solution

method:

Two

algorithms

are

provided:

A

conjugate-gradient

method

using

a

differential-geometric

approach

and

a

quasi-Newton

method

together

with

a

mapping

to

Euclidean

space.

Running

time:

Typically

seconds

to

minutes

for

a

density

matrix

of

a

few

low-dimensional

systems

and

a

decent

implementation

of

the

pure-state

entanglement

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


The risk-averse newsvendor problem with random capacity We study the effect of capacity uncertainty on a risk-averse newsvendors decision. We consider two criteria: Value-at-Risk as a constraint and Conditional Value-at-Risk. Capacity uncertainty decreases the order quantity under the CVaR. Capacity uncertainty may increase or decrease the order quantity under the VaR constraint. Under the VaR constraint, the effect depends on the confidence level.

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


120-nm lithography using off-axis TIR holography and 364 nm exposure wavelength An extension of total internal reflection holographic lithography is presented that nearly doubles its resolution limit for patterns that are periodic or quasi-periodic in one direction. An off-axis object beam is employed to record the hologram from the photomask, the angle of the beam being such that essentially just the zero order and a first diffraction order are transmitted by the mask. A fully automated equipment based on this method has been developed which also implements a step-and-repeat procedure to enable a large array of patterns to be recorded in the hologram from a single pattern in the mask. Gratings and patterns with substantial deviations from the pure grating form, with resolutions down to 120 nm, have been printed using an exposure wavelength of 364 nm.

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


High-resolution FEM-TVD schemes based on a fully multidimensional flux limiter A new approach to the derivation of local extremum diminishing finite element schemes is presented. The monotonicity of the Galerkin discretization is enforced by adding discrete diffusion so as to eliminate all negative off-diagonal matrix entries. The resulting low-order operator of upwind type acts as a preconditioner within an outer defect correction loop. A generalization of TVD concepts is employed to design solution-dependent antidiffusive fluxes which are inserted into the defect vector to preclude excessive smearing of solution profiles by numerical diffusion. Standard TVD limiters can be applied edge-by-edge using a special reconstruction of local three-point stencils. As a fully multidimensional alternative to this technique, a new limiting strategy is introduced. A node-oriented flux limiter is constructed so as to control the ratio of upstream and downstream edge contributions which are associated with the positive and negative off-diagonal coefficients of the high-order transport operator, respectively. The proposed algorithm can be readily incorporated into existing flow solvers as a black-box postprocessing tool for the matrix assembly routine. Its performance is illustrated by a number of numerical examples for scalar convection problems and incompressible flows in two and three dimensions.

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

convection-dominated problems
high-resolution schemes
flux limiters
finite elements
unstructured grids


A new stabilized finite element method for the transient NavierStokes equations ? This paper is concerned with the development and analysis of a new stabilized finite element method based on two local Gauss integrations for the two-dimensional transient NavierStokes equations by using the lowest equal-order pair of finite elements. This new stabilized finite element method has some prominent features: parameter-free, avoiding higher-order derivatives or edge-based data structures, and stabilization being completely local at the element level. An optimal error estimate for approximate velocity and pressure is obtained by applying the technique of the Galerkin finite element method under certain regularity assumptions on the solution. Compared with other stabilized methods (using the same pair of mixed finite elements) for the two-dimensional transient NavierStokes equations through a series of numerical experiments, it is shown that this new stabilized method has better stability and accuracy results.

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


Quasiperiodic and Lyndon episturmian words Recently the second two authors characterized quasiperiodic Sturmian words, proving that a Sturmian word is non-quasiperiodic if and only if, it is an infinite Lyndon word. Here we extend this study to episturmian words (a natural generalization of Sturmian words) by describing all the quasiperiods of an episturmian word, which yields a characterization of quasiperiodic episturmian words in terms of their directive words. Even further, we establish a complete characterization of all episturmian words that are Lyndon words. Our main results show that, unlike the Sturmian case, there is a much wider class of episturmian words that are non-quasiperiodic, besides those that are infinite Lyndon words. Our key tools are morphisms and directive words, in particular normalized directive words, which we introduced in an earlier paper. Also of importance is the use of return words to characterize quasiperiodic episturmian words, since such a method could be useful in other contexts. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

episturmian word
sturmian word
infinite lyndon word

arnoux-rauzy sequence
episturmian morphism
lexicographic order
quasiperiodicity


MERGING ON-DEMAND HPC RESOURCES FROM AMAZON EC2 WITH THE GRID: A CASE STUDY OF A XMIPP APPLICATION We present an infrastructure in which HPC resources from the Amazon Web Services public cloud are combined with specific grid resources at Ibergrid. The integration is done transparently for the Grid Way users through a daemon which permanently monitors the pool of available resources and submitted jobs, managing virtual instances for satisfying the demand under budget restrictions. The study has been proved with a specific application from the Xmipp package, which performs image processing from electron microscopy data and requires heavy high-throughput computing offering parallelization capabilities. The application was ported successfully for such a hybrid framework with the help of the MPI-Start package. Some preliminary results from test runs are presented for a controlled sample of thousand input images. Some inconveniences and troublesome aspects of the deployment are also reported.

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

grid
cloud
hpc
parallelization
image processing


Bzier projection: A unified approach for local projection and quadrature-free refinement and coarsening of NURBS and T-splines with particular application to isogeometric design and analysis We introduce Bzier projection as an element-based local projection methodology for B-splines, NURBS, and T-splines. This new approach relies on the concept of Bzier extraction and an associated operation introduced here, spline reconstruction, enabling the use of Bzier projection in standard finite element codes. Bzier projection exhibits provably optimal convergence and yields projections that are virtually indistinguishable from global L2 L 2 projection. Bzier projection is used to develop a unified framework for spline operations including cell subdivision and merging, degree elevation and reduction, basis roughening and smoothing, and spline reparameterization. In fact, Bzier projection provides a quadrature-free approach to refinement and coarsening of splines. In this sense, Bzier projection provides the fundamental building block for hpkr h p k r -adaptivity in isogeometric analysis.

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

bzier extraction
spline reconstruction
isogeometric analysis
local projection

local refinement and coarsening
quasi-interpolation


Executable formal specifications of complex distributed systems with CoreASM Formal specifications play a crucial role in the design of reliable complex software systems. Executable formal specifications allow the designer to attain early validation and verification of design using static analysis techniques and accurate simulation of the runtime behavior of the system-to-be. With increasing complexity of software-intensive computer-based systems and the challenges of validation and verification of abstract software models prior to coding, the need for interactive software tools supporting executable formal specifications is even more evident. In this paper, we discuss how CoreASM, an environment for writing and running executable specifications according to the ASM method, provides flexibility and manages the complexity by using an innovative extensible language architecture.

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

formal methods
specification and modeling environment
abstract state machines
coreasm coreasm


Stochastic model analysis on train agents communication Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to investigate the reliable and steady working conditions of train agent systems while connected to the internet The train agents can provide more accurate assistant navigation service and more useful "live" information service to ensure traveling crane safety However, all these services seriously rely on reliability and stability of communication quality of the train agents To ensure the stable an continuous work of the train agents, the stochastic model of the train agent communication is investigated in this paper Design/methodology/approach - According to Markov theory, the stochastic model of the train agent communication is established, the reliability of which is also investigated, the availability and mean-link interruption times in steady state are then given out Findings - In the end, the steady working condition and controllability of the train agents are discussed Research limitations/implications - The correctness of the mathematic model in the main limitation based oil which the model will be applied. Practical implications - A very Useful model for the train agent systems description. Originality/value - From the angle of stochastic model, the steady working condition and controllability of the train agent are given out connected to the internet It has enormous instruction significance to those special mobile agents design such as the train agents, the plane agents, the ship agents, etc

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

cybernetics
trains
communication technologies
markov processes
intelligent agents


Comparing the early research performance of PhD graduates in labor economics in Europe and the USA This paper analyzes the early research performance of PhD graduates in labor economics, addressing the following questions: Are there major productivity differences between graduates from American and European institutions? If so, how relevant is the quality of the training received (i.e. ranking of institution and supervisor) and the research environment in the subsequent job placement institution? The population under study consists of labor economics PhD graduates who received their degree in the years 20002005 in Europe or the USA. Research productivity is evaluated alternatively as the number of publications or the quality-adjusted number of publications of an individual. When restricting the analysis to the number of publications, results suggest a higher productivity by graduates from European universities than from USA universities, but this difference vanishes when accounting for the quality of the publication. The results also indicate that graduates placed at American institutions, in particular top ones, are likely to publish more quality-adjusted articles than their European counterparts. This may be because, when hired, they already have several good acceptances or because of more focused research efforts and clearer career incentives.

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


Design and Simulation of Filterless Optical Networks: Problem Definition and Performance Evaluation Filterless optical networks based on advanced transmission technologies and passive optical interconnections between nodes offer a lower-cost alternative to optical networks based on active photonic switching. A design and simulation platform is proposed for studying these novel network architectures and looking at their performance characteristics. Simulation results are presented for three reference network topologies, along with a comparative cost and performance study of active photonic and passive filterless optical network solutions.

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

routing and wavelength assignment algorithms


refactoring product lines Adoption strategies for Software Product Lines (SPL) frequently involve bootstrapping existing products into a SPL and extending an existing SPL to encompass another product. One way to do that is to use program refactorings. However, the traditional notion of refactoring does not handle appropriately feature models (FM), nor transformations involving multiple instances of the same SPL. For instance, it is not desirable to apply a refactoring into a SPL and reduce its configurability. In this paper, we extend the traditional notion of refactoring to an SPL context. Besides refactoring programs, FMs must also be refactored. We present a set of sound refactorings for FMs. We evaluate this extended refactoring definition for SPL in a real case study in the mobile games domain.

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


Abduction Machine-1 as wooden furniture The Abduction Machine Project is in progress at RACE (Research into Artifacts, Centre for Engineering) of the University of Tokyo. In this project, we are focusing on the creative process of human reasoning, referred to as abduction (hypothesis generation). The Abduction Machines are experiential apparatus to embody and describe the process of abduction. One of the main objectives of the Abduction Machine Project is to establish a new view of abduction, which prays a crucial role in creative processes, by combining the experientialist views on human knowledge and architectural space design methodologies. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.

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


effects of cdna microarray time-series data size on gene regulatory network inference accuracy A number of models and algorithms have been proposed in the past for gene regulatory network (GRN) inference; however, none of them address the effects of the size of the time-series microarray expression data in terms of number of time-points. In this paper, we study this problem by analyzing the behavior of two algorithms based on information theory models. These algorithms were implemented on different sizes of data generated by synthetic network generation tools. Experiments show that the performances of these algorithms reach a saturation point after a specific data size, thus giving the biologist an idea about what size of data will give the best inference accuracy. Also, the fact that the accuracy saturates after a specific number of time points (the saturation point being different for different algorithms) suggests that generating time-series data for a lot of time-points will not necessary improve the inference accuracy beyond a certain point. To understand this saturation, we found out that the information theoretic quantity, mutual information, tends to zero as the number of time points increase although the entropy in the network rises to unity. This illustrates the fact that mutual information (MI) might not be the best metric to use for GRN inference algorithms. To modify the MI metric we introduce a new method of computing time lags between any pair of genes and present the time lagged mutual information (TLMI) metric for reverse engineering of GRNs.

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


Atomic layer deposition of tantalum oxide thin films for their use as diffusion barriers in microelectronic devices Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) was used for the deposition of tantalum oxide thin films in order to be integrated in microelectronic devices as barrier to copper diffusion. The influence of deposition temperature, number of cycles and precursor pulse time on the film growth was discussed. The conformity of thinnest deposited films was shown. Copper diffusion through ALD Ta2O5 thin films, 20nm in thickness, was investigated, for three temperatures from 600 to 800C, using X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy. The failure of such films was detected after a thermal treatment at 700C.

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

atomic layer deposition
tantalum oxide
conformity
copper diffusion


A fuzzy matchmaking approach for Semantic Web Services with application to collaborative material selection A critical step in the process of reusing existing WSDL-specified services for building web-based applications is the discovery of potentially relevant services. However, the category-based service discovery, such as UDDI, is clearly insufficient. Semantic Web Services, augmenting Web service descriptions using Semantic Web technology, were introduced to facilitate the publication, discovery, and execution of Web services at the semantic level. Semantic matchmaker enhances the capability of UDDI service registries in the Semantic Web Services architecture and it is able to recognize various degrees of matching for Web services. Based on the Semantic Web Service framework, semantic matchmaker, specification matching and probabilistic matching, this paper proposes a fuzzy matchmaking approach for Semantic Web Services to support a more automated and veracious service discovery process in collaborative manufacturing environments. In the proposed approach, the membership function is set up on the semantic information annotated on WSDL specification of a web service, and the similarity of service objects is evaluated by the similarity degree of service attributes. A collaborative material selection case study in the die casting process for thermoelectric fan housing is used to illustrate the proposed approach. Crown Copyright (C) 2011 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

semantic web services
similarity
matchmaking
material selection


Category Level Object Segmentation by Combining Bag-of-Words Models with Dirichlet Processes and Random Fields This paper addresses the problem of accurately segmenting instances of object classes in images without any human interaction. Our model combines a bag-of-words recognition component with spatial regularization based on a random field and a Dirichlet process mixture. Bag-of-words models successfully predict the presence of an object within an image; however, they can not accurately locate object boundaries. Random Fields take into account the spatial layout of images and provide local spatial regularization. Yet, as they use local coupling between image labels, they fail to capture larger scale structures needed for object recognition. These components are combined with a Dirichlet process mixture. It models images as a composition of regions, each representing a single object instance. Gibbs sampling is used for parameter estimations and object segmentation. Our model successfully segments object category instances, despite cluttered backgrounds and large variations in appearance and viewpoints. The strengths and limitations of our model are shown through extensive experimental evaluations. First, we evaluate the result of two methods to build visual vocabularies. Second, we show how to combine strong labeling (segmented images) with weak labeling (images annotated with bounding boxes), in order to limit the labeling effort needed to learn the model. Third, we study the effect of different initializations. We present results on four image databases, including the challenging PASCAL VOC 2007 data set on which we obtain state-of-the art results.

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

object recognition
segmentation
random fields


Atomsk:

A

tool

for

manipulating

and

converting

atomic

data

files

We

present

a

libre,

Open

Source

command-line

program

named

Atomsk,

that

aims

at

creating

and

manipulating

atomic

systems

for

the

purposes

of

abinitio

calculations,

classical

atomistic

calculations,

and

visualization,

in

the

areas

of

computational

physics

and

chemistry.

The

program

can

run

on

GNU/Linux,

Apple

Mac

OS

X,

and

Microsoft

Windows

platforms.

Many

file

formats

are

supported,

allowing

for

easy

conversion

of

atomic

configuration

files.

The

command-line

options

allow

to

construct

supercells,

insert

point

defects

(vacancies,

interstitials),

line

defects

(dislocations,

cracks),

plane

defects

(stacking

faults),

as

well

as

other

transformations.

Several

options

can

be

applied

consecutively,

allowing

for

a

comprehensive

workflow

from

a

unit

cell

to

the

final

atomic

system.

Some

modes

allow

to

construct

complex

structures,

or

to

perform

specific

analysis

of

atomic

systems.

Program

title:

Atomsk

Catalogue

identifier:

Program

summary

Program

obtainable

from:

CPC

Program

Library,

Queens

University,

Belfast,

N.

Ireland

Licensing

provisions:

GNU/GPL

version

or

any

later

version

No.

of

lines

in

distributed

program,

including

test

data,

etc.:

No.

of

bytes

in

distributed

program,

including

test

data,

etc.:

Distribution

format:

tar.gz

Programming

language:

Fortran

Computer:

All

computers

with

a

Fortran

compiler

supporting

at

least

Fortran

Operating

system:

All

operating

systems

with

such

a

compiler.

Some

of

the

Makefiles

and

scripts

depend

on

a

Unix-like

system

and

need

modification

under

Windows.

RAM:

Typically

bytes

N

N

where

N

N

is

the

number

of

particles.

Classification:

External

routines:

LAPACK

Nature

of

problem:

Atomistic

simulations

require

the

generation

of

atomic

data

files.

Few

software

are

available

to

construct

atomic

systems

containing

dislocations,

especially

in

anisotropic

media.

Solution

method:

Atomsk

is

a

unified

program

that

allows

to

generate,

convert

and

transform

atomic

systems

for

the

purposes

of

ab

initio

calculations,

classical

atomistic

simulations,

or

visualization.

It

supports

many

lattice

types,

all

atom

chemical

species,

and

supports

systems

described

with

the

ionic

coreshell

model.

It

allows

to

construct

dislocations

and

analyze

them,

and

perform

post-treatment

of

simulation

output

files.

Restrictions:

no

support

for

molecular

bonds;

limit

of

billions

particles.

Unusual

features:

dislocations

in

anisotropic

media;

computation

of

the

Nye

tensor;

generation

of

polycrystal

from

any

type

of

lattice;

support

for

ionic

coreshell

models

and

analysis

of

electric

polarization.

Additional

comments:

the

program

and

its

documentation

are

available

at:

Running

time:

spans

from

a

fraction

of

a

second

to

several

minutes

depending

on

the

number

of

particles

in

the

atomic

system,

the

mode,

and

the

machine

performance.

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

atomistic simulations
polycrystal
nye tensor


Multi-adjoint t-concept lattices The t-concept lattice is introduced as a set of triples associated to graded tabular information interpreted in a non-commutative fuzzy logic. Following the general techniques of formal concept analysis, and based on the works by Georgescu and Popescu, given a non-commutative conjunctor it is possible to provide generalizations of the mappings for the intension and the extension in two different ways, and this generates a pair of concept lattices. In this paper, we show that the information common to both concept lattices can be seen as a sublattice of the Cartesian product of both concept lattices. The multi-adjoint framework can be applied to this general t-concept lattice, and its usefulness is illustrated by a working example.

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

concept lattice
multi-adjoint lattice
implication triple
galois connection


Validation of the Wind Erosion Equation (WEQ) for discrete periods ? The Wind Erosion Equation (WEQ) is currently used by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) to ensure compliance with government guidelines for soil loss from agricultural land. The model uses inputs of soil texture, annual mean climate data, statistically derived wind energy apportionment tables, and field management options to predict soil loss on a management period and annual basis. In this study, we compared estimates of wind erosion derived from the sums of field measurements at seven locations, two of which had multiple years of observations (a total of 14 periods of comparison), with the predictions of WEQ. WEQ under-predicted the observed estimates of 11 of the 14 periods by as much as a factor of nine. For the three periods that WEQ over-predicted observed erosion estimates, the factor was less than 1.5. Across all sites and periods considered in this investigation, WEQ only predicted about 53% of the observed estimated erosion. Analysis of two average years at Big Spring, TX, indicated that WEQ could be locally calibrated by use of increased climatic (C?) and soil erodibility (I) values as well as combinations of the two.

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