a user interface for deaf-blind people (preliminary report) A user interface suitable for deaf-blind users is presented and justified. The interface is designed for small paperless Braille displays, large font visual displays, or other low-bandwidth displays. Some of the key properties of the interface are that it uses a hierarchical approach to structure both commands and data, has a small universal command set, and has pervasive editing capability. DBNet, a system employing the user interface, has been built and tested with deaf-blind users. DBNet will provide various communication services to the deaf-blind community including electronic news, mail, and bulletin boards.

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

communication
pervasive
braille
news
structure
user interface
data

deaf
hierarchic
visualization
communities
systems
edit
bandwidth
service
interfaces
blind user
display
blind


Area-preserving flattening maps of 3D ultrasound carotid arteries images Quantitative measurements of the progression (or regression) of carotid plaque burden are important in monitoring patients and evaluating new treatment options. 3D ultrasound (US) has been used to monitor the progression of carotid artery plaques in symptomatic and asymptomatic patients, and different methods of measuring various ultrasound phenotypes of atherosclerosis have been developed. We have developed a quantitative metric used to analyze changes in carotid plaque morphology from 3D US. This method matched the vertices on the carotid arterial wall surface with those on the luminal surface. Vesselwall-plus-plaque thickness (VWT) was obtained by computing the distance between each corresponding pair, which was then superimposed on the arterial wall to produce the VWT map. Since the progression of plaque thickness is important in monitoring patients who are at risk for stroke, we also computed the change of VWT by comparing the VWT maps obtained for a patient at two different time points. In this paper, we propose a technique to flatten the 3D VWT and VWT-Change maps in an area-preserving manner, in order to facilitate the visualization and interpretation of these maps.

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

carotid atherosclerosis
carotid ultrasound
area-preserving map
3d ultrasound (us)


Fabrication of sub-micron high aspect ratio diamond structures with nanoimprint lithography Polycrystalline diamond with optical quality has been patterned using nanoimprint lithography. Nanoimprint lithography is a rather new method for fabrication of resist structures with features sizes down to at least 20nm. The pattern used in this article is a grating with a period of 600nm and a fill factor of 0.5. Using plasma etching the nanoimprinted grating is etched into a freestanding diamond substrate. We have accomplished the fabrication of 300nm diamond features with a depth of about 2?m, which corresponds to an aspect ratio of 7.

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

cvd diamond
inductively coupled plasma etching
nanostructures


self-managing agents for dynamic scheduling in manufacturing The main purpose of this paper is to propose a Multi-Agent Autonomic and Bio-Inspired based framework with self-managing capabilities to solve complex scheduling problems using cooperative negotiation. Scheduling resolution requires the intervention of highly skilled human problem-solvers. This is a very hard and challenging domain because current systems are becoming more and more complex, distributed, interconnected and subject to rapidly changing. A natural Autonomic Computing (AC) evolution in relation to Current Computing is to provide systems with Self-Managing ability with a minimum human interference.

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

bio-inspired techniques
multi-agent systems


Using ORA to explore the relationship of nursing unit communication to patient safety and quality outcomes Purpose: We used ORA, a dynamic network analysis tool, to identify patient care unit communication patterns associated with patient safety and quality outcomes. Although ORA had previously had limited use in healthcare, we felt it could effectively model communication on patient care units. Methods: Using a survey methodology, we collected communication network data from nursing staff on seven patient care units on two different days. Patient outcome data were collected via a separate survey. Results of the staff survey were used to represent the communication networks for each unit in ORA. We then used ORA's analysis capability to generate communication metrics for each unit. ORA's visualization capability was used to better understand the metrics. Results: We identified communication patterns that correlated with two safety (falls and medication errors) and three quality (e.g., symptom management, complex self care, and patient satisfaction) outcome measures. Communication patterns differed substantially by shift. Conclusion: The results demonstrate the utility of ORA for healthcare research and the relationship of nursing unit communication patterns to patient safety and quality outcomes. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

communication networks
ora
safety
quality
nursing


Towards more realistic (e.g., non-associative) "and'- and "or"-operations in fuzzy logic How is fuzzy logic usually formalized? There are many seemingly reasonable requirements that a logic should satisfy: e.g., since A&B and B&A are the same, the corresponding and-operation should be commutative. Similarly, since A&A means the same as A, we should expect that the and-operation should also satisfy this property, etc. It turns out to be impossible to satisfy all these seemingly natural requirements, so usually, some requirements are picked as absolutely true (like commutativity or associativity), and others are ignored if they contradict to the picked ones. This idea leads to a neat mathematical theory, but the analysis of real-life expert reasoning shows that all the requirements are only approximately satisfied. we should require all of these requirements to be satisfied to some extent. In this paper, we show the preliminary results of analyzing such operations. In particular, we show that non-associative operations explain the empirical 7 +/- 2 law in psychology according to which a person can normally distinguish between no more than 7 plus minus 2 classes.

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


Heuristic algorithm for a cutting stock problem in the steel bridge construction A rectangular two-dimensional cutting stock problem in the steel bridge construction is discussed. It is the problem of cutting a set of rectangular items from plates with arbitrary sizes that lie in the supplier specified ranges, such that the necessary plate area is minimized. Several types of cutting patterns are used to compose the cutting plan. All of them are easy to generate and cut except the last one. The algorithm uses both recursive and dynamic programming techniques to generate patterns of the last type. The computational results of 22 practical instances indicate that the algorithm can produce solutions close to optimal, and the computation time is reasonable for practical use.

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


Instability and cluster stability variance for real clusterings Robustness is an important concept when dealing with clustering algorithms. While most literature directed to this concept discusses robustness with respect to changes in the given data set, this paper focuses on robustness with respect to changes in the initial conditions. We build on our previous work, where we introduced the concepts of instability and cluster stability variance to measure the robustness in terms of initial conditions. Results from previous work are extended to a much broader class of clusterings, and we introduce the notion of structure-preserving data element. It is proven that removing a structure-preserving unstable data element from the data set increases the robustness of the considered clustering algorithm, as measured by its instability, while the structure of the given data set is conserved. The practical significance of detecting structure-preserving unstable data elements is also discussed.

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

instability
cluster stability variance
robustness


techniques for improved placement-coupled logic replication Several recent papers have utilized logic replication driven by placement-level timing analysis for improving clock period (e.g., [1], [8], [18], and [2]). All of these papers demonstrated, through various optimization strategies, the potential of the basic technique of replication. In this paper we propose a number of techniques aimed at more fully realizing this potential within the framework employed in [8]. As reported in [7], there are situations in which the approach of [8] fails to yield significant additional improvement due largely to the effects of reconvergence in the netlist. We suggest the use of rectilinear Steiner arborescence embedding as a tool for overcoming this limitation. We also propose techniques for fanout partitioning and cell relocation which are cognizant of both wirelength and timing impact for improved solution quality. We report the effect of other techniques including new replication cost computation, lower-bounding of achievable clock period, and wirelength estimation. We have implemented and experimented with these techniques in FPGA domain. In many cases we were able to approach a fixed flip-flop lower-bound on achievable clock period. Promising experimental results are reported with average 17.4\% (up to 39.9\%) delay reduction compared with the timing-driven placement from VPR[16] and average 9.3\% (up to 37.2\%) reduction compared with the basic fanin tree embedder from [8].

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


Dense framelets with two generators and their application in mechanical fault diagnosis We propose a new family of dense framelets with high symmetry and regularity. We construct symmetric framelets with vanishing moments and good shift-invariance. The proposed framelets have greatly high vibration signal denoising performance. The proposed framelets are superior to other typical wavelets in fault diagnosis.

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

shift-invariance
gear fault
feature extraction


Efficient model-based quantification of left ventricular function in 3-D echocardiography Quantitative functional analysis of the left ventricle plays a very important role in the diagnosis of heart diseases. While in standard two-dimensional echocardiography this quantification is limited to rather crude volume estimation, three-dimensional (3-D) echocardiography not only significantly improves its accuracy but also makes it possible to derive valuable additional information, like various wall-motion measurements. In this paper, we present a new efficient method for the functional evaluation of the left ventricle from 3-D echographic sequences. It comprises a segmentation step that is based on the integration of 3-D deformable surfaces and a four-dimensional statistical heart motion model. The segmentation results in an accurate 3-D + time left ventricle discrete representation. Functional descriptors like local wall-motion indexes are automatically derived from this representation. The method has been successfully tested both on electrocardiography-gated and real-time 3-D data. It has proven to be fast, accurate, and robust.

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

four-dimensional statistical modeling
left ventricle function quantification
three-dimensional echocardiography


Automatic detection of lithologic boundaries using the Walsh transform: A case study from the KTB borehole An automatic method of lithologic boundary detection based on Walsh transform theory is developed and applied to the German Continental Deep Drilling Project (KTB) borehole well log data. Walsh functions are natural choices for describing binary waveforms; hence a Walsh transform-based scheme is most appropriate for detecting lithologic boundaries. The Walsh transform technique involves low-pass filtering augmented by a Skilled Algorithm to identify the correct boundary depths. In Walsh domain filtering, the step width of a low-pass image of the original signal is a function of cutoff sequency and also constant over a binary width. This makes the method more suitable to attune and resolve appropriately the minimum thickness of lithologic successions. The application of the method to the best available KTB data yields results that confirm the current geophysical model and also resolve additional finer scale boundaries embedded within larger geological units. The Walsh transform-based detection scheme renders an effective means for resolving and understanding structural inhomogeneity within complex geologic signals, particularly borehole geophysical logs.

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

borehole geophysics
walsh transforms
low-pass filtering
rock boundary detection


MIMO zero-forcing equalizer for BFDM/OQAM systems in time-frequency dispersive channels Pulse-shaping OFDM is well-known that it performs well in a mobile environment compared with conventional OFDM. However, in a highly mobile environment intersymbol and intercarrier interferences (ISI/ICIs) increase and can no longer be neglected. These ISI/ICIs deteriorate the performance of the systems. Proper channel equalization is needed for further improvement of the systems. In this paper, a more general case, namely Biorthogonal Frequency Division System based on Offset QAM (BFDM/OQAM) is considered. We propose a multi-input multi-output (MIMO) transversal filter to equalize the time-frequency dispersive channel. Tap weights are calculated using the zero-forcing (ZF) algorithm. We also propose maximum-likelihood channel estimator and its low-complexity version. The proposed system can significantly improve the performance of BFDM/OQAM systems in the highly mobile environment.

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

pulse-shaping ofdm
bfdm/oqam
isi/ici
mimo zero-forcing equalizer


complementary code keying with pic based microcontrollers for the wireless radio communications The IEEE 802.11b is a Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS) system very similar in concept to the CDMA Wireless, using a spread spectrum chip sequence. In the 802.11b the transmission medium is wireless and the operating frequency band is 2.4GHz, 802.11b provides 5.5 and 11 Mbps payload data rates in addition to the 1 and 2 Mbps rates provided by 802.11. To provide the higher rates, 8 chip Complementary Code Keying (CCK) is employed as the modulation scheme.Demodulatin of the CCK modulated signal is done coherently by a RAKE receiver implementation which features a channel matched filter and Fast Walsh Transform block.This paper presents implementation of PIC16F84 as a CCK encoder. All low cost PIC based microcontrollers can be used, too. Here we describe the building blocks design of transmitter such as CCK encoder (digital part) and QPSK modulator (analogue part).

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

wireless lan
barker's code
rf
ieee 802.11


A nature-inspired influence propagation model for the community expansion problem Influence propagation has been widely studied in social networks recently. Most of these existing work mainly focuses on the individual influence or the seed set influence. However, a large range of real world applications are related with the influence from communities. In this paper, we argue that the specific structure of community makes the influence propagation from a community different from previous influence propagation from an individual or a seed set. Inspired by the charged system in the physic, a new community influence propagation model is built, which provides a natural description about the process of influence propagation and explains why the influence makes communities expand. Based on this physical model, we define the community expansion problem. And two objective functions are proposed for choosing proper candidates to enlarge a community, taking into account the cost and benefit. Then a linear programming approach is designed to maximize those two objective functions. To validate our ideas and algorithm, we construct experiments on three real-world networks. The results demonstrate that our model and algorithm are effective in choosing proper candidates for expanding a community, comparing to other two algorithms.

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

community expansion
physical model
linear programming


Vector quasi-equilibrium problems: separation, saddle points and error bounds for the solution set In this paper, we employ the image space analysis (for short, ISA) to investigate vector quasi-equilibrium problems (for short, VQEPs) with a variable ordering relation, the constrained condition of which also consists of a variable ordering relation. The quasi relatively weak VQEP (for short, qr-weak VQEP) are defined by introducing the notion of the quasi relative interior. Linear separation for VQEP (res., qr-weak VQEP) is characterized by utilizing the quasi interior of a regularization of the image and the saddle points of generalized Lagrangian functions. Lagrangian type optimality conditions for VQEP (res., qr-weak VQEP) are then presented. Gap functions for VQEP (res., qr-weak VQEP) are also provided and moreover, it is shown that an error bound holds for the solution set of VQEP (res., qr-weak VQEP) with respect to the gap function under strong monotonicity.

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

image space analysis
linear separation
gap functions
error bounds


Curve-skeleton properties, applications, and algorithms Curve-skeletons are thinned 1D representations of 3D objects useful for many visualization tasks including virtual navigation, reduced-model formulation, visualization improvement, animation, etc. There are many algorithms in the literature describing extraction methodologies for different applications; however, it is unclear how general and robust they are. In this paper, we provide an overview of many curve-skeleton applications and compile a set of desired properties of such representations. We also give a taxonomy of methods and analyze the advantages and drawbacks of each class of algorithms.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 graphics
computational geometry
object modeling
curve
surface
solid
and object representations
curve-skeletons


Attitudes, Perceptions, and Family Coping in Pediatric Cancer and Childhood Diabetes The importance of psychosocial factors in psychological adjustment and coping in children with cancer and their families is well recognized. In this study, parental attitudes, children's self-perceptions, and families' coping were studied in 38 children with leukemia, 30 children with juvenile diabetes, and 30 control subjects. Children with cancer scored themselves more negatively than their parents on all the subscales except scholastic competence, while children with diabetes scored negatively in the area of athletic competence. With regard to family coping, parental hope as well as social and family communication were the most important factors that contributed to better coping in children with leukemia, while parental education and health awareness were integral to better coping in children with diabetes. Awareness of family coping and understanding the domains of self-competence and self-worth, which are vulnerable in children with cancer, can help healthcare providers to target these issues and to offer appropriate psychosocial intervention.

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

childhood cancer
diabetes mellitus
self-perceptions


the design of the psi program synthesis system This paper presents an overview of the current state of the PSI automatic program synthesis system and discusses the design considerations. The PSI system allows a user to specify a desired program in a dialogue using natural language and traces. PSI then synthesizes a program meeting these specifications. The target programs are simple symbolic computation programs in LISP. PSI may be described as a knowledge-based program understanding system. It is organized as a collection of closely interacting modules, or experts in the areas of natural language, discourse, traces, application domain, high-level program modelling, coding, and efficiency. An implementation effort is underway and several modules are now working.

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

traces
symbolic computation
efficiency
lisp
program synthesis
program understanding
design
discourse
paper
program modelling
user
dialogue
natural language
program
meeting
implementation

understandability
applications
collect
model
knowledge
algorithm analysis
automatic coding
program inference
systems
code
module
automatic programming
knowledge-based systems
synthesis


Listing all minimal separators of a graph An efficient algorithm listing all minimal vertex separators of an undirected graph is given. The algorithm needs polynomial time per separator that is found.

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

listing algorithm
minimal separator
good pair
minimal pair


Domain decomposition in time for PDE-constrained optimization ? PDE-constrained optimization problems have a wide range of applications, but they lead to very large and ill-conditioned linear systems, especially if the problems are time dependent. In this paper we outline an approach for dealing with such problems by decomposing them in time and applying an additive Schwarz preconditioner in time, so that we can take advantage of parallel computers to deal with the very large linear systems. We then illustrate the performance of our method on a variety of problems.

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

pde-constrained optimization
spacetime methods
preconditioning
parallel computing


Deriving real-time action systems in a sampling logic Action systems have been shown to be applicable for modelling and constructing systems in both discrete and hybrid domains. We present a novel semantics for action systems using a sampling logic that facilitates reasoning about the truly concurrent behaviour between an action system and its environment. By reasoning over the apparent states, the sampling logic allows one to determine whether a state predicate is definitely or possibly true over an interval. We present a semantics for action systems that allows the time taken to sample inputs and evaluate expressions (and hence guards) into account. We develop a temporal logic based on the sampling logic that facilitates formalisation of safety, progress, timing and transient properties. Then, we incorporate this logic to the method of enforced properties, which facilitates stepwise refinement of action systems. Crown Copyright (C) 2012 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

sampling logic
action systems
temporal logic
enforced properties

program refinement
derivation
true concurrency
safety-critical systems


user-driven design of a tangible awareness landscape This paper describes the design and evolutionary development of a system for supporting informal interactions between geographically-remote members of a group. Based on simple internet technologies, the system described enables the use of novel, tangible devices for the purpose of discrete event notification. A simple system was initially developed for use in an office environment for providing awareness events via a single notification device. Over a four month period this simple system evolved into a suite of low-cost, low-tech notification devices for public and personal use. The numerous devices utilised by the final system constitute a physical landscape of awareness which have been demonstrated to support group and individual awareness of discrete events in both fixed locations and on the move.

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

user-driven design
tangible media
awareness landscapes


Free-Running 1550 nm VCSEL for 10.7 Gb/s Transmission in 99.7 km PON We present a cooler-less, free-running 1550 nm vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) directly modulated at 10.7 Gb/s. We also report on error-free transmission through 40 km of standard single-mode optical fiber, achieved without the use of dispersion-mitigation or mid-span amplification. Inverse-dispersion fiber was utilized to realize a dispersion-matched 99.7 km optical access uplink supporting error-free transmission with 27 dB loss margin. These results indicate the feasibility of implementing cooler-less long-wavelength VCSEL devices in long-reach optical access networks.

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


Human motion generation with multifactor models To generate human motions with various specific attributes is a difficult task because of high dimensionality and complexity of human motions. This paper presents a novel human motion model for generating and editing motions with multiple factors. A set of motions performed by several actors with various styles was captured for constructing a well-structured motion database. Subsequently, MICA (multilinear independent component analysis) model that combines ICA and conventional multilinear framework was adopted for the construction of a multifactor model. With this model, new motions can be synthesized by interpolation and through solving optimization problems for the specific factors. Our method offers a practical solution to edit stylistic human motions in a parametric space learnt with MICA model. We demonstrated the power of our method by generating and editing sideways stepping, reaching, and striding over obstructions using different actors with various styles. The experimental results show that our method can be used for interactive stylistic motion synthesis and editing. Copyright (C) 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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

multilinear independent components analysis


Energy-aware adaptive routing for large-scale ad hoc networks: Protocol and performance analysis We propose and analyze an energy-aware traffic-adaptive routing strategy for large-scale mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs). Referred to as Energy-Aware GEolocation-aided Routing (EAGER), this protocol optimally blends proactive and reactive strategies for energy efficiency. Specifically, EAGER partitions the network into cells and performs intracell proactive routing and intercell reactive routing. The cell size and the transmission range are optimized analytically. By adjoining cells around hot spots and hot routes in the network, EAGER is capable of handling time-varying and spatially heterogeneous traffic conditions.

O O O O O B I I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 protocols
wireless communication


A future possibility of vibration based condition monitoring of rotating machines Adopted conventional practice uses a number of vibration sensors at a bearing pedestal of a rotating machine for the vibration based condition monitoring. The number of bearings in a machine, say a Turbo-Generator (TG) set, is likely to be very high hence increasing sensors to a large number. Therefore results in huge data sets to analyse to track any fault(s) which often depends on the experience and the engineering judgments in fault detection process. The effort of the present study is to reduce the number of sensors per bearing pedestals by enhancing the computational effort in signal processing. The concept used was fusion of the data from all sensors in the frequency domain to get a composite spectrum for a machine and then the computation of the higher order spectra (HOS) so that the vibration data is managed efficiently and able to detect fault uniquely. The results of the suggested approach are discussed here.

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

rotating machine
fault detection
higher order spectra


The impact of the medium of instruction: The case of teaching and learning of computer programming Despite the seemingly good prospects in the Information Technology (IT) industry, the expected number of students who are interested in the relevant subjects has been limited. While numerous studies have explored the influence of various variables on programming course participation and performance at a personal level, there have been few studies conducted at a policy level. This study examined the impact of the medium of instruction (MOI) on student learning of computer programming in Hong Kong. It also examined the effects of gender and prior academic ability on programming performance. No gender differences in programming performance were found in the sample after prior academic ability was controlled. Prior academic ability affected performance differentially. Chinese-medium instructed students tended to outperform their English-medium instructed counterparts and middle and low-ability students in English-medium schools were notably at-risk. In view of these results, we argue that the MOI issue is further complicated by student ability. This provides a new understanding of the impact of the MOI on student learning. At a policy level, the results offer empirical evidence for policy-makers to rethink the current MOI policy. At a school level, we propose some metacognitive and cognitive strategies to address the needs of those at-risk learners. Finally, we intend to raise a series of questions that warrant further discussion and investigation.

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

medium of instruction
gender differences
student ability
computer programming


Suppression of carbon depletion from carbon-doped low-k dielectric layers during fluorocarbon based plasma etching This study investigates the fluorocarbon based plasma etching (FBPE) of ultra low dielectric constant (ULK) carbon-doped oxide (CDO) films, which have a k value of 2.4. The influence of the presence of a thin fluorocarbon layer on the carbon concentration in the underlying CDO film during etching was investigated. Different plasma treatment conditions were explored including different RF powers and a range of C4F8/Ar/O2 gas ratios. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) was used to analyse the chemical composition of the post-etched low-k CDO films, while spectroscopic ellipsometry (SE) was used to determine the overall film thickness. Plasma conditions which resulted in the absence of a fluorocarbon layer showed a 50% reduction in the carbon concentration in the upper part of the low-k layer. However, the depletion of carbon from the CDO was minimized when plasma conditions resulted in the presence of a fluorocarbon layer on the CDO surface during etching of the low-k. The etch rate of the low-k layer was found to depend on the thickness of the fluorocarbon film which could be controlled by varying the C4F8:O2 gas ratio.

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


A multiresolution terrain model for efficient visualization query processing Multiresolution Triangular Mesh (MTM) models are widely used to improve the performance of large terrain visualization by replacing the original model with a simplified one. MTM models, which consist of both original and simplified data, are commonly stored in spatial database systems due to their size. The relatively slow access speed of disks makes data retrieval the bottleneck of such terrain visualization systems. Existing spatial access methods proposed to address this problem rely on main-memory MTM models, which leads to significant overhead during query processing. In this paper, we approach the problem from a new perspective and propose a novel MTM called direct mesh that is designed specifically for secondary storage. It supports available indexing methods natively and requires no modification to MTM structure. Experiment results, which are based on two real-world data sets, show an average performance improvement of 5-10 times over the existing methods.

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


Phoenix: Storage Using an Autonomous Mobile Infrastructure We propose a system that makes opportunistic use of mobile computing devices and ad hoc networking to provide a transient storage service to clients in a localized geographical region. The main challenge is to offset the potential data loss caused by node mobility with internode communication. We first argue on the basis of simulation and theory that such a service is feasible, given a sufficiently high density of mobile devices. A distributed communication and storage protocol is then presented for situations where all mobile devices are within communication range of each other, and it is shown through testbed experiments and simulation that the protocol operates correctly and makes efficient use of storage space and communication bandwidth, while maximizing the longevity of stored data.

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

distributed storage
distributed systems
mobile ad hoc network (manet)
mobile storage systems


A triple level finite element method for large eddy simulations Since large eddy simulation (LES) was introduced by Smagorinsky in 1963, it has been improved with various thoughts from many researchers. Unfortunately, despite that, the filtered approach that is widely used at present still suffers because quite empirical factors are used to determine non-closured subgrid Reynolds stresses. Based on a new definition of LES and multiscale finite element concepts, this work presents an attempt to remove such factors. Using direct sum decomposition of the solution space, we devised a hierarchical multi-level formulation of the NavierStokes equations for turbulence. The base-level, bearing the information of large eddies, is calculated by the conventional finite element method. The finer levels are for small scale eddies of turbulence. We address the solution methods for the small scale movements. In particular, a spectral element method is introduced for the finer level solutions. Thus large eddies and small eddies to some extent may be accurately obtained. The introduced approach offers not only access to calculate turbulence in complex geometries because of the nature of finite element method but also an effective tool for multiscale physical problems with turbulence, such as reaction flows. It is worth noting that the approach introduced here is similar to the implicit LES in finite volume and finite difference methods.

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

turbulence
large eddy simulation
implicit les


A cost model for query processing in high dimensional data spaces During the last decade, multimedia databases have become increasingly important in many application areas such as medicine, CAD, geography, and molecular biology. An important research topic in multimedia databases is similarity search in large data sets. Most current approaches that address similarity search use the feature approach, which transforms important properties of the stored objects into points of a high-dimensional space (feature vectors). Thus, similarity search is transformed into a neighborhood search in feature space. Multidimensional index structures are usually applied when managing feature vectors. Query processing can be improved substantially with optimization techniques such as blocksize optimization, data space quantization, and dimension reduction. To determine optimal parameters, an accurate estimate of index-based query processing performance is crucial. In this paper we develop a cost model for index structures for point databases such as the R *-tree and the X-tree. It provides accurate estimates of the number of data page accesses for range queries and nearest-neighbor queries under a Euclidean metric and a maximum metric. The problems specific to high-dimensional data spaces, called boundary effects, are considered. The concept of the fractal dimension is used to take the effects of correlated data into account.

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

performance
cost model
multidimensional index


Systemic approach to innovations - standards vs software Purpose - In this paper we tried to apply some system theory in the complex problems of intellectual property management by presenting some relevant current issues regarding standards and possibilities of computer software protection. Systemic approach to involvement in lucrative business of software is examined, from the point of innovations incorporated within standards and software. Design/methodology/approach - Two competing concepts are confronted: public accessible standards, and public exclusionary patents, both in the area of software development and software patenting. Actual examples of controversies are presented, and commented. Findings - Patents are legalized monopolies. Monopolists exact higher prices than free market enterprises. Our results indicate that there needs to be balance between public interest in free access to technological information and monopolies. Owing to the lack of system theory applied in this problem solving processes the issues remain unsolved and also unclear to many involved in the process. Research limitations/implications - More research in different fields of specialization and selected view points would be needed to present, understand and excellently manage this area of intellectual property to balance the advantage of general public benefits versus inventors. In this paper only some economic and legal views are presented. Practical implications - Implications for managers strategies are discussed. Managers should take active role in standard setting, and software patenting. Public interest should be in influencing these developments and regulations. Originality/value - The subject of standards and software is a less studied one and is becoming more important.

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


Face Expression Recognition by Cross Modal Data Association We present a novel facial expression recognition framework using audio-visual information analysis. We propose to model the cross-modality data correlation while allowing them to be treated as asynchronous streams. We also show that our framework can improve the recognition performance while significantly reducing the computational cost by avoiding redundant or insignificant frame processing by incorporating auditory information. In particular, we design a single good image representation of image sequence by weighted sums of registered face images where the weights are derived using auditory features. We use a still image based technique for the expression recognition task. Our framework, however, can be generalized to work with dynamic features as well. We performed experiments using eNTERFACE' 05 audio-visual emotional database containing six archetypal emotion classes: Happy, Sad, Surprise, Fear, Anger and Disgust. We present one-to-one binary classification as well as multi-class classification performances evaluated using both subject dependent and independent strategies. Furthermore, we compare multi-class classification accuracies with those of previously published literature which use the same database. Our analyses show promising results.

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

audio-visual expression recognition
key frames selection
multi-modal expression recognition
emotion recognition
affective computing
affect analysis


A mechanical verification of the stressing algorithm for negative cost cycle detection in networks The negative cost cycle detection (NCCD) problem in weighted directed graphs is a fundamental problems in theoretical computer science with applications in a wide range of domains ranging from maximum flows to image segmentation. From the perspective of program verification, this problem is identical to the problem of checking the satisfiability of a conjunction of difference constraints. There exist a number of approaches in the literature for NCCD with each approach having its own set of advantages. Recently, a greedy, space-efficient algorithm called the stressing algorithm was proposed for this problem. In this paper, we present a novel proof of the Stressing algorithm and its verification using the Prototype Verification System (PVS) theorem prover. This example is part of a larger research program to verify the soundness and completeness of a core set of decision procedures. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

graph algorithms
decision algorithms
formal verification
interactive theorem proving


Establishing documentary production support for 21st century campuses As a response to the growing trend of academic assignments that involve some type of video production, this paper advocates that campuses need to provide instructional as well as technical support for such projects. Universities invest in writing centers to help cultivate writing skills because they understand that providing the latest word processing programs doesnt ensure students become better writers. Similarly, students with flip/cell video cameras and editing software are not likely to produce quality projects without guidance and thus need a similar network of support for these 21st century forms of communication. This paper presents a model for offering documentary services to entire campus communities - including technology, technique, and pedagogical considerations that lead to educational film productions with strong academic content and integrity.

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

multimedia assignments
academic support
media support
media literacy


LP/WLP Hybrid Scheme for Quality Improvement of TCX Coders Operating at Low Bit Rates In this paper, we propose a switchable linear prediction (LP)/warped linear prediction (WLP) hybrid scheme for the transform coded excitation (TCX) coder, which is adopted as a core codec in AMR-WB+ and USAC. The proposed algorithm selects either an LP or WLP filter on a per-frame basis. To provide a smooth transitions between LP and WLP frames, a window switching scheme is developed using sine and rectangular windows. In addition, a Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM)-based classification module is used to determine the prediction mode. Through a subjective listening test it was confirmed that the proposed LP/WLP switching scheme offers improved sound quality.

O O O O O O O B 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 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

warped linear prediction (wlp)
audio coding
low bit rate


Dispersed information diffusion with level and schema-based coordination in mobile peer to peer networks Several open ended issues for high resource availability in mobile peer to peer networks have been examined in the recent past. Different approaches were conducted for supporting information distribution and availability, through guided or unguided packet diffusion. The majority of the recently proposed approaches try to benefit from the spatial characteristics of the dynamically varying topologies. In this work a directed information diffusion scheme is examined using a level and schema-based coordination, applied in mobile peer to peer networks. The prioritization degree of any requested advert is modeled and enables directed priontized diffusions to end mobile users that are traversing a certain geographic region (location based advertisements). The proposed method is robust in disseminating redundant messages to users while maintaining connectivity through Gradual Energy Tree-based (GET) configuration. Simulation is performed for the examination and performance evaluation of the proposed scheme, taking into account the modeled prioritization as well as the diffusion accuracy by using the Hierarchical and Non-hierarchical GET configuration.

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

information diffusion
mobile peer to peer networks

level-based coordination
schema-based coordination
dispersed dissemination


Complete subdivision algorithms, II: Isotopic meshing of singular algebraic curves Given a real valued function f (X, Y), a box region B(0) subset of R(2) and epsilon > 0, we want to compute an E-isotopic polygonal approximation to the restriction of the curve S = f(-1) (0) = {p is an element of R(2) : f (p) = 0} to B(0). We focus on subdivision algorithms because of their adaptive complexity and ease of implementation. Plantinga & Vegter gave a numerical subdivision algorithm that is exact when the curve S is bounded and non-singular. They used a computational model that relied only on function evaluation and interval arithmetic. We generalize their algorithm to any bounded (but possibly non-simply connected) region that does not contain singularities of S. With this generalization as a subroutine, we provide a method to detect isolated algebraic singularities and their branching degree. This appears to be the first complete purely numerical method to compute isotopic approximations of algebraic curves with isolated singularities. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

singularity
root bound
evaluation bound
implicit algebraic curve
complete numerical algorithm


Three-dimensional encoding/two-dimensional decoding of medical data We propose a fully three-dimensional (3-D) wavelet-based coding system featuring 3-D encoding/two-dimensional (2-D) decoding functionalities. A fully 3-D transform is combined with context adaptive arithmetic coding; 2-D decoding is enabled by encoding every 2-D subband image independently. The system allows a finely graded up to lossless quality scalability on any 2-D image of the dataset. Fast access to 2-D images is obtained by decoding only the corresponding information thus avoiding the reconstruction of the entire volume. The performance has been evaluated on a set of volumetric data and compared to that provided by other 3-D as well as 2-D coding systems. Results show a substantial improvement in coding efficiency (up to 33%) on volumes featuring good correlation properties along the z axis. Even though we did not address the complexity issue, we expect a decoding time of the order of one second/image after optimization. In summary, the proposed 3-D/2-D multidimensional layered zero coding system provides the improvement in compression efficiency attainable with 3-D systems without sacrificing the effectiveness in accessing the single images characteristic of 2-D ones.

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


Nanotips with a single atom end as ideal sources of electron and ion beams: Modeling of the nanotip shape Nanotips with a single atom end have proven to be ideal sources for self collimated electron and ion beams, which presents them as vital tools for ion and electron microscopy. The sharpness of such nanotips is usually inferred from the highly focused ion and electron single spots in the field ion microscope (FIM) and the field emission microscope (FEM) respectively. However, the wide range of applied voltage needed to generate a threshold field, for electron or ion emission, indicates that such tips are different in geometry at a mesoscopic scale. Here we present numerical models using spherical and hyperbolic geometries to calculate the apex field. The analyses demonstrate the significant effect of the tip base on the nanotip apex field. From the tip radiusvoltage relationship we present a new approach for estimating the overall nanotip shape. This approach significantly helps in the selection of nanotips for specific applications, like ion microscopy and lithography or multiple nano probe contacts.

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

nano probe
ion microscopy
electron microscopy


On approximating metric 1-median in sublinear time A deterministic sublinear time algorithm for approximating metric 1-median. A scheme allowing trade-off between computation time and approximation ratio. A simpler proof of the currently best result.

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

metric 1-median
approximation algorithms


An adaptive shock-capturing algorithm for solving unsteady reactive flows A new double flux model is associated with the recent MUSCL-AUSM(+)-triad approach. This coupling allows to do rapid, accurate and stable numerical computations. I-D and 2-D inert and reactive flows are presented. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

muscl approach
tvd schemes
euler and navier-stokes equations


Adrenocortical Response to Low-dose ACTH Test in Female Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis Alterations in adrenal steroid production have been suggested in females with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). The aim of the present study was to assess adrenocortical function in RA females. We examined 11 female RA patients (RA: age 30 2 years, BMI 21.0 0.7 kg/m2) and 10 matched healthy controls (C: age 31 1 years, BMI 21.6 0.6 kg/m2). Low-dose adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) test (i.v. bolus of 1 ?g synthetic ACTH) was performed at 10.00 h with blood sampling every 15 min for 90 min. Cortisol, 17-OH-progesterone (17OHP), androstenedione (ASD), and dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) were assayed in plasma. Baseline cortisol levels were higher in RA patients (RA: 385 38 versus C: 229 28 nmol/L, P= 0.007). In both study groups, ACTH administration increased all the four steroids measured (P < 0.001). Cortisol response to ACTH administration was diminished in RA patients when compared to controls (?max: 284 24 in RA versus 424 31 nmol/L in C, P= 0.002). ACTH-induced maximal rise in plasma DHEA was significantly lower in RA patients when compared to controls (?max: 2.59 0.68 in RA versus 5.57 1.25 ng/mL in C, P= 0.015). No significant between-groups differences were found in responses of ASD or 17OHP. The molar ratio of ASD:cortisol was significantly lower (P < 0.05) in RA patients at base line, but did not differ during ACTH test. After ACTH bolus, the cortisol:17OHP ratio decreased significantly in the RA group (P < 0.001), whereas there was no change in the control group. The present results show decreased secretion of cortisol and DHEA in RA patients in response to ACTH, suggesting a subtle HPA hypofunction at the adrenocortical level.

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


D-FNN based soft-sensor modeling and migration reconfiguration of polymerizing process A soft-sensor modeling method based on dynamic fuzzy neural network (D-FNN) is proposed for forecasting the key technology indicator convention velocity of vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) in the polyvinylchloride (PVC) polymerizing process. Based on the problem complexity and precision demand, D-FNN model can be constructed combining the system prior knowledge. Firstly, kernel principal component analysis (KPCA) method is adopted to select the auxiliary variables of soft-sensing model in order to reduce the model dimensionality. Then a hybrid structure and parameters learning algorithm of D-FNN is proposed to achieve the favorable approximation performance, which includes the rule extraction principles, the classification learning strategy, the precedent parameters arrangements, the rule trimming technology based on error descendent ratio and the consequent parameters decision based on extended Kalman filter (EKF). The proposed soft-sensor model can automatically determine if the fuzzy rules are generated/eliminated or not so as to realize the nonlinear mapping between input and output variables of the discussed soft-sensor model. Model migration method is adopted to realize the on-line adaptive revision and reconfiguration of soft-sensor model. In the end, simulation results show that the proposed model can significantly enhance the predictive accuracy and robustness of the technical-and-economic indexes and satisfy the real-time control requirements of PVC polymerizing production process.

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

dynamic fuzzy neural network
kernel principal component analysis
model migration


l(infinity)-based stability criteria and its applications on FLC systems In this paper, a new stability analysis and design method for the fuzzy logical systems described by the Takagi-Sugeno model is proposed. The proposed fuzzy controller is implemented by a parallel distributed compensation structure. The closed-loop system can be expressed as a linear time-variant system. A minimum transition matrix set can be determined by the fuzzy rule structure, so that it contains the transition matrices of the closed-loop system. Thus the stability of the system defined over the set is sufficient to ensure the stability of the closed-loop system. A common l(infinity) Lyapunov function method is employed for the stability analysis of the system defined over the transition matrix set. It is proved that the existence of the l(infinity) Lyapunov function is the sufficient and necessary stability condition of the system defined over the transition matrix set. Thus the l(infinity) Lyapunov function can be applied to more cases than quadratic Lyapunov functions. A convenient stability criterion based on l(infinity) Lyapunov function is also given in this paper. By using geometric properties of l(infinity) Lyapunov functions, an iterative algorithm is introduced to construct the required 1, Lyapunov function. (C) 2002 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

stability analysis
lyapunov function
parallel distributed compensation

fuzzy system
variable structure
control theory


location-dependent information appliances for the home Ethnographic studies of the home revealed the fundamental roles that physical locations and context play in how household members understand and manage conventional information. Yet we also know that digital information is becoming increasingly important to households. The problem is that this digital information is almost always tied to traditional computer displays, which inhibits its incorporation into household routines. Our solution, location-dependent information appliances , exploit both home location and context (as articulated in ethnographic studies) to enhance the role of ambient displays in the home setting; these displays provide home occupants with both background awareness of an information source and foreground methods to gain further details if desired. The novel aspect is that home occupants assign particular information to locations within a home in a way that makes sense to them. As a device is moved to a particular home location, information is automatically mapped to that device along with hints on how it should be displayed.

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

tangible interfaces
case studies
domestic technology
ubiquitous computing
location-based design


AESS:

Accelerated

Exact

Stochastic

Simulation

The

Stochastic

Simulation

Algorithm

(SSA)

developed

by

Gillespie

provides

a

powerful

mechanism

for

exploring

the

behavior

of

chemical

systems

with

small

species

populations

or

with

important

noise

contributions.

Gene

circuit

simulations

for

systems

biology

commonly

employ

the

SSA

method,

as

do

ecological

applications.

This

algorithm

tends

to

be

computationally

expensive,

so

researchers

seek

an

efficient

implementation

of

SSA.

In

this

program

package,

the

Accelerated

Exact

Stochastic

Simulation

Algorithm

(AESS)

contains

optimized

implementations

of

Gillespie's

SSA

that

improve

the

performance

of

individual

simulation

runs

or

ensembles

of

simulations

used

for

sweeping

parameters

or

to

provide

statistically

significant

results.

Program

summary

Program

title:

AESS

Catalogue

identifier:

Program

summary

Program

obtainable

from:

CPC

Program

Library,

Queen's

University,

Belfast,

N.

Ireland

Licensing

provisions:

University

of

Tennessee

copyright

agreement

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:

C

for

processors,

CUDA

for

NVIDIA

GPUs

Computer:

Developed

and

tested

on

various

computers

and

NVIDIA

Tesla

and

GTX

Fermi

GPUs.

The

system

targets

workstations,

optionally

with

multicore

processors

or

NVIDIA

GPUs

as

accelerators.

Operating

system:

Tested

under

Ubuntu

Linux

OS

and

CentOS

Linux

OS

Classification:

Nature

of

problem:

Simulation

of

chemical

systems,

particularly

with

low

species

populations,

can

be

accurately

performed

using

Gillespie's

method

of

stochastic

simulation.

Numerous

variations

on

the

original

stochastic

simulation

algorithm

have

been

developed,

including

approaches

that

produce

results

with

statistics

that

exactly

match

the

chemical

master

equation

(CME)

as

well

as

other

approaches

that

approximate

the

CME.

Solution

method:

The

Accelerated

Exact

Stochastic

Simulation

(AESS)

tool

provides

implementations

of

a

wide

variety

of

popular

variations

on

the

Gillespie

method.

Users

can

select

the

specific

algorithm

considered

most

appropriate.

Comparisons

between

the

methods

and

with

other

available

implementations

indicate

that

AESS

provides

the

fastest

known

implementation

of

Gillespie's

method

for

a

variety

of

test

models.

Users

may

wish

to

execute

ensembles

of

simulations

to

sweep

parameters

or

to

obtain

better

statistical

results,

so

AESS

supports

acceleration

of

ensembles

of

simulation

using

parallel

processing

with

MPI,

SSE

vector

units

on

processors,

and/or

using

NVIDIA

GPUs

with

CUDA.

(C)

Elsevier

B.V.

All

rights

reserved.

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

gillespie algorithm
monte carlo
computational ecology


Theoretical cryptanalysis of the Klimov-Shamir number generator TF-1 The internal state of the Klimov-Shamir number generator TF-1 consists of four words of size w bits each, whereas its intended strength is 2(2w). We exploit an asymmetry in its output function to show that the internal state can be recovered after having 2(w) outputs, using 2(1.5w) operations. For w = 32 the attack is practical, but for their recommended w = 64 it is only of theoretical interest.

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

pseudorandom number generators
t-functions
tf-1


A fuzzy self-organizing map algorithm for biological pattern recognition Data clustering is a key task for various processes including sequence analysis and pattern recognition. This paper studies a clustering algorithm that aimed to increase accuracy and sensitivity when working with biological data such as DNA sequences. The new algorithm is a modified version of fuzzy C-means (FCM) and is based on the well-known self-organizing map (SOM). In order to show the performance of the algorithm, seven different data sets are processed. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm has the potential to outperform SOM and FCM in terms of clustering and classification accuracy abilities. Additionally, a brief comparison is made the proposed algorithm with some previously studied FCM-SOM hybrid algorithms from the literature.

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

self-organizing map
fuzzy c-means
clustering quality measures
motif discovery


probabilistic adaptive direct optimism control in time warp In a distributed memory environment the communication overhead of Time Warp as induced by the rollback procedure due to overoptimistic progression of the simulation is the dominating performance factor. To limit optimism to an extent that can be justified from the inherent model parallelism, an optimism control mechanism is proposed, which by maintaining a history record of virtual time differences from the time stamps carried by arriving messages, and forecasting the timestamps of forthcoming messages, probabilistically delays the execution of scheduled events to avoid potential rollback and associated communication overhead (antimessages). After investigating statistical forecast methods which express only the central tendency of the arrival process, we demonstrate that arrival processes in the context of Time Warp simulations of timed Petri nets have certain predictable and consistent ARIMA characteristics, which encourage the use of sophisticated and recursive forecast procedures based on those models. Adaptiveness is achieved in two respects: the synchronization behavior of logical processes automatically progressing and conservatively blocking, that is the most adequate for (i) the specific simulation model and (ii) the communication/computation speed characteristics of the underlying execution platform.

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

communication
platform
use
simulation
synchronization
optimism control
performance
context
direct
model
forecasting
petri nets
warp
procedure
factor
behavior
process
demonstrate
distributed

statistics
scheduling
recursion
association
event
forecast models
rs6000 cluster
cm-5
computation
delay
timing
predict
records
timestamp
method
adapt
histories
environments
optimality
parallel
message
memorialized
consistency
virtualization
time warp
pvm


Optimal aggregation of linear time series models Aggregation is a central and mainly unsolved problem in econometrics. When considering linear time series models, a widely used method is to replace the disaggregate model by an aggregative one in which the variables are grouped and replaced by sums or weighted averages of the variables in each group. Choosing the modes of aggregation optimally with regard to a measure of mean-square forecast error results in a highly complex integer optimization problem, an implementation of the threshold accepting heuristic for this problem is presented. It is applied to the problem of optimal aggregation of price indices in a model of international price transmission using German data. Furthermore, methods for assessing the quality of the results are introduced comparing optimization results with some ad hoc ("official") modes of aggregation. It turns out that optimized groupings significantly improve the quality of the aggregative model. (c) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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


The structure of obstructions to treewidth and pathwidth It is known that the class of graphs with treewidth (resp. pathwidth) bounded by a constant w can be characterized by a finite obstruction set obs(TW(w)) (resp. obs(PW(w))). These obstruction sets are known for w?3 so far. In this paper we give a structural characterization of graphs from obs(TW(w)) (resp. obs(PW(w))) with a fixed number of vertices in terms of subgraphs of the complement. Our approach also essentially simplifies known characterization of graphs from obs(TW(w)) (resp. obs(PW(w))) with (w+3) vertices. Also for any w?3 a graph from obs(TW(w))?obs(PW(w)) is constructed, that solves an open problem.

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


Security Mechanisms and Access Control Infrastructure for e-Passports and General Purpose e-Documents Traditional paper documents are not likely to disappear in the near future as they are present everywhere in daily life, however, paper-based documentation lacks the link with the digital world for agile and automated processing. At the same time it is prone to cloning, alteration and counterfeiting attacks. E-passport defined by ICAO and implemented in 45 countries is the most relevant case of hybrid documentation (i.e. paper format with electronic capabilities) to date, but, as the advantages of hybrid documentation are recognized more and more will undoubtedly appear. In this paper, we present the concept and security requirements of general-use e-documents, analyze the most comprehensive security solution (i.e. ePassport security mechanisms) and its suitability for general-purpose e-documentation. Finally, we propose alternatives for the weakest and less suitable protocol from ePassports: the BAC (Basic Access Control). In particular, an appropriate key management infrastructure for access control to document memory is discussed in conjunction with a prototype implementation. Keywords: electronic documents, e-documents, e-Passport, RFID technology, RFID

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

electronic documents
rfid technology
security mechanisms
access control infrastructure
security

e-documents
e-passport
rfid security
pervasive computing


Pultrusion of a vertical axis wind turbine blade part-II: combining the manufacturing process simulation with a subsequent loading scenario This paper in particular deals with the integrated modeling of a pultruded NACA0018 blade profile being a part of EU funded DeepWind project. The manufacturing aspects of the pultrusion process are associated with the preliminary subsequent service loading scenario. A 3D thermo-chemical analysis of the pultrusion process is sequentially coupled with a 2D quasi-static mechanical analysis in which the process induced residual stresses and distortions are predicted using the generalized plane stain elements in a commercial finite element software ABAQUS. The temperature- and cure-dependent resin modulus is implemented by employing the cure hardening instantaneous linear elastic (CHILE) model in the process simulation. The subsequent bent-in place simulation of the pultruded blade profile is performed taking the residual stresses into account. The integrated numerical simulation tool predicts the internal stress levels of the profile at the end of the bending analysis. It is found that the process induced residual stresses have the potential to influence the internal stresses arise in the structural analysis.

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

residual/internal stress
finite element analysis
integrated modelling
thermosetting resin.


Fluorescence spectroscopy and chemometrics for classification of breast cancer samples - a feasibility study using extended canonical variates analysis The objective of this phase I feasibility study is to investigate whether fluorescence spectroscopy of serum samples in combination with multivariate data analysis can be used to discriminate healthy females from breast cancer patients with solitary and multiple metastases, respectively. Serum samples were obtained from 39 females: 13 healthy females (controls) and 26 clinically diagnosed patients with either solitary metastases (11 patients) or multiple metastases (15 patients). Fluorescence spectra were measured on undiluted samples and samples diluted 20 times and 500 times. Extended Canonical Variates Analysis (ECVA) was applied to develop classification models on the data. Three-group ECVA based on all spectroscopic data (5221 variables) gave five misclassifications in total, while sequential ECVA models on selected excitation wavelengths yielded two errors. The fluorescence spectroscopic results were compared with results based on the three tumor markers cancer antigen 15-3 (CA 15-3), carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), and tissue polypeptide antigen (TPA). The lowest number of errors obtained using ECVA on the biomarkers was seven. Furthermore, fluorescence spectroscopy made it possible to discover sample subgroupings: females with solitary and multiple metastases could be divided into two subgroups according to the spectral patterns of the samples. Copyright (C) 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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

cancer fluorescence biomarkers chemometrics multivariate ecva


understanding tag-cloud and visual features for better annotation of concepts in nus-wide dataset Large-scale dataset construction will require a significant large amount of well labeled ground truth. For the NUS-WIDE dataset, a less labor-intensive annotation process was used and this paper will focuses on improving the semi-manual annotation method used. For the NUS-WIDE dataset, improving the average accuracy for top retrievals of individual concepts will effectively improve the results of the semi-manual annotation method. For web images, both tags and visual feature play important roles in predicting the concept of the image. For visual features, we have adopted an adaptive feature selection method to construct a middle level feature by concatenating the k -NN results for each type of visual feature. This middle feature is more robust than the average combination of single features, and we have shown it achieves good performance for the concept prediction. For Tag cloud, we construct a concept-tag co-occurrence matrix. The co-occurrence information to compute the probability of an image belonging to certain concept and according to Bayes theory for the annotated tags. By understanding the WordNet's taxonomy level, which indicates whether the concept is generic of specific, and exploring the tags clouds distribution, we propose a selection method of using either tag cloud or visual features, to enhance the concepts annotation performance. In this way, the advantages of both tag and visual features are boosted. Experimental results have shown that our method can achieve very high average precision for the NUS-WIDE dataset, which greatly facilitates the construction of large-scale web image data set.

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


Educational transformation: Is it, like beauty, in the eye of the beholder, or will we know it when we see it? The word transformation is frequently used in connection with modern educational change, particularly when such change involves new technologies and education for the information society. Closer examination reveals that transformation as a descriptor of change is used in a number of ways. In this paper I argue that, though the term transformation suggests fundamental changes to structures for learning and teaching, some of what we see is little more than the same thing done somewhat differently. The rhetoric around the role of ICT in the process frequently carries overtones of technological determinism, with agency being ascribed to the technology. Some of these issues are examined in relation to the introduction into schools of interactive whiteboards. Whilst the notion of transformation often carries positive overtones of change for the better, this implication is open to critical examination. I problematise the notion of transformation itself and draw on activity theory to offer a better understanding of what it may mean. This necessarily includes emphasis on the roles of teachers and researchers as social agents in the process of true educational transformation.

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

activity theory
interactive whiteboards
teachers
technological determinism
transformation


Why Waldo befriended the dummy? k-Anonymization of social networks with pseudo-nodes For a graph-based representation of a social network, the identity of participants can be uniquely determined if an adversary has background structural knowledge about the graph. We focus on degree-based attacks, wherein the adversary knows the degrees of particular target vertices and we aim to protect the anonymity of participants through k-anonymization, which ensures that every participant is equivalent to at least k?1 other participants with respect to degree. We introduce a natural and novel approach of introducing dummy participants into the network and linking them to each other and to real participants in order to achieve this anonymity. The advantage of our approach lies in the nature of the results that we derive. We show that if participants have labels associated with them, the problem of anonymizing a subset of participants is NP-Complete. On the other hand, in the absence of labels, we give an \(\mathcal{O}(nk)\) algorithm to optimally k-anonymize a subset of participants or to near-optimally k-anonymize all real and all dummy participants. For degree-based-attacks, such theoretical guarantees are novel.

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

privacy
k-anonymization
complexity
dynamic programming


A new algorithm to design compact two-hidden-layer artificial neural networks This paper describes the cascade neural network design algorithm (CNNDA), a new algorithm for designing compact, two-hidden-layer artificial neural networks (ANNs). This algorithm determines an ANN's architecture with connection weights automatically. The design strategy used in the CNNDA was intended to optimize both the generalization ability and the training time of ANNs. In order to improve the generalization ability, the CNDDA uses a combination of constructive and pruning algorithms and bounded fan-ins of the hidden nodes. A new training approach, by which the input weights of a hidden node are temporarily frozen when its output does not change much after a few successive training cycles, was used in the CNNDA for reducing the computational cost and the training time. The CNNDA was tested on several benchmarks including the cancer, diabetes and character-recognition problems in ANNs. The experimental results show that the CNNDA can produce compact ANNs with good generalization ability and short training time in comparison with other algorithms.

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

constructive algorithm
pruning algorithm
weight freezing


Empirical studies to assess the understandability of data warehouse schemas using structural metrics Data warehouses are powerful tools for making better and faster decisions in organizations where information is an asset of primary importance. Due to the complexity of data warehouses, metrics and procedures are required to continuously assure their quality. This article describes an empirical study and a replication aimed at investigating the use of structural metrics as indicators of the understandability, and by extension, the cognitive complexity of data warehouse schemas. More specifically, a four-step analysis is conducted: (1) check if individually and collectively, the considered metrics can be correlated with schema understandability using classical statistical techniques, (2) evaluate whether understandability can be predicted by case similarity using the case-based reasoning technique, (3) determine, for each level of understandability, the subsets of metrics that are important by means of a classification technique, and assess, by means of a probabilistic technique, the degree of participation of each metric in the understandability prediction. The results obtained show that although a linear model is a good approximation of the relation between structure and understandability, the associated coefficients are not significant enough. Additionally, classification analyses reveal respectively that prediction can be achieved by considering structure similarity, that extracted classification rules can be used to estimate the magnitude of understandability, and that some metrics such as the number of fact tables have more impact than others.

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

data warehouse
quality
metrics
empirical studies


A Galerkin boundary node method for biharmonic problems A Galerkin boundary node method (GBNM) is developed in this paper for solving biharmonic problems. The GBNM combines an equivalent variational form of boundary integral formulations for governing equations with the moving least-squares approximations for construction of the trial and test functions. In this approach, only a nodal data structure on the boundary of a domain is required. In addition, boundary conditions can be implemented accurately and the system matrices are symmetric. The convergence of this method and numerical examples are given to show the efficiency.

O B I I I 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

meshless
biharmonic equation
moving least-squares
boundary integral equation


Dynamic queue level control of TCP/RED systems in AQM routers One main TCP congestion control objective is, by dynamically adjusting the source window size according to the router queue level, to stabilize the buffer queue length at a given target, thereby achieving predictable queueing delay, reducing packet loss and maximizing link utilization. One difficulty therein is the TCP acknowledging actions will experience a time delay from the router to the source in a TCP system. In this paper, a time-delay control theory is applied to analyze the mechanism of packet-dropping at router and the window-updating in TCP source in TCP congestion control for a TCP/RED dynamic model. We then derive explicit conditions under which the TCP/RED system is asymptotically stable in terms of the instantaneous queue. We discuss the convergence of the buffer queue lengths in the routers. Our results suggest that, if the network parameters satisfy certain conditions, the TCP/RED system is stable and its queue length can converge to any target. We illustrate the theoretical results using ns2 simulations and demonstrate that the network can achieve good performance and converge to the arbitrary target queues.

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

random early detection (red)
active queue management (aqm)
stability
hermite matrix


Physical sketching: Reconstruction and analysis of 3D objects from freehand sketches When designing a 3D object, designers, engineers and teachers often begin investigating potential design tradeoffs by creating informal sketches. Ideally, these sketchesin combination with a variety of engineering analysis toolswould allow prediction of the objects physical properties, especially those that affect the critical early design process. We introduce a pen-based system that reconstructs 3D spatial geometry from a single 2D freehand-sketch consisting of straight and curved lines in interactive time. Several optimization-based approaches to this problem have been proposed, but these generally have difficulty converging to an acceptable solution because the dimensionality of the search space is large. The primary contribution of this paper is a new reconstruction algorithm for orthographic projections of 3D wireframes. The algorithm reconstructs the depths of each vertex by exploiting geometric regularities among the graph lines in a reduced solution space, then optimizes a cost function over this space to recover the vertex depths. A second optimization algorithm is used to infer the 3D geometry of curved strokes once the vertex depths have been recovered. The proposed approach can recover the geometry of several objects with approximately 50 curved strokes in near interactive time. We also present an iterative, Tablet-PC-based design system that uses the proposed reconstruction algorithm to recover 3D objects from 2D orthographic sketches. The system allows the reconstructed objects to be subjected to two types of physical analysis, the results of which are superimposed directly on the sketch: a fast, kinematic simulation, and a complete finite-element-based static analysis. The object can quickly be modified in place using the pen-based interface according to the results of the analysis to allow for iterative design work. We demonstrate the system in action on a variety of early-stage design analyses.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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-aided design
3d reconstruction
computer vision
humancomputer interaction


Digital control systems simulation using spreadsheets This study presents a method for simulating digital control systems using spreadsheets. This method consists of simulating as basic blocks: a delay, a first order transfer function, and a second order transfer function. Any transfer function in the z domain can be obtained by connecting a number of these blocks with appropriate coefficients. This simulation allows the determination of the time response of a sampled data system without solving equations. The simulation interface is customized using graphics and toolbars. The method is suitable for educational environments. (C) 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

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