Electrical stimulation for the suppression of pathological tremor Pathological tremor is manifested as an involuntary oscillation of one or more body parts. Tremor greatly decreases the quality of life and often prevents the patient from performing daily activities. We hypothesized that sensors-driven multichannel electrical stimulation could stabilize affected joints by activating the antagonistic muscles during involuntary activation of agonist muscles and vice versa (out-of-phase stimulation). Here, we present the new system (hardware and software) and the testing of its operation. The hardware consists of a multichannel stimulator and inertial sensors for feedback. The software implements adaptive sensors-driven control for the out-of-phase stimulation. The system was initially applied to healthy persons at the wrist and elbow joints to test the efficiency of the hardware and software solutions. Predefined rhythmic stimulation resulted in tremulous movement, which subjects could not prevent; yet, they were still able to functionally use their hand. The system was then applied to seven patients with Parkinsons disease and essential tremor for minimization of the wrist joint tremor. In six patients, the adaptive out-of-phase stimulation resulted in a significant decrease in the amplitude of tremor (6713%). In one patient, the stimulation did not result in the expected reduction of tremor.

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


Topology aggregation schemes for asymmetric link state information In this paper, we present two algorithms for efficiently aggregating link state information needed for quality-of-service (QoS) routing. In these algorithms, each edge node in a group is mapped onto a node of a shufflenet or a node of a de Bruijn graph. By this mapping, the number of links for which state information is maintained becomes aN (a is an integer, N is the number of edge nodes) which is significantly smaller than N-2 in the full-mesh approach. Our algorithms also can support asymmetric link state parameters which are common in practice, while many previous algorithms such as the spanning tree approach can be applied only to networks with symmetric link state parameters. Experimental results show that the performance of our shufflenet algorithm is close to that of the full-mesh approach in terms of the accuracy of bandwidth and delay information, with only a much smaller amount of information. On the other hand, although it is not as good as the shufflenet approach, the de Bruijn algorithm also performs far better than the star approach which is one of the most widely accepted schemes. The de Bruijn algorithm needs smaller computational complexity than most previous algorithms for asymmetric networks, including the shufflenet algorithm.

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


Multi-atlas segmentation with augmented features for cardiac MR images Augmented feature improves performance for multi-atlas patch-based segmentation. KNN classifier in multi-atlas segmentation can be replaced by SVM. SVM outperforms KNN slightly but with higher computation cost. Validated on MICCAI SATA data set and comparable to state-of-the-art.

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

multi-atlas segmentation
patch-based segmentation
cardiac image segmentation


Quantum circuit oracles for Abstract Machine computations This paper considers a very general model of computation via conditional iteration, the abstract machines of Hines (2008) [23], and studies the conditions under which these describe reversible computations. Using this, we demonstrate how to construct quantum circuits that act as oracles for these Abstract Machines. For a classical computation with worst-case performance T, the resulting quantum circuit requires an ancilla of 1 + log(T) qubits, and takes O(T) steps. The ancilla starts and finishes in the constant state vertical bar 0 >, so garbage collection is performed automatically. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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


ami technology helps to sustain speed while merging - a data driven simulation study on madrid motorway ring m30 A considerable increase in road traffic has provoked a total change in the operating paradigms of vehicles, shifting vehicle handling from just steering towards a complex adaptation task. With the emergence of wireless communication technology, vehicle operation can now incorporate for the first time ever beside the local driver-vehicle interaction also more significant information obtained from cars in the surrounding. With this foundation it would be possible to build collectively operating driver assistance systems, negotiating the interests of all road participants in a certain area with the final goal to improve global parameters such as road throughput or traffic fluidity, also having an effect on the individual car (driver), e. g. increased travel speed, less congestions, or a reduced level of cognitive load. The question addressed with this paper is whether or not the vehicle speed can be sustained while merging onto a motorway, leading to a more harmonious integration of the merging cars into the flowing traffic on the main road. To achieve this we propose the application of ambient intelligence (AmI) technology operating on the collective behavior of all cars in the periphery of the entrance ramp. To prove our hypothesis we applied the AmI technology to a data driven, true to scale simulation model of the Madrid motorway M30, one of the most busiest roads in Spain. The comparison of simulation runs with high volume of traffic showed that technology assistance could help to increase road throughput and minimize the variance of traffic flow, but on the other side demands solutions for one of the bigger problems of data driven simulation missing or noisy data compromising simulation results.

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

data driven simulation
driver assistance systems
ami technology

true to scale modeling
traffic merging
collective driving behavior
vibro-tactile stimulation


@Note: A workbench for Biomedical Text Mining Biomedical Text Mining (BioTM) is providing valuable approaches to the automated curation of scientific literature. However, most efforts have addressed the benchmarking of new algorithms rather than user operational needs. Bridging the gap between BioTM researchers and biologists needs is crucial to solve real-world problems and promote further research. We present @Note, a platform for BioTM that aims at the effective translation of the advances between three distinct classes of users: biologists, text miners and software developers. Its main functional contributions are the ability to process abstracts and full-texts; an information retrieval module enabling PubMed search and journal crawling; a pre-processing module with PDF-to-text conversion, tokenisation and stopword removal; a semantic annotation schema; a lexicon-based annotator; a user-friendly annotation view that allows to correct annotations and a Text Mining Module supporting dataset preparation and algorithm evaluation. @Note improves the interoperability, modularity and flexibility when integrating in-home and open-source third-party components. Its component-based architecture allows the rapid development of new applications, emphasizing the principles of transparency and simplicity of use. Although it is still on-going, it has already allowed the development of applications that are currently being used.

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

biomedical text mining
information retrieval
semantic annotation

named entity recognition
information extraction
literature curation
component-based software development


Inverse problems in queueing theory and Internet probing Queueing theory is typically concerned with the solution of direct problems, where the trajectory of the queueing system, and laws thereof, are derived based on a complete specification of the system, its inputs and initial conditions. In this paper we point out the importance of inverse problems in queueing theory, which aim to deduce unknown parameters of the system based on partially observed trajectories. We focus on the class of problems stemming from probing based methods for packet switched telecommunications networks, which have become a central tool in the measurement of the structure and performance of the Internet. We provide a general definition of the inverse problems in this class and map out the key variants: the analytical methods, the statistical methods and the design of experiments. We also contribute to the theory in each of these subdomains. Accordingly, a particular inverse problem based on product-form queueing network theory is tackled in detail, and a number of other examples are given. We also show how this inverse problem viewpoint translates to the design of concrete Internet probing applications.

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

queueing theory
inverse problem
internet probing


Energy metabolism and glutamate-glutamine cycle in the brain: a stoichiometric modeling perspective The energetics of cerebral activity critically relies on the functional and metabolic interactions between neurons and astrocytes. Important open questions include the relation between neuronal versus astrocytic energy demand, glucose uptake and intercellular lactate transfer, as well as their dependence on the level of activity.

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

brain energetics
lactate shuttle
metabolic modeling
glutamate-glutamine cycle
glucose partitioning
ogi


Accurate channel estimation method for frequency domain equalization on cdma2000 High Rate Packet Data system In order to improve the forward link capacity of cdma2000 HRPD (High Rate Packet Data) or CDMA2000 1xEV-DO, it is significant to overcome multi-path interference. This paper focuses on FDE (Frequency Domain Equalization) with MMSE (Minimum Mean Square Error) criterion. On top of that, backward compatibility with HRPD should be maintained, in other words common channels such as the pilot channel should not be changed. Thus, the PN (Pseudo Noise) spread pilot block without CP (Cyclic Prefix) signals has to be dealt with for FIDE. However. this will cause the conventional channel estimation accuracy to deteriorate. In order to improve the estimation accuracy of the conventional method, this paper presents a MRC (Maximal Ratio Combining) spectrum estimator, IPI (Inter-Path Interference) canceller, and path searcher. The results obtained from computer simulations reveal that the proposed method can improve the PER (Packet Error Rate) performance significantly. If compared with Rake combiner and TDE (Time Domain Equalization) with NLMS (Normalized Least Mean Square) scheme, the maximum data rates at a fixed PER of 1% can be increased by 5 to 8 times and 1.25 to 2.67 times, respectively.

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

cdma2000
high rate packet data
nlms
mmse
time domain equalization
frequency domain equalization
channel estimation


identification and correction of flying pixels in range camera data This paper focuses on errors which are possible to occur in the depth measurements of range cameras. Range cameras can capture 3D information of a scene by sending out infrared light and then measuring the reflections. Wrong measurements occur at the edges of objects where the depth level changes. A depth value between the foreground and background level is measured which creates a so-called "flying pixel" when displaying the 3D points. In this paper different methods for the identification of flying pixels are presented and compared. The advantages and drawbacks of each method are discussed. Then a simple method for the correction of flying pixel errors is presented and its limitations are shown. The final method for correction is presented which is based on segmenting the pixel matrix into horizontal and vertical scanlines. After segmentation, linear segments can be identified to which the pixels can be mapped. The paper concludes with the evaluation of the presented methods to show their effectiveness.

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


Recording compliance of dental splint use in obstructive sleep apnoea patients by force and temperature modelling Fibre-optic sensors are used to monitor the force and temperature of dental splints worn by patients suffering from sleep apnoea. Owing to the small sire of the sensors, they can be easily embedded within the splint in a way that does not affect the effectiveness of the splint, and, at the same time, are able to indicate whether the splint has been properly worn by the patient. The overall dimensions of the sensor are approximately 0.375 mm thickness, 1 cm length and 3 mm width. The force and temperature sensors are calibrated and found to have sensitivities of better than 0.5 N and 0.1 degreesC, respectively. Trials performed on patients show that the measurement of pressure and temperature is an effective way of monitoring the proper usage of the dental splint by the patients.

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

fibre bragg grating
temperature measurement
force measurement


A new method for approximating blocking probability in overflow loss networks In this paper, we present a new approximation for estimating blocking probability in overflow loss networks and systems. Given a system for which an estimate of blocking probability is sought, we first construct a second system to act as a surrogate for the original system. Estimating blocking probability in the second system with Erlangs fixed point approximation (EFPA) provides a better estimate for blocking probability in the original system than if we were to use the conventional approach of directly using EFPA in the original system. We present a combination of numerical and theoretical results that indicate our new approximation offers a better estimate than EFPA for a certain pure overflow loss network. Moreover, we demonstrate the accuracy of our new approximation for circuit-switched networks using alternative routing. We argue that the success of our new approximation is due to its ability to utilize congestion information imbedded in overflow traffic, whereas the conventional approach fails to utilize such information.

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

overflow loss network
blocking probability

erlangs fixed-point approximation
reduced-load approximation
overflow priority classification


A mortar mix proportion design algorithm based on artificial neural networks The concepts of four parameters of nominal water-cement ratio, equivalent water-cement ratio, average paste thickness, fly ash-binder ratio were introduced. It was verified that the four parameters and the mix proportion of mortar can be transformed each other. The behaviors (strength, workability, et al.) of mortar primarily determined by the mix proportion of mortar now depend on the four parameters. The prediction models of strength and workability of mortar were built based on artificial neural networks (ANNs). The calculation models of average paste thickness and equivalent water-cement ratio of mortar can be obtained by the reversal deduction of the two prediction models, respectively. A mortar mix proportion design algorithm was proposed. The proposed mortar mix proportion design algorithm is expected to reduce the number of trial and error, save cost, laborers and time.

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 B I I I 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

artificial neural network (ann)
nominal water-cement ratio
equivalent water-cement ratio
average paste thickness (apt)
fly ash-binder ratio


Automated news reading: Stock price prediction based on financial news using context-capturing features We examine whether stock price prediction based on textual information in financial news can be improved as previous approaches only yield prediction accuracies close to guessing probability. Accordingly, we enhance existing text mining methods by using more expressive features to represent text and by employing market feedback as part of our feature selection process. We show that a robust feature selection allows lifting classification accuracies significantly above previous approaches when combined with complex feature types. This is because our approach allows selecting semantically relevant features and thus, reduces the problem of over-fitting when applying a machine learning approach. We also demonstrate that our approach is highly profitable for trading in practice. The methodology can be transferred to any other application area providing textual information and corresponding effect data.

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

text mining
financial news
stock price prediction


Neural-network-driven fuzzy reasoning of dependency relationships among product development processes Product development process can be viewed as a set of sub-processes with stronger interrelated dependency relationships. In this article, the quantitative and qualitative dependency measures of serial and parallel product development processes are analyzed. The neural-network-driven fuzzy reasoning mechanism of dependency relationships is developed in the case that there is no sufficient quantitative information or the information is fuzzy and imprecise. In the reasoning mechanism, a three-layer feedforward neural network is used to replace fuzzy evaluation in the fuzzy system. A hybrid learning algorithm that combined unsupervised learning and supervised gradient-descent learning procedures is used to build the fuzzy rules and train membership functions. Results show that the proposed method can improve the reasoning efficiency, reduce the cost and complexity degree of process improvement, and make a fast response to the dynamic development environment.

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

neural network
fuzzy reasoning
product development


Forward node-selecting queries over trees Node-selecting queries over trees lie at the core of several important XML languages for the web, such as the node-selection language XPath, the query language XQuery, and the transformation language XSLT. The main syntactic constructs of such queries are the backward predicates, for example, ancestor and preceding, and the forward predicates, for example, descendant and following. Forward predicates are included in the depth-first, left-to-right preorder relation associated with the input tree, whereas backward predicates are included in the inverse of this preorder relation. This work is devoted to an expressiveness study of node-selecting queries with proven theoretical and practical applicability, especially in the field of query evaluation against XML streams. The main question it answers positively is whether, for each input query with forward and backward predicates, there exists an equivalent forward-only output query. This question is then positively answered for input and output queries of varying structural complexity, using LOGLIN and PSPACE reductions. Various existing applications based on the results of this work are reported, including query optimization and streamed evaluation.

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

languages expressiveness streams xml xpath


Extremal states on bounded residuated l-monoids with general comparability Bounded residuated lattice ordered monoids (Rl-monoids) are a common generalization of pseudo-BL-algebras and Heyting algebras, i.e. algebras of the non-commutative basic fuzzy logic (and consequently of the basic fuzzy logic, the Lukasiewicz logic and the non-commutative Lukasiewicz logic) and the intuitionistic logic, respectively. We investigate bounded Rl-monoids satisfying the general comparability condition in connection with their states (analogues of probability measures). It is shown that if an extremal state on Boolean elements fulfils a simple condition, then it can be uniquely extended to an extremal state on the Rl-monoid, and that if every extremal state satisfies this condition, then the Rl-monoid is a pseudo-BL-algebra.

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

bounded residuated l-monoid
pseudo-bl-algebra
heyting algebra
pseudo-mv-algebra
filter
normal filter
general comparability property
boolean element
extremal state


MULTIFUNCTIONAL CMOS STRUCTURE WITH IMPROVED LINEARITY An original low-power low-voltage multifunctional structure with improved performances will be further presented, allowing to implement (with minor changes in the design) four important functions: the signal gain with theoretical null distortions, voltage multiplying with very good linearity and simulation of a perfect linear resistor with both positive and negative equivalent resistance. The linearity will be strongly increased by implementing original techniques, while the silicon occupied area per function will be reduced as a result of the circuit multifunctionality. The structure is implemented in 0: 35 mu m CMOS technology and is supplied at +/- 3 V. The circuit presents a very good linearity (THD < 0.1% for differential amplifier and active resistors and THD < 0.15% for multiplier), correlated with an extended range of the input voltage (-1.5V < v(1) - v(2) < 1.5V). The tuning range of the active resistor is about 100 k Omega - 1.5 M Omega. The second-order effects are also considered, being proposed an original technique based on an anti-parallel connection for compensating the linearity degradation introduced by these effects.

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

multifunctional structure
linearity
differential amplifier
multiplier
active resistor


Modeling of Robot Availability for the Network-controllable Production System An emerging trend in production is the seamless integration of information technology into various aspects of manufacturing processes. Using a host of sensors and communications technology, a multitude of information is collected and utilized in real-time. Such situation allows the companies to operate more efficiently with less cost. A smart use of information is becoming a key factor in brining up the operational competitiveness of many companies. One of the critical information in production is the availability of important equipment for the intended production activities. Accurate estimation of system availability allows less delay and enhanced efficiency in production. The real-time monitoring of equipment conditions and subsequent adjustment of availability in accordance with the evolving production phases enable the realization of benefits the concurrent engineering (CE) is designed for. In this context, this study investigates the probabilistic predictive modeling of robot availability based on the queuing theory, which is integrated into the operation of network-controllable production system with the notion of CE. Substantiated by the real-time data handling and collection, this study suggests the practical and novel approach to help improve the operational efficiency of networked production system.

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

networked systems
probabilistic modeling
remote robotic control


Large encrypting binary images with higher security In this paper, we present a new approach for encrypting binary images. Putting different scan patterns at the same level in the scan tree structure and employing a two-dimensional run-encoding (2DRE) technique, our encryption method can encrypt images with higher security and good compression ratio when compared to the previous results. Detailed security analysis from the combinatorial viewpoint is also given. Some experimentations are carried out to illustrate the good performance of our proposed method.

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

image encryption
run-length compression
scan language
spatial data structure


A Novel Profit Maximizing Metric for Measuring Classification Performance of Customer Churn Prediction Models The interest for data mining techniques has increased tremendously during the past decades, and numerous classification techniques have been applied in a wide range of business applications. Hence, the need for adequate performance measures has become more important than ever. In this paper, a cost-benefit analysis framework is formalized in order to define performance measures which are aligned with the main objectives of the end users, i.e., profit maximization. A new performance measure is defined, the expected maximum profit criterion. This general framework is then applied to the customer churn problem with its particular cost-benefit structure. The advantage of this approach is that it assists companies with selecting the classifier which maximizes the profit. Moreover, it aids with the practical implementation in the sense that it provides guidance about the fraction of the customer base to be included in the retention campaign.

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

data mining
classification
performance measures


A shortest-path-based topology control algorithm in wireless multihop networks In this paper, we present a shortest-path-based algorithm, called local shortest path(LSP), for topology control in wireless multihop networks. In this algorithm, each node locally computes the shortest paths connecting itself to nearby nodes based on some link weight function, and then it selects all the second nodes on the shortest paths as its logical neighbors in the final topology. Any energy model can be employed in LSP to design the link weight function whose value represents the power consumption required in the transmission along a link. We analytically prove that such a simple algorithm maintains network connectivity and guarantees that the minimal energy path between any two nodes is preserved in the final topology. Simulation results show that LSP can reduce the energy consumption, especially in heterogenous networks.

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

topology control
minimal energy path
connectivity


Implementations of PACMAN Passive and Active Compensability Multicriteria ANalysis (PACMAN) is a multiple criteria methodology based on a decision maker oriented notion of compensation, called compensability. An important feature of PACMAN is a possible asymmetry of the connected decision procedure, since compensability is determined for each ordered pair of criteria, distinguishing the compensating criterion from the compensated one. Here we give a notion of implementation of PACMAN, which allows a concrete modelization of a multiple criteria decision problem. We study regular implementations of PACMAN and their monotonicity properties. We also examine several regular implementations, which satisfy some additional properties. Particular emphasis is given to a regular implementation of PACMAN that produces the lexicographic ordering.

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 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 B I

multiple criteria analysis
pairwise criterion comparison approach
dominance


Multi-core and many-core shared-memory parallel raycasting volume rendering optimization and tuning Given the computing industry trend of increasing processing capacity by adding more cores to a chip, the focus of this work is tuning the performance of a staple visualization algorithm, raycasting volume rendering, for shared-memory parallelism on multi-core CPUs and many-core GPUs. Our approach is to vary tunable algorithmic settings, along with known algorithmic optimizations and two different memory layouts, and measure performance in terms of absolute runtime and L2 memory cache misses. Our results indicate there is a wide variation in runtime performance on all platforms, as much as 254% for the tunable parameters we test on multi-core CPUs and 265% on many-core GPUs, and the optimal configurations vary across platforms, often in a non-obvious way. For example, our results indicate the optimal configurations on the GPU occur at a crossover point between those that maintain good cache utilization and those that saturate computational throughput. This result is likely to be extremely difficult to predict with an empirical performance model for this particular algorithm because it has an unstructured memory access pattern that varies locally for individual rays and globally for the selected viewpoint. Our results also show that optimal parameters on modern architectures are markedly different from those in previous studies run on older architectures. In addition, given the dramatic performance variation across platforms for both optimal algorithm settings and performance results, there is a clear benefit for production visualization and analysis codes to adopt a strategy for performance optimization through auto-tuning. These benefits will likely become more pronounced in the future as the number of cores per chip and the cost of moving data through the memory hierarchy both increase.

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

parallel volume rendering
auto-tuning
multi-core cpu
many-core gpu


A graphical user interface for numerical modeling of acclimation responses of vegetation to climate change ? Ecophysiological models that vertically resolve vegetation canopy states are becoming a powerful tool for studying the exchange of mass, energy, and momentum between the land surface and the atmosphere. A mechanistic multilayer canopysoilroot system model (MLCan) developed by Drewry et al. (2010a) has been used to capture the emergent vegetation responses to elevated atmospheric CO2 for both C3 and C4 plants under various climate conditions. However, processing input data and setting up such a model can be time-consuming and error-prone. In this paper, a graphical user interface that has been developed for MLCan is presented. The design of this interface aims to provide visualization capabilities and interactive support for processing input meteorological forcing data and vegetation parameter values to facilitate the use of this model. In addition, the interface also provides graphical tools for analyzing the forcing data and simulated numerical results. The model and its interface are both written in the MATLAB programming language. Finally, an application of this model package for capturing the ecohydrological responses of three bioenergy crops (maize, miscanthus, and switchgrass) to local environmental drivers at two different sites in the Midwestern United States is presented.

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


On the convergence acceleration of slowly convergent sums involving oscillating terms In this paper, an acceleration technique based on a Kummer's transformation method is developed for some slowly convergent series. The original series is decomposed into two parts; one part being rapidly convergent and the other part being slowly convergent. Then the series in the slowly convergent part is expressed as integrals of some auxiliary functions and subsequently they are written in terms of polynomials whose coefficients are given by the zeta functions. The given method is computationally oriented and does not involve much analytic effort. A numerical example is provided to illustrate the usage and the efficiency of the method.

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

convergence acceleration
zeta functions
slowly convergent sums


off-the-shelf ready to go middleware for self-reconfiguring and self-optimizing ubiquitous computing applications In ubiquitous and pervasive scenarios, a plethora of differentiated software and hardware components interoperate wirelessly and seamlessly to make users able to continuously access services and contents while roaming, with the aim of getting always the best out of their current environment and available resources. We claim that there is the need for flexible and general solutions for continuous runtime self-reconfiguration and self-optimization of off-the-shelf components, viewed as services, from both functional and non-functional perspectives. The paper proposes a fully reconfigurable middleware approach inspired to a non-conventional architecture pattern; our middleware can extend also already existing and non-reconfigurable middleware/applications easily and flexibly, with no need to re-design them. The proposed design principles have been practically applied in the implementation of a runtime self-reconfigurable middleware called Off-The-Shelf Ready To Go (OTS-RTG), implemented on top of iPOJO. The reported experimental results both exhibit a limited overhead and show the wide applicability of the proposed solution to many application scenarios.

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

self-optimization
mape-k
component design
service management
self-reconfiguration
autonomic and ubiquitous computing


Convert2Java: semi-automatic conversion of C to Java Automatically converting code from C to Java is successfully done using Convert2Java. The C to Java converter is tested on programs from Applications Programming in ANSI C [Prentice-Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458, 1995]. Ease of maintenance of the target code is treated as a more important goal than identical results of execution. Because of the need to create logical classes from procedural code, translation has three phases: (1) evaluation of the suitability of semi-automatic translation, (2) division of the source code into logical classes and (3) translation of each class separately. Results are encouraging. Over 90% of the examples are translated with no changes or only minor modifications required.

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

automatic translation
c to java conversion
pointers in java


Wavelet-based multilevel methods for linear ill-posed problems The representation of linear operator equations in terms of wavelet bases yields a multilevel framework, which can be exploited for iterative solution. This paper describes cascadic multilevel methods that employ conjugate gradient-type methods on each level. The iterations are on each level terminated by a stopping rule based on the discrepancy principle.

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

ill-posed problem
multilevel method
minimal residual method


Closure properties and decision problems of dag automata Tree automata are widely used in various contexts. They are closed under boolean operations and their emptiness problem is decidable in polynomial time. Dag automata are natural extensions of tree automata, operating on dags instead of on trees; they can also be used for solving problems. Our purpose in this paper is to show that algebraically they behave differently: the class of dag automata is not closed under complementation, dag automata are not determinizable, their membership problem is NP-complete, the universality problem is undecidable, and the emptiness problem is NP-complete even for deterministic labeled dag automata. © 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

tree automata
complementation
universality problem
emptiness problem


Splitting based finite volume schemes for ideal MHD equations We design finite volume schemes for the equations of ideal magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) and based on splitting these equations into a fluid part and a magnetic induction part. The fluid part leads to an extended Euler system with magnetic forces as source terms. This set of equations are approximated by suitable two- and three-wave HLL solvers. The magnetic part is modeled by the magnetic induction equations which are approximated using stable upwind schemes devised in a recent paper [F. Fuchs, K.H. Karlsen, S. Mishra, N.H. Risebro, Stable upwind schemes for the Magnetic Induction equation. Math. Model. Num. Anal., Available on conservation laws preprint server, submitted for publication, URL: ]. These two sets of schemes can be combined either component by component, or by using an operator splitting procedure to obtain a finite volume scheme for the MHD equations. The resulting schemes are simple to design and implement. These schemes are compared with existing HLL type and Roe type schemes for MHD equations in a series of numerical experiments. These tests reveal that the proposed schemes are robust and have a greater numerical resolution than HLL type solvers, particularly in several space dimensions. In fact, the numerical resolution is comparable to that of the Roe scheme on most test problems with the computational cost being at the level of a HLL type solver. Furthermore, the schemes are remarkably stable even at very fine mesh resolutions and handle the divergence constraint efficiently with low divergence errors.

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

conservation laws
induction equation
divergence constraint
mhd


on automated composition for web services We develop a framework to compose services through discovery and orchestration for a given goal service. Tightening techniques are used in composition algorithms to achieve "completeness".

O 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 B


Gene expression data clustering based on graph regularized subspace segmentation Gene expression data clustering offers a powerful approach to detect cancers. Specifically, gene expression data clustering based on nonnegative matrix factorization (NMF) has been widely applied to identify tumors. However, traditional NMF methods cannot deal with negative data and easily lead to local optimum because the iterative methods are adopted to solve the optimal problem. To avoid these problems of NMF methods, we propose graph regularized subspace segmentation method (GRSS) for clustering gene expression data. The global optimal solution of GRSS can be achieved by solving a Sylvester equation. Experimental results on eight gene expression data sets show that GRSS has significant performance improvement compared with other subspace segmentation methods, traditional clustering methods and various extensions of NMF.

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

gene expression data
clustering
subspace segmentation


Core frequency adjustment to optimize Time Warp on many-core processors Time Warp synchronized parallel discrete event simulators are organized to operate asynchronously and aggressively without explicit synchronization between the concurrently executing simulation objects. In place of an explicit synchronization mechanism, the concurrent simulators implement an independent but common virtual clock model and a rollback/recovery mechanism to restore causal order when out-of-order events are detected. When the critical path of execution of the simulation is balanced across this parallel threads of execution, this can result in a highly effective, lightweight synchronization mechanism to implement parallel simulation. However, imbalances in the workload across the threads can result in excessive rollback in some threads and slowed progress of the critical path. On small shared memory multi-core systems, a lowest time-stamp scheduling policy can effectively balance the workload. However, on larger many-core chips, conventional load balancing and workload migration will once again become necessary. Fortunately, emerging many-core chips contain some interesting features that can potentially be exploited to improve the performance of parallel simulations. In particular, the recently developed Intel Single-chip Cloud Computer (SCC) provides mechanisms for the runtime control of the frequency and voltage settings of the chip. Furthermore, the frequency and voltage settings are independently set within different regions (called islands) of the chip. Thus, in a Time Warp simulation, one could increase the frequency of the cores executing threads on the critical path (those experiencing infrequent rollback) and decrease the frequency of the cores executing threads off the critical path (those experiencing excessive rollback). This paper investigates the run-time control and adjustment of core frequency in some contemporary x86 multi-core processors to identify the platforms that can support the exploration of dynamic run-time control of core frequency settings. The results show that while all multi-core processors have software controllable core frequency modulation capabilities, they are generally not fully independent as the system comes under load and are therefore unsuitable for these studies. Fortunately, one processor, the AMD X6 line, provides software control for core frequencies that can be fixed (by software) even as the system operates under load.

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

time warp synchronization
many-core processors
threaded execution


Exact and approximate graph matching using random walks In this paper, we propose a general framework for graph matching which is suitable for different problems of pattern recognition. The pattern representation we assume is at the same time highly structured, like for classic syntactic and structural approaches, and of subsymbolic nature with real- valued features, like for connectionist and statistic approaches. We show that random walk based models, inspired by Google's PageRank, give rise to a spectral theory that nicely enhances the graph topological features at node level. As a straightforward consequence, we derive a polynomial algorithm for the classic graph isomorphism problem, under the restriction of dealing with Markovian spectrally distinguishable graphs ( MSD), a class of graphs that does not seem to be easily reducible to others proposed in the literature. The experimental results that we found on different test- beds of the TC- 15 graph database show that the defined MSD class " almost always" covers the database, and that the proposed algorithm is significantly more efficient than top scoring VF algorithm on the same data. Most interestingly, the proposed approach is very well- suited for dealing with partial and approximate graph matching problems, derived for instance from image retrieval tasks. We consider the objects of the COIL- 100 visual collection and provide a graph- based representation, whose node's labels contain appropriate visual features. We show that the adoption of classic bipartite graph matching algorithms offers a straightforward generalization of the algorithm given for graph isomorphism and, finally, we report very promising experimental results on the COIL- 100 visual collection.

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

approximate graph matching
random walks
pagerank
image retrieval


Hapassoc: Software for likelihood inference of trait associations with SNP haplotypes and other attributes Complex medical disorders, such as heart disease and diabetes, are thought to involve a number of genes which act in conjunction with lifestyle and environmental factors to increase disease susceptibility. Associations between complex traits and single nucleotide polymorphisms ( SNPs) in candidate genomic regions can provide a useful tool for identifying genetic risk factors. However, analysis of trait associations with single SNPs ignores the potential for extra information from haplotypes, combinations of variants at multiple SNPs along a chromosome inherited from a parent. When haplotype-trait associations are of interest and haplotypes of individuals can be determined, generalized linear models (GLMs) may be used to investigate haplotype associations while adjusting for the effects of non-genetic cofactors or attributes. Unfortunately, haplotypes cannot always be determined cost-effectively when data is collected on unrelated subjects. Uncertain haplotypes may be inferred on the basis of data from single SNPs. However, subsequent analyses of risk factors must account for the resulting uncertainty in haplotype assignment in order to avoid potential errors in interpretation. To account for such uncertainty, we have developed hapassoc, software for R implementing a likelihood approach to inference of haplotype and non-genetic effects in GLMs of trait associations. We provide a description of the underlying statistical method and illustrate the use of hapassoc with examples that highlight the flexibility to specify dominant and recessive effects of genetic risk factors, a feature not shared by other software that restricts users to additive effects only. Additionally, hapassoc can accommodate missing SNP genotypes for limited numbers of subjects.

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

genetic association
single-nucleotide polymorphisms
missing data
em algorithm


Reliability-based structural optimization with probability and convex set hybrid models For structural systems exhibiting both probabilistic and bounded uncertainties, it may be suitable to describe these uncertainties with probability and convex set models respectively in the design optimization problem. Based on the probabilistic and multi-ellipsoid convex set hybrid model, this paper presents a mathematical definition of reliability index for measuring the safety of structures in presence of parameter or load uncertainties. The optimization problem incorporating such reliability constraints is then mathematically formulated. By using the performance measure approach, the optimization problem is reformulated into a more tractable one. Moreover, the nested double-loop optimization problem is transformed into an approximate single-loop minimization problem by considering the optimality conditions and linearization of the limit-state function, which further facilitates efficient solution of the design problem. Numerical examples demonstrate the validity of the proposed formulation as well as the efficiency of the presented numerical techniques.

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

structural optimization
reliability
probability
convex set
hybrid model


demand-driven pointer analysis Known algorithms for pointer analysis are global in the sense that they perform an exhaustive analysis of a program or program component. In this paper we introduce a demand-driven approach for pointer analysis. Specifically, we describe a demand-driven flow-insensitive, subset-based, con text-insensitive points-to analysis. Given a list of pointer variables (a query), our analysis performs just enough computation to determine the points-to sets for these query variables. Using deductive reachability formulations of both the exhaustive and the demand-driven analyses, we prove that our algorithm is correct. We also show that our analysis is optimal in the sense that it does not do more work than necessary. We illustrate the feasibility and efficiency of our analysis with an implementation of demand-driven points-to analysis for computing the call-graphs of C programs with function pointers. The performance of our system varies substantially across benchmarks - the main factor is how much of the points-to graph must be computed to determine the call-graph. For some benchmarks, only a small part of the points-to graph is needed (e.g pouray emacs and gcc ), and here we see more than a 10x speedup. For other benchmarks (e.g. burlap and gimp ), we need to compute most (> 95\%) of the points-to graph, and here the demand-driven algorithm is considerably slower, because using the demand-driven algorithm is a slow method of computing the full points-to graph.

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

program speedup method efficiency factor analysis performance computation implementation graph algorithm paper pointers reachability query component

variability
point
systems
optimality
benchmark
functional
text
flow
pointer analysis


Risk adjusted discounted cash flows in capacity expansion models This paper addresses a problem that is typical of multi-period capacity expansion equilibrium models: plants or sectors have different risk exposures that may warrant different costs of capital. The paper examines modifications of a capacity expansion model interpreted in equilibrium terms to account for asset-specific costs of capital.

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

complementarity and equilibrium problems and variational inequalities (finite dimensions)

applications of mathematical programming


Extended interval Newton method based on the precise quotient set The interval Newton method can be used for computing an enclosure of a single simple zero of a smooth function in an interval domain. It can practically be extended to allow computing enclosures of all zeros in a given interval. This paper deals with the extended interval Newton method. An essential operation of the method is division by an interval that contains zero (extended interval division). This operation has been studied by many researchers in recent decades, but inconsistency in the research has occurred again and again. This paper adopts the definition of extended interval division redefined in recent documents (Kulisch in Arithmetic operations for floating-point intervals, 2009; Pryce in P1788: IEEE standard for interval arithmetic version 02.2, 2010). The result of the division is called the precise quotient set. Earlier definitions differ in the overestimation of the quotient set in particular cases, causing inefficiency in Newton's method and even leading to redundant enclosures of a zero. The paper reviews and compares some extended interval quotient sets defined during the last few decades. As a central theorem, we present the fundamental properties of the extended interval Newton method based on the precise quotient set. On this basis, we develop an algorithm and a convenient program package for the extended interval Newton method. Statements on its convergence are also given. We then demonstrate the performance of the algorithm through nine carefully selected very sensitive numerical examples and show that it can compute correct enclosures of all zeros of the functions with high efficiency, particularly in cases where earlier methods are less effective.

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

extended interval division
newton method

interval computation
numerical algorithm


A new model for the preemptive earlinesstardiness scheduling problem This paper addresses a new model for the one-machine earlinesstardiness scheduling problem where jobs can be interrupted. Some dominance rules and a lower bound are derived. A new timing algorithm is also presented and a local search algorithm based on this timing algorithm permits the computation of good feasible solutions. We experimentally compare our timing algorithm with a previously published timing algorithm. The tests show that the execution time of the new timing algorithm is significantly faster, especially for large instances. The values of the solutions are compared to the lower bound.

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

scheduling
earlinesstardiness
lower bound
timing algorithm
local search


Statistical properties of the interbeat interval cascade in human hearts Statistical properties of interbeat intervals cascade in human hearts are evaluated by considering the joint probability distribution P(Delta x(2), tau(2); Delta x(1), tau(1)) for two interbeat increments Delta x(1) and Delta x(2) of different time scales tau(1) and tau(2). We present evidence that the conditional probability distribution P(Delta x(2), tau(2)vertical bar Delta x(1),tau(1)) may be described by a Chapman-Kolmogorov equation. The corresponding Kramers-Moyal (KM) coefficients are evaluated. The analysis indicates that while the first and second KM coefficients take on well-defined and significant values, the higher-order coefficients in the KM expansion are small. As a result, the joint probability distributions of the increments in the interbeat intervals are described by a Fokker-Planck equation, with the first two KM coefficients acting as the drift and diffusion coefficients. The method provides a novel technique for distinguishing two classes of subjects, namely, healthy ones and those with congestive heart failure, in terms of the drift and diffusion coefficients which behave differently for two classes of the subjects.

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

heartbeat fluctuations
kramers-moyal expansion
markov processes
fokker-planck equation


Characterising the requirements of engineering information systems Well-organised information is vital in gaining a competitive advantage within engineering companies. Increasingly, computer systems are used for managing this information, but for systems to be successful they need to be built on an understanding of how engineers work. This paper contributes to this understanding by reporting on how 10 engineers, from two aerospace companies, organise and use information. Information profiles have been proposed as a means of identifying the requirements of engineers who are working in different design situations (characterised by the stage of the design life cycle and also the social environment in which the engineers work). The results indicate important differences in the extent to which personal, local group and company-wide information is used. In particular, clear differences are identified between engineers who can be considered as company experts and those involved in mainstream design activities. These differences manifest themselves in the extent to which personal and local group information collections are used, the content and also the strategies used for storing and updating the material within these stores.

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

design information
information management
knowledge management
survey


A Novel Video Summarization Based on Mining the Story-Structure and Semantic Relations Among Concept Entities Video summarization techniques have been proposed for years to offer people comprehensive understanding of the whole story in the video. Roughly speaking, existing approaches can be classified into the two types: one is static storyboard, and the other is dynamic skimming. However, despite that these traditional methods give brief summaries for users, they still do not provide with a concept-organized and systematic view. In this paper, we present a structural video content browsing system and a novel summarization method by utilizing the four kinds of entities: who, what, where, and when to establish the framework of the video contents. With the assistance of the above-mentioned indexed information, the structure of the story can be built up according to the characters, the things, the places, and the time. Therefore, users can not only browse the video efficiently but also focus on what they are interested in via the browsing interface. In order to construct the fundamental system, we employ maximum entropy criterion to integrate visual and text features extracted from video frames and speech transcripts, generating high-level concept entities. A novel concept expansion method is introduced to explore the associations among these entities. After constructing the relational graph, we exploit graph entropy model to detect meaningful shots and relations, which serve as the indices for users. The results demonstrate that our system can achieve better performance and information coverage.

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

concept expansion tree
graph mining
structural video contents
video browsing
video indexing


Parsing with probabilistic strictly locally testable tree languages Probabilistic k- testable models ( usually known as k- gram models in the case of strings) can be easily identified from samples and allow for smoothing techniques to deal with unseen events during pattern classification. In this paper, we introduce the family of stochastic k- testable tree languages and describe how these models can approximate any stochastic rational tree language. The model is applied to the task of learning a probabilistic k- testable model from a sample of parsed sentences. In particular, a parser for a natural language grammar that incorporates smoothing is shown.

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

parsing with probabilistic grammars
stochastic learning
tree grammars


High quality, low delay foveated visual communications over mobile channels ? Foveated video streams are created by selectively varying the spatio-temporal resolution of video data according to the assumed or measured fixation patterns of the intended viewers. The significant potential of foveated video lies in the considerable entropy reduction relative to the original video data while minimizing the loss of apparent visual information. By exploiting new humanmachine interface techniques, such as visual eyetrackers, combined with foveated video compression and communication protocols, more efficient visual multimedia services operating over low bandwidths should become available in the near future. In this paper, we introduce a prototype foveated visual communication system suitable for implementation as a core element of an interactive multimedia wireless communication environment. We demonstrate the benefit of using foveation in noisy wireless low bandwidth applications, using measured fading statistics from the downtown area of Austin, Texas as an example. Based on a maximum source throughput criterion, the source and channel video transmission rates and the target video coding bit rate are adaptively decided according to the channel dynamics. In the simulations, we use the channel throughput, the spatial/temporal resolution, and the transmission delay as criteria to compare the performance of the foveated approach relative to normal (non-foveated) video. The results clearly underline the significant potential of foveated video communication protocols for wireless multimedia applications.

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

foveated visual communications
foveated video
foveation

wireless video
video compression
image compression
digital video
rate control


Finite element analysis of a compressible dynamic viscoelastic sphere using FFT An extension to a compressible dynamic viscoelastic hollow sphere problem with both finite and infinite outer radius is performed. The governing viscoelastic equations of motion are transformed into the Laplace domain via the elasticviscoelastic correspondence principle. Real and imaginary parts of the nodal displacements are obtained by solving a non-symmetric matrix equation in the complex Laplace domain. Inversion into the time domain is performed using the discrete inverse Fourier transform. Use is made of an infinite element in the infinite sphere problem. Numerical solutions are compared to both the exact Laplace and time domain solutions wherever possible.

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

finite element
viscoelastic
sphere
infinite element


Intraday Stock Price Forecasting Based on Variational Mode Decomposition This paper presents a hybrid predictive model for forecasting intraday stock prices. The proposed model hybridizes the variational mode decomposition (VMD) which is a new multiresolution technique with backpropagation neural network (BPNN). The VMD is used to decompose price series into a sum of variational modes (VM). The extracted VM are used to train BPNN. Besides, particle swarm optimization (PSO) is employed for BPNN initial weights optimization. Experimental results from a set of six stocks show the superiority of the hybrid VMD-PSO-BPNN predictive model over the baseline predictive model which is a PSO-BPNN model trained with past prices.

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

variational mode decomposition
particle swarm optimization
intraday stock price
forecasting


a dynamic core based multicast routing protocol for ad hoc wireless networks Ad hoc wireless networks are self-organizing dynamic topology networks formed by a collection of mobile nodes through radio links. Minimal configuration absence of infrastructure and quick deployment make them convenient for emergency situations other than military applications. Multicasting plays a very crucial role in the application of Ad hoc networks. As the number of participants increases scalability of the multicast protocol becomes an important issue. Among the existing multicast protocols On Demand Multicast Routing Protocol (ODMRP) perfo exhibits a high packet delivery ratio even at high mobility. But ODMRP suffers from higher control overhead as the network size and the number of sources increase.In this paper we propose an efficient multicast routing protocol for Ad hoc wireless networks. This protocol reduces the control overhead by dynamically classifying the sources into Active and Passive categories. The control overhead is significantly reduced by about 30\% compared to ODMRP which contributes to the scalability of the protocol. We study the effectiveness of the proposed multicast routing protocol by simulation studies and the results show that the multicast efficiency is increased by 10--15\% and packet delivery ratio is also improved at high network load.

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


Characterization and optimization of a permanent magnet synchronous machine Purpose - The first purpose of this paper is to identify - by an inverse problem - the unknown material characteristics in a permanent magnet synchronous machine in order to obtain a numerical model that is a realistic representation of the machine. The second purpose is to optimize the machine geometrically - using the accurate numerical model - for a maximal torque to losses ratio. Using the optimized geometry, a new machine can be manufactured that is more efficient than the original. Design/methodology/approach - A 2D finite element model of the machine is built, using a nonlinear material characteristic that contains three parameters. The parameters are identified by an inverse problem, starting from torque measurements. The validation is based on local BH-measurements on the stator iron. Findings - Geometrical parameters of the motor are optimized at small load (low-stator currents) and at full load (high-stator currents). If the optimization is carried out for a small load, the stator teeth are chosen wider in order to reduce iron loss. An optimization at full load results in a larger copper section so that the copper loss is reduced. Research limitations/implications - The identification of the material parameters is influenced by the tolerance on the air gap - shown by a sensitivity analysis in the paper - and by 3D effects, which are not taken into account in the 2D model. Practical implications - The identification of the material parameters guarantees that the numerical model describes the real material properties in the machine, which may be different from the properties given by the manufacturer because of mechanical stress and material degradation. Originality/value - The optimization is more accurate because the material proper-ties, used in the numerical model, are determined by the solution of an inverse problem that uses measurements on the machine.

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

finite element analysis
electric motors
magnetic devices
electromagnetism


Improving FPGA Performance for Carry-Save Arithmetic The selective use of carry-save arithmetic, where appropriate, can accelerate a variety of arithmetic-dominated circuits. Carry-save arithmetic occurs naturally in a variety of DSP applications, and further opportunities to exploit it can be exposed through systematic data flow transformations that can be applied by a hardware compiler. Field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), however, are not particularly well suited to carry-save arithmetic. To address this concern, we introduce the "field programmable counter array" (FPCA), an accelerator for carry-save arithmetic intended for integration into an FPGA as an alternative to DSP blocks. In addition to multiplication and multiply accumulation, the FPCA can accelerate more general carry-save operations, such as multi-input addition (e. g., add k > 2 integers) and multipliers that have been fused with other adders. Our experiments show that the FPCA accelerates a wider variety of applications than DSP blocks and improves performance, area utilization, and energy consumption compared with soft FPGA logic.

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

carry-save arithmetic
field-programmable gate array (fpga)
generalized parallel counter (gpc)


A robust high-resolution finite volume scheme for the simulation of long waves over complex domains The propagation, runup and rundown of long surface waves are numerically investigated, initially in one dimension, using a well-balanced high-resolution finite volume scheme. A conservative form of the nonlinear shallow water equations with source terms is solved numerically using a high-resolution Godunov-type explicit scheme coupled with Roe's approximate Riemann solver. The scheme is also extended to handle two-dimensional complex domains. The numerical difficulties related to the presence of the topography source terms in the model equations along with the appearance of the wet/dry fronts are properly treated and extended. The resulting numerical model accurately describes breaking waves as bores or hydraulic jumps and conserves volume across flow discontinuities. Numerical results show very good agreement with previously presented analytical or asymptotic solutions as well as with experimental benchmark data. Copyright (c) 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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

long waves
shallow water equations
finite volume

wave breaking
wave runup and rundown
wet/dry fronts


3D shape acquisition and integral compact representation using optical scanning and enhanced shape parameterization 3D optical scanning point clouds are successfully parameterized into B-spline surfaces. Control point data-sets can be used for computational evaluation of scanned objects. Proposed enhanced parameterization algorithm provides better surface fitting. Enhanced parameterization can handle edges, local voids and minor scanning errors. Expert system provides compact but faithful representation of complex object shapes.

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

b-spline surfaces
enhanced 3d parameterization


Proposing a decision-making model using analytical hierarchy process and fuzzy expert system for prioritizing industries in installation of combined heat and power systems Restructuring electric power and increasing energy cost encourage large energy consumers to utilize combined heat and power (CHP) systems. In addition to these two factors, the gradual exclusion of subsidies is the third factor intensifying the utilization of CHP systems in Iran. In this paper, a hybrid decision making model has been proposed for prioritizing Iranian industries to install CHP systems. Integrated analytical hierarchy process (AHP) and fuzzy expert system (FES) has been applied. Weighted amount of each decision criterion which calculated by AHP affects the fuzzy membership function in FES model. In this model, 23 Iranian industries (based on international standard industrial classification) are ranked using the combination of AHP and FES considering weighted criteria and actual data. The results demonstrate that the priority of chemical, non-metallic minerals, refined petroleum, food products and beverages, basic metals, paper and paper products, and textile industries, for installation of CHP is more than other industries. The similarity of these results with the share of different industries in installed CHP in developed countries indicates the validity of the proposed decision-making model. This model can be applied for solving similar decision-making problems. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

decision making
combined heat and power
fuzzy expert system


Fairness provisioning in multi-hop wireless backhaul networks: Challenges and solutions This paper studies the issues of providing fairness over multi-hop wireless backhaul networks. When current MAC protocols are applied, Transit Access Points (TAPs) farther from the gateway may suffer from lower throughput, or even starvation, leading to extremely unfair performance between mobile users. We not only thoroughly discuss this fairness problem, but also highlight the challenges in designing a feasible solution. Moreover, we survey the designs of existing fairness mechanisms, evaluate them via practical issues, and address some open research issues concerning fair resource allocation in wireless backhaul networks. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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


A spatio-temporal econometric model of regional growth in Spain In this paper, a combined cross-section and time-series econometric analysis of Spanish regional growth is presented. This analysis operates with a database where the number of cross-sectional units is small for a typical panel of data, while the time dimension is clearly dominant. First, using recent techniques in the econometric analysis of panel data (both panel unit root and panel co-integration tests), a co-integrating relationship between the level of regional output and the level of regional input factors is found, and the steady-state equilibrium production function is estimated. Second, a dynamic spatio-temporal panel error correction model is used in order to describe the short-run regional growth adjustment process in space and time. As conclusion, it is possible to identify significant spatial effects in the Spanish regional growth after controlling for temporal variation of the implied variables.

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


How lonely people use and perceive Facebook How loneliness is associated with various aspects of Facebook use was examined. Lonely peoples Facebook friends were less overlapped with their offline friends. Lonely peoples self-disclosure was more likely negative than positive. Lonely people engaged in communicating activities to a lesser degree on Facebook. Lonely people were less satisfied with Facebook use than their counterparts.

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

social skills deficit
the rich get richer
the poor get richer
self-disclosure


A certified mail system (CMS) for the Internet It is commonly agreed that the widespread and more professional use of electronic mail on the Internet would gain a lot from certified mail services. In this article, we propose and describe a system that can be used to provide these services. The corresponding certified mail system for the Internet employs an online trusted third party and uses dual signatures to cryptographically link the message keys to the messages that are certified. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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


Complete calibration of a structured light stripe vision sensor through planar target of unknown orientations Structured light 3D vision inspection is a commonly used method for various 3D surface profiling techniques. In this paper, the mathematical model of the structured light stripe vision sensor is established. We propose a flexible new approach to easily determine all primitive parameters of a structured light stripe vision sensor. It is well suited for use without specialized knowledge of 3D geometry. The technique only requires the sensor to observe a planar target shown at a few (at least two) different orientations. Either the sensor or the planar target can be freely moved. The motion need not be known. A novel approach is proposed to generate sufficient non-collinear control points for structured light stripe vision sensor calibration. Real data has been used to test the proposed technique, and very good result has been obtained. Compared with classical techniques, which use expensive equipment such as two or three orthogonal planes, the proposed technique is easy to use and flexible. It advances structured light vision one step from laboratory environments to real engineering 3D metrology applications.

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

structured light
calibration
control points
planar target
vision inspection


A new efficient assembly language teaching aid for intel processors Assembly 8086 language is an essential course that is taught in many universities offering computer engineering or science degree. However, the available software simulators that are used to write and run assembly programs do not fulfill the students' expectations due to being difficult to deal with and lacking a lot of necessary GUI features. In this article, we introduce a new Assembly Language Teaching Aid (ALTA32 or ALTA8086) which is basically a simulator that helps much in delivering concepts related to assembly language programming course for Intel microprocessors (ps). Among current and relevant simulators, ALTA32 not only is the simplest and easiest to use, but also has the most fascinating user-friendly interface that exhibits constructive and informative features. Additionally, it offers multiple run modes with the option of writing programs directly or through loading existing files. It works efficiently in both 16-bit and 32-bit extensions considering real mode memory addressing. It supports all data and stack memory addressing modes along with all available directives to be used in both model and full-segment program approaches. Furthermore, to understand and recognize changes after execution, all affected fields are emphasized and shown using visual effects such as dynamic labels, blinking texts, as well as colored codes. On the other hand, it is widely known that the Complex Instruction Set Computing (CISC) architecture, which is also a register-memory architecture, is characterized by affording many instructions with various operands, affected flags, complex operations, and sources of syntax errors. Although it is really challenging to build up a simulator that completely supports that wide range of Intel assembly instructions taking into account the variety in their lengths and formats, we succeeded eventually to eliminate the code redundancy and make our code readable, maintainable, and scalable through programming all instructions based on the methodology of combining or grouping all instructions that almost act similarly to follow a certain efficient algorithm. As a programming environment, VB.Net has been used to develop the ALTA32 simulator. Throughout our experience in teaching assembly 8086 language programming course for CISC processors, we found many difficulties in getting the students familiar with well-known simulators such as Microsoft Macro Assembler (MASM8086 or MASM32) or 8086?p Emulator (EMU8086). Nevertheless, the feedback from our students about ALTA32 simulator was so impressive and the complaints were totally disappeared. 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Comput Appl Eng Educ 23:217238, 2015; View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/cae; DOI 10.1002/cae.21591

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


Maximizing reliability with energy conservation for parallel task scheduling in a heterogeneous cluster A heterogeneous computing system in a cluster is a promising computing platform, which attracts a large number of researchers due to its high performance potential. High system reliability and low power consumption are two primary objectives for a data center. Dynamic voltage scaling (DVS) has been proved to be the most efficient technique and is exploited widely to realize a low power system. Unfortunately, transient fault is inevitable during the execution of an application while applying the DVS technique. Most existing scheduling algorithms for precedence constrained tasks in a multiprocessor computer system do not adequately consider task reliability. In this paper, we devise a novel Reliability Maximization with Energy Constraint (RMEC) algorithm, which incorporates three important phases, including task priority establishment, frequency selection, and processor assignment. The RMEC algorithm can effectively balance the tradeoff between high reliability and energy consumption. Our rigorous performance evaluation study, based on both randomly generated task graphs and the graphs of some real-world applications, shows that our scheduling algorithm surpasses the existing algorithms in terms of system reliability enhancement and energy consumption saving.

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

cluster computing
list scheduling
parallel application


Hereditary biclique-Helly graphs: recognition and maximal biclique enumeration A biclique is a set of vertices that induce a complete bipartite graph. A graph G is biclique-Helly when its family of maximal bicliques satisfies the Helly property. If every induced subgraph of G is also biclique-Helly, then G is hereditary biclique-Helly. A graph is C-4-dominated when every cycle of length 4 contains a vertex that is dominated by the vertex of the cycle that is not adjacent to it. In this paper we show that the class of hereditary biclique-Helly graphs is formed precisely by those C-4-dominated graphs that contain no triangles and no induced cycles of length either 5 or 6. Using this characterization, we develop an algorithm for recognizing hereditary biclique-Helly graphs in O(n(2) + alpha m) time and O(n + m) space. (Here n, m, and alpha = O(m(1/2)) are the number of vertices and edges, and the arboricity of the graph, respectively.) As a subprocedure, we show how to recognize those C-4-dominated graphs that contain no triangles in O(alpha m) time and O(n + m) space. Finally, we show how to enumerate all the maximal bicliques of a C-4-dominated graph with no triangles in O(n(2) + alpha m) time and O (ff m) space.

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

hereditary biclique-helly graphs
triangle-free graphs
domination problems


EXPLORATION OF INFORMATION SYSTEM PROCESS IMPROVEMENTS AND FIRM PERFORMANCE While substantial research has investigated the impact of IT on firm performance, for the most part, this research only considers the tangible aspect of IT, such as IS infrastructure. Intangible aspects of IT, such as IS-related processes, have been investigated in regard to the impact of project performance, but do not consider overall firm performance. This study is an exploration of the gap between these streams of research, and investigates the impact of IS-related process improvements on firm performance. Public CMM level transition announcements were used as events for an event-study methodology to assess the impact of these announcements on firm stock prices. The study found that through a variety of event windows, CMM level transitions consistently had a positive impact on stock price.

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

is processes
event study
stock market valuation


"Physics" approach to general systems theory A number of empirical statements intended to capture features of "systems" considered to be pervasive, is given. A symbolism based on processed natural language is outlined The symbolism can be used for analysis of scenarios with predominantly qualitative properties i.e. human activity situations. It is capable of carrying the appropriate mathematics and uncertainties associated with operation of human and other types of components, is based on a kind of predicate logic and exhibits changes of states in time. The approach has led to a definition of information and product and systems design.

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

cybernetics
general living systems theory


Neighborhood-user profiling based on perception relationship in the micro-blog scenario In the micro-blog scenario, personal user profiling relying on content is limited for recommending desired diverse subjects due to its shortcomings of short text, often leading to a poor recall. Currently, many methods only utilized the personal knowledge from each individual user to represent user profile without considering the neighborhood information. However, resource information related to neighboring friends play an important role in improving the performance of recommender systems. In this paper, we present the personalized expanded user profiling for micro-blog subject recommendation via ontology semantics structure. Next, taking into account diffusion ability of followee friends, we discuss resource perception relationship (RPR) and follow perception relationship (FPR). Finally, we discuss how, by adjusting the importance of RPR and FPR, the neighborhood is selected to construct neighborhood-user profile, which can mine new relevant subjects for target user. Our experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our neighborhood-user profiling in comparison to the existing collaborative filtering and personal user profile recommendation approaches on Sina micro-blog platform datasets.

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

ontology
resource perception relationship
follow perception relationship