An efficient minutiae based geometric hashing for fingerprint database ? This paper proposes an efficient indexing technique for fingerprint database using minutiae based geometric hashing. This technique consists of two stages, known as indexing and searching. For an accurate match at the time of searching, it has proposed a fixed length feature vector built from each minutia, known as Minutia Binary Pattern. Unlike any existing geometric based indexing technique, the proposed technique inserts each minutia along with the feature vector exactly once into a hash table. As a result, it reduces both computational and memory costs. Since minutiae of all fingerprint images in the database are found to be well distributed into the hash table, no rehashing is required. Experiments over FVC 2004 datasets prove the superiority of the proposed indexing technique against well known geometric based indexing techniques.

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

fingerprints
identification
geometric based hashing


Area-Efficient Convolutional Deinterleaver for Mobile TV Receiver In this article, a single-pointer structure is proposed for the convolutional deinterleavers of mobile TV receivers. To enhance the burst-error correcting capability, the convolutional interleaving and deinterleaving scheme is widely used in mobile TV receivers. However, a convolutional deinterleaver requires many pointer registers. This article introduces a single-pointer structure that reduces the number of pointer registers. Experimental results show that the single-pointer structure reduces the area of the convolutional deinterleaver by 70% in a mobile TV receiver.

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

algorithms
design
performance
convolutional interleaving


A model-driven framework for guided design space exploration Design space exploration (DSE) aims at searching through various models representing different design candidates to support activities like configuration design of critical systems or automated maintenance of IT systems. In model-driven engineering, DSE is applied to find instance models that are (i) reachable from an initial model with a sequence of transformation rules and (ii) satisfy a set of structural and numerical constraints. Since exhaustive exploration of the design space is infeasible for large models, the traversal is often guided by hints, derived by system analysis, to prioritize the next states to traverse (selection criteria) and to avoid searching unpromising states (cut-off criteria). In this paper, we define an exploration approach where selection and cut-off criteria are defined using dependency analysis and algebraic abstraction of transformation rules. Additionally, we apply different state encoding techniques to identify recurring states and reduce the number of visited states. Finally, we illustrate our approach on a cloud infrastructure configuration problem and provide detailed evaluation on both synthetic and real applications. This evaluation includes (i) the comparison of several exploration techniques, (ii) performance measurements on multiple state encoding techniques and (iii) comparing two implementation architectures of our design space exploration framework.

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

model-driven engineering
search-based software engineering


A novel identification method for hybrid (N)PLS dynamical systems with application to bioprocesses This paper presents a method for the identification of nonlinear partial least square (NPLS) models embedded in macroscopic material balance equations with application to bioprocess modeling. The proposed model belongs to the class of hybrid models and consists of a NPLS submodel, which mimics the cellular system, coupled to a set of material balance equations defining the reactor dynamics. The method presented is an analog to the non-iterative partial least square (NIPALS) algorithm where the PLS inner model is trained using the sensitivity method. This strategy avoids the estimation of the target fluxes from measurements of metabolite concentrations, which is rather unrealistic in the case of sparse and noisy off-line measurements. The method is evaluated with a simulation case study on the fed-batch production of a recombinant protein, and an experimental case study of Bordetella pertussis batch cultivations. The results show that the proposed method leads to more consistent models with higher statistical confidence, better calibration properties and reinforced prediction power when compared to other dynamic (N)PLS structures.

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

nonlinear partial least square (nonlinear projection to latent structures)


Combining visual MPEG tools in the context of video adaptability This paper proposes an interworking between MPEG-2 Intraframe coding and JPEG2000 international standards. The latter codec is integrated into the base layer of spatial scalability encoders whilst retaining full compatibility with MPEG-2 decoders. The proposed solution combines existing ISO/IEC MPEG standards and is elaborated upon with respect to three application areas; bitstream format portability and adaptability, bitstream switching and combined video scalability. The paper elaborates upon the proposed coding architectures and compatibility with published MPEG standards. The proposed coding architecture is compared against counterpart video transcoders, scalable and single layer codecs. It is shown that the proposed spatial encoder is superior to all the aforementioned codecs whilst enjoying an extensible architecture capable of serving restricted end systems and hosting additional scalable layers such as SNR and temporal scalabilities.

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

video networking
scalable video coding and mpeg-2 video


hierarchical dwarfs for the rollup cube The data cube operator exemplifies two of the most important aspects of OLAP queries: aggregation and dimension hierarchies. In earlier work we presented Dwarf, a highly compressed and clustered structure for creating, storing and indexing data cubes. Dwarf is a complete architecture that supports queries and updates, while also including a tunable granularity parameter that controls the amount of materialization performed. However, it does not directly support dimension hierarchies. Rollup and drilldown queries on dimension hierarchies that naturally arise in OLAP need to be handled externally and are, thus, very costly. In this paper we present extensions to the Dwarf architecture for incorporating rollup data cubes, i.e. cubes with hierarchical dimensions. We show that the extended Hierarchical Dwarf retains all its advantages both in terms of creation time and space while being able to directly and efficiently support aggregate queries on every level of a dimension's hierarchy.

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

indexing
granularity
data cubes
aggregation
materialization
olap

warehouses
structural redundancy
suffix coalescing
dwarf cube
prefix elimination


Host Factors Involved in West Nile Virus Replication Viruses use cell proteins during many stages of their replication cycles, including attachment, entry, translation, transcription/replication, and assembly. Mutations in the cell proteins involved can cause disruptions of these critical host-virus interactions, which in turn can affect the efficiency of virus replication. These host-virus interactions also represent novel targets for the development of new antiviral agents. The different alleles of the murine Flv gene confer resistance or susceptibility to flavivirus-induced disease and provide a natural mutant system for the study of a host protein that can alter the outcome of a flavivirus infection. Since flaviviruses, such as West Nile virus, replicate in mosquitoes, mammals, and birds during their natural transmission cycles, it is expected that the critical cell proteins used by these viruses will be ones that are highly conserved between divergent host species. Our laboratory has focused on the identification and characterization of the flavivirus resistance gene product and of cell proteins that interact with the 3? terminal regions of the West Nile virus genomic and antigenomic RNAs. The 3? terminal regions of the viral RNAs function as promotors for viral RNA replication. Cell proteins that bind to the viral 3? RNAs were detected by gel shift and UV-induced cross-linking assays. Individual proteins were then purified and partially sequenced. Mutation of a mapped, protein-binding site within the 3? terminal region of the viral RNA in an infectious West Nile virus clone was used to demonstrate the functional importance of one of the cell proteins for efficient West Nile virus replication. Data from additional studies suggested possible roles for this viral RNA-cell protein interaction during the flavivirus replication cycle.

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

west nile virus
host factors
flv gene
flavivirus replication

genetic resistance
flavivirus translation


Uncovering the Social Dynamics of Online Elections Past work analysing elections in online domains has largely ignored the underlying social networks present in such environments. Here, the Wikipedia Request for Adminship (RfA) process is studied within the context of a social network and several factors influencing different stages of the voting process are pinpointed. Machine-learning problems were formulated to test the identified factors. The different facets explored are: election participation, decision making in elections, and election outcome. Our results show that voters tend to participate in elections that their contacts have participated in. Furthermore, there is evidence showing that an individual's decision-making is influenced by his contacts' actions. The properties of voters within the social graph were also studied; results reveal that candidates who gain the support of an influential coalition tend to succeed in elections. Additionally, detailed analyses on different classes of voters and candidates were made. Finally, the structural properties corresponding to networks of election participants were analysed and these networks were found to exhibit higher degrees of community structure versus graphs of participants selected at random.

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

social voter
social network analysis
logistic regression
social influence
election analysis


polynomial-time computation of exact correlated equilibrium in compact games In a landmark paper, Papadimitriou and Roughgarden described a polynomial-time algorithm ("Ellipsoid Against Hope") for computing sample correlated equilibria of concisely-represented games. Recently, Stein, Parrilo and Ozdaglar showed that this algorithm can fail to find an exact correlated equilibrium, but can be easily modified to efficiently compute approximate correlated equilibria. Currently, it remains an open problem to determine whether the algorithm can be modified to compute an exact correlated equilibrium. We show that it can, presenting a variant of the Ellipsoid Against Hope algorithm that guarantees the polynomial-time identification of exact correlated equilibrium. Also, our algorithm is the first to tractably compute correlated equilibria with polynomial-sized supports; such correlated equilibria are more natural solutions than the mixtures of product distributions produced previously, and have several advantages including requiring fewer bits to represent, being easier to sample from, and being easier to verify. Our algorithm differs from the original primarily in its use of a separation oracle that produces cuts corresponding to pure-strategy profiles. As a result, we no longer face the numerical precision issues encountered by the original approach, and both the resulting algorithm and its analysis are considerably simplified. Our new separation oracle can be understood as a derandomization of Papadimitriou and Roughgarden's original separation oracle via the method of conditional probabilities.

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

separation oracle
correlated equilibrium
derandomization


An RF-LO current-bleeding doubly balanced mixer for IEEE 802.15.3a UWB MB-OFDM standard receivers A new design of active mixers intended for the Mode 1 of ultra wideband multi-band OFDM receivers is presented. It is based on a doubly balanced Gilbert cell type in which bleeding current sources are added in both the RF and LO stages in order to improve further linearity and gain. Using an L-input matching and optimized device size, it was possible to obtain a good operation of the proposed mixer all over the 3.14.8GHz band with AMS 0.35m CMOS process parameters. The simulated conversion gain is 12.013.5dBm, noise figure less than 8.8dB, input IP3 above 0dBm and a higher than - 4 dB of input return loss, when the power consumption is 18mW under 3V supply voltage.

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

uwb transceiver
down-conversion mixer
current-bleeding


Isogeometric fluidstructure interaction analysis with emphasis on non-matching discretizations, and with application to wind turbines In this paper we develop a framework for fluidstructure interaction (FSI) modeling and simulation with emphasis on isogeometric analysis (IGA) and non-matching fluidstructure interface discretizations. We take the augmented Lagrangian approach to FSI as a point of departure. Here the Lagrange multiplier field is defined on the fluidstructure interface and is responsible for coupling of the two subsystems. Thus the FSI formulation does not rely on the continuity of the underlying function spaces across the fluidstructure interface in order to produce the correct coupling conditions between the fluid and structural subdomains. However, in deriving the final FSI formulation the interface Lagrange multiplier is formally eliminated and the formulation is written purely in terms of primal variables. Avoiding the use of Lagrange multipliers adds efficiency to the proposed formulation. As an added benefit, the ability to employ non-matching grids for multi-physics simulations leads to significantly relaxed requirements that are placed on the geometry modeling and meshing tools for IGA. We show an application of the proposed FSI formulation to the simulation of the NREL 5MW offshore wind turbine rotor, where the aerodynamics domain is modeled using volumetric quadratic NURBS, while the rotor structure is modeled using a cubic T-spline-based discretization of a rotation-free KirchhoffLove shell. We conclude the article by showing FSI coupling of a T-spline shell with a low-order finite element method (FEM) discretization of the aerodynamics equations. This combined use of IGA and FEM is felt to be a good balance between speed, robustness, and accuracy of FSI simulations for this class of problems.

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

t-splines
fluid-structure interaction
non-matching interface discretizations
nrel 5 mw offshore wind turbine rotor


Strong A-acceptability for rational functions In this note a simple characterization of 'strong' A-acceptability for a rational function is given. This fact meets applications in stability theory for Runge-Kutta or semi-implicit methods. In particular, strongly A-stable methods give (long time) stable integrations on autonomous differential systems possessing a semi-stable equilibrium.

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

a-acceptability
runge-kutta methods
semi-implicit methods


GRASP for traffic grooming and routing with simple path constraints in WDM mesh networks This paper studies the traffic grooming and routing problem with simple path constraint (denoted as GR) in WDM mesh networks. To the best of our knowledge, the simple path constraint has not been studied in previous literature. However, this non-trivial constraint is essential in practice and it makes the traffic grooming and routing problem become much more challenging due to the introduction of quadratic constraints. By giving the mathematical formulation of the GR problem, we propose a greedy randomized adaptive search procedure (GRASP) for solving the GR problem, and introduce a mechanism to tackle the interaction between the grooming problem and the routing problem. To test the performance of the proposed GRASP algorithm, we apply it to tackle three sets of totally 38 instances generated according to real-world scenarios. Computational results show the efficacy of the GRASP algorithm in terms of both solution quality and search efficiency by comparison with public software LocalSolver and the lower bounds obtained by CPLEX.

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

metaheuristics
wdm mesh network
local search


An R Package for Assessing Drug Synergism/Antagonism Synergistic and antagonistic drug interactions are important to consider when developing mixtures of anticancer or other types of drugs. Boik, Newman, and Boik (2008) proposed the Mix Low method as an alternative to the Median-Effect method of Chou and Talalay (1984) for estimating drug interaction indices. One advantage of the Mix Low method is that then on linear mixed-effects model used to estimate parameters of concentration response curves can provide more accurate parameter estimates than the log linearization and least-squares analysis used in the Median-Effect method. This paper introduces the mix low package in R, an implementation of the Mix Low method. Results are reported for a small simulation study.

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

synergism
antagonism
loewe index
mixlow method
cytotoxicity


Deformation based feature selection for Computer Aided Diagnosis of Alzheimers Disease Deformation-based Morphometry (DBM) allows detection of significant morphological differences of brain anatomy, such as those related to brain atrophy in Alzheimers Disease (AD). DBM process is as follows: First, performs the non-linear registration of a subjects structural MRI volume to a reference template. Second, computes scalar measures of the registrations deformation field. Third, performs across volume statistical group analysis of these scalar measures to detect effects. In this paper we use the scalar deformation measures for Computer Aided Diagnosis (CAD) systems for AD. Specifically this paper deals with feature extraction methods over five such scalar measures. We evaluate three supervised feature selection methods based on voxel site significance measures given by Pearson correlation, Bhattacharyya distance and Welchs t-test, respectively. The CAD system discriminating between healthy control subjects (HC) and AD patients consists of a Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifier trained on the DBM selected features. The paper reports experimental results on structural MRI data from the cross-sectional OASIS database. Average 10-fold cross-validation classification results are comparable or improve the state-of-the-art results of other approaches performing CAD from structural MRI data. Localization in the brain of the most discriminant deformation voxel sites is in agreement with findings reported in the literature.

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

suppor vector machines
magnetic resonance imaging
computed aided diagnosis


Termination checking with types The paradigm of type-based termination is explored for functional programming with recursive data types. The article introduces Lambda(mu)(+), a lambda-calculus with recursion, inductive types, subtyping and bounded quanti. cation. Decorated type variables representing approximations of inductive types are used to track the size of function arguments and return values. The system is shown to be type safe and strongly normalizing. The main novelty is a bidirectional type checking algorithm whose soundness is established formally.

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

inductive types
bidirectional type checking

type-based termination
sized types
course-of-value recursion
strong normalization


Portfolio and investment risk analysis on global grids The financial services industry today produces and consumes huge amounts of data and the processes involved in analysing these data have large and complex resource requirements. The need to analyse the data using such processes and get meaningful results in time, can be met only up to a certain extent by current computer systems. Most service providers attempt to increase efficiency and quality of their service offerings by stacking up more hardware and employing better algorithms for data processing. However, there is a limit to the gains achieved by using such an approach. One viable alternative would be to use emerging technologies such as the Grid. Grid computing and its application to various domains have been actively studied by many groups for more than a decade now. In this paper we explore the use of the Grid in the financial services domain; an area which we believe has not been adequately looked into. (C) 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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

e-science
gridbus resource broker
finance application


Automated Adaptor Generation for Behavioral Mismatching Services Based on Pushdown Model Checking In this paper, we introduce an approach of service adaptation for behavior mismatching services using pushdown model checking. This approach uses pushdown systems as model of adaptors so that capturing non-regular behavior in service interactions is possible. Also, the use of pushdown model checking integrates adaptation and verification. This guarantees that an adaptor generated by our approach not only solves behavior mismatches but also satisfies usual verification properties if specified. Unlike conventional approaches, we do not count on specifications of adaptor contracts but take only information from behavior interfaces of services and perform fully automated adaptor generation. Three requirements relating to behavior mismatches, unbounded messages, and branchings are retrieved from behavior interfaces and used to build LTL properties for pushdown model checking. Properties for unbounded messages, i.e., messages sent and received arbitrary multiple times, are especially addressed since it characterizes non-regular behavior in service composition. This paper also shows some experimental results from a prototype tool and provides directions for building BPEL adaptors from behavior interface of generated adaptor. The results show that our approach does solve behavior mismatches and successfully capture non-regular behavior in service composition under the scale of real service applications.

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

service adaptation
pushdown model checking
unbounded messages


An improvement on the bounds of Weil exponential sums over Gallois rings with some applications We present an upper bound for Weil-type exponential sums over Galois rings of characteristic p(2) which improves on the analog of the Weil-Carlitz-Uchiyama bound for Galois rings obtained by Kumar, Helleseth, and Calderbank. A more refined bound, expressed in terms of genera of function fields, and an analog of McEliece's theorem on the divisibility of the homogeneous weights of codewords in trace codes over Z(p)2, are also derived. These results lead to an improvement on the estimation of the minimum distance of certain trace codes over Z(p)2 and the bounds on the correlation of certain nonlinear p-ary sequences.

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

p-ary kerdock codes
mceliece's divisibility theorem
nonlinear p-ary sequences
weil-carlitz-uchiyama bound


BP(H)SPACE(S)subset of DSPACE(S-3/2) We prove that any language that can be recognized by a randomized algorithm (with possibly a two-sided error) that runs in space O(S) and always terminates can be recognized by deterministic algorithm running in space O(S-3/2). This improves the best previously known result that such algorithms have deterministic space O(S-2) simulations which, for one-sided error algorithms, follows from Savitch's theorem and, for two-sided error algorithms, follows by reduction to recursive matrix powering. Our result includes as a special case the result due to Nisan, Szemeredi, and Wigderson that undirected connectivity can be computed in space O(log(3/2) n). It is Obtained via a new algorithm for repeated squaring of a matrix: we show how to approximate the 2' th power of a d x d matrix in space O(r(1/2) log d), improving on the bound of O(r log d) that comes from the natural recursive algorithm. The algorithm employs Nisan's pseudorandom generator for space-bounded computation, together with some new techniques for reducing the number of random bits needed by an algorithm. (C) 1999 Academic Press.

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

matrix exponentiation
space bounded computation
pseudo-random generator


A secure temporal-credential-based mutual authentication and key agreement scheme with pseudo identity for wireless sensor networks ? With an advancement of wireless communication technology, wireless sensor network (WSN) has emerged as one of the most powerful technologies which can be used in various applications, such as military surveillance, environment monitoring, industrial control, and medical monitoring. WSNs are vulnerable to large collection of attacks than traditional networks because they transmit data using a wireless channel and are deployed in unattended environments. So, in this environment, how to ensure secure communications between different communication parties becomes a challenging issue with respect to the constraints of energy consumption, and large overhead generated during various operations performed. In this direction, the mutual authentication and key agreement (MAAKA) scheme attracts much attention in recent years. In literature, MAAKA schemes were presented in last several years. However, most of these schemes cannot satisfy security requirements in WSNs. Recently, Xue et al. proposed a temporal-credential-based MAAKA scheme for WSNs and proved that it could withstand various types of attacks. However, this paper points out that Xue et al.s MAAKA scheme is vulnerable to the off-line password guessing attack, the user impersonation attack, the sensor node impersonation attack and the modification attack. Moreover, this paper also points out that Xue et al.s MAAKA scheme cannot provide user anonymity. To overcome weaknesses in Xue et al.s MAAKA scheme, this paper proposes a new temporal-credential-based MAAKA scheme for WSNs. Security analysis shows the proposed MAAKA scheme could overcome the weaknesses in Xue et al.s MAAKA scheme. Performance analysis shows the proposed MAAKA scheme has better performance than the existing benchmarked schemes in literature. Therefore, the proposed MAAKA scheme is more suitable for providing security for various applications in WSNs.

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

mutual authentication
key agreement
wireless sensor network


Random set modelling of three-dimensional objects in a hierarchical Bayesian context We present a Bayesian approach to modelling and estimating objects in three dimensions. A general stochastic model for object recognition based on points in the domain of observation is created via hierarchical mixtures, allowing for the inclusion of important prior information about the objects under consideration. Objects under consideration are created based on three-dimensional (3D) points in space, with each point having some probability of membership to different objects. This is the first object-oriented statistical approach that models 3D objects in a true 3D environment. A data-augmentation approach and a Birth-Death Markov Chain Monte Carlo algorithm are incorporated to provide classification probabilities of each data point to one or more of the identified objects and to obtain estimates of the parameters that describe each object. Strengths of the methodology include its ease in accommodating different data and process models, its flexibility in handling varying numbers of mixture components, and most importantly, its ability to allow for inference on individual characteristics of objects. These strengths are demonstrated on an application for a forest (tree objects) near Olympia, WA, based on remotely sensed Light Detection and Ranging point observations.

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

birth-death markov chain monte carlo
data-augmentation forestry
hierarchical bayesian models
lidar data
mixture models
random objects


From the prototype to the final embedded system using the Ocarina AADL tool suite Building distributed deal-time embedded systems requires a stringent methodology, from early requirement capture to full implementation. However, there is a strong link between the requirements and the final implementation (e. g., scheduling and resource dimensioning). Therefore, a rapid prototyping process based on automation of tedious and error-prone tasks (analysis and code generation) is required to speed up the development cycle. In this article, we show how the AADL (Architecture Analysis and Design Language), which appeared in late 2004, helps solve these issues thanks to a dedicated tool suite. We then detail the prototyping process and its current implementation: Ocarina.

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


Fuzzy data mining and management of interpretable and subjective information Fuzzy set theory offers an important contribution to data mining leading to fuzzy data mining. It enables the management of interpretable and subjective information in both input and output of the data mining process. In this paper, we discuss the notion of interpretability in fuzzy data mining and we present some references on the management of emotions as a particular kind of subjective information.

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

fuzzy data mining
subjective information
emotions


Kolmogorov complexity and non-determinism We are concerned with Kolmogorov complexity of strings produced by non-deterministic algorithms. For this, we consider five classes of non-deterministic description modes: (i) non-bounded description modes in which the number of outputs depends on programs, (ii) distributed description modes in which the number of outputs depends on the size of the outputs, (iii) spread description modes in which the number of outputs depends on both programs and the size of the outputs., (iv) description modes for which each string has a unique minimal description, and lastly (v) description modes for which the set of minimal length descriptions is a prefix set. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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


The warm-up algorithm: A Lagrangian construction of length restricted Huffman codes Given an alphabet {alpha (1),..., alpha (n)} with the corresponding list of weights [omega (1),..., omega (n)], and a number L greater than or equal to inverted right perpendicular log n inverted left perpendicular, we introduce the WARM- UP algorithm, a Lagrangian algorithm for constructing suboptimal length restricted prefix codes. Two implementations of the algorithm are proposed. The first one has time complexity O(n log n+n log )over bar>), where )over bar> is the highest presented weight. The second one runs in O (nL log(n/ L)) time. The number of additional bits per symbol generated by WARM-UP when comparing to Huffman encoding is not greater than 1/psi (L-inverted right perpendicular log(n + inverted right perpendicular log n inverted left perpendicular -L inverted left perpendicular-2). Even though the algorithm is approximated it presents an optimal behavior for practical settings. An important feature of the proposed algorithm is its implementation simplicity. The algorithm is basically a selected sequence of Huffman tree constructions for modified weights. The approach gives some new insights on the problem.

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


Fast transform based preconditioners for 2D finite-difference frequency-domain Waveguides and periodic structures The fields scattered by dielectric objects placed inside parallel-plate waveguides and periodic structures in two dimensions may efficiently be computed via a finite-difference frequency-domain (FDFD) method. This involves large, sparse linear systems of equations that may be solved using preconditioned Krylov subspace methods. Our preconditioners involve fast discrete trigonometric transforms and are based on a physical approximation. Simulations show significant gain in terms of computation time and iteration count in comparison with results obtained with preconditioners based on incomplete LU (ILU) factorization. Moreover, with the new preconditioners, the required number of iterations is independent of the grid size.

O O O O O O O O B O B I 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 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 difference methods
iterative methods
helmholtz equation
electromagnetic scattering


Simulating mobile ad hoc networks in city scenarios Simulation tools are frequently used for the performance evaluations of mobile ad hoc networks. Currently the tools do not take a spatial environment into account, thus providing a poor support for urban scenarios. In this paper, we describe a platform for the modeling of city scenarios. We extend the mostly used MANET simulator ns-2 by the corresponding mobility and wireless transmission models. These models have been evaluated against real-world measurements. By using the tool's emulation facility, we integrate unmodified applications and real implementations of network protocols. We demonstrate the usefulness of the platform by modeling a mobile application in a simulated environment of Stuttgart downtown. We show that obtained simulation results differ extensively from those with simpler models. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

communication systems
geographic information systems
mobile communication


Understanding the role of an IT artifact in online service continuance: An extended perspective of user satisfaction Given increasing investment in an IT (information technology) artifact (i.e., online service website), it is becoming important to retain existing customers. In order to help link website design and investment decisions to the strategy for retaining customers, we propose a model by extending the user satisfaction perspective into research on online service continuance. We empirically tested the model within the context of a social network service. The analysis results found that website information satisfaction and system satisfaction play key roles in forming continuance intention through perceived usefulness and perceived enjoyment. It is also noted that computer anxiety serves as an important moderator toward continuance intention. Theoretical and practical implications are offered for better understanding of the role of the IT artifact in online service post-adoption phenomena.

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

online service
it artifact
user satisfaction
computer anxiety
social network service


Fixed-point, fixed-interval and fixed-lag smoothing algorithms from uncertain observations based on covariances This paper treats the least-squares linear filtering and smoothing problems of discrete-time signals from uncertain observations when the random interruptions in the observation process are modelled by a sequence of independent Bernoulli random variables. Using an innovation approach we obtain the filtering algorithm and a general expression for the smoother which leads to fixed-point, fixed-interval and fixed-lag smoothing recursive algorithms. The proposed algorithms do not require the knowledge of the state-space model generating the signal, but only the covariance information of the signal and the observation noise, as well as the probability that the signal exists in the observed values.

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

filtering
covariance information
uncertain observations

fixed-point smoothing
fixed-interval smoothing
fixed-lag smoothing


Group decision making based on induced uncertain linguistic OWA operators Based on the extended triangular conorm, some new operational laws of linguistic variables are defined. Then a class of new linguistic aggregation operators is developed by extending the OWA operator to the linguistic environment, the uncertain linguistic ordered weighted averaging (ULOWAf) operator, the induced uncertain linguistic ordered weighted averaging (IULOWAf) operator and the uncertain linguistic weighted averaging (ULWAf) operator. Later some desirable properties of the extended operators are studied and a practical group decision making methodology for an uncertain linguistic environment is proposed based on the ULWAf and the IULOWAf operators. A numerical example is given to illustrate the new approach for a financial decision making problem.

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

owa operator
triangular conorm
group decision making
operational laws
linguistic variables


Multi-criteria human resource allocation for solving multistage combinatorial optimization problems using multiobjective hybrid genetic algorithm Multi-criteria human resource allocation involves deciding how to divide human resource of limited availability among multiple demands in a way that optimizes current objectives. In this paper, we focus on multi-criteria human resource allocation for solving multistage combinatorial optimization problem. Hence we tackle this problem via a multistage decision-making model. A multistage decision-making model is similar to a complex problem solving, in which a suitable sequence of decisions is to be found. The task can be interpreted as a series of interactions between a decision maker and an outside world, at each stage of which some decisions are available and their immediate effect can be easily computed. Eventually, goals would be reached due to the found of optimized variables. In order to obtain a set of Pareto solutions efficiently, we propose a multiobjective hybrid genetic algorithm (mohGA) approach based on the multistage decision-making model for solving combinatorial optimization problems. According to the proposed method, we apply the mohGA to seek feasible solutions for all stages. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithm was validated by its application to an illustrative example dealing with multiobjective resource allocation problem.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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-criteria human resource allocation problem (mchrap)

multiobjective hybrid genetic algorithm (mohga)


On the approximation ability of evolutionary optimization with application to minimum set cover Evolutionary algorithms (EAs) are heuristic algorithms inspired by natural evolution. They are often used to obtain satisficing solutions in practice. In this paper, we investigate a largely underexplored issue: the approximation performance of EAs in terms of how close the solution obtained is to an optimal solution. We study an EA framework named simple EA with isolated population (SEIP) that can be implemented as a single- or multi-objective EA. We analyze the approximation performance of SEIP using the partial ratio, which characterizes the approximation ratio that can be guaranteed. Specifically, we analyze SEIP using a set cover problem that is NP-hard. We find that in a simple configuration, SEIP efficiently achieves an H-n-approximation ratio, the asymptotic lower bound, for the unbounded set cover problem. We also find that SEIP efficiently achieves an (H-k - k-1/8k(9))- approximation ratio, the currently best-achievable result, for the k-set cover problem. Moreover, for an instance class of the k-set cover problem, we disclose how SEIP, using either one-bit or bit-wise mutation, can overcome the difficulty that limits the greedy algorithm. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

evolutionary algorithms
approximation ratio

approximation algorithm
k-set cover
time complexity analysis


new approaches to support vector ordinal regression In this paper, we propose two new support vector approaches for ordinal regression, which optimize multiple thresholds to define parallel discriminant hyperplanes for the ordinal scales. Both approaches guarantee that the thresholds are properly ordered at the optimal solution. The size of these optimization problems is linear in the number of training samples. The SMO algorithm is adapted for the resulting optimization problems; it is extremely easy to implement and scales efficiently as a quadratic function of the number of examples. The results of numerical experiments on benchmark datasets verify the usefulness of these approaches.

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

training regression examples benchmark parallel size support paper algorithm

threshold use vectorization optimality functional experience


Estimating Quality of JavaScript This paper proposes a complexity metric for Java script since JavaScript is the most popular scripting language that can run in all of the major web browsers. The proposed metric "JavaScript Cognitive Complexity Measure (JCCM)" is intended to assess the design quality of scripts. The metrics has been evaluated theoretically and validated empirically through real test cases. The metric has also been compared with other similar metrics. The theoretical, empirical validation and comparative study prove the worth and robustness of the metric.

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

software engineering
software quality
software metrics


Sequential data assimilation: Information fusion of a numerical simulation and large scale observation data Data assimilation is a method of combining an imperfect simulation model and a number of incomplete observation data. Sequential data assimilation is a data assimilation in which simulation variables are corrected at every time step of observation. The ensemble Kalman filter is developed for a sequential data assimilation and frequently used in geophysics. On the other hand, the particle filter developed and used in statistics is similar in view of ensemble-based method, but it has different properties. In this paper, these two ensemble based filters are compared and characterized through matrix representation. An application of sequential data assimilation to tsunami simulation model with a numerical experiment is also shown. The particle filter is employed for this application. An erroneous bottom topography is corrected in the numerical experiment, which demonstrates that the particle filter is useful tool as the sequential data assimilation method.

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


Three-dimensional finite element study of a single pile response to multidirectional lateral loadings incorporating the simplified state-dependent dilatancy model Waves and winds can induce lateral loads on piles, which are often multidirectional. The objective of this study is to investigate the response of a single pile subjected to unidirectional and multidirectional lateral loadings using the finite element analysis program ABAQUS. A simplified version of the state-dependent dilatancy model was implemented and embedded into the program to simulate the behavior of the soil around the pile. The results of the analyses indicate that the lateral resistance of the pile along one horizontal direction under multidirectional loading is lower than that under unidirectional loading. The degree of reduction of the resistance increases with the aspect ratio of the displacement path at the pile head. The directions of the force increment vector and the displacement increment vector are generally non-coaxial under multidirectional loading. The soil-pile interaction and soil responses under multidirectional loading are also significantly different than those under unidirectional loading.

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 B I I O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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
multidirectional lateral loadings

three-dimensional
soil-pile interaction
state-dependent dilatancy


Effective identification and localization of immature precursors in bone marrow biopsy Abnormal localization of immature precursors (ALIP) aggregating and clustering in bone marrow biopsy appears earlier than that of bone marrow smears in detection of the relapse of acute myelocytic leukemia (AML). But traditional manual ALIP recognition has many shortcomings such as prone to false alarms, neglect of distribution law before three immature precursor cells gathered, and qualitative analysis instead of quantitative one. So, it is very important to develop a novel automatic method to identify and localize immature precursor cells for computer-aided diagnosis, to disclose their patterns before ALIP with the development of AML. The contributions of this paper are as follows. (1) After preprocessing the image with Otsu method, we identify both precursor cells and trabecular bone by multiple morphological operations and thresholds. (2) We localize the precursors in different regions according to their distances with the nearest trabecular bone based on chamfer distance transform, followed by discussion for the presumptions and limitations of our method. The accuracy of recognition and localization is evaluated based on a comparison with visual evaluation by two blinded observers.

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

image segmentation
morphology
acute myelocytic leukemia (aml)


Glucose Activation of the Glucagon Receptor Gene The glucagon receptor (GLR) expression is positively regulated by glucose. This regulation is allowed by the presence, in the promotor of the rat GLR gene, of a sequence feature similar to the two E-boxes motifs constituting the carbohydrate response elements (ChoRE) described for several glycolytic and lipogenic enzyme genes. Using reporter gene assays, we demonstrated here that, despite structural homologies with these ChoREs, the GLR gene glucose response element presents various functional dissimilarities.Testing glucose analogs, we demonstrated that, as for other genes, the glucose must be first phosphorylated. However, at variance with others homologue genes, our data showed the implication of the nonoxidative branch of the pentose phosphate pathway in the transmission of the glucose signal and lack of inhibition by adenosine monophosphate (AMP)-kinase.Furthermore, the activity of our reporter gene was strongly stimulated by butyrate, propionate, and acetate. This observation contrasts with fatty-acid-induced inhibition of the glucose activation, observed for all other genes containing homolog ChoREs. We also showed that glucose and butyrate influence the reporter gene expression via different features

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

glucagon receptor gene
glucose activation
pentose phosphate


Design of Competitive Web Services Using QFD for Satisfaction of QoS Requirements It is the key concern for service providers that how a web service stands out among functionally similar services. QoS is a distinct and decisive factor in service selection among functionally similar services. Therefore, how to design services to meet customers' QoS requirements is an urgent problem for service providers. This paper proposes an approach using QFD (Quality Function Deployment) which is a quality methodology to transfer services' QoS requirements into services' design attribute characteristics. Fuzzy set is utilized to deal with subjective and vague assessments such as importance of QoS properties: TCI (Technical Competitive Index) is defined to compare the technical competitive capacity of a web service with those of other functionally similar services in the aspect of QoS. Optimization solutions of target values of service design attributes is determined by GA (Genetic Algorithm) in order to make the technical performance of the improved service higher than those of any other rival service products with the lowest improvement efforts. Finally, we evaluate candidate improvement solutions on cost-effectiveness. As the output of QFD process, the optimization targets and order of priority of service design attributes can be used as an important basis for developing and improving service products.

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


Test overlay in an emerging software product line - An industrial case study Context: In large software organizations with a product line development approach, system test planning and scope selection is a complex task. Due to repeated testing: across different testing levels, over time (test for regression) as well as of different variants, the risk of redundant testing is large as well as the risk of overlooking important tests, hidden by the huge amount of possible tests. Aims: This study assesses the amount and type of overlaid manual testing across feature, integration and system test in such context, it explores the causes of potential redundancy and elaborates on how to provide decision support in terms of visualization for the purpose of avoiding redundancy. Method: An in-depth case study was launched including both qualitative and quantitative observations. Results: A high degree of test overlay is identified originating from distributed test responsibilities, poor documentation and structure of test cases, parallel work and insufficient delta analysis. The amount of test overlay depends on which level of abstraction is studied. Conclusions: Avoiding redundancy requires tool support, e.g. visualization of test design coverage, test execution progress, priorities of coverage items as well as visualized priorities of variants to support test case selection. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

product-line
software testing
efficiency


semi-supervised single-label text categorization using centroid-based classifiers In this paper we study the effect of using unlabeled data in conjunction with a small portion of labeled data on the accuracy of a centroid-based classifier used to perform single-label text categorization. We chose to use centroid-based methods because they are very fast when compared with other classification methods, but still present an accuracy close to that of the state-of-the-art methods. Efficiency is particularly important for very large domains, like regular news feeds, or the web. We propose the combination of Expectation-Maximization with a centroid-based method to incorporate information about the unlabeled data during the training phase. We also propose an alternative to EM, based on the incremental update of a centroid-based method with the unlabeled documents during the training phase. We show that these approaches can greatly improve accuracy relatively to a simple centroid-based method, in particular when there are very small amounts of labeled data available (as few as one single document per class). Using one synthetic and three real-world datasets, we show that, if the initial model of the data is sufficiently precise, using unlabeled data improves performance. On the other hand, using unlabeled data degrades performance if the initial model is not precise enough.

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

semi-supervised learning
single-label text categorization
centroid-based models
online learning


optimal approximation for the submodular welfare problem in the value oracle model In the Submodular Welfare Problem, m items are to be distributed among n players with utility functions w i : 2 [m] ? R + . The utility functions are assumed to be monotone and submodular. Assuming that player i receives a set of items S i , we wish to maximize the total utility ? i=1 n w i (S i ). In this paper, we work in the value oracle model where the only access to the utility functions is through a black box returning w i (S) for a given set S. Submodular Welfare is in fact a special case of the more general problem of submodular maximization subject to a matroid constraint : max{f(S): S ? I}, where f is monotone submodular and I is the collection of independent sets in some matroid. For both problems, a greedy algorithm is known to yield a 1/2-approximation [21, 16]. In special cases where the matroid is uniform (I = S: |S| ? k) [20] or the submodular function is of a special type [4, 2], a (1-1/e)-approximation has been achieved and this is optimal for these problems in the value oracle model [22, 6, 15]. A (1-1/e)-approximation for the general Submodular Welfare Problem has been known only in a stronger demand oracle model [4], where in fact 1-1/e can be improved [9]. In this paper, we develop a randomized continuous greedy algorithm which achieves a (1-1/e)-approximation for the Submodular Welfare Problem in the value oracle model. We also show that the special case of n equal players is approximation resistant, in the sense that the optimal (1-1/e)-approximation is achieved by a uniformly random solution. Using the pipage rounding technique [1, 2], we obtain a (1-1/e)-approximation for submodular maximization subject to any matroid constraint. The continuous greedy algorithm has a potential of wider applicability, which we demonstrate on the examples of the Generalized Assignment Problem and the AdWords Assignment Problem.

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

matroids
submodular functions
combinatorial auctions


OPTIMAL SEQUENTIAL MULTIPLE HYPOTHESIS TESTS This work deals with a general problem of testing multiple hypotheses about the distribution of a discrete-time stochastic process. Both the Bayesian and the conditional settings axe considered. The structure of optimal sequential tests is characterized.

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

sequential analysis
hypothesis testing
discrete-time stochastic process
dependent observations
optimal sequential test
bayes sequential test


Discriminant analysis via support vectors In this paper, we show how support vector machine (SVM) can be employed as a powerful tool for k-nearest neighbor (kNN) classifier. A novel multi-class dimensionality reduction approach, discriminant analysis via support vectors (SVDA), is proposed. First, the SVM is employed to compute an optimal direction to discriminant each two classes. Then, the criteria of class separability is constructed. At last, the projection matrix is computed. The kernel mapping idea is used to derive the non-linear version, kernel discriminant via support vectors (SVKD). In SVDA, only support vectors are involved to compute the transformation matrix. Thus, the computational complexity can be greatly reduced for kernel based feature extraction. Experiments carried out on several standard databases show a clear improvement on LDA-based recognition.

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

fisher's criteria
linear discriminant analysis
regularized discriminant analysis


FROHLICH'S PHYSICAL THEORY OF CANCER - FROHLICH'S PATH FROM THEORETICAL PHYSICS TO BIOLOGY, AND THE CANCER PROBLEM A review is given of Frohlich's approach to biology from the side of theoretical physics, and illustrated in the context of his prediction of three types of coherent excitations in living systems based on their dielectric and elastic properties and far-from-equilibrium (non-linear) character. Supporting experimental evidence is presented, and the difficulty in achieving reproducibility addressed. His envisaged role of coherent excitations in cell division and its control is outlined, together with the implications for cancer - as understood at the time of his work.

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

frohlich
biological coherence
non-thermal bioeffects
microwaves
cell division control


Design and implementation of secure e-mail system using elliptic curve cryptosystem In this paper, we design and implement a secure mail system using elliptic curve cryptosystems (ECCs) to provide the highest cipher strength as well as security services such as message origin authentication, content integrity, content integrity, and content confidentiality. Of course, this is based on the difficulty of ECCs.

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

elliptic curve
cryptosystem
secure mail system


A novel numerical flux for the 3D Euler equations with general equation of state Here we extend the flux vector splitting approach recently proposed in E.F. Toro and M.E. Vzquez-Cendn (2012) [42]. The scheme was originally presented for the 1D Euler equations for ideal gases and its extension presented in this paper is threefold: (i) we solve the three-dimensional Euler equations on general meshes; (ii) we use a general equation of state; and (iii) we achieve high order of accuracy in both space and time through application of the semi-discrete ADER methodology on general meshes. The resulting methods are systematically assessed for accuracy, robustness and efficiency on a carefully selected suite of test problems. Formal high accuracy is assessed through convergence rates studies for schemes of up to 4th order of accuracy in both space and time on unstructured meshes.

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

flux vector splitting
euler equations
general equation of state

hyperbolic systems
upwinding
ader method


Enabling inter-PMIPv6-domain handover with traffic distributors As a network-based localized mobility management protocol, Proxy Mobile IPv6 (PMIPv6) Gundavelli et al. (2008) enables mobile node (MN) to move in a local domain without any involvement in the protocol signaling. In contrast to other mobility protocols (such as cellular IP (CIP) Valk, 1999, and hierarchical mobile IP (HMIP) Soliman et al., 2005), PMIPv6 does not require any upgrade of MN's protocol stack. Instead, PMIPv6 employs network entities to handle the handover for MN. However, the PMIPv6 can only manage MN's reachability within a local domain. If MN moves beyond the border of PMIPv6 domain, the mobility support will be broken. To provide MN continuous support across domains, we propose a solution to interconnect neighboring PMIPv6 domains. In our proposal, we have introduced a new network entity called traffic distributor (TD). The TD is used to deliver the cross-domain traffic. If MN moves across domain borders, LMA will notify the TD and the TD will redirect MN's traffic to the new domain. To evaluate our proposal, we conduct experiments to compare it with Neumann et al., 2009aandNeumann et al., 2009b proposal which is another proposal to handle inter-PMIPv6-domain issues. Results show that our proposal is a feasible alternative for inter-domain handover, and it outperforms Neumann's proposal in terms of binding cache entry number, transmission delay and handover delay.

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 B O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 query generation for patent search Patent search is the task of finding relevant existing patents, which is an important part of the patent's examiner's process of validating a patent application. In this paper, we studied how to transform a query patent (the application) into search queries. Three types of search features are explored for automatic query generation for patent search. Furthermore, different types of features are combined with a learning to rank method. Experiments based on a USPTO patent collection demonstrate that the single best search feature is the combination of words and noun-phrases from the summary field and the retrieval performance can be significantly improved by combining three types of search features.

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

patent retrieval
information retrieval
prior-art search


Structural prediction of a novel chitinase from the psychrophilic Glaciozyma antarctica PI12 and an analysis of its structural properties and function The structure of psychrophilic chitinase (CHI II) from Glaciozyma antarctica PI12 has yet to be studied in detail. Due to its low sequence identity (< 30 %), the structural prediction of CHI II is a challenge. A 3D model of CHI II was built by first using a threading approach to search for a suitable template and to generate an optimum target-template alignment, followed by model building using MODELLER9v7. Analysis of the catalytic insertion domain structure in CHI II revealed an increase in the number of aromatic residues and longer loops compared to mesophilic and thermophilic chitinases. A molecular dynamics simulation was used to examine the stability of the CHI II structure at 273, 288 and 300 K. Structural analysis of the substrate-binding cleft revealed a few exposed aromatic residues. Substitutions of certain amino acids in the surface and loop regions of CHI II conferred an increased flexibility to the enzyme, allowing for an adaptation to cold temperatures. A substrate binding comparison of CHI II with the mesophilic chitinase from Coccidioides immitis, 1D2K, suggested that the psychrophilic adaptation and catalytic activity at low temperatures were achieved through a reduction in the number of salt bridges, fewer hydrogen bonds and an increase in the exposure of the hydrophobic side chains to the solvent.

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

chitinase
psychrophilic
3d model
flexibility


Combining leaf physiology, hyperspectral imaging and partial least squares-regression (PLS-R) for grapevine water status assessment Physiological measurements are considered to be the most accurate way of assessing plant water status, but they might also be time-consuming, costly and intrusive. Since visible (VIS)-to-shortwave infrared (SWIR) imaging spectrometers are able to monitor various bio-chemical alterations in the leaf, such narrow-band instruments may offer a faster, less expensive and non-destructive alternative. This requires an intelligent downsizing of broad and noisy hyperspectra into the few most physiologically-sensitive wavelengths. In the current study, hyperspectral signatures of water-stressed grapevine leaves (Vitis vinifera L. cv. Cabernet Sauvignon) were correlated to values of midday leaf water potential (?l), stomatal conductance (gs) and non-photochemical quenching (NPQ) under controlled conditions, using the partial least squares-regression (PLS-R) technique. It was found that opposite reflectance trends at 530550nm and around 1500nm associated with independent changes in photoprotective pigment contents and water availability, respectively were indicative of stress-induced alterations in ?l, gs and NPQ. Furthermore, combining the spectral responses at these VIS and SWIR regions yielded three normalized water balance indices (WABIs), which were superior to various widely-used reflectance models in predicting physiological values at both the leaf and canopy levels. The potential of the novel WABI formulations also under field conditions demonstrates their applicability for water status monitoring and irrigation scheduling.

O O B B I 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 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

grapevine
physiology
hyperspectral imaging


Method of fundamental solutions for 3D elasticity with body forces by coupling compactly supported radial basis functions In this paper, a meshless computational model by integrating the method of fundamental solutions (MFS) and the method of particular solutions fulfilled with compactly supported radial basis functions (CSRBF) is developed for three-dimensional (3D) linear elasticity with the presence of body forces. The corresponding displacement and stress particular solution kernels across the support radius are firstly derived using Galerkin vectors and then are used to modify the boundary conditions. Subsequently, the classical meshless MFS, in which the homogeneous part of the full solutions are approximated using the linear combination of displacement and stress fundamental solutions in 3D linear elasticity, is formulated for solving the homogeneous 3D linear elastic system. Finally, several examples are presented to demonstrate the accuracy and efficiency of the present meshless method and also the effect of sparseness of interpolation matrix in CSRBF interpolation is discussed.

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


A fourth-order compact solution of the two-dimensional modified anomalous fractional sub-diffusion equation with a nonlinear source term This work is concerned to the study of high order difference scheme for the solution of a two-dimensional modified anomalous sub-diffusion equation with a nonlinear source term which describes processes that become less anomalous as time progresses. The space fractional derivatives are described in the RiemannLiouville sense. In the proposed scheme we discretize the space derivatives with a fourth-order compact scheme and use the GrnwaldLetnikov discretization of the RiemannLiouville derivatives to obtain a fully discrete implicit scheme. We prove the stability and convergence of proposed scheme using the Fourier analysis. The convergence order of the proposed method is O ( ? + h x 4 + h y 4 ) . Comparison of numerical results with analytical solutions demonstrates the unconditional stability and high accuracy of proposed scheme.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 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 I O O O O O O

fourier analysis
unconditional stability
convergence

modified anomalous sub-diffusion
compact finite difference
two-dimensional


Diverse accurate feature selection for microarray cancer diagnosis Gene expression microarray data provides simultaneous activity measurement of thousands of features facilitating a potential effective and reliable cancer diagnosis. An important and challenging task in microarray analysis refers to selecting the most relevant and significant genes for data (cancer) classification. A random subspace ensemble based method is proposed to address feature selection in gene expression cancer diagnosis. The introduced Diverse Accurate Feature Selection method relies on multiple individual classifiers built based on random feature subspaces. Each feature is assigned a score computed based on the pairwise diversity among individual classifiers and the ratio between individual and ensemble accuracies. This triggers the creation of a ranked list of features for which a final classifier is applied with an increased performance using minimum possible number of genes. Experimental results focus on the problem of gene expression cancer diagnosis based on microarray datasets publicly available. Numerical results show that the proposed method is competitive with related models from literature.

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

random subspace ensembles
multiple classifier systems
multivariate feature selection
gene expression data analysis


Modeling flood discharge at ungauged sites across Turkey using neuro-fuzzy and neural networks One of the most important problems in hydrology is the reliable forecasting of maximum discharge at an ungauged site of interest. Statistical techniques are commonly used for finding the maximum discharge and return period relationship. However, these techniques are generally considered to be inadequate because of the complexity of the problem. Hence, neural network techniques are preferred. In this study, two different neural network models developed based on the following techniques - a multi-layer perceptron neural network with Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm and a radial basis neural network behind an adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system - are employed in order to capture the nonlinear relationship between discharge and five independent variables - drainage area (km(2)), elevation (m), latitude, longitude, return period (year) and maximum discharge (m(3)/s). For a modeling study, watershed data from 543 catchments across Turkey were used. Statistical models with regression techniques were also applied to the same data, providing a wider comparison. The results of the models were then compared and assessed with respect to mean square errors, mean absolute error, mean absolute relative error and determination coefficient. Based on these results, it was found that the neural network techniques demonstrated better performance in predicting the maximum discharge based on five independent variables than the regression techniques, and were comparable to the adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system.

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

neural networks
regression
ungauged site

adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system
regional flood frequency


Targeting implementation efforts for maximum satisfaction with new computer systems: Results from four human service agencies Human service management needs to pinpoint the areas in which to concentrate computer implementation efforts in order to achieve maximum satisfaction with new systems. This study sought to identify the most salient factors affecting user satisfaction in management and client oriented computer systems in human services. Along with commonly used factors to assess user computer satisfaction (UCS), congruence with human service norms was added. UCS was evaluated in newly implemented computer systems in four human services. Two had introduced management oriented systems and two had introduced client oriented systems (N=517). Hierarchical regression was conducted to assess the relative effects of four classes of variable (user, environmental, process, and system), on UCS. Contrary to expectations, results show that the two types of system were analogous with respect to contributing variables to UCS. Preparedness, importance to management, integration, usefulness, and technical support best predict UCS. Moreover, the systems did not differ with respect to congruence with human service norms, and this variable did not load on the regression. A discussion of the implications of these findings for implementation theory and human service management concludes the paper.

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

humancomputer interaction
social services
systems design
computer acceptance
system types


Graded-channel MOSFET (GCMOSFET) for high performance, low voltage DSP applications Graded-Channel MOS (GCMOS) VLSI technology has been developed to meet the growing demand for low power and high performance applications, In this paper, it will be shown that, compared to conventional complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS), the GCMOS device offers the advantage of significantly higher drive current, capable of lower threshold voltage with improved punchthrough resistance, lower body effect and lower series resistance, thus making it most suitable for applications that require both high performance and low power consumption, such as digital signal processing (DSP), This is demonstrated, for the first time, by much improved low voltage circuit performance of a DSP logic circuit fabricated using a 0.5 mu m GCMOS process, At 1.8 V, a 30% speed improvement over CMOS is achieved, and the power-delay product is reduced by 25%, In addition, similar speed improvement is achieved in SRAM's with consistent performance improvement over a wide range of temperatures between -50 and 150 degrees C.

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


active learning approach to interactive spatio-temporal news video retrieval Interactive news video retrieval requires the effective communication between the human searchers and the search engine to locate relevant video segments. We propose a spatio-temporal visual map (STVM) retrieval [1] system coupled with active learning to support user-centered interactive retrieval.

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


The State of HCI in Ibero-American Countries Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) is a challenging discipline that is currently concerned with the design, implementation and evaluation of interactive systems for human use, as well as the study of major phenomena surrounding them. Indeed, interdisciplinary communities formed by scientists, university teachers and students, people coming from the industry and customers related to HCI are emerging in different parts of the world. In particular, this article overviews the HCI community in the Ibero-American context, which involves hundreds of millions of people working or studying in HCI, whose cultural background is primarily associated with the Spanish and Portuguese languages and cultures, regardless of ethnic and geographical differences. Our final goal is to improve the visibility of this particular HCI community, enhancing the self awareness of its members and their individual motivation and future exchanges.

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


A PROMETHEE-based outranking method for multiple criteria decision analysis with interval type-2 fuzzy sets This paper develops new methods based on the preference ranking organization method for enrichment evaluations (PROMETHEE) that use a signed distance-based approach within the environment of interval type-2 fuzzy sets for multiple criteria decision analysis. The theory of interval type-2 fuzzy sets provides an intuitive and computationally feasible way of addressing uncertain and ambiguous information in decision-making fields. Many studies have developed multiple criteria decision analysis methods in the context of interval type-2 fuzzy sets; most of these methods can be characterized as scoring or compromising models. Nevertheless, the extended versions of outranking methods have not been thoroughly investigated. This paper establishes interval type-2 fuzzy PROMETHEE methods for ranking alternative actions among multiple criteria based on the concepts of signed distance-based generalized criteria and comprehensive preference indices. We develop interval type-2 fuzzy PROMETHEE I and interval type-2 fuzzy PROMETHEE II procedures for partial and complete ranking, respectively, of the alternatives. Finally, the feasibility and applicability of the proposed methods are illustrated by a practical problem of landfill site selection. A comparative analysis is also performed with ordinary fuzzy PROMETHEE methods to validate the effectiveness of the proposed methodology.

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

promethee
multiple criteria decision analysis
outranking method

signed distance
interval type-2 fuzzy sets


Direct AlAl contact using low temperature wafer bonding for integrating MEMS and CMOS devices This paper investigates the feasibility of direct AlAl contact using low temperature wafer bonding process for the integration of MEMS and CMOS devices. Sufficient mechanical strength oxideoxide bonds can be achieved using an oxygen plasma assisted low temperature wafer bonding process, with Al structures present on the bonding surface. An average contact resistance of 2.610?8?cm2 was measured from single contact test structures, indicating that the establishment of direct AlAl interconnect during the bond anneal step is possible.

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

cmosmems integration
al interconnect
plasma assisted wafer bonding


Above packet level admission control and bandwidth allocation for IEEE 802.16 wireless MAN ? IEEE 802.16 wireless Metropolitan Area Network (MAN) is expected to revolutionize the broadband wireless access technology. Efficient resource management is essential in providing scalability in such large IEEE 802.16-based wireless network and Quality of Service (QoS) for multimedia applications (VoIP, MPEG, FTP, WWW) is usually achieved by appropriate classification of scheduling services and grant/request mechanism. In this paper, we firstly discuss the QoS issue in IEEE 802.16 wireless MANs and propose a dynamic admission control scheme for scheduling services defined in the 802.16 specification. The proposed scheme provides the highest priority for Unsolicited Grant Service (UGS) connections and maximizes the bandwidth utilization by employing bandwidth borrowing and degradation. We develop an approximate analytical model to evaluate the system performance by assuming that the traffic processes of all scheduling services are Poisson processes. In fact, the self-similarity of non-voice traffic makes its traffic process far from Poisson process and should be modeled by Poisson Pareto Burst Process (PPBP). Therefore, in the later part of the paper, we analyze upper bound blocking probabilities of all scheduling services above the packet level using PPBP model for fractal traffic and Gaussian model for aggregated traffic in large wireless network as well as using the Chernoff bound method. Based on the analytical results, we give another admission control and bandwidth allocation mechanism above the packet level so as to minimize the blocking probability of each type of service in IEEE 802.16 wireless MAN. Analytical and simulation results are obtained and compared to demonstrate the effectiveness of proposed schemes and validate our analytical models.

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

admission control
bandwidth allocation
borrowing
chernoff bound
degradation
man
packet level
poisson process

approximate model
poisson pareto burst process (ppbp)
quality of service (qos)
wireless networks


Demand-specific work ability, poor health and working conditions in middle-aged full-time employees The prevalence of reduced demand-specific work ability ranged from 9% to 21%. Depression was associated with six measures of reduced demand-specific work ability. Musculoskeletal pain was associated with four measures of reduced demand-specific work ability. Poor health and working conditions did not interact regarding reduced demand-specific work ability.

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


Why TCP timers (still) dont work well We argue that the design principles of the TCP timeout algorithm are based solely on RTT estimations and may lead to flow synchronization, unnecessary retransmission effort and unfair resource allocation. We present a new Window-Based Retransmission Timeout algorithm (WB-RTO) for TCP, which exhibits two major properties: (i) it cancels retransmission synchronization, which dominates when resource demand exceeds resource supply and (ii) it reschedules flows on the basis of their contribution to congestion. WB-RTO achieves better fairness and slightly better goodput with significant less retransmission effort.

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 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 O

congestion control
flow contention
packet scheduling


A multimedia-enhanced collaborative learning environment Abstract The proliferation of the Internet has brought about the notion of online virtual communities. One enabling technology for online communities is multiuser environments such as Multi-User Dimensions (MUDs) and Object-Oriented MUDS (MOOs). These text-based collaborative learning environments have recently have been integrated with the World Wide Web, thus harnessing the graphics and multimedia-rich environments available therein. Learners can directly experience, manipulate, and create objects in their rich multimedia form. MUDs and MOOs are augmented with synchronous collaboration technology that provided simultaneous control and viewing of shared documents and applications. In this paper, we describe a multimedia-enhanced MOO system called SpaceALIVE! and our experiences from a pilot project involving Singapore students who use SpaceALIVE! as a collaborative learning environment are reported.

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

action research
communication
secondary
science


Adaptively quadratic (AQua) image interpolation Image interpolation is a key aspect of digital image processing. This paper presents a novel interpolation method based on optimal recovery and adaptively determining the quadratic signal class from the local image behavior. The advantages of the new interpolation method are the ability to interpolate directly by any factor and to model properties of the data acquisition system into the algorithm itself. Through comparisons with other algorithms it is shown that the new interpolation is not only mathematically optimal with respect to the underlying image model, but visually it is very efficient at reducing jagged edges, a place where most other interpolation algorithms fail.

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