Algorithms for mixed-model sequencing with due date restrictions In a Mixed-Model Sequencing (MMS) environment, customer demands with respect to timeliness of delivery conflict with the production-centered goal of smooth component utilization. This research is designed to be an initial step in the process of dealing with both balance and lateness objectives. The results show that a slight decrease in on-time production leads to substantial gains in smoothing component utilization. The fundamental task in addressing the multiple-objective environment is to distinguish those problem models in a sequence, whose due dates cause the schedule to be unbalanced with respect to part usage. This paper also presents some insights into the behavior of the multi-objective MMS problem. Inherent characteristics of the MMS are revealed and explained, primarily with respect to demand patterns and lateness restrictions. Because of the problem complexity it is necessary to employ a heuristic to produce quality solutions for large problems. This study evaluates a set of heuristics, focusing on the tradeoffs between lateness measures, smooth component utilization, and computation time. This research involves the first application of local search heuristics to this problem. One heuristic, the Border Swap, proves to be an extremely effective mechanism for recognizing problem models, and solving the multi-objective problem.

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


Web-based search system of pattern recognition for the pattern of industrial component by an innovative technology The real-time system uses a recurrent neural network (RNN) with associative memory for training and recognition. This study attempts to use associative memory to apply pattern recognition (PR) technology to the real-time pattern recognition of engineering components in a web-based recognition system with a client-server network structure. Remote engineers can draw the shape of the engineering components using the browser, and the recognition system then searches the component database via the Internet. Component patterns are stored in the database system considered here. Moreover, the data fields of each component pattern contain the properties and specifications of that pattern, except in the case of engineering components. The database system approach significantly improves recognition system capacity. The recognition system examined here employs parallel computing, which increases system recognition rate. The recognition system used in this work is an Internet based client-server network structure. The final phase of the system recognition applies database matching technology to processing recognition, and can solve the problem of spurious states. The system considered here is implemented on the Yang-Fen Automation Electrical Engineering Company as a case study. The experiment is continued for 4 months, and engineers are also used to operating the web-based pattern recognition system. Therefore, the cooperative plan described above is analyzed and discussed here. Finally, these papers propose the tradition methods compare with the innovative methods. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

pattern recognition
engineering components
component database


A study on fuzzy interior ideals of Gamma-semigroups In this paper, we fuzzify the notions of interior ideals and characteristic interior ideals of a Gamma-semigroup, and investigate some of their basic properties. Finally, a characterization of a simple Gamma-semigroup in terms of fuzzy interior ideals is obtained. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. 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

gamma-semigroup
fuzzy interior ideal
fuzzy characteristic interior ideal
simple gamma-semigroup


On the complexity of finding common approximate substrings Problems associated with finding strings that are within a specified Hamming distance of a given set of strings occur in several disciplines. In this paper, we use techniques from parameterized complexity to assess non-polynomial time algorithmic options and complexity for the COMMON APPROXIMATE SUBSTRING (CAS) problem. Our analyses indicate under which parameter restrictions useful algorithms are possible, and include both class membership and parameterized reductions to prove class hardness. In order to achieve fixed-parameter tractability, either a fixed string length or both a fixed size alphabet and fixed substring length are sufficient. Fixing either the string length or the alphabet size and Hamming distance is shown to be necessary, unless W[I] = FPT. An assortment of parameterized class membership and hardness results cover all other parameterized variants, showing in particular the effect of fixing the number of strings. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

parameterized complexity
common approximate substring


Multiscale modeling using goal-oriented adaptivity and numerical homogenization. Part II: Algorithms for the MoorePenrose pseudoinverse This paper is the second in this series to develop a numerical homogenization method for heterogeneous media and integrate it with goal-oriented finite element mesh adaptivity. The first paper developed the mathematical formulation of local homogenization. This was done using an appropriate averaging of the MoorePenrose pseudoinverse of the element stiffness matrix. We also presented numerical verification of this approach and other numerical results. In the current paper, we present four algorithms to compute the MoorePenrose pseudoinverse that also exploit the sparsity. These are based on QR factorization, a priori knowledge of the null-space, a regularization based characterization, and lastly an iterative algorithm based on proper splittings of matrices. We analyze some of these algorithms in detail for homogenizing hexahedral elements in the molecular base model of densification in Step and Flash Imprint Lithography.

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

numerical homogenization
heterogeneous media
moorepenrose pseudoinverse


Reliability-based topology optimization The objective of this work is to integrate reliability analysis into topology optimization problems. The new model, in which we introduce reliability constraints into a deterministic topology optimization formulation, is called Reliability-Based Topology Optimization (RBTO). Several applications show the importance of this integration. The application of the RBTO model gives a different topology relative to deterministic topology optimization. We also find that the RBTO model yields structures that are more reliable than those produced by deterministic topology optimization (for the same weight).

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

reliability-based topology optimization
reliability-based design optimization
sensitivity analysis
finite element analysis


concern-driven design for a specification language supporting component-based software engineerin The paper concerns an approach to software development which is referred to as Component Based Software Engineering (CBSE). The approach is based on the principle of extensive use of preexisting, standard or customizable components in building new systems. CBSE has received considerable attention recently since it promises to bring to software development the engineering discipline that has been long accepted in more mature engineering domains. We describe the design of a specification language intended for support of basic CBSE activities; the Architecture Specification Language (ASL). More specifically, we show how the language design choices have been driven by our understanding and prioritization of the concerns of the key stakeholders involved in the software development process.

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

software development process
asl
component based software engineering
software development
cbse
architecture specification language
customizable components
engineering discipline
language design choices
specification language

specification languages
formal specification
cbse activities
computer aided software engineering
concern driven design


animation, visualization, and interaction in cs 1 assignments Programs that use animations or visualizations attract student interest and offer feedback that can enhance different learning styles as students work to master programming and problem solving. In this paper we report on several CS 1 assignments we have used successfully at Duke University to introduce or reinforce control constructs, elementary data structures, and object-based programming. All the assignments involve either animations by which we mean graphical displays that evolve over time, or visualizations which include static display of graphical images. The animations do not require extensive programming by students since students use classes and code that we provide to hide much of the complexity that drives the animations. In addition to generating enthusiasm, we believe the animations assist with mastering the debugging process.

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

interaction
learning styles
visualization
use
code
data structures
mean
process
feedback
complexity
display
paper
animation
control
debugging
student

program assignment object imaging timing graphics class


Transactional scheduling for read-dominated workloads The transactional approach to contention management guarantees atomicity by aborting transactions that may violate consistency. A major challenge in this approach is to schedule transactions in a manner that reduces the total time to perform all transactions (the makespan), since transactions are often aborted and restarted. The performance of a transactional scheduler can be evaluated by the ratio between its makespan and the makespan of an optimal, clairvoyant scheduler that knows the list of resource accesses that will be performed by each transaction, as well as its release time and duration. This paper studies transactional scheduling in the context of read-dominated workloads; these common workloads include read-only transactions, i.e., those that only observe data, and late-write transactions, i.e., those that update only towards the end of the transaction. We present the BIMODAL transactional scheduler, which is especially tailored to accommodate read-only transactions, without punishing transactions that write most of their duration (early-write transactions). It is evaluated by comparison with an optimal clairvoyant scheduler; we prove that BIMODAL demonstrates the best competitive ratio achievable by a non-clairvoyant schedule for workloads consisting of early-write and read-only transactions. We also show that late-write transactions significantly deteriorate the competitive ratio of any non-clairvoyant scheduler, assuming it takes a conservative approach to conflicts. (C) 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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 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

transactional memory
competitive analysis
read-dominated workload


A service-oriented Grid environment for integration of distributed kidney models and resources In this paper, we present a Grid computing platform that provides experimental scientists and analysts with access to computational simulations and knowledge databases hosted in separate laboratories around the world involved with human and animal kidney research. No single laboratory can develop these resources in isolation, and the community of users should no longer need to be dependent upon the specific programming environment in which applications have been developed. This work aims at exploiting the power of high-bandwidth communications networks for collaborative research and for shared access to knowledge resources. This platform is developed within a specialist community of renal scientists but will be transferable to any other field of research requiring interaction between published literature and databases, theoretical models and simulations and the formulation of effective experimental design. Copyright (C) 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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

kidney modeling
grid portal
gridbus resource broker
web service resource framework
visualization


Controlled Pure Grammar Systems This paper discusses grammar systems that have only terminals, work in the leftmost way, and generate their languages under the regulation by control languages over rule labels. It establishes three results concerning their generative power. First, without any control languages, these systems are not even able to generate all context-free languages. Second, with regular control languages, these systems, having no more than two components, characterize the family of recursively enumerable languages. Finally, with control languages that are themselves generated by regular-controlled context-free grammars, these systems over unary alphabets generate nothing but regular languages. In its introductory section, the paper gives a motivation for introducing these systems, and in the concluding section, it formulates several open problems.

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


Quantitative analysis of the neonatal brain by ultrasound Clinical research has shown a clear correlation between white matter disorders of the neonatal brain and neuromotoric handicap at a later age. Ultrasound imaging is a proven method to detect the white matter damage at an early stage. However, since subjective visual examination of the images by neonatologists not always leads to an unambiguous diagnosis, a need for quantitative characterization is felt. Reproducibility is the first requirement in order to be able to perform objective quantitative analysis. This paper proposes a software-based method to compensate for variable acquisition factors that negatively affect the reproducibility of the measurements. The results of some basic experiments will illustrate the usefulness of the developed compensation algorithm.

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

ultrasound diagnostics
quantitative ultrasound
echodensity
parameter compensation
leukomalacia


No mobile, no life: Self-perception and text-message dependency among Japanese high school students A survey was conducted to investigate how self-perception of text-message dependency leads to psychological/behavioral symptoms in relation to personality factors. Japanese high school students completed a self-report questionnaire measuring frequency of text-messages, self-perception of text-message dependency, psychological/behavioral symptoms, extroversion and neuroticism. Self-perception of text-message dependency was composed of three factors: perception of excessive use, emotional reaction, and relationship maintenance. Although message frequency was significantly related to psychological/behavioral symptoms, this effect was qualified by self-perception and personality factors. In particular, self-perception of text-message dependency strongly affected psychological/behavioral symptoms. Importance of distinction between extroverted and neurotic text-message dependency through the process of self-perception of maladaptive behavior is discussed.

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

extroversion
neuroticism
high school students


An efficient SuperGrid protocol for high availability and load balancing Recently there has been a resurgence of interest in quorum-based methods for maintaining consistency of a group of replicated servers as a way to achieve load balancing in addition to high availability. We describe a SuperGrid protocol that performs well for small number of items (less than 100) and evaluate its performance analytically and through simulation experiments. Although it has been shown that it is possible to construct quorum systems where the load is O(1/rootN) and the availability is exp(-Omega>(*) over bar *(rootN)), these asymptotic results do not perform very well when the number of items is relatively small. In such cases, our results show that the Supergrid protocol outperforms the recent Crumbling Walls protocol and the Paths system. It is also simple and easy to implement.

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

availability
load balancing
crumbling walls protocol
paths system

server replication
quorum system
grid protocol


ADAPTIVE MULTIPLE KNOT B-SPLINE WAVELETS FOR SOLVING SAINT-VENANT EQUATIONS Solving the Saint-Venant equations by numerical methods like finite element and finite difference methods yields an unstable solution for a fairly large open channel. Multiple Knot B-Spline Wavelets (MKBSW) are in the class of semi-orthogonal wavelets that have compact support. Hence, these basis functions are suitable for solving the Saint-Venant equations. However, solving the Saint-Venant equations by MKBSW method requires a long CPU time. In this paper, we present an adaptive wavelet method to solve the Saint-Venant equation in a fairly short time. In fact, we first solve the problem in a few first moments and then by statistical methods of time series and regression, where the active wavelets are predicted in the next moments. Moreover, by this adaptive method, the cumulative errors (that are produced by solving the discretized system, numerically) are decreased for large open channels. Two numerical examples are given to support our results.

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

hyperbolic partial differential equation


Learning page-independent heuristics for extracting data from Web pages One bottleneck in implementing a system that intelligently queries the Web is developing `wrappers' programs that extract data from Web pages. Here we describe a method for learning general, page-independent heuristics for extracting data from HTML documents. The input to our learning system is a set of working wrapper programs, paired with HTML pages they correctly wrap. The output is a general procedure for extracting data that works for many formats and many pages. In experiments with a collection of 84 constrained but realistic extraction problems, we demonstrate that 30% of the problems can be handled perfectly by learned extraction heuristics, and around 50% can be handled acceptably. We also demonstrate that learned page-independent extraction heuristics can substantially improve the performance of methods for learning page-specific wrappers.

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

information integration
machine learning


Processes for System Family Architecting, Design, and Integration Today, many systems within government and industry are typically engineered, not as stand alone systems, but as part of an integrated system of systems, or a federation of systems, or systems family. A significant level of effort has been devoted in the past several years to the development, refinement, and ultimately, acceptance of processes for engineering systems or systems engineering processes. Today, we have four "standard" processes within present and past standards: EIA-632, IEEE 1220, ISO 15288, and MIL-STD-499C. We continue to use systems engineering processes espoused in our current set of standards, and are left to our devices to tailor these processes to one appropriate for a systems family context. This paper will examine the systems engineering processes in existence today and conclude with development of a process designed specifically for systems family applications.

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

systems engineering (se) processes standards


component framework for coupled integrated fusion plasma simulation Successful simulation of the complex physics that affect magnetically confined fusion plasma remains an important target milestone towards the development of viable fusion energy. Major advances in the underlying physics formulations, mathematical modeling, and computational tools and techniques are needed to enable a complete fusion simulation on the emerging class of large scalecapability parallel computers that are coming on-line in the next few years. Several pilot projects are currently being undertaken to explore different (partial) code integration and coupling problems, and possible solutions that may guide the larger integration endeavor. In this paper, we present the design and implementation details of one such project, a component based approach to couple existing codes to model the interaction between high power radio frequency (RF) electromagnetic waves, and magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) aspects of the burning plasma. The framework and component design utilize a light coupling approach based on high level view of constituent codes that facilitates rapid incorporation of new components into the integrated simulation framework. The work illustrates the viability of the light coupling approach to better understand physics and stand-alone computer code dependencies and interactions, as a precursor to a more tightly coupled integrated simulation environment.

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


Automatic generation of CHR constraint solvers In this paper, we present a framework for automatic generation of CHR solvers given the logical specification of the constraints. This approach takes advantage of the power of tabled resolution for constraint logic programming, in order to check the validity of the rules. Compared to previous work (Apt and Monfroy 1999; Ringeissen and Monfroy 2000; Abdennadher and Rigotti 2000; Abdennadher and Rigotti 2001a), where different methods for automatic generation of constraint solvers have been proposed, our approach enables the generation of more expressive rules (even recursive and splitting rules) that can be used directly as CHR solvers.

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

tabled resolution
constraint logic programming

rule-based constraint solver
automatic solver generation


product line software engineering of embedded systems In order to be able to determine whether the product line approach is suitable, a company needs to analyse its business drivers, commonality of existing products, domain knowledge owned by the engineering staff, and quality of the representations of existing software artefacts. In this paper we present evaluation criteria for the development of a product line and give an overview of the current state of practices in the embedded software area. Evaluation criteria are divided into three classes. Business drivers of a product line are defined by analysing product assortment and business manners. Domains and personnel are considered in the analysis of the preconditions and targets of a product line. In the development of core assets, elements that affect assets engineering are considered as well as the mechanisms needed in their maintenance. A product line architecture that brings about a balance between sub- domains and their most important properties is an investment that must be looked after. However, the subdomains need flexibility to use, change and manage their own technologies, and evolve separately, but in a controlled way.

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

product features
quality attributes
domain engineering


Use of a simulation game in delivering blended lifelong learning in the construction industry - Opportunities and Challenges Continuing professional development (CPD) and life-long learning are vital to both individual and organisational success. For higher education, the intensive resource requirements requisite in the development of e-learning content and the challenges in accommodating different learning styles, developing an e-learning program can be a resource intensive exercise. A blended learning program has been developed in Ireland in all attempt to address the CPD needs of Irish construction professionals. This initiative attempts to strike a balance between the considerable resources required in the development of an e-learning initiative while addressing staff concerns in integrating technology in the delivery of programs. This pilot explores the issues encountered in integrating a simulation game, called MERIT, on a module as part of this blended learning program. The key finding from this research indicates that simulation games can play a very effective role in the delivery of lifelong learning opportunities aimed at the construction industry. However, management of the integration of a simulation game into a program requires careful planning, establishing key milestone dates and encouraging online collaboration through assigning of marks for effort and use of voice over IP communications. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

lifelong learning
computer-mediated communication


Abdominal organ segmentation using texture transforms and a Hopfield neural network Abdominal organ segmentation is highly desirable but difficult, due to large differences between patients and to overlapping grey-scale values of the various tissue types. The first step in automating this process is to cluster together the pixels within each organ or tissue type. We propose to Form images based on second-order statistical texture transforms (Haralick transforms) of a CT or MRI scan. The original scan plus the suite of texture transforms are then input into a Hopfield neural network (HNN). The network is constructed to solve an optimization problem, where the best solution is the minima of a Lyapunov energy function. On a sample abdominal CT scan, this process successfully clustered 79-100% of the pixels of seven abdominal organs. It is envisioned that this Is the first step to automate segmentation. Active contouring (e.g., SNAKE's) or a back-propagation neural network can then be used to assign names to the clusters and fill in the incorrectly clustered pixels.

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

hopfield neural network
organ segmentation


Bayesian data mining of protein domains gives an efficient predictive algorithm and new insight Identification of structural domains in uncharacterized protein sequences is important in the prediction of protein tertiary folds and functional sites, and hence in designing biologically active molecules. We present a new predictive computational method of classifying a protein into single, two continuous or two discontinuous domains using Bayesian Data Mining. The algorithm requires only the primary sequence and computer-predicted secondary structure. It incorporates correlation patterns between certain 3-dimensional motifs and some local helical folds found conserved in the vicinity of protein domains with high statistical confidence. The prediction of domain-class by this computationally simple and fast method shows good accuracy of prediction-average accuracies 83.3% for single domain, 60% for two continuous and 65.7% for two discontinuous domain proteins. Experiments on the large validation sample show its performance to be significantly better than that of DGS and DomSSEA. Computations of Bayesian probabilities show important features in terms of correlation of certain conserved patterns of secondary folds and tertiary motifs and give new insight. Applications for improved accuracy of predicting domain boundary points relevant to protein structural and functional modeling are also highlighted.

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

bayes' classification
probability-computation
proteins structural domains
promotif
psipred


a study of comparing the use of augmented reality and physical models in chemistry education Augmented reality (AR) is an emerging technology, which renders three-dimensional (3-D) virtual objects and allows people to interact with virtual and real objects at the same time. The purpose of this study is to investigate how students interact with AR and physical models and evaluate their perceptions regarding these two representations in learning about amino acids. The results show that some students liked to manipulate AR by rotating the markers to see different orientations of the virtual objects. However, some students preferred to interact with physical models in order to get a feeling of physical contact. Their interactions with AR demonstrated that they tended to treat AR as real objects. Based on the findings, some AR design issues are elicited and the possibility to use AR in the chemistry classroom is discussed.

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


Rainwater harvesting system using a non-parametric stochastic rainfall generator With water becoming an even scarcer resource, rainwater harvesting (RWH) systems are becoming increasingly more commonplace as mechanisms to capture and store rainwater for both agricultural and domestic use. Three important engineering considerations associated with the construction of RWH systems are the capture surface area, the tank volume required for specific demand levels, and the number of expected occupants. The purpose of this work is to evaluate the engineering design of a RWH system in a semi-arid Texas region using a non-parametric stochastic rainfall generator based on 64 years of data and to provide engineering charts and equations for future use. We model the RWH system using simulation techniques in order to estimate requirements for building a system capable of providing a family with 100% of its water requirements with demand never exceeding available supply (100% demand satisfaction).

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

stochastic modeling
systems simulation
sustainability development


simulation based deadlock analysis for system level designs In the design of highly complex, heterogeneous, and concurrent systems, deadlock detection and resolution remains an important issue. In this paper, we systematically analyze the synchronization dependencies in concurrent systems modeled in the Metropolis design environment, where system functions, high level architectures and function-architecture mappings can be modeled and simulated. We propose a data structure called the dynamic synchronization dependency graph, which captures the runtime (blocking) dependencies. A loop-detection algorithm is then used to detect deadlocks and help designers quickly isolate and identify modeling errors that cause the deadlock problems. We demonstrate our approach through a real world design example, which is a complex functional model for video processing and a high level model of function-architecture mapping.

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

synchronization
system level
simulation
metropolis
deadlock


A model and framework for humanenvironment interaction This paper describes our approach for studying and prototyping humanenvironment interaction (HEI) within a pervasive space applied to ambient assistive living context. The objective of our approach consists in developing and implementing an HEI framework to modelling the humanmachine interaction. This framework allows a customization facility for designers, developers and even end-users in defining and processing multimodal interaction. We underline the fact that the design of interaction for users with special needs do not have to be considered as orthogonal to the application but rather as a validation context which is the heart of our research laboratory activities. We have integrated our framework in demonstrator dedicated to people with disabilities to validate the concept. This paper will present the framework, the developed components of our HEI model and the prototype realised. The outcome of this research activity is to provide a multimodal processing framework to favour natural human pervasive environment by decreasing the cognitive workload necessary in a complex environment. Thus, this will contribute to achieve ubiquitous accessible space.

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

multimodal interaction
interaction
design

modelling of physical and conceptual information in pervasive environments


Personality factors as predictors of sexting Measured frequency of sexting and level of commitment to engage in sexting. Females and those individuals in relationships indicated wanting more commitment to engage in sexting. Extraversion and males predicted engaging in text-based sexting. Neuroticism and disagreeableness predicted engage in image-based sexting.

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

personality traits
sensation seeking
problematic cell phone use


LEFT-HANDNESS IN A FOUR-LEVEL ATOMIC SYSTEM A scheme is proposed for realizing simultaneous negative permittivity and negative permeability based on quantum coherence in a four-level dense atomic system here. Under some parametric conditions the system shows that simultaneous negative permittivity and negative permeability (i.e. Left-handness) can be achieved in a wider frequency band because of quantum coherence. And the novelty properties of gain and dispersion near the resonance frequency may have some potential applications.

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


Grid_strain and grid_strain3: Software packages for strain field computation in 2D and 3D environments Two Matlab (TM) software packages for strain field computation, starting from displacements of experimental points (EPs), are here presented. In particular, grid_strain estimates the strain on the nodes of a regular planar grid, whereas grid_strain3 operates on the points of a digital terrain model (DTM). In both cases, the computations are performed in a modified least-square approach, emphasizing the effects of nearest points. This approach allows users to operate at different scales of analysis by introducing a scale factor to reduce or also exclude points too far from grid nodes. The input data are displacements (or velocities) that can be provided by several techniques (e.g. GPS, total topographical station, terrestrial laser scanner). The analysis can be applied to both regional- and local-scale phenomena, to study tectonic crustal deformations (strain approximate to 10(-8)-10(-6)) or rapid landslide collapses (10(-4)-10(2)), and to characterize the kinematics of the studied system. Errors on strains and geometric significance of the results are also provided. (c) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

landslide deformations
landslide kinematics


Variance reduction through robust design of boundary conditions for stochastic hyperbolic systems of equations We consider a hyperbolic system with uncertainty in the boundary and initial data. Our aim is to show that different boundary conditions give different convergence rates of the variance of the solution. This means that we can with the same knowledge of data get a more or less accurate description of the uncertainty in the solution. A variety of boundary conditions are compared and both analytical and numerical estimates of the variance of the solution are presented. As an application, we study the effect of this technique on Maxwell's equations as well as on a subsonic outflow boundary for the Euler equations.

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

hyperbolic system
boundary conditions
variance reduction
robust design

uncertainty quantification
initial boundary value problems
well posed
stability
stochastic data
summation by parts


Relaxation dynamics in small clusters: A modified Monte Carlo approach Relaxation dynamics in two-dimensional atomic clusters consisting of mono-atomic particles interacting through Lennard-Jones (L-J) potential has been investigated using Monte Carlo simulation. A modification of the conventional Metropolis algorithm is proposed to introduce realistic thermal motion of the particles moving in the interacting L-J potential field. The proposed algorithm leads to a quick equilibration from the nonequilibrium cluster configuration in a certain temperature regime, where the relaxation time (tau), measured in terms of Monte Carlo Steps (MCS) per particle, vary inversely with the square root of system temperature (root T) and pressure (P); tau alpha (P root T)(-1). From this a realistic correlation between MCS and time has been predicted. (c) 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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

monte carlo simulation
atomic clusters
relaxation dynamics


Hybrid approaches to product recommendation based on customer lifetime value and purchase preferences Recommending products to attract customers and meet their needs is important in fiercely competitive environments. Recommender systems have emerged in e-commerce applications to support the recommendation of products. Recently, a weighted RFM-based method (WRFM-based method) has been proposed to provide recommendations based on customer lifetime value, including Recency, Frequency and Monetary. Preference-based collaborative filtering (CF) typically makes recommendations based on the similarities of customer preferences. This study proposes two hybrid methods that exploit the merits of the WRFM-based method and the preference-based CF method to improve the quality of recommendations. Experiments are conducted to evaluate the quality of recommendations provided by the proposed methods, using a data set concerning the hardware retail marketing. The experimental results indicate that the proposed hybrid methods outperform the WRFM-based method and the preference-based CF method.

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 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

product recommendation
collaborative filtering

recommender system
data mining
customer lifetime value (clv)


voting

policies

that

cope

with

unreliable

agents

Collaboration

plays

a

critical

role

when

a

team

is

striving

for

goals

that

are

difficult

to

achieve

by

an

individual.

In

previous

work,

we

defined

the

ETAPP

(Environment-Task-Agents-Policy-Protocol)

framework,

which

describes

the

collaboration

of

a

team

of

agents.

According

to

this

framework,

team

members

propose

agents

to

perform

a

task,

and

the

team

applies

a

voting

policy

to

choose

an

agent

for

the

task.

In

this

paper,

we

expand

on

three

parameters

of

this

framework.

We

model

team

members

that

have

variable

proposal

making

attitudes,

and

team

members

whose

performance

exhibits

different

levels

of

stability.

We

then

consider

two

new

voting

policies

for

group

decision-making,

and

use

a

simulation-based

evaluation

to

investigate

the

interaction

between

the

different

types

of

team

members

and

the

voting

policies.

Our

results

show

that

our

previous

optimistic

voting

policy,

which

chooses

the

agent

that

seems

to

have

the

best

performance,

yields

an

unstable

task

performance

for

teams

where

even

a

few

agents

do

not

make

the

best

possible

proposal.

In

contrast,

our

new

voting

policies

yield

a

stable

task

performance.

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 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 B I O O O O O

agent collaboration
unreliable team members
variable performance


Parallel composition for time-to-fault adaptive stabilization Self-stabilizing algorithms automatically recover from any occurrence of a transient fault. The global state following the transient fault is considered to be the initial state for subsequent execution. An adaptive self-stabilizing algorithm changes its behavior based on characteristics of the initial state. This paper presents an asynchronous, adaptive, self-stabilizing algorithm for any non-interactive task. The algorithm adapts its output stabilization time in relation to the extent of faulty information in the initial state. The paper's presentation emphasizes composition techniques that leverage several self-stabilizing components from previous research, resulting in a concise description of the algorithm.

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


A class of Sturm-Liouville difference equations: (Non)oscillation constants and property BD In this paper, we study oscillatory properties of the higher-order Sturm-Liouville difference equation (-1)(n) Delta(n) (k((alpha)) Delta(n) y(k)) = q(k)y(k + n), alpha is an element of R. In particular, we derive sufficient conditions for (non)oscillation of (*) and compute explicitly its (non)oscillation constants. The obtained results are used to derive necessary and sufficient conditions for discreteness and boundedness below the spectrum of associated difference operators. We discuss also (non)oscillation of the Euler-type difference equation. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

sturm-liouville difference operator
(non)oscillation criteria
disconjugacy
generalized zero
factorization of disconjugate operators


Nonparametric analysis of the order-statistic model in software reliability In the literature on statistical inference in software reliability, the assumptions of parametric models and random sampling of bugs have been pervasive. We argue that both assumptions are problematic, the first because of robustness concerns and the second due to logical and practical difficulties. These considerations motivate the approach taken in this paper. We propose a nonparametric software reliability model based on the order-statistic paradigm. The objective of the work is to estimate, from data on discovery times observed within a type I censoring framework, both the underlying distribution F from which discovery times are generated and N, the unknown number of bugs in the software. The estimates are used to predict the next time to failure. The approach makes use of Bayesian nonparametric inference methods, in particular, the beta-Stacy process. The proposed methodology is illustrated on both real and simulated data.

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

beta-stacy process
order statistics
testing strategies
nonparametric statistics
survival analysis


A cascode modulated class-E power amplifier for wireless communications A cascode modulated CMOS class-E power amplifier (PA) is presented in this paper. It is shown that by applying a modulated signal to the gate of the cascode transistor the output power is modulated. The main advantage of the proposed technique is a high 35dB output power dynamic range. The peak power added efficiency (PAE) is 35%. The concept of the cascode power control of class-E RF PA operating at 2.2GHz with 18dBm output power was implemented in a 0.18 ? m CMOS technology and the performance has been verified by measurements. The prototype CMOS PA is tested by single tone excitation and by enhanced data rates for GSM evolution (EDGE) modulated signal. Digital predistortion is used to linearize the transfer characteristic. The EDGE spectrum mask is met and the rms error vector magnitude (EVM) is less than 4 in the entire output power range.

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

class-e
polar modulation
rf power amplifier


on detecting space-time clusters Detection of space-time clusters is an important function in various domains (e.g., epidemiology and public health). The pioneering work on the spatial scan statistic is often used as the basis to detect and evaluate such clusters. State-of-the-art systems based on this approach detect clusters with restrictive shapes that cannot model growth and shifts in location over time. We extend these methods significantly by using the flexible square pyramid shape to model such effects. A heuristic search method is developed to detect the most likely clusters using a randomized algorithm in combination with geometric shapes processing. The use of Monte Carlo methods in the original scan statistic formulation is continued in our work to address the multiple hypothesis testing issues. Our method is applied to a real data set on brain cancer occurrences over a 19 year period. The cluster detected by our method shows both growth and movement which could not have been modeled with the simpler cylindrical shapes used earlier. Our general framework can be extended quite easily to handle other flexible shapes for the space-time clusters.

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

framework
use
movement
monte carlo
general
shape
model
scan
randomized algorithm
spatial
search
detection
method
systems
public
health
data
clusters

statistics
domain
addressing
flexibility
timing
art
evaluation
combinational
space-time region
locatability
test
space
spatial scan statistic
heuristic search
functional
process
effect


ANALYSIS OF PATENT ACTIVITY IN THE FIELD OF QUANTUM INFORMATION PROCESSING This paper provides an analysis of patent activity in the field of quantum information processing. Data from the PatentScope database from the years 1993-2011 was used. In order to predict the future trends in the number of filed patents time series models were used.

O O O O O O O O B I I 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


Single-step

nanopatterning

with

a

non-contact

scanning

force

microscope

by

electrically

induced

local

chemical

vapour

deposition

A

new

method

to

pattern

a

conductive

trace

on

an

insulating

surface

is

investigated.

A

scanning

force

microscope

(SFM)

in

non-contact

mode

is

used

for

a

single-step

additive

process.

Vapors

of

an

organometallic

precursor

are

adsorbed

to

the

surface

of

a

substrate

with

pre-patterned

conducting

regions.

A

bias

voltage

is

applied

between

the

conducting

cantilever/tip

and

the

pre-patterned

electrodes

of

the

sample,

resulting

in

the

formation

of

conductive

deposits

at

the

tip

location.

Starting

from

the

electrodes,

the

tip

is

moved

across

the

insulating

region

where

adsorbed

organometallic

molecules

are

decomposed

to

form

conductive

deposits.

In

this

way

a

conducting

bridge

shall

be

formed

between

the

pre-patterned

electrodes

and

other

structures

of

interest

e.g.

carbon

nanotubes.

This

procedure

is

performed

at

room

temperature

in

air

with

a

reservoir

of

organometallic

material

close-by.

The

precursor,

dimethylgold(III)-trifluoro-acetylacetonate

sublimates

at

room

temperature

and

normal

pressure.

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

non-contact scanning force microscope
local cvd
single-step additive process
carbon nanotubes contact


Using 'off the shelf', computer programs to mine additional insights from published data: diurnal variation in potency of ACTH stimulation of cortisol secretion revealed We describe the use of available computer programs to mine additional insights from published data. Graphs from four studies of ACTH and cortisol plasma levels collected throughout the 24 h day in humans were scanned into digital form and the data points extracted. To investigate the magnitude of ACTH stimulation of cortisol secretion across the 24 h, Monte Carlo methods were used to fit the parameters of a computer model of the ACTH-adrenal axis to the extracted data. ACTH was found to have a greater effect on cortisol secretion during the peaks of the cycle than at the nadir. This finding could not be explained by previously published dose response curves of ACTH effect. This implies that other modulators influence the effect of ACTH on the adrenal. This study also demonstrates how available computer programs can be used to examine models of physiologic regulation using data already available in the literature. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. 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 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

data mining
mathematical models
hormone interactions
adrenocortical sensitivity
adrenal rhythm
biological database


Simulation of surface and line-edge roughness formation in resists A molecular-type simulation of surface (SR) and line-edge-roughness (LER) is presented and applied to a negative-tone Chemically Amplified Resist (CAR). The simulator can follow the appearance of SR and LER after each process step and predict the roughness dependence on material properties and process conditions. The simulation results are compared with SR experimental data for a negative-tone chemically amplified epoxy resist.

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


Modified Gath-Geva clustering for fuzzy segmentation of multivariate time-series Partitioning a time-series into internally homogeneous segments is an important data-mining problem. The changes of the variables of a multivariate time-series are usually vague and do not focus on any particular time point. Therefore, it is not practical to define crisp bounds of the segments. Although fuzzy clustering algorithms are widely used to group overlapping and vague objects, they cannot be directly applied to time-series segmentation, because the clusters need to be contiguous in time. This paper proposes a clustering algorithm for the simultaneous identification of local probabilistic principal component analysis (PPCA) models used to measure the homogeneity of the segments and fuzzy sets used to represent the segments in time. The algorithm favors contiguous clusters in time and is able to detect changes in the hidden structure of multivariate time-series. A fuzzy decision making algorithm based on a compatibility criteria of the clusters has been worked out to determine the required number of segments, while the required number of principal components are determined by the screeplots of the eigenvalues of the fuzzy covariance matrices. The application example shows that this new technique is a useful tool for the analysis of historical process data. (C) 2004 Published by Elsevier B.V.

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

time-series segmentation
process monitoring


ubiquitous computing using sip In the past decade, there have been numerous efforts in ubiquitous computing, making computational resources or communication more widely available. We believe that it is time to move to a global-scale ubiquitous computing system that is securable, administered by multiple independent administrators and integrates off-the-shelf hardware and software. We are developing such a system based on the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), with Bluetooth devices for location sensing and Service Location Protocol (SLP) for service discovery. We also introduce context-aware location information to augment device discovery and user communication. The system builds on our CINEMA infrastructure and can support a range of activities, from home-based settings to collaboration between distant sites.

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


Hole Avoiding in Advance Routing with Hole Recovery Mechanism in Wireless Sensor Networks Hole (void) avoidance is a major issue when designing geographic routing protocols in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). We proposed a novel Hole Avoiding In advance Routing protocol with Hole Recovery mechanism (HAIR-HR) to address this issue. In the proposed protocol, a data packet can avoid meeting a "hole" in advance instead of bypassing a hole at the time when it meets the hole as existing Hole Avoiding Re-Routing protocols (HARR) do. We proved that the proposed protocol can always find a routing path between a given source node and the sink if such a routing path does exist in the network. In order to deal with the circumstance where the existing holes vanish or the new holes arise, the proposed "hole recovery" mechanism makes the routing protocol to be adaptive to the change of network topology. Simulation studies showed that the proposed protocol constructs routing paths very fast, with shorter routing distance and less energy consumption in comparison with existing HARR protocols. The proposed protocol can be used in large-scale WSNs.

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

wireless sensor networks
hole avoiding
geographic routing
hole recovery


Intra-Gate Length Biasing for Leakage Optimization in 45 nm Technology Node Due to the increasing need for low-power circuits in mobile applications, numerous leakage and performance optimization techniques are being used in modern ICs. In the present paper, we propose a novel transistor-level technique to reduce leakage current while maintaining drive current. By slightly increasing the channel length at the edge of a device that exploits the edge effect, a leakage-optimized transistor can be produced. By using TCAD simulations, we analyze edge-length-biased transistors and then propose the optimal transistor shape for minimizing I-off with the same or higher Ion current. Results show that by replacing all standard cells with their leakage-optimized counterparts, we can save up to 17% of the leakage in average for a set of benchmark circuits.

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

design for manufacturing (dfm)
leakage saving
non-rectangular transistor
device model
gate biasing


The impact of false-negative reads on the performance of RFID-based shelf inventory control policies Effective retail in-store logistics are paramount to provide high product availability at minimal operating costs. Despite various efforts by retailers to lower out-of-stock rates on retail shelves, product availability remains insufficient thereby significantly degrading a store's performance. Currently, retailers consider the introduction of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) to improve the efficiency of replenishment processes in stores. However, the possibilities of RFID are ultimately limited by the physical characteristics of RF communications. Tag detuning and the absorption of radio waves by the tag's environment may lead to so-called false-negative' reads, i.e., RFID tags in range being undetected by the reader device. Retailers ignoring the impact of false-negatives on the performance of RFID-based inventory control systems run the risk of overestimating the benefits to be expected from RFID. We develop an inventory control policy based on shelf stock information generated by RFID, which specifically accounts for inaccuracies associated with false-negative reads. The mathematical model is optimized for operating costs and compared to a basic periodic review strategy in a numerical study. The results indicate that the impact of false-negatives on cost remains modest for medium to high read rates. However, the system performance is sensitive to a number of exogenous parameters that must be considered when evaluating the practical use of RFID.

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

retailing
shelf replenishment
in-store logistics


System-approach methods for modeling and testing similarity of in vitro dissolutions of drug dosage formulations System-approach based modeling methods are used to model dynamic systems describing in vitro dissolutions of drug dosage formulations. Employing the models of these systems, model-dependent criteria are proposed for testing similarity between in vitro dissolutions of different drug dosage formulations. The criteria proposed are exemplified and compared with the criterion called the similarity factor f2, commonly used in the field of biomedicine. Advantages of the criteria proposed over this factor are presented.

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


Discovering Contexts from Observed Human Performance This paper describes an investigation to determine the technical feasibility of discovering and identifying the various contexts experienced by a human performer (called an actor) solely from a trace of time-stamped values of variables. More specifically, the goal of this research was to discover the contexts that a human actor experienced, while performing a tactical task in a simulated environment, the sequence of these contexts and their temporal duration. We refer to this process as the contextualization of the performance trace. In the process of doing this, we devised a context discovery algorithm called context partitioning and clustering (COPAC). The relevant variables that were observed in the trace were selected a priori by a human. The output of the COPAC algorithm was qualitatively compared with manual (human) contextualization of the same traces. One possible use of such automated context discovery is to help build autonomous tactical agents capable of performing the same tasks as the human actor. As such, we also quantitatively compared the results of using the COPAC-derived contexts with those obtained with human-derived contextualization in building autonomous tactical agents. Test results are described and discussed.

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

context discovery
context-based reasoning
human behavior representation
learning from observation
machine learning


design of customized web applications with ontoweaver OntoWeaver is our conceptual modelling methodology and a tool that support the specification and implementation of customized web applications. It relies on a number of different types of ontologies to declaratively describe all aspects of a web application. This paper focuses on the OntoWeaver customization framework, which exploits a user model, a customization rule model, and a declarative site model, to enable the design and development of customized web applications at a conceptual level. OntoWeaver makes use of the Jess inference engine to reason upon the site specifications and their underlying site ontologies according to the customization rules and the valuable user profiles to provide customization support in an intelligent way. The ontology-based approach enables the target web applications to be represented in an exchangeable format. Hence, the management and maintenance of web applications can be carried out at a conceptual level without having to worry about the implementation details. Likewise, the declarative nature of the site specifications and the generic customization framework allow the specification of customization requirements to be carried out at the conceptual level.

web site modelling
customization modelling
web site design


Computation of edit probabilities and edit distances for the A5-type keystream generator Several edit probabilities and edit distances incorporating the stop/go clocking in the well-known A5-type keystream generator are proposed. Recursive algorithms for their efficient computation are derived. It is shown how the edit probabilities can be used to mount statistically optimal correlation attacks on any two of the three stop/go clocked shift registers, By using a method for estimating the underlying false alarm probability, it is argued that the minimum output sequence length required to be known for a successful attack is linear in the total length of the respective shift registers. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science (USA).

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

keystream generators
stop/go shift registers
edit probability
edit distance
correlation attack


A general noise-reduction framework for fault localization of Java programs ? Existing fault-localization techniques combine various program features and similarity coefficients with the aim of precisely assessing the similarities among the dynamic spectra of these program features to predict the locations of faults. Many such techniques estimate the probability of a particular program feature causing the observed failures. They often ignore the noise introduced by other features on the same set of executions that may lead to the observed failures. It is unclear to what extent such noise can be alleviated. This paper aims to develop a framework that reduces the noise in fault-failure correlation measurements. We develop a fault-localization framework that uses chains of key basic blocks as program features and a noise-reduction methodology to improve on the similarity coefficients of fault-localization techniques. We evaluate our framework on five base techniques using five real-life median-scaled programs in different application domains. We also conduct a case study on subjects with multiple faults. The experimental result shows that the synthesized techniques are more effective than their base techniques by almost 10%. Moreover, their runtime overhead factors to collect the required feature values are practical. The case study also shows that the synthesized techniques work well on subjects with multiple faults. We conclude that the proposed framework has a significant and positive effect on improving the effectiveness of the corresponding base techniques.

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

key block chain
noise reduction
program debugging


Speaker localization and tracking with a microphone array on a mobile robot using von Mises distribution and particle filtering This paper deals with the problem of localizing and tracking a moving speaker over the full range around the mobile robot. The problem is solved by taking advantage of the phase shift between signals received at spatially separated microphones. The proposed algorithm is based on estimating the time difference of arrival by maximizing the weighted cross-correlation function in order to determine the azimuth angle of the detected speaker. The cross-correlation is enhanced with an adaptive signal-to-noise estimation algorithm to make the azimuth estimation more robust in noisy surroundings. A post-processing technique is proposed in which each of these microphone-pair determined azimuths are further combined into a mixture of von Mises distributions, thus producing a practical probabilistic representation of the microphone array measurement. It is shown that this distribution is inherently multimodal and that the system at hand is non-linear. Therefore, particle filtering is applied for discrete representation of the distribution function. Furthermore, the two most common microphone array geometries are analysed and exhaustive experiments were conducted in order to qualitatively and quantitatively test the algorithm and compare the two geometries. Also, a voice activity detection algorithm based on the before-mentioned signal-to-noise estimator was implemented and incorporated into the existing speaker localization system. The results show that the algorithm can reliably and accurately localize and track a moving speaker.

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

speaker localization
microphone array
von mises distribution
particle filtering


Wave propagation and localisation in a softening two-phase medium Within the framework of the generalised theory of heterogeneous media, the complete set of equations is derived for a three-dimensional fluid-saturated porous medium. Subsequently, stability and dispersion analyses are carried out for an infinite one-dimensional continuum that has been deforming homogeneously prior to the application of the perturbation. For common values of the stiffness, the porosity and the mass densities, the two-phase medium is found to remain stable when the solid is elastic. When an elastoplastic or an elasticity-based damage model is adopted for the solid constituent, loss of stability occurs at the peak in the uniaxial stressstrain relation for the solid constituent, which is identical to a single-phase medium. From the dispersion analysis it appears that a dispersive wave is obtained, but that the internal length scale associated with it vanishes in the short wavelength limit, at least for the assumptions made regarding the constitutive behaviour of the solid and of the fluid. This result leads to the conclusion that, upon the introduction of softening, localisation in a zero width will occur and no regularisation will be present. This conclusion is corroborated by the results of numerical analyses of wave propagation in a finite one-dimensional bar.

B I 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 B I 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 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 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 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

wave propagation
softening
localisation
stability
dispersion
internal length scale
porous medium


Model-based cache-aware dispatching of object-oriented software for multicore systems In recent years, processor technology has evolved towards multicore processors, which include multiple processing units (cores) in a single package. Those cores, having their own private caches, often share a higher level cache memory dedicated to each processor die. This multi-level cache hierarchy in multicore processors raises the importance of cache utilization problem. Assigning parallel-running software components with common data to processor cores that do not share a common cache increases the number of cache misses. In this paper we present a novel approach that uses model-based information to guide the OS scheduler in assigning appropriate core affinities to software objects at run-time. We build graph models of software and cache hierarchies of processors and devise a graph matcher algorithm that provides mapping between these two graphs. Using this mapping we obtain candidate core sets that each software object can be affiliated with at run-time. These affiliations are determined based on the idea that software components that have the potential to share common data at run-time should run on cores that share a common cache. We also develop an object dispatcher algorithm that keeps track of object affiliations at run-time and dispatches objects by using the information from the compile-time graph matcher. We apply our approach on design pattern implementations and two different application program running on servers using CFS scheduling. Our results show that cache-aware dispatching based on information obtained from software model, decreases number of cache misses significantly and improves CFS scheduling performance.

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

object-oriented design for multicore systems


The convex hull of rational plane curves We present an algorithm that computes the convex hull of multiple rational curves in the plane. The problem is reformulated as one of finding the zero-sets of polynomial equations in one or two variables; using these zero-sets we characterize curve segments that belong to the boundary of the convex hull. We also present a preprocessing step that can eliminate many redundant curve segments. (C) 2001 Academic Press.

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

point-curve tangent
bi-tangent
curve-curve tangent
zero-set finding
rational curve
b-spline
symbolic computation


Electronic colloquia in the www - A new form for scientific publications The scientific community, especially the more computer related fields of science like computer science and mathematics, have not only been doing research in information technology, they have simultaneously begun to exploit its advantages for their own purposes. However, scientific publishing is different from other areas where information technology has been applied in that it requires publications to be not only fast, but also comparable to traditional media in terms of quality control and long-term availability. Peer reviewing and paper-based publishing are still the methods of choice to achieve the latter goals, restricting electronic means to more or less "inofficial" communications. Within the field of scientific communication, we find a number of types of communication with slightly different goal and character: From scientific journals with their extensive and, consequently, slow reviewing mechanisms over conference papers to - nowadays usually electronic - forms of publication by the author. On the other hand, and in spite of the delay incurred, peer review is advantageous: The remaining publications are reasonably filtered for quality, making the series worthwhile to read. The department for computer science at the University of Trier (Treves), Germany, is researching and implementing solutions in the area of information technology. In this paper, we will present one of our three main projects, the Electronic Colloquium on Computational Complexity (ECCC) We will introduce the specific situations it was developed for (Section 2.1), present the specific problems of interest and the chosen solutions (Section 2.3), and conclude with a report of current status and use (Section 2.4). Finally, we will outline our view of the future both for the field as a whole and for the specific project (Section 3).

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

information technology
electronic colloquia

electronic colloquium on computational complexity (eccc)


Comparison of fuzzy implication operators by means of fuzzy relational products used for intelligent local path-planning of AUVs This paper describes the best choice to fuzzy implication operator and alpha-cut that are proper to the heuristic search technique for real-time collision avoidance of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). A fuzzy implication operator is applied to the computation of fuzzy triangle product that constructs a new fuzzy relation between two fuzzy relations. An alpha-cut transforms a fuzzy relation into a crisp relation which is represented as a matrix. Those are the theoretical basis of heuristic search technique. In this paper, we review briefly our previous work-a heuristic search technique using fuzzy relational products for the collision avoidance system of AUVs, and propose the selection of a fuzzy implication operator and alpha-cut which are the most suitable for the search technique. In order to verify the optimality and the efficiency of the selected fuzzy implication operator and alpha- cut, we simulate every case of alpha-cut for each fuzzy implication operator in view of the cost of path and the number of alpha -cut generating acceptable path to the goal.

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

fuzzy relational products
implication operator

autonomous underwater vehicles(auvs)
alpha-cut
local path-planning


A Virtual Element Method for elastic and inelastic problems on polytope meshes We present a Virtual Element Method (VEM) for possibly nonlinear elastic and inelastic problems, mainly focusing on a small deformation regime. The numerical scheme is based on a low-order approximation of the displacement field, as well as a suitable treatment of the displacement gradient. The proposed method allows for general polygonal and polyhedral meshes, it is efficient in terms of number of applications of the constitutive law, and it can make use of any standard black-box constitutive law algorithm. Some theoretical results have been developed for the elastic case. Several numerical results within the 2D setting are presented, and a brief discussion on the extension to large deformation problems is included.

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

elasticity
polygonal meshes
convergence analysis


Multiple classifier fusion in probabilistic neural networks The main motivation of this paper is to design a statistically well justified and biologically compatible neural network model and, in particular, to suggest a theoretical interpretation of the well known high parallelism of biological neural networks. We consider a novel probabilistic approach to neural networks developed in the framework of statistical pattern recognition, and refer to a series of theoretical results published earlier. It is shown that the proposed parallel fusion of probabilistic neural networks produces biologically plausible structures and improves the resulting recognition performance. The complete design methodology based on the EM algorithm has been applied to recognise unconstrained handwritten numerals from the database of Concordia University Montreal. We achieved a recognition accuracy of about 95%, which is comparable with other published results.

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

em algorithm
multiple classifier fusion
probabilistic neural networks

information preserving transform
structure optimisation
subspace approach


Anaesthesia record system on handheld computers - pilot experience and uses for quality control and clinical guidelines This paper describes a mobile information system to collect patient information for anesthesia quality control. In this system, a mobile database program was designed for use on handheld computers (Pocket PC). This program is used to collect patient data at the bedside on the handhelds, with a daily synchronization of the data between the anaesthesiologists' handhelds with the anaesthesia database. All collected data are later used for quality control analysis. Furthermore, clinical guidelines will be included on these same handhelds. During the pilot phase, data from a sample set of about 300 patients were incorporated. The processes and interfaces of the system are presented in the paper. The current mobile database system has been designed to replace the original paper-based data collection system. The individual anaesthesiologist's handheld synchronizes patient data daily with anaesthesia database center. This information database is analyzed and used not only to give feedback to the individual doctor or center, but also to review the use of the guidelines provided and the results of their utilization. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

quality control
database
anaesthesia
handhelds


A holonic approach based integration methodology for transportation and warehousing functions of the supply network The supply chain (SC) is often defined as a network that is composed of different functions, including suppliers, manufacturing plants, warehouses/distribution centers, retailers and customers. A supply network (SN) is a sequence of different and multiple numbers of functions and individual functional units that must satisfy all capacities and demand requirements imposed by customers with minimum cost to the network. The most important functions of a SN are warehousing and transportation functions. This paper addresses the warehousing and transportation network design problem that involves determining the best strategy for distributing the sub-products from the suppliers to the warehouse and from the warehouse to the manufacturers. Considering some similarities between holonic systems and SN systems, a holonic approach based modeling methodology is proposed in this study. A multiple supplier, single warehouse and multiple manufacturer system are considered to be an integrated warehousing and transportation network. Consequently, a linear programming model is presented to maximize the profit of both of the overall SN and the individual functional units of the SN functions. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. 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 B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O


The mathematical logic failure of Einstein's special relativity The proof of the mathematical logic failure of Einstein's special theory of relativity has been made.

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


Fitting smoothing splines to time-indexed, noisy points on nonlinear manifolds We address the problem of estimating full curves/paths on certain nonlinear manifolds using only a set of time-indexed points, for use in interpolation, smoothing, and prediction of dynamic systems. These curves are analogous to smoothing splines in Euclidean spaces as they are optimal under a similar objective function, which is a weighted sum of a fitting-related (data term) and a regularity-related (smoothing term) cost functions. The search for smoothing splines on manifolds is based on a Palais metric-based steepest-decent algorithm developed in Samir et al. [38]. Using three representative manifolds: the rotation group for pose tracking, the space of symmetric positive-definite matrices for DTI image analysis, and Kendall's shape space for video-based activity recognition, we demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm for optimal curve fitting. This paper derives certain geometrical elements, namely the exponential map and its inverse, parallel transport of tangents, and the curvature tensor, on these manifolds, that are needed in the gradient-based search for smoothing splines. These ideas are illustrated using experimental results involving both simulated and real data, and comparing the results to some current algorithms such as piecewise geodesic curves and splines on tangent spaces, including the method by Kume et al. [24]. (c) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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splines on manifolds
pose tracking
activity recognition
interpolation
curve fitting


An approach for analysing transportation costs and a case study One of the important parameters in the determination of optimal transportation system is economy. Therefore, a realistic method based on the technical, economical and operational parameters of various transportation modes, namely, road, railway, and sea routes is required in the analysis of costs. This method will take into consideration the probable price escalations during the lifetime of a certain transportation system. The cost of a unit of cargo or passenger per route length should be considered since it is an indicator of economics. In this paper, an approach for transportation cost analysis based on the economic analysis of the alternative modes of cargo or passenger transportation, is presented.

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A Fully Integrated Architecture for Fast and Accurate Programming of Floating Gates Over Six Decades of Current This paper presents an on-chip system with digital serial peripheral interface (SPI) interface that enables accurate programming of floating gate arrays at a high speed. The main component allowing this speedup is a floating point current measuring analog-to-digital convertor (ADC). The ADC comprises a wide range logarithmic transimpedance amplifier (TIA) followed by a linear ramp ADC. The TIA operates over seven decades of current going down to sub-pA levels. It incorporates an adaptive biasing scheme to save power. The topology provides a relatively temperature independent measurement of the floating-gate voltage. The TIA-ADC combination operates over six decades at a thermal noise limited accuracy of 9.5 bits when average conversion time is around 500 mu s. The system features level-shifters and selection circuitry at the periphery of the floating gate array, current-steering digital-to-analog converters (DACs) to set gate and drain voltages, and SPI for a microprocessor or field-programmable gate array (FPGA). Algorithms using either pulse-width modulation or drain voltage modulation can be implemented on this platform. We present data for this system from 0.5 mu m AMI and 0.35 mu m TSMC processes.

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

floating-point analog-to-digital converter (adc)


Two layered Genetic Programming for mixed-attribute data classification The important problem of data classification spans numerous real life applications. The classification problem has been tackled by using Genetic Programming in many successful ways. Most approaches focus on classification of only one type of data. However, most of the real-world data contain a mixture of categorical and continuous attributes. In this paper, we present an approach to classify mixed attribute data using Two Layered Genetic Programming (L2GP). The presented approach does not transform data into any other type and combines the properties of arithmetic expressions (using numerical data) and logical expressions (using categorical data). The outer layer contains logical functions and some nodes. These nodes contain the inner layer and are either logical or arithmetic expressions. Logical expressions give their Boolean output to the outer tree. The arithmetic expressions give a real value as their output. Positive real value is considered true and a negative value is considered false. These outputs of inner layers are used to evaluate the outer layer which determines the classification decision. The proposed classification technique has been applied on various heterogeneous data classification problems and found successful.

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

genetic programming
classification
mixed attribute data

mixed type data classification
classifier