Effects of Intravenous Immunoglobulins on Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cell Activation in Vitro The therapeutic effects of intravenous immunoglobulins (IVIGs) on different chronic inflammatory and autoimmune diseases is well appreciated, though clinical studies with high-evidence levels are largely missing. Similar to the broad spectrum of diseases and their underlying etiopathogenic background, the mechanisms of action seem heterogenous and multifold. Several studies addressing in vitro and in vivo effects of IVIG on various immunological parameters have been described with partly contradictory results. In this study immunoglobulins and stabilizers present in commercial IVIG preparations were studied in regard to the in vitro proliferation and cytokine production of peripheral blood mononuclear cells when stimulated with phytohemagglutinin (PHA), interleukin 2, and tetanus toxoid. Whereas the immunoglobulins stimulate the proliferation of PBMCs and decrease IFN? secretion, stabilizers of IVIG seem to inhibit the proliferation of PBMCs while increasing the secretion of IFN ?. These effects have to be taken into account when balancing the impact of IVIG dosage and infusion intervals and relating them to clinical side effects and therapeutic efficacy

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

intravenous immunoglobulins
peripheral blood mononuclear cells
in vitro
proliferation
cytokine production
phytohemagglutinin
tetanus toxoid


moving the needle, computer architecture research in academe and industry The goal of computer architecture research is to move the needle, that is to affect the future of computing in a positive way. Publications, prototypes, and studies are all just different means to this common end. This talk will address how to move the needle in academic and industrial settings discussing what works and what doesn't. Our work is constrained by applications, technology, and commercial reality. The architecture funnel starts with many concepts that proceed through stages of evaluation and refinement. A relatively few successful concepts make it out the far side to deployment. Most concepts fail, and good researchers cut their losses early. The funnel has many years of latency and good researchers aim for results that are relevant beyond this latency. Academics are best at the early stages of the concept funnel -- where their long-term perspective and freedom from constraints are advantages. Industry excels at the later stages of the pipeline where resources and experience are well suited to refining ideas for deployment. Too often good concepts fall into a chasm between the two. Good partnerships are needed to bridge this chasm. This talk will give illustrate this exploration of architecture research with numerous examples of successes and failures. It will give recommended best practices for academic and industrial research. I will close with a glimpse of the future of architecture.

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


Optima: a domain-specific model for prioritization and conflicts management in requirements engineering for services intermediaries New business models are set up, thanks to Web technologies. In this work, we focus on services intermediary companies. They generate value through the (automatic) selection of third-party services and the (automatic) delivery of the combinations of these services to consumers. Such companies face the problem of deciding which services to select and deliver in order to maximize their profit. The two main paper objectives are (i) to design the generic business model of services intermediaries and (ii) to propose an optimization model. The latter enables to choose the consumer requirements that will be satisfied in order to maximize profit. This model ranks implementable solutions based on various financial aspects. They are related to cost and revenue information that is associated with the requirements. It can support the decision-making process that aims at selecting a profit-maximizing set of requirements for services intermediaries system-to-be. Indeed, the proposed model solves the conflicts between requirements and prioritizes the optional requirements. We argue for the relevance of the optimization model via an example and simulations.

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

requirements engineering
services intermediary

service-oriented systems
requirements prioritization
conflicts resolution


A risk-reward model for the on-line leasing of depreciable equipment The optimal deterministic strategy for the on-line leasing of depreciable equipment is presented here for cases with and without an interest rate. A risk-reward model in which the on-line investor can develop optimal strategies based on his/her risk tolerance and forecast is discussed. Numerical analysis shows that the competitive performance is significantly improved in the proposed model. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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


ECN verbose mode: A statistical method for network path congestion estimation This article introduces a simple and effective methodology to determine the level of congestion in a network with an ECN-like marking scheme. The purpose of the ECN bit is to notify TCP sources of an imminent congestion in order to react before losses occur. However, ECN is a binary indicator which does not reflect the congestion level (i.e. the percentage of queued packets) of the bottleneck, thus preventing any adapted reaction. In this study, we use a counter in place of the traditional ECN marking scheme to assess the number of times a packet has crossed a congested router. Thanks to this simple counter, we drive a statistical analysis to accurately estimate the congestion level of each router on a network path. We detail in this paper an analytical method validated by simulations which demonstrate the feasibility and the accuracy of the concept proposed and illustrate its use in a realistic scenario. We conclude this paper with possible applications and expected future work. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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


Embedding electronic circuits by laser direct-write Significant reduction in weight and volume for a given circuit design can be obtained by embedding the required passive devices, semiconductor ICs and interconnects into the circuit board. In addition, embedded structures allow for improved electrical performance and enhanced function integration within traditional circuit board substrates and non-traditional surfaces. Laser-based direct-write (LDW) techniques can be used for developing such embedded structures at a fraction of the cost and in less time than it would take to develop system-on-chip alternatives. In this work, subtractive LDW in the form of laser micromachining is used to machine vias and trenches on polymer resin circuit board substrates, while additive LDW in the form of laser forward transfer, or laser printing, is used to deposit patterns of electrically conductive materials. The combination of these laser direct-write techniques resulted in the fabrication of a fully operational planar embedded electronic circuit. This embedded prototype occupies only a fraction of the volume required by the equivalent circuit fabricated on top of a printed circuit board using traditional manufacturing 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

laser direct-write
embedded electronics
embedded bare-die
laser printed interconnects
conducting pastes


the concern manipulation environment No abstract available

aspect-oriented software development
eclipse


Poloidal-toroidal decomposition in a finite cylinder II. Discretization, regularization and validation The Navier-Stokes equations in a finite cylinder are written in terms of poloidal and toroidal potentials in order to impose incompressibility. Regularity of the solutions is ensured in several ways: First, the potentials are represented using a spectral basis which is analytic at the cylindrical axis. Second, the non-physical discontinuous boundary conditions at the cylindrical corners are smoothed using a polynomial approximation to a steep exponential profile. Third, the nonlinear term is evaluated in such a way as to eliminate singularities. The resulting pseudo-spectral code is tested using exact polynomial solutions and the spectral convergence of the coefficients is demonstrated. Our solutions are shown to agree with exact polynomial solutions and with previous calculations of axisymmetric vortex breakdown and of onset of non-axisyrnmetric helical spirals. Parallelization by azimuthal wavenumber is shown to be highly effective. (c) 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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

vortex breakdown
spectral convergence
finite cylinder

cylindrical coordinates
coordinate singularities
pseudo-spectral
recursion relations
radial basis
poloidal-toroidal


Optimal communication complexity of generic multicast key distribution We prove a tight lower bound on the communication complexity of secure multicast key distribution protocols in which rekey messages are built using symmetric-key encryption, pseudo-random generators, and secret sharing schemes. Our lower bound shows that the amortized cost of updating the group key for each group membership change (as a function of the current group size) is at least log(2)(n) - o(1) basic rekey messages. This lower bound matches, up to a subconstant additive term, the upper bound due to Canetti et al. [Proc. INFOCOM 1999], who showed that log, (n) basic rekey messages (each time a user joins and/or leaves the group) are sufficient. Our lower bound is, thus, optimal up to a small subconstant additive term. The result of this paper considerably strengthens previous lower bounds by Canetti et al. [Proc. Eurocrypt 1999] and Snoeyink et al. [Computer Networks, 47(3):20051, which allowed for neither the use of pseudo-random generators and secret sharing schemes nor the iterated (nested) application of the encryption function. Our model (which allows for arbitrarily nested combinations of encryption, pseudo-random generators and secret sharing schemes) is much more general and, in particular, encompasses essentially all known multicast key distribution protocols of practical interest.

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

key distribution
lower bounds
multicast
secret sharing


A Core Ontological Model for Semantic Sensor Web Infrastructures Semantic Sensor Web infrastructures use ontology-based models to represent the data that they manage; however, up to now, these ontological models do not allow representing all the characteristics of distributed, heterogeneous, and web-accessible sensor data. This paper describes a core ontological model for Semantic Sensor Web infrastructures that covers these characteristics and that has been built with a focus on reusability. This ontological model is composed of different modules that deal, on the one hand, with infrastructure data and, on the other hand, with data from a specific domain, that is, the coastal flood emergency planning domain. The paper also presents a set of guidelines, followed during the ontological model development, to satisfy a common set of requirements related to modelling domain-specific features of interest and properties. In addition, the paper includes the results obtained after an exhaustive evaluation of the developed ontologies along different aspects (i.e., vocabulary, syntax, structure, semantics, representation, and context).

O O O O O 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 B 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 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

flood emergency planning
semantic sensor web
sensor

ontology
ontology evaluation
semantic sensor network ontology


Expression Detection Based on a Novel Emotion Recognition Method As facial expression is an essential way to convey human's feelings, in this paper, a dynamic selection ensemble learning method is proposed to analyze their emotion automatically. A feature selection algorithm is proposed at first based on rough set and the domain oriented data driven data mining theory, which can get multiple reducts and candidate classifiers. Then the nearest neighborhood of each unseen sample is found in a validation subset and the most accurate classifier is extracted from the candidate classifiers. Finally, the selected classifier is used to recognize unseen samples. Experimental results show that the proposed method is effective and suitable for emotion recognition.

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

emotion recognition
ensemble learning
rough set
data mining


Intrusion prevention in information systems: Reactive and proactive responses Intrusion prevention requires effective identification of and response to malicious events. In this paper, we model two important managerial decisions involved in the intrusion prevention process: the configuration of the detection component, and the response by the reaction component. The configuration decision affects the number of alarms the firm has to investigate. It is well known that the traditional intrusion detection system generates too many false alarms. The response decision determines whether alarms are going to be investigated or rejected outright. By jointly optimizing these two decision variables, a firm may apply different strategies in protecting its informational assets: slow but accurate, rapid but inaccurate, or a mixture of the two strategies. We use the optimal control approach to study the problem. Unlike previous literature, which studied the problem with a static model, in our model, the decision on balancing the desire to detect all malicious events with the opportunity costs required to do so is time dependent. Furthermore, we show how the choice of an optimal mixture of reactive and proactive responses depends on the values of cost parameters and investigation rate parameters. We find that in our model, a high damage cost does not immediately translate to a preference of proactive response, or a high false rejection cost does not translate to a preference of reactive response. The dynamics of the problem, such as how fast alarms accumulate and how fast they can be cleared, also affect the decisions.

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

intrusion detection
intrusion prevention


Toward early warning against Internet worms based on critical-sized networks In this paper, we build on a recent worm propagation stochastic model, in which random effects during worm spreading were modeled by means of a stochastic differential equation. On the basis of this model, we introduce the notion of the critical size of a network, which is the least size of a network that needs to be monitored, in order to correctly project the behavior of a worm in substantially larger networks. We provide a method for the theoretical estimation of the critical size of a network in respect to a worm with specific characteristics. Our motivation is the requirement in real systems to balance the needs for accuracy (i.e., monitoring a network of a sufficient size in order to reduce false alarms) and performance (i.e., monitoring a small-scale network to reduce complexity). In addition, we run simulation experiments in order to experimentally validate our arguments. Finally, based on notion of critical-sized networks, we propose a logical framework for a distributed early warning system against unknown and fast-spreading worms. In the proposed framework, propagation parameters of an early detected worm are estimated in real time by studying a critical-sized network. In this way, security is enhanced as estimations generated by a critical-sized network may help large-scale networks to respond faster to new worm threats. Copyright (c) 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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

monitoring worm propagation
stochastic models
critical-size networks


Quick GPS: A new CAT system for single-part tolerancing This paper depicts a new CAT (Computer Aided Tolerancing) system called Quick GPS (Geometrical Product Specification), for assisting the designer when specifying the functional tolerances of a single part included in a mechanism, without any required complex function analysis. The mechanism assembly is first described through a positioning table formalism. In order to create datum reference frames and to respect assembly requirements, an ISO based 3D tolerancing scheme is then proposed, thanks to a set of rules based on geometric patterns and TTRS (Technologically and Topologically Related Surfaces). Since it remains impossible to determine tolerance chains automatically, the designer must impose links between the frames. The CAT system that we developed here proposes ISO based tolerance specifications to help ensure compliance with the designers intentions, saving on time and eliminating errors. This paper will detail both the set of tolerancing rules and the designers approach. The Quick GPS system has been developed in a CATIA V5 environment using CATIA VBA and CATIA CAA procedures.

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

iso tolerancing standards
functional dimensioning and tolerancing
cat systems
specification synthesis


The effectiveness of stemming for information retrieval in Amharic Amharic is an example of a language with a very rich morphology, which means that systems for searching Amharic text databases can be effective in operation only if full account is taken of the many word variants that may occur. This paper reports a comparison of stem-based and root-based searching of Amharic text with conventional, word-based searching. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of our recently described stemming algorithm for Amharic.

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


Constitutive ply damage modeling, FEM implementation, and analyses of laminated structures The present work is concerned with the modeling of progressive damage in fiber reinforced polymer laminates and its implementation into a finite element code as constitutive material law. The objective is to predict damage evolution and material degradation due to matrix dominated failure modes (matrix cracking). In a previous work, a ply-level continuum damage model based on ply failure mechanisms postulated by Puck has been presented. This model predicts the evolution of the complete tensor of elasticity for the damaged material and is able to capture the effects of stiffness recovery and slanted cracking under transverse compression. In the current work, this damage model is adapted for arbitrary loading paths and implemented within the finite element method in order to analyze complex structures and study their damage behavior including load redistribution due to damage. To demonstrate some key features and the application of the damage model in structural analysis, it is applied in a single element analysis as well as in the simulation of Open Hole Compression tests for which results are compared to experimental data from the literature.

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 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

progressive damage
finite element method

fiber reinforced laminates
polymer matrix composites
continuum damage mechanics
constitutive model
puck failure criterion


The impact of class resolution in land use change models A recent focus of land use/land cover research is the design and validation of spatially explicit predictive models. An often overlooked aspect of model development is the role of class resolution. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the impact of changing the number and breadth of land use classes on a models calibration and predictions. To address the objective, three model specifications were developed representing urban development in the Barnegat Bay watershed (New Jersey, USA). The models range from one based on a single broad resolution class to one using six fine resolution classes. The results of the analysis indicated that changing the level of class resolution impacts the models calibration parameters and predicted outcomes, but more finely defined urban conversion classes did not uniformly improve the accuracy of the model. If fine resolution classes are identified, however, the specific types of conversions that are not well captured by the model are revealed. The paper ends with a discussion of the broader implications of class resolution decisions in land use/land cover models.

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


Psychological antecedents of institution-based consumer trust in e-retailing Online trust is one of the main determinants of the success of e-retailers and much research has dealt with website features triggering consumer trust to them. Another stream of research focuses on the psychological antecedents to online trust; i.e., what happens in the consumers mind before or while a person decides to trust an e-retailer? So far, each effort has focused on only a few selected aspects of this trust formation process. No study has attempted to identify major psychological antecedents of trust. Our work identified the relative importance of the antecedents of institution-based trust in e-retailing; i.e., trust people have in it in general. A review of the literature reveals a large number of potential psychological antecedents. These can be categorized into five group of factors: personality-based, perception-based, attitude-based, experience-based, and knowledge-based. The five categories are hypothesized to influence institution-based consumer trust in e-retailing. According to our results, perception based factors are the main determinants of consumer trust in e-retailing. Consumers do behave, after all, rationally.

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

e-retailing
institution-based trust
psychological determinants
antecedents to trust


RF CMOS active inductor band pass filter with post fabrication calibration This paper presents an active inductor bandpass filter (BPF) architecture with selectable 50? driving capability and post fabrication calibration for gain, center frequency, and quality factor. The design details, and performance assessment that facilitate selecting an offline calibration mode to measure and tune post fabrication BPF performance are discussed. A specific design example for a L1/L2 channel GPS receiver is included with a BPF that is required to pass the L2 signal centered at 1.227GHz with a gain of approximately16dB at the center frequency, have a 3dB bandwidth of 30MHz (Q=41) and rejection of the L1 signal at 1.575GHz by at least 60dB relative to the center frequency. A multistage active inductor BPF 90nm CMOS design is presented that meets these specifications with typical process parameters. It is demonstrated that the post fabrication design based on typical corner analysis can be re-tuned to the desired performance for process variations across the slow and fast corners using the offline measuring and tuning control inputs.

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

active inductor
bandpass filter
calibration
corner analysis


Time domain averaging across all scales: A novel method for detection of gearbox faults The vibration signal of a gearbox carries the signature of the fault in the gears. As such early fault detection of the gearbox is possible by analyzing the vibration signal using different signal processing techniques. Time synchronous averaging can extract the periodic waveforms of a noisy vibration signal, whereas Wavelet transformation is able to characterize the local features of the signal at different scales. This paper proposes a new technique, time domain averaging across all scales, which combines the time synchronous average and wavelet transformation together to extract the periodic waveforms at different scales from noisy vibration signals. The technique efficiently cleans up noise and detects both local and distributed faults simultaneously. A pilot plant case study is presented to demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed technique.

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

signal processing
fault detection
gearbox

rotating machineries
vibration analysis
wavelet analysis


Examining the structure of the Internet Addiction Test in adolescents: A bifactor approach Previously proposed structural models of the IAT are not optimal for adolescents. A bifactor model with a general factor and two unique sub-dimensions fits best. Presence of the dominant global IA factor supports the use of the total-scale score. Scores on the two subscales add significant incremental variance to the assessment. The two subscales are associated with unique gender and problem gambling profiles.

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

internet addiction
adolescents
bifactor model

young internet addiction test
factor analysis


Approximating Optimal Binary Decision Trees We give a (ln n+1)-approximation for the decision tree (DT) problem. An instance of DT is a set of m binary tests T=(T (1),aEuro broken vertical bar,T (m) ) and a set of n items X=(X (1),aEuro broken vertical bar,X (n) ). The goal is to output a binary tree where each internal node is a test, each leaf is an item and the total external path length of the tree is minimized. Total external path length is the sum of the depths of all the leaves in the tree. DT has a long history in computer science with applications ranging from medical diagnosis to experiment design. It also generalizes the problem of finding optimal average-case search strategies in partially ordered sets which includes several alphabetic tree problems. Our work decreases the previous best upper bound on the approximation ratio by a constant factor. We provide a new analysis of the greedy algorithm that uses a simple accounting scheme to spread the cost of a tree among pairs of items split at a particular node. We conclude by showing that our upper bound also holds for the DT problem with weighted tests.

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

approximation algorithms
greedy algorithms
accounting schemes


An agent-based workflow system for enterprise based on FIPA-OS framework The paper describes what we have learned from implementing a multi-agent architecture used to support enterprise notions and principles for intelligent systems design. In the last couple of years, agent-based management systems have been widely used to monitor and control business design processes. In this paper, multi-agent architecture is proposed and applied to the workflow management system in ASE1 (Advance Semiconductor Electronic) Inc., which is the worlds well-known largest provider of independent semiconductor for manufacturing services in assembly and test. The proposed FIPA-OS autonomous workflow management system uses a workflow co-ordination mechanism and an agent integration mechanism to enable the routine daily jobs error handle. Our vision for extending the FIPA-OS architectural elements to cover the development and implementation of generic web-Centric collaborative applications concludes the paper.

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


WEIGHTED AND CONTROLLED FRAMES: MUTUAL RELATIONSHIP AND FIRST NUMERICAL PROPERTIES Weighted and controlled frames have been introduced recently to improve the numerical efficiency of iterative algorithms for inverting the frame operator. In this paper, we develop systematically these notions, including their mutual relationship. We will show that controlled frames are equivalent to standard frames and so this concept gives a generalized way to check the frame condition, while offering a numerical advantage in the sense of preconditioning. Next, we investigate weighted frames, in particular their relation to controlled frames. We consider the special case of semi-normalized weights, where the concepts of weighted frames and standard frames are interchangeable. We also make the connection with frame multipliers. Finally, we analyze weighted frames numerically. First, we investigate three possibilities for finding weights in order to tighten a given frame, i.e. decrease the frame bound ratio. Then, we examine Gabor frames and how well the canonical dual of a weighted frame is approximated by the inversely weighted dual frame.

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

controlled frames
weighted frames
frame multipliers
gabor frames
preconditioning


Control of water flow to avoid twining of artificial seaweed This study presents a control method for a water flow to avoid seaweed twining in a cultivation pool. The water flow in the pool is modeled by the lattice Boltzmann method. Morphology of the seaweed is determined by L-system. Physics modeling (PM) represents its physical model. Three physical properties, gradual collision, adhesiveness, and tear phenomenon for the seaweed are artificially introduced into simulation. Motion of the seaweed is examined in the virtual underwater pool by PM simulation. A water flow pattern is realized by controlling particles distributed in lattices. We ascertained that some water flow pattern is useful to avoid the seaweed twining phenomenon by changing the water flow pattern in the simulation.

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

physics modeling
seaweed twining
lattice boltzmann method


A Navigation Aid for Blind People This paper presents a navigation aid for the blind based on a microcontroller with synthetic speech output. The system consists of two vibrators, two ultrasonic sensors mounted on the user's shoulders and another one integrated into the cane. It is able to give information to the blind about urban walking routes and to provide real-time information on the distance of over-hanging obstacles within 6 m along the travel path ahead of the user. The suggested system can then sense the surrounding environment via sonar sensors and sending vibro-tactile feedback to the user of the position of the closest obstacles in range. For the ultrasonic cane, it is used to detect any obstacle on the ground. Experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed system for blind navigation.

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


Beamforming of ultra-wideband pulses by a complex-valued spatio-temporal multilayer neural network We present a neuro-beamformer of ultra-wideband (UWB) pulses employing complex-valued spatio-temporal multilayer neural network, where complex-valued backpropagation through time (CV-BPTT) is used as a learning algorithm. The system performance is evaluated with a UWB monocycle pulse. Simulation results in suppressing multiple UWB interferers and in steering to multiple desired UWB pulses, demonstrates the applicability of the proposed system.

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


An integrated model and a decomposition-based approach for concurrent layout and material handling system design This paper presents an integer programming formulation that integrates decisions concerning the layout of the resource groups on the shop floor with the design of the material handling system. The model reflects critical practical concerns, including the capacity of the material flow network and of the handling transporters, as well as the tradeoff between fixed (construction and acquisition) and variable (operational) costs. For realistic industrial cases, the size of the problem prevents the solution using explicit or implicit enumeration methods. Instead, the global model is decomposed into standard optimization problems: quadratic assignment, fixed charge capacitated network design, and non-depot distance-constrained vehicle routing. An integrated solution method, guided by a simulated annealing scheme, solves the global shop design problem. The algorithm takes advantage of the proposed decomposition and converges to a final design which is feasible with respect to all problem constraints. The method is applied to redesign the facility of a large manufacturer of radar antennas. The resulting shop configuration exhibits substantially decreased material handling effort, and requires significantly smaller investment costs compared to the existing facility. (c) 2007 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 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O B I O 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

vehicle routing
decomposition
simulated annealing

facility layout
material handling systems
manufacturing systems


Hybrid state estimation and model-set design of invariable-structure semi-ballistic reentry vehicle Multiple-model approach is one of the main streams for hybrid estimation. The difficulty of this approach to estimate the hybrid state of the semi-ballistic reentry vehicle (SBRV) is model-set design. This paper proposes a quasi-Monte Carlo model set that can ensure the estimator near-optimal in the sense of minimum mean square error (MMSE). The SBRV has a high nonlinearity and its mode is spanned by multiple parameters with known bounds. The design methods and characteristics of the quasi-Monte Carlo model set are given. The proposed model set has a higher accuracy than the model-set generated by the Monte Carlo method. The theoretical analysis and simulation results show the effectiveness and reasonability of the newly designed model set.

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

semi-ballistic reentry vehicle
model-set design
quasi-monte carlo method


QoS and preemption aware scheduling in federated and virtualized Grid computing environments Resource provisioning is one of the challenges in federated Grid environments. In these environments each Grid serves requests from external users along with local users. Recently, this resource provisioning is performed in the form of Virtual Machines (VMs). The problem arises when there are insufficient resources for local users to be served. The problem gets complicated further when external requests have different QoS requirements. Serving local users could be solved by preempting VMs from external users which impose overheads on the system. Therefore, the question is how the number of VM preemptions in a Grid can be minimized. Additionally, how we can decrease the likelihood of preemption for requests with more QoS requirements. We propose a scheduling policy in InterGrid, as a federated Grid, which reduces the number of VM preemptions and dispatches external requests in a way that fewer requests with QoS constraints get affected by preemption. Extensive simulation results indicate that the number of VM preemptions is decreased at least by 60%, particularly, for requests with more QoS requirements.

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

virtual machine (vm)
queuing model
quality of service (qos)


Multi-modality in augmented Lagrangian coordination for distributed optimal design This paper presents an empirical study of the convergence characteristics of augmented Lagrangian coordination (ALC) for solving multi-modal optimization problems in a distributed fashion. A number of test problems that do not satisfy all assumptions of the convergence proof for ALC are selected to demonstrate the convergence characteristics of ALC algorithms. When only a local search is employed at the subproblems, local solutions to the original problem are often attained. When a global search is performed at subproblems, global solutions to the original, non-decomposed problem are found for many of the examples. Although these findings are promising, ALC with a global subproblem search may yield only local solutions in the case of non-convex coupling functions or disconnected feasible domains. Results indicate that for these examples both the starting point and the sequence in which subproblems are solved determines which solution is obtained. We illustrate that the main cause for this behavior lies in the alternating minimization inner loop, which is inherently of a local nature.

O O B I I 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 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

augmented lagrangian coordination
test problems

multidisciplinary design optimization
decomposition
non-convex
multi-modal
global optimization


Interfacing geometric model data with rapid prototyping systems The direct slicing of CAD models created in CADDS V to generate geometric data for rapid prototyping using fused feposition modeling technique (FDM) is presented in this paper. The report file from an explicit model is accessed for obtaining model data. Algorithms have been developed for determining the volumes of model material as well as support materials. New algorithms have been developed for filling the sheet solid. A simulation module has been developed to verify whether the filling is correctly done. Example of a model is manufactured using this approach is also presented in this paper.

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 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 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


Complexity issues in vertex-colored graph pattern matching ? ?? Searching for motifs in graphs has become a crucial problem in the analysis of biological networks. In the context of metabolic network analysis, Lacroix et al. [V. Lacroix, C.G. Fernandes, M.-F. Sagot, IEEE/ACM Transactions on Computational Biology and Bioinfor-matics 3 (4) (2006) 360368] introduced the NP-hard general problem of finding occurrences of motifs in vertex-colored graphs, where a motif M M is a multiset of colors and an occurrence of M M in a vertex-colored graph G, called the target graph, is a subset of vertices that induces a connected graph and the multiset of colors induced by this subset is exactly the motif. Pursuing the line of research pioneered by Lacroix et al. and aiming at dealing with approximate solutions, we consider in this paper the above-mentioned problem in two of its natural optimization forms, referred hereafter as the Min-CC and the Maximum Motif problems. The Min-CC problem seeks for an occurrence of a motif M M in a vertex-colored graph G that induces a minimum number of connected components whereas the Maximum Motif problem is concerned with finding a maximum cardinality submotif M??M M ? ? M that occurs as a connected motif in G. We prove the Min-CC problem to be APX-hard even in the extremal case where the motif is a set and the target graph is a path. We complement this result by giving a polynomial-time algorithm in case the motif is built upon a fixed number of colors and the target graph is a path. Also, extending [M. Fellows, G. Fertin, D. Hermelin, S. Vialette, in: Proc. 34th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages and Programming (ICALP), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 4596, Springer, 2007, pp. 340351], we prove the Min-CC problem to be fixed-parameter tractable when parameterized by the size of the motif, and we give a faster algorithm in case the target graph is a tree. Furthermore, we prove the Min-CC problem for trees not to be approximable within ratio c log n for some constant c>0 c > 0 , where n is the order of the target graph, and to be W[2]-hard when parameterized by the number of connected components in the occurrence of the motif. Finally, we give an exact exponential-time algorithm for the Min-CC problem in case the target graph is a tree. We prove that the Maximum Motif problem is APX-hard even in the case where the target graph is a tree of maximum degree 3, the motif is actually a set and each color occurs at most twice in the tree. Next, we strengthen this result by proving that the problem is not approximable within factor 2log?n 2 log ? n , for any constant ?<1 ? < 1 , unless NP?DTIME(2polylogn) NP ? DTIME ( 2 poly log n ) . We complement these results by presenting two fixed-parameter algorithms for the problem, where the parameter is the size of the solution. Finally, we give exact exponential-time algorithms for this problem.

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

graph motifs
vertex-colored graphs
algorithmic complexity
parameterized complexity


Evaluation of three-dimensional segmentation algorithms for the identification of luminal and medial-adventitial borders in intravascular ultrasound images Intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) provides direct depiction of coronary artery anatomy, including plaque and vessel area, which is important in quantitative studies on the progression or regression of coronary artery disease. Traditionally, these studies have relied on manual evaluation, which is laborious, time consuming, and subject to large interobserver and intraobserver variability. A new technique, called active surface segmentation, alleviates these limitations and makes strides toward routine analyses. However, for three-dimensional (3-D) plaque assessment or 3-D reconstruction to become a clinical reality, methods must be developed which can analyze many images quickly, Presented is a comparison between two active surface techniques for three-dimensional segmentation of luminal and medial-adventitial borders, The force-acceleration technique and the neighborhood-search technique accurately detected both borders in vivo (r(2) = 0.95 and 0.99, Williams' index = 0.67 and 0.65, and r(2) = 0.95 and 0.99, WI = 0.67 and 0.70, respectively). However, the neighborhood-search technique was significantly faster and required less computation. Volume calculations for both techniques (r(2) = 0.99 and r(2) = 0.99) also agreed with a known-volume phantom. Active surface segmentation allows 3-D assessment of coronary morphology and further developments with this technology will provide clinical analysis tools.

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

active contours
image segmentation
image sequence analysis


a generic library of problem solving methods for scheduling applications In this paper we describe a generic library of problem-solving methods (PSMs) for scheduling applications. Although, some attempts have been made in the past at developing libraries of scheduling methods, these only provide limited coverage: in some cases they are specific to a particular scheduling domain; in other cases they simply implement a particular scheduling technique; in other cases they fail to provide the required degree of depth and precision. Our library is based on a structured approach, whereby we first develop a scheduling task ontology, and then construct a task-specific but domain independent model of scheduling problem-solving, which generalises from specific approaches to scheduling problem-solving. Different PSMs are then constructed uniformly by specialising the generic model of scheduling problem-solving. Our library has been evaluated on a number of real-life and benchmark applications to demonstrate its generic and comprehensive nature.

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

problem-solving methods
knowledge acquisition
ontologies
knowledge reuse


ADI-FDTD modeling of microwave plasma discharges in air towards fully three-dimensional simulations Plasma formation and propagation during microwave breakdown has been extensively studied during the last decades. Numerical modeling of the strong coupling between the high frequency electromagnetic waves and the plasma is still a challenging topic due to the different time and space scales involved. In this article, an Alternative Direction Implicit (ADI) formulation of the Finite Difference Time Domain method for solving Maxwells equations coupled with a simplified plasma model via the electric current is being proposed, leading to a significant reduction of the computational cost as the CFL criterion for stability of the FDTD method is being removed. An energy estimate has been used to prove the unconditional stability of the ADI-FDTD leapfrog scheme as well as its coupled formulation. The computational efficiency and accuracy of this approach has been studied in a simplified case. The proposed method is applied and validated in two dimensional microwave breakdown in air while its computational efficiency allows for fully three dimensional simulations, an important step for understanding the complex nature and evolution of a microwave plasma discharge and its possible applicability as an aerodynamic flow control method.

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

adi- fdtd
microwave plasma modeling
plasma fluid model


Exponential possibility regression analysis by identification method of possibilistic coefficients This paper introduces exponential possibility regression analysis by the proposed identification method. To identify the exponential possibility distribution, first we solve all possible different sets of the input-output linear systems from the given data and obtain the corresponding coefficient vectors. Then, we select minimum number of coefficient vectors which represent all the given data. Using the selected coefficient vectors, we apply the identification method to determine a possibility distribution of coefficients in the fuzzy linear system. As a criterion to select minimum coefficient vectors, we use the inner product. By the proposed approach, the smaller area of possibility distribution can be obtained. This is the main characteristic of our proposed regression, comparing with the other regression analyses. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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

exponential possibility regression
identification method
area of possibility distribution


language-specific models in multilingual topic tracking Topic tracking is complicated when the stories in the stream occur in multiple languages. Typically, researchers have trained only English topic models because the training stories have been provided in English. In tracking, non-English test stories are then machine translated into English to compare them with the topic models. We propose a native language hypothesis stating that comparisons would be more effective in the original language of the story. We first test and support the hypothesis for story link detection. For topic tracking the hypothesis implies that it should be preferable to build separate language-specific topic models for each language in the stream. We compare different methods of incrementally building such native language topic models.

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


Structure tensor based image interpolation method Feature preserving image interpolation is an active area in image processing field. In this paper a new direct edge directed image super-resolution algorithm based on structure tensors is proposed. Using an isotropic Gaussian filter, the structure tensor at each pixel of the input image is computed and the pixels are classified to three distinct classes; uniform region, corners and edges, according to the eigenvalues of the structure tensor. Due to application of the isotropic Gaussian filter, the classification is robust to noise presented in image. Based on the tangent eigenvector of the structure tensor, the edge direction is determined and used for interpolation along the edges. In comparison to some previous edge directed image interpolation methods, the proposed method achieves higher quality in both subjective and objective aspects. Also the proposed method outperforms previous methods in case of noisy and JPEG compressed images. Furthermore, without the need for optimization in the process, the algorithm can achieve higher speed.

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

local structure tensor
super-resolution
edge-directed interpolation


Estimating malaria parasitaemia in images of thin smear of human blood Digital image processing techniques are being explored for accurate and timely diagnosis of malaria, a serious parasitic infection of humans. A key decision factor in the diagnosis is the degree of infection, also called parasitaemia. This paper presents an efficient method for estimating parasitaemia using the digital images of thin blood smears that has been stained with Gimsa or equivalent stain. The method utilizes the 4-connected set properties of digital images to identify the various regions existing within the image. Properties of the different identified regions, such as centroids, major and minor axis, etc., are used to arrive at the number of RBCs (good and infected) present in the image. The method addresses the issues of partially visible RBCs, as well as that of overlapped RBCs. It also addresses image imperfections, caused by dust on the slide, etc.

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


CloudDMSS: robust Hadoop-based multimedia streaming service architecture for a cloud computing environment The delivery of scalable, rich multimedia applications and services on the Internet requires sophisticated technologies for transcoding, distributing, and streaming content. Cloud computing provides an infrastructure for such technologies, but specific challenges still remain in the areas of task management, load balancing, and fault tolerance. To address these issues, we propose a cloud-based distributed multimedia streaming service (CloudDMSS), which is designed to run on all major cloud computing services. CloudDMSS is highly adapted to the structure and policies of Hadoop, thus it has additional capacities for transcoding, task distribution, load balancing, and content replication and distribution. To satisfy the design requirements of our service architecture, we propose four important algorithms: content replication, system recovery for Hadoop distributed multimedia streaming, management for cloud multimedia management, and streaming resource-based connection (SRC) for streaming job distribution. To evaluate the proposed system, we conducted several different performance tests on a local testbed: transcoding, streaming job distribution using SRC, streaming service deployment and robustness to data node and task failures. In addition, we performed three different tests in an actual cloud computing environment, Cloudit 2.0: transcoding, streaming job distribution using SRC, and streaming service deployment.

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

mobile media service
media transcoding
distributed processing


experiencing a process to create a multimedia game and validating results application in a socio-cultural environment This paper aims to show the experience on adopting a certain process model to guide the task of designing a project with a multidisciplinary team, involving two different institutions - the LIA laboratory and a social community center called SESC, to develop a 'scientific' and 'fun' computer application, to serve the community center's main public that should be a cultural context-sensitive software considering the center's interests (fun and related to a certain theme they have interest in working on with their public) and the academic interests (scientific - collecting statements from users related to their common sense for the OMCS-BR project), showing the software process model based on user centered design, collaborative and iterative, pointing out the achieved results during and at the end of this process of development, when the software was used at the center by that users. It will be presented here the adopted process model, interactive, iterative, User-centered with some 'drops' of participatory design.

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

participatory design
user centered design


Optimal joint rate and power allocation for layered multicast with superposition coding in cellular systems We propose a layered multicast transmission scheme with superposition coding for cellular systems, i.e., at a base station a basic multicast stream (BMS) and an enhanced multicast stream (EMS) are superimposed and transmitted, the same BMS is repeatedly transmitted multiple times to ensure most users in the cell receive basic qualities of the service, while in each transmission different EMSs are transmitted to make the users with good channel conditions receive higher qualities of the service. In this paper, the optimal joint rate and power allocation for the layered multicast scheme is studied. Specifically, we first give a proof on the claim that the system delay of a BMS is minimized if the transmission rate of the BMS is set according to a fixed user selection ratio in each transmission. Then subject to fixed transmit power and power allocation, we derive the optimal transmission rate of a BMS that minimizes the system delay of the BMS, and the optimal transmission rate of an EMS that maximizes the average throughput of the EMS. Finally, by balancing the tradeoff between the system delay of a BMS and the average throughput of an EMS, we find the optimal joint rate and power allocation for the layered multicast scheme. Numerical results show that the optimized layered multicast scheme outperforms the conventional schemes in terms of the system delay of a BMS and the average throughput of an EMS.

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

superposition coding
layered multicast
rate
power allocation
user selection ratio


evaluating the communication performance of mpps using synthetic sparse matrix multiplication workloads Communication has a dominant impact on the performance of massively parallel processors (MPPs). We propose a methodology to evaluate the internode communication performance of MPPs using a controlled set of synthetic workloads. By generating a range of sparse matrices and measuring the performance of a simple parallel algorithm that repeatedly multiplies a sparse matrix by a dense vector, we can determine the relative performance of different communication workloads. Specifiable communication parameters include the number of nodes, the average amount of communication per node, the degree of sharing among the nodes, and the computation-communication ratio. We describe a general procedure for constructing sparse matrices that have these desired communication and computation parameters, and apply a range of these synthetic workloads to evaluate the hierarchical ring interconnection and cache-only memory architecture (COMA) of the Kendall Square Research KSRI MPP. This analysis discusses the impact of the KSRI architecture on communication performance, highlighting the utility and impact of the automatic update feature. It also investigates the impact of system contention on the performance, particularly how it causes potential updates to be ignored.

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

communication
parallel algorithm
analysis
performance
computation
general
sharing
contention
research
methodology
parallel
architecture
sparse matrix
utility
feature
update

measurement evaluation processor hierarchic cache vectorization systems memorialized interconnect relation


Lecture video enhancement and editing by integrating posture, gesture, and text This paper describes a novel framework for automatic lecture video editing by gesture, posture, and video text recognition. In content analysis, the trajectory of hand movement is tracked and the intentional gestures are automatically extracted for recognition. In addition, head pose is estimated through overcoming the difficulties due to the complex lighting conditions in classrooms. The aim of recognition is to characterize the flow of lecturing with a series of regional focuses depicted by human postures and gestures. The regions of interest (ROIs) in videos are semantically structured with text recognition and the aid of external documents. By tracing the flow of lecturing, a finite state machine (FSM) which incorporates the gestures, postures, ROIs, general editing rules and constraints, is proposed to edit videos with novel views. The FSM is designed to generate appropriate simulated camera motion and cutting effects that suit the pace of a presenter's gestures and postures. To remedy the undesirable visual effects due to poor lighting conditions, we also propose approaches to automatically enhance the visibility and readability of slides and whiteboard images in the edited videos.

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

gesture
lecture video editing
posture and video text recognition


tracking anonymous peer-to-peer voip calls on the internet Peer-to-peer VoIP calls are becoming increasingly popular due to their advantages in cost and convenience. When these calls are encrypted from end to end and anonymized by low latency anonymizing network, they are considered by many people to be both secure and anonymous.In this paper, we present a watermark technique that could be used for effectively identifying and correlating encrypted, peer-to-peer VoIP calls even if they are anonymized by low latency anonymizing networks. This result is in contrast to many people's perception. The key idea is to embed a unique watermark into the encrypted VoIP flow by slightly adjusting the timing of selected packets. Our analysis shows that it only takes several milliseconds time adjustment to make normal VoIP flows highly unique and the embedded watermark could be preserved across the low latency anonymizing network if appropriate redundancy is applied. Our analytical results are backed up by the real-time experiments performed on leading peer-to-peer VoIP client and on a commercially deployed anonymizing network. Our results demonstrate that (1) tracking anonymous peer-to-peer VoIP calls on the Internet is feasible and (2) low latency anonymizing networks are susceptible to timing attacks.

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

network redundancy analysis timing paper latency watermark perception flow demonstrate tracking internet secure voip cost

anonymous communication
encryption
anonymous voip calls
experience
anonymity
normalization
real-time
peer-to-peer
voip tracing
attack
embedding


wireless sensor network aided search and rescue in trails In recent years, wireless sensor networks have been used in applications of data gathering and target localization across large geographical areas. In this paper, we study the issues involved in applying wireless sensor networks to search and rescue of lost hikers in trails and focus on the optimal placement of sensors and access points such that the cost of search and rescue is minimized. Particularly, we address two problems: a) how to identify the lost hiker position as accurately as possible, i.e., obtain a small trail segments containing the lost hiker; and (b) how to search efficiently in trail segments for different trail topologies and search agent capabilities. For the optimal access point deployment problem, we propose theoretical models that consider both efficiency and accuracy criteria and present analytical results for simpler trail topologies. For complicated graph topologies, we develop efficient heuristic algorithms with various heuristics. After access point deployment is decided, the actual cost of search in individual trail segment can be computed. We analyze four different types of search and rescue agents, present algorithms to find the optimal search paths for each one of them, and compute their search costs. The algorithms are developed based on solving Chinese Postman problems. Finally, we present extensive experimental results to examine the accuracy of the mathematical models and compare the performances of different methods. A heuristic method, divide-merge, is shown to outperform all others and finds near-optimal solutions.

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

wireless sensor network
search and rescue

graph partitioning
chinese postman problem
mobile agent


The effects of personality traits, self-esteem, loneliness, and narcissism on Facebook use among university students This study examined the relationship between three of the Big Five traits (neuroticism, extraversion, and openness), self-esteem, loneliness and narcissism, and Facebook use. Participants were 393 first year undergraduate psychology students from a medium-sized Australian university who completed an online questionnaire. Negative binomial regression models showed that students with higher openness levels reported spending more time on Facebook and having more friends on Facebook. Interestingly, students with higher levels of loneliness reported having more Facebook friends. Extraversion, neuroticism, self-esteem and narcissism did not have significant associations with Facebook use. It was concluded that students who are high in openness use Facebook to connect with others in order to discuss a wide range of interests, whereas students who are high in loneliness use the site to compensate for their lack of offline relationships.

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


Brain Response to Injury and Neurodegeneration Abstract: Synaptic activity and ischemia/injury promote lipid messenger formation through phospholipase-mediated cleavage of specific phospholipids from membrane reservoirs. Lipid messengers modulate signaling cascades, contributing to development, differentiation, function (e.g., memory), protection, regeneration, and repair of neurons and overall regulation of neuronal, glial, and endothelial cell functional integrity. Oxidative stress disrupts lipid signaling and promotes lipid peroxidation and neurodegeneration. Lipid signaling at the neurovascular unit (neurons, astrocytes, oligodendrocytes, microglia, and cells of the microvasculature) is altered in early cerebrovascular and neurodegenerative disease. We discuss how lipid signaling regulates critical events in neuronal survival. Aberrant synaptic plasticity (e.g., epileptogenesis) is highlighted to show how gene expression may drive synaptic circuitry formation in the wrong direction. Docosahexaenoic acid has been implicated in memory, photoreceptor cell biogenesis and function, and neuroprotection. Free docosahexaenoic acid released in the brain during experimental stroke leads to the synthesis of stereospecific messengers through oxygenation pathways. One messenger, 10,17S-docosatriene (neuroprotectin D1; NPD1), counteracts leukocyte infiltration and proinflammatory gene expression in brain ischemia-reperfusion. In retina, photoreceptor survival depends on retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cell integrity. NPD1 is synthesized in RPE cells undergoing oxidative stress, potently counteracts oxidative stress-triggered apoptotic DNA damage in RPE, upregulates antiapoptotic proteins Bcl-2 and Bcl-xL, and decreases proapoptotic Bax and Bad expression. These findings expand our understanding of how the nervous system counteracts redox disturbances, mitochondrial dysfunction, and proinflammatory conditions. The specificity and potency of NPD1 indicate a potential target for therapeutic intervention for stroke, age-related macular degeneration, spinal cord injury, and other neuroinflammatory or neurodegenerative diseases.

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

docosahexaenoic acid
neuroprotectin d1
oxidative stress


aesthetic measures for automated document layout A measure of aesthetics that has been used in automated layout is described. The approach combines heuristic measures of attributes that degrade the aesthetic quality. The combination is nonlinear so that one bad aesthetic feature can harm the overall score. Example heuristic measures are described for the features of alignment regularity separation balance white-space fraction white-space free flow proportion uniformity and page security.

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


Feedback-Based Closed-Loop Carrier Synchronization: A Sharp Asymptotic Bound, an Asymptotically Optimal Approach, Simulations, and Experiments We derive an asymptotically sharp bound on the synchronization speed of a randomized black box optimization technique for closed-loop feedback-based distributed adaptive beamforming in wireless sensor networks. We also show that the feedback function that guides this synchronization process is strong multimodal. Given this knowledge that no local optimum exists, we consider an approach to locally compute the phase offset of each individual carrier signal. With this design objective, an asymptotically optimal algorithm is derived. Additionally, we discuss the concept to reduce the optimization time and energy consumption by hierarchically clustering the network into subsets of nodes that achieve beamforming successively over all clusters. For the approaches discussed, we demonstrate their practical feasibility in simulations and experiments.

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

analysis of algorithms
wireless communication


The capacitated multiple allocation hub location problem: Formulations and algorithms In this paper we consider and present formulations and solution approaches for the capacitated multiple allocation hub location problem. We present a new mixed integer linear programming formulation for the problem. We also construct an efficient heuristic algorithm, using shortest paths. We incorporate the upper bound obtained from this heuristic in a linear-programming-based branch-and-bound solution procedure. We present the results of extensive computational experience with both the heuristic and the exact methods.

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 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


Single-machine scheduling problems with actual time-dependent and job-dependent learning effect In this study, we introduce an actual time-dependent and job-dependent learning effect into single-machine scheduling problems. We show that the complexity results of the makespan minimization problem and the sum of weighted completion time minimization problem are all NP-hard. The complexity result of the maximum lateness minimization problem is NP-hard in the strong sense. We also provide three special cases which can be solved by polynomial time algorithms.

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

actual time-dependent
job-dependent
np-hard


Design and development of a chemistry subject portal at Panjab University Library, India Purpose - This paper aims to give a brief description of some chemistry portals available worldwide, folowed by a description of the chemistry portal developed for Panjab University Library, Chandigarh (India). Design/methodology/approach - A well-structured chemistry portal was designed for chemistry and its allied departments at Panjab University based on studies of other chemistry portals worldwide. Findings - All the students, research scholars and faculty members of chemistry and allied subjects are deriving benefit from the use of this portal. Research limitations/implications - The paper provides information about chemistry portals available worldwide. However, only selected portals are presented. Moreover, the information sources included in the chemistry portal may also not be exhaustive. Practical implications - The paper would be of help to librarians who plan to develop such portals for other subjects. Originality/value - The success of the portal has led to a demand from other departments in the university for developing subject portals in their subject areas.

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

information media
information management
university libraries


Bio-sensor system discriminating between the biliary and pancreatic ductal systems Sphincter of Oddi manometry is the gold standard to evaluate the ductal anatomy of patients with suspected sphincter of Oddi dysfunction. During such procedure it can be unclear which duct is being investigated without radiographs. Bilirubin and other pigments in bile strongly absorb blue light, whereas pancreatic fluid is clear and does not absorb blue light. The bio-sensor system incorporates fibre-optic technology to measure blue light absorbance in the ducts. Bench tests and animal tests were conducted utilising possums. In bench and animal experiments the bio-sensor correctly discriminated between bile and pancreatic juice, based on the absorbance of blue light. The mean absorbance of the bile was 3.571.74 and that of the pancreatic duct fluid was 0.530.34 (P<0.01) in the animal models. The optical sensing system could be incorporated into a manometry catheter to aid sphincter of Oddi manometry shortening procedure time and reduce radiography exposure.

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

bio-sensor spectrometry instrumentation pancreas


On the role of visual references in collaborative visualization Multi-Viewer Display Environments (MVDE) provide unique opportunities to present personalized information to several users concurrently in the same physical display space. MVDEs can support correct 3D visualizations to multiple users, present correctly oriented text and symbols to all viewers and allow individually chosen subsets of information in a shared context. MVDEs aim at supporting collaborative visual analysis, and when used to visualize disjoint information in partitioned visualizations they even necessitate collaboration. When solving visual tasks collaboratively in a MVDE, overall performance is affected not only by the inherent effects of the graphical presentation but also by the interaction between the collaborating users. We present results from an empirical study where we compared views with lack of shared visual references in disjoint sets of information to views with mutually shared information. Potential benefits of 2D and 3D visualizations in a collaborative task were investigated and the effects of partitioning visualizations both in terms of task performance, interaction behavior and clutter reduction. In our study of a collaborative task that required only a minimum of information to be shared, we found that partitioned views with a lack of shared visual references were significantly less efficient than integrated views. However, the study showed that subjects were equally capable of solving the task at low error levels in partitioned and integrated views. An explorative analysis revealed that the amount of visual clutter was reduced heavily in partitioned visualization, whereas verbal and deictic communication between subjects increased. It also showed that the type of the visualization (2D/3D) affects interaction behavior strongly. An interesting result is that collaboration on complex geo-time visualizations is actually as efficient in 2D as in 3D. Information Visualization (2010) 9, 98-114. doi:10.1057/ivs.2009.2; published online 14 May 2009

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

dynamic perspective view
multi-viewer display
3d visualization
space-time cube


Information Retrieval and Categorisation using a Cell Assembly Network Simulated networks of spiking leaky integrators are used to categorise and for Information Retrieval (IR). Neurons in the network are sparsely connected, learn using Hebbian learning rules, and are simulated in discrete time steps. Our earlier work has used these models to simulate human concept formation and usage, but we were interested in the models applicability to real world problems, so we have done experiments on categorisation and IR. The results of the system show that congresspeople are correctly categorised 89% of the time. The IR systems have 40% average precision on the Time collection, and 28% on the Cranfield 1,400. All scores are comparable to the state of the art results on these tasks.

B I O B O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 retrieval
categorisation
cell assembly
hebbian learning


financial management of software projects Gone are the days when software projects where planned, approved and controlled without a clear financial plan. Nowadays managers and investors everywhere want software engineers to go beyond the technicalities of their projects. In order to adapt to this scenario, it is important for software engineers to understand and be prepared to deal with the financial aspects of software projects. In order to adapt to this scenario the professional needs project management skills that make it possible for her/him to present a sound business case.In this workshop we introduce techniques that have been applied to plan, valuate and control real world projects. The workshop offers a quick introduction to terms and concepts of financial engineering and presents techniques for demonstrating the financial value of software development projects.

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

project management
software projects
financial value


Frequency response of distributed fiber-optic vibration sensor based on nonbalanced Mach-Zehnder interferometer We set up the analytical model for the frequency response of a distributed fiber-optic vibration sensor based on the nonbalanced Mach-Zehnder interferometer, the frequency response of which is related to both of the length difference of the delay fibers and the location of the vibration. In addition, a series of null frequencies, in which the vibration cannot be detected, is also found. The distributed fiber-optic vibration sensor with the delay fiber of 25km and the sensing fiber of 10km is built experimentally. Two null frequencies of 8013Hz and 5011Hz, which are induced from the delay fibers and the location of vibration respectively, are obtained. The results can serve as an important guidance for designing the sensor.

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

distributed fiber optic sensor
null frequency


Analysis of end user security behaviors Many information security specialists believe that promoting good end user behaviors and constraining bad end user behaviors provide one important method for making information security effective within organizations. Because of the important of end user security-related behaviors, having a systematic viewpoint on the different kinds of behavior that end users enact could provide helpful benefits for managers, auditors, information technologists, and others with an interest in assessing and/or influencing end user behavior. In the present article, we describe our efforts to work with subject matter experts to develop a taxonomy of end user security-related behaviors, test the consistency of that taxonomy, and use behaviors from that taxonomy to conduct a U.S. survey of an important set of end user behaviors. We interviewed 110 individuals who possessed knowledge of end user security-related behaviors, conducted a behavior rating exercise with 49 information technology subject matter experts, and ran a U.S. survey of 1167 end users to obtain self-reports of their password-retated behaviors. Results suggested that six categories of end user security-related behaviors appeared to fit well on a two-dimensional map where one dimension captured the level of technical knowledge needed to enact the behavior and another dimension captured the intentionality of the behavior (including malicious, neutral, and benevolent intentions). Our U.S. survey of non-malicious, tow technical knowledge behaviors related to password creation and sharing showed that password "hygiene" was generally poor but varied substantially across different organization types (e.g., military organizations versus telecommunications companies). Further, we documented evidence that good password hygiene was related to training, awareness, monitoring, and motivation. (c) 2004 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 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

computer security
behavioral information security
passwords
organizational management
surveys


Noise-tolerant speech recognition: the SNN-TA approach Neural network learning theory draws a relationship between learning with noise and applying a regularization term in the cost function that is minimized during the training process on clean (non-noisy) data. Application of regularizers and other robust training techniques are aimed at improving the generalization capabilities of connectionist models, reducing overfitting. In spite of that, the generalization problem is usually overlooked by automatic speech recognition (ASR) practioners who use hidden Markov models (HMM) or other standard ASR paradigms. Nonetheless, it is reasonable to expect that an adequate neural network model (due to its universal approximation property and generalization capability) along with a suitable regularizer can exhibit good recognition performance whenever noise is added to the test data, although training is accomplished on clean data. This paper presents applications of a variant of the so called segmental neural network (SNN), introduced at BBN by Zavaliagkos et al. for rescoring the N-best hypothesis yielded by a standard continuous density HMM (CDHMM). An enhanced connectionist model, called SNN with trainable amplitude of activation functions (SNN-TA) is first used in this paper instead of the CDHMM to perform the recognition of isolated words. Viterbi-based segmentation is then introduced, relying on the level-building algorithm, that can be combined with the SNN-TA to obtain a hybrid framework for continuous speech recognition. The proposed paradigm is applied to the recognition of isolated and connected Italian digits under several noisy conditions, outperforming the CDHMMs.

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

snn with trainable amplitude
speech recognition


Chronic disease modeling and simulation software Computers allow describing the progress of a disease using computerized models. These models allow aggregating expert and clinical information to allow researchers and decision makers to forecast disease progression. To make this forecast reliable, good models and therefore good modeling tools are required. This paper will describe a new computer tool designed for chronic disease modeling. The modeling capabilities of this tool were used to model the Michigan model for diabetes. The modeling approach and its advantages such as simplicity, availability, and transparency are discussed.

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


a multiple case study investigating the interaction between manufacturing and development organizations in automotive software engineering As most future automotive innovations will be realized with software, the automotive industry is facing a transition from mechanical to software engineering. To achieve successful product launches, this is also true for manufacturing engineering. This paper presents an empirical study of the interaction between the organizations for product development and manufacturing, specifically focusing on automotive software engineering. It is presented as a multiple case study with a qualitative approach where data were collected from documents and in interviews with practioners at two Swedish automotive companies. To obtain validity of the results, multiple information sources were triangulated in within-case analysis and cross-case analysis. It can be concluded that there are challenges in the research area since 18 issues emerged from the data. Furthermore, a majority of the findings were supported by data sources from both cases, which indicates a possibility to generalize the results to the automotive domain.

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

manufacturing engineering
multiple case study
automotive


Distributed call admission control for a heterogeneous PCS network Personal communication service (PCS) networks offer mobile users multimedia applications with different quality-of-service (QoS) and bandwidth requirements. This paper proposes a distributed call admission algorithm to provide QoS guarantees for multimedia traffic carried in a heterogeneous PCS network, where the parameters (e.g., number of channels, new and hand-off call arrival rates) of cells can be varied. The algorithm is based on the moveable boundary scheme that dynamically adjusts the number of channels for different types of traffic. With the moveable boundary scheme, the bandwidth can be utilized efficiently while satisfying the QoS requirements for different types of traffic. In addition, by taking the effect of hand-off traffic into account, we develop an analytical model for the network using the proposed algorithm. Using our model, the impact of hot-spot traffic caused by hand-offs can be effectively analyzed. The analytical model is validated by simulation.

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

personal communication service
call admission control

quality-of -service
movable-boundary
hand-off