HOW SPREADSHEET APPLICATIONS AFFECT INFORMATION QUALITY Spreadsheet applications, and in particular Microsoft Excel, are now ubiquitous. Even though, many large organisations heavily rely on them for data analysis, management reporting, and decision making, limited research regarding their potential impacts on organisational information quality has been published. This paper aims to bridge that gap in the literature by identifying key factors - inherent to spreadsheet applications as well as related to their use - which may have significant negative effects on information quality in organisations. The findings presented in this paper have been identified as a part of a broader ethnographic study on information quality, which was conducted in a large telecommunications company over a period of six months. This paper shows that the diffusion of spreadsheet applications is driven by reporting limitations inherent in existing transactional and Business Intelligence (BI) systems. However, while the use of spreadsheets may often be justified from the operational perspective, it frequently leads to significant negative effects on the quality of relevant information.

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

data quality
spreadsheet application
ethnography


relationships and associations in object-oriented languages There is a disconnect between modelling and implementation: relationships are prevalent in system models but implementation languages do not provide first-class support for them. For example, in Java (and other Object-Oriented Languages), relationships must be implemented by hand using references embedded in participants. This approach is cumbersome and error-prone, and leads to a disconnect between the system model and the system implementation. As software systems grow and models become increasingly complex this disconnect causes problems not only for implementers but especially for code maintainers. To address this issue, the software community is using frameworks and tool support to manage the disconnect. However, this does not address the core issue of relating design and implementation. Recent proposals for programming language extensions to add first-class relationships demonstrate another approach to the same problem: an increased level of abstraction in programming languages to close the gap between model and implementation. We plan to gather the growing number of researchers in the object-oriented programming language community who are working on relationship-based systems to share their research and discuss the future of relationship-based constructs in programming languages.

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


Efficient scatter-based kernel superposition on GPU We investigate the performance of a 2D Gaussian variable kernel convolution on GPU. We produce several implementations, both conventional, gather-based, and new, scatter-based. The performance of the implementations is evaluated on several GPUs of different architecture. The scatter-based approach achieves considerably better performance for all GPUs and kernel sizes. The results should extend to any similar kernel and to problems of higher dimensionality.

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

kernel superposition
variable kernel convolution
gpu

spatially varying
point spread function
scatter


COPLINK Connect: information and knowledge management for law enforcement Information and knowledge management in a knowledge-intensive and time-critical environment presents a challenge to information technology professionals. In law enforcement, multiple data sources are used, each having different user interfaces. COPLINK Connect addresses these problems by providing one easy-to-use interface that integrates different data sources such as incident records, mug shots and gang information, and allows diverse police departments to share data easily. User evaluations of the application allowed us to study the impact of COPLINK on law-enforcement personnel as well as to identify requirements for improving the system. COPLINK Connect is currently being deployed at Tucson Police Department (TPD).

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

artificial intelligence
information sharing


THE SIGN-RANK OF AC(0) The sign-rank of a matrix A = [A(ij)] with +/-1 entries is the least rank of a real matrix B = [B-ij] with A(ij)B(ij) > 0 for all i, j. We obtain the first exponential lower bound on the sign-rank of a function in AC(0). Namely, let f(x, y) = Lambda(i=1,) (...,m) V-j=1,V- (...,m2) (x(ij) Lambda y(ij)). We show that the matrix [f(x, y)] x, y has sign-rank exp(Omega(m)). This in particular implies that Sigma(cc)(2) not subset of UPPcc, which solves a longstanding open problem in communication complexity posed by Babai, Frankl, and Simon [Proceedings of the 27th Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science (FOCS), 1986, pp. 337-347]. Our result additionally implies a lower bound in learning theory. Specifically, let phi(1), ..., phi(r) : {0, 1}(n) --> R be functions such that every DNF formula f : {0, 1}(n) --> {-1, +1} of polynomial size has the representation f equivalent to sgn(a(1)phi(1) + ... + a(r)phi(r)) for some reals a(1), ..., a(r). We prove that then r >= exp(Omega(n(1/3))), which essentially matches an upper bound of exp((O) over tilde (n(1/3))), due to Klivans and Servedio [J. Comput. System Sci., 68 (2004), pp. 303-318]. Finally, our work yields the first exponential lower bound on the size of threshold-of-majority circuits computing a function in AC(0). This substantially generalizes and strengthens the results of Krause and Pudlak [Theoret. Comput. Sci., 174 (1997), pp. 137-156].

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

complexity classes sigma(cc)(2), pi(cc)(2) and uppcc


Theoretical characterization and design of highly efficient iridium (III) complexes bearing guanidinate ancillary ligand One synthesized and two designed guanidinate-based iridium (III) complexes are investigated. Phosphorescence quantum efficiency is evaluated with the aid of kr and knr values. Different cyclometalated ligands can greatly affect the photophysical properties of complexes. Changing the pyridine ring with diazole groups can significantly enhance the SOC effects. The designed complex 3 is expected to be a promising candidate for highly efficient guanidinate-based phosphorescence emitter.

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


Policy-based mobility in heterogeneous networks The importance of mobility in networks is being increased together with the number of mobile users and applications. However, we still do not have broadly accepted solutions for mobility in Internet or other type of networks. In particular, mobility is difficult in heterogeneous networks, where heterogeneity could expand over ownership, administration, technology, and so on. We propose policy-based approach as the best and more realistic way to support mobility for heterogeneous networks. Policies express the interests of corresponding domains. Therefore, the accordance among various policies will enable inter domain mobility that satisfies all involved parts in networking. We extend our Architecture for Heterogeneous Multi Domain networks with policy-based support for mobility. We show that by applying a policy-based approach, mobility is supported as trade-off among different aspects, depending on the respective administrations goals. We illustrate such capability by showing how trade-offs among security and network performance can be designed and obtained.

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

trade-off between security and performance


CrossOverlayDesktop: Dynamic Overlay of Desktop Graphics between Co-located Computers for Multi-User Interaction This paper presents an intuitive interaction technique for data exchange between multiple co-located devices. In the proposed system, CrossOverlayDesktop, desktop graphics of the devices are graphically overlaid with each other (i.e., alpha-blended). Users can exchange file data by the usual drag-and-drop manipulation through an overlaid area. The overlaid area is determined by the physical six degrees of freedom (6-DOF) correlation of the devices and thus changes according to users direct movements of the devices. Because familiar operations such is drag-and-drop can be applied to file exchange between multiple devices, seamless, consistent, and thus intuitive multi-user collaboration is realized. Furthermore, dynamic overlay of desktop graphics allows users to intuitively establish communication, identify connected devices, and perform access control. For access control of the data. users can protect their own data by simply dragging them out of the overlaid area, because only the overlaid area becomes a public space. Several proof-of-concept experiments and evaluations were conducted. Results show the effectiveness of the proposed interaction technique.

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

multiple displays
handheld computer
graphically overlaid desktop
co-located user collaboration


OpenFlow-Based Flow-Level Bandwidth Provisioning for CICQ Switches Flow-level bandwidth provisioning (FBP) achieves fine-grained bandwidth assurance for individual flows. It is especially important for virtualization-based computing environments such as data centers. However, existing flow-level bandwidth provisioning solutions suffer from a number of drawbacks, including high implementation complexity, poor performance guarantees, and inefficiency to process variable length packets. In this paper, we study flow-level bandwidth provisioning for Combined Input Crosspoint Queued (CICQ) switches in the OpenFlow context. First, we propose the Flow-level Bandwidth Provisioning algorithm for CICQ switches, which reduces the switch scheduling problem to multiple instances of fair queuing problems, each utilizing a well-studied fair queuing algorithm. We theoretically prove that FBP can closely emulate the ideal Generalized Processing Sharing model, and accurately guarantee the provisioned bandwidth. Furthermore, we implement FBP in the OpenFlow software switch to obtain realistic performance data by a prototype. Leveraging the capability of OpenFlow to define and manipulate flows, we experimentally demonstrate a practical flow-level bandwidth provisioning solution. Finally, we conduct extensive simulations and experiments to evaluate the design. The simulation data verify the correctness of the analytical results, and show that FBP achieves tight performance guarantees. The experiment results demonstrate that our OpenFlow-based prototype can conveniently and accurately provision bandwidth at the flow level.

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

openflow
cicq switches
bandwidth provisioning


Automated Segmentation of the Melanocytes in Skin Histopathological Images In the diagnosis of skin melanoma by analyzing histopathological images, the detection of the melanocytes in the epidermis area is an important step. However, the detection of melanocytes in the epidermis area is difficult because other keratinocytes that are very similar to the melanocytes are also present. This paper proposes a novel computer-aided technique for segmentation of the melanocytes in the skin histopathological images. In order to reduce the local intensity variant, a mean-shift algorithm is applied for the initial segmentation of the image. A local region recursive segmentation algorithm is then proposed to filter out the candidate nuclei regions based on the domain prior knowledge. To distinguish the melanocytes from other keratinocytes in the epidermis area, a novel descriptor, named local double ellipse descriptor (LDED), is proposed to measure the local features of the candidate regions. The LDED uses two parameters: region ellipticity and local pattern characteristics to distinguish the melanocytes from the candidate nuclei regions. Experimental results on 28 different histopathological images of skin tissue with different zooming factors show that the proposed technique provides a superior performance.

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

histopathological image analysis
image segmentation
local descriptor
object detection
pattern recognition


Objective Bayesian analysis for bivariate Marshall-Olkin exponential distribution The Bayesian estimators for the unknown parameters of the bivariate Marshall-Olkin exponential distribution under noninformative priors have been considered and several reference priors have been derived. A class of priors is found by matching the coverage probability of one-side Bayesian credible intervals with the corresponding frequentist coverage probabilities. It is noted that some of the reference priors are also matching priors and the posterior distributions based on the reference priors and matching priors are proper. Closed forms of Bayesian estimators are obtained with respect to the quadratic loss function. Gibbs sampling is utilized to obtain the credible intervals and coverage probabilities of parameters. Comparisons in the efficiency of the maximum likelihood estimators and Bayesian estimators under different reference priors and matching priors for various sample sizes have been done by Monte Carlo simulations. A real data set is analyzed for illustrative purpose. (c) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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 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

objective bayesian analysis
gibbs sampling

marshall-olkin exponential distribution
reference prior
matching prior


Molecular modeling benzo[a]pyrene N2-dG adducts in the two overlapping active sites of the Y-family DNA polymerase Dpo4 The potent, ubiquitous environmental mutagen/carcinogen benzo[a]pyrene (B[a]P) induces a single major adduct [+ta]-B[a]P-N2-dG, whose bypass in most cases results in either no mutation (dCTP insertion) or a G?T mutation (dATP insertion). Translesion synthesis (TLS) of [+ta]-B[a]P-N2-dG generally requires DNA polymerases (DNAPs) in the Y-family, which exist in cells to bypass DNA damage caused by chemicals and radiation. A molecular dynamics (MD) study is described with dCTP opposite [+ta]-B[a]P-N2-dG in Dpo4, which is the best studied Y-family DNAP from a structural point of view. Two orientations of B[a]P-N2-dG (BPmi5 and BPmi3) are considered, along with two orientations of the dCTP (AS1 and AS2), as outlined next. Based on NMR studies, the pyrene moiety of B[a]P-N2-dG is in the minor groove, when paired with dC, and can point toward either the base on the 5?-side (BPmi5) or the 3?-side (BPmi3). Based on published X-ray structures, Dpo4 appears to have two partially overlapping active sites. The architecture of active site 1 (AS1) is similar to all other families of DNAPs (e.g., the shape of the dNTP). Active site 2 (AS2), however, is non-canonical (e.g., the ?- and ?-phosphates in AS2 are approximately where the ?- and ?-phosphates are in AS1). In the Dpo4 models generated herein, using the BPmi3 orientation the pyrene moiety of [+ta]-B[a]P-N2-dG points toward the duplex region of the DNA, and is accommodated without distortions in AS1, but with distortions in AS2. Considering the BPmi5 orientation, the pyrene moiety points toward the ss-region of DNA in Dpo4, and sits in a hole defined by the fingers and little fingers domain (chimney); BPmi5 is accommodated in AS2 without significant distortions, but poorly in AS1. In summary, when dCTP is paired with [+ta]-B[a]P-N2-dG in the two overlapping active sites in Dpo4, the pyrene in the BPmi3 orientation is accommodated better in active site 1 (AS1), while the pyrene in the BPmi5 orientation is accommodated better in AS2. Finally, we discuss why Y-family DNAPs might have two catalytic active sites.

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

[+ta]-b[a]p-n2-dg the major adduct of (+)-anti-b[a]pde

formed by trans addition of n2-dg to (+)-anti-b[a]pde

[?ta]-b[a]p-n2-dg the major adduct formed by trans addition of n2-dg to (?)-anti-b[a]pde pah

tls translesion synthesis: the insertion of a base opposite a dna adduct


Screw-based computer graphics This paper provides expressions for the line and certain key points of the image of a kinematic screw as it is seen drawn in perspective on a computer display screen. Rather than apply computer-graphic projections to arbitrarily chosen points of the screw, the expressions employ screw-theoretic measures which are obtained directly from the screw. Computational procedures for evaluating these measures are likely to exist amongst software tools used for other kinematic analysis.

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

screw-theoretic
computational kinematics
computer-aided geometrical design
plucker and study coordinates
eye frames and view planes


anrts platforms HIJA is an undertaking to create the technology conditions that will allow architecture neutrality for real-time systems (ANRTS). This paper makes the point that technology features are needed at both the execution level (platform) and the software engineering level (process). In order to cope with the wide range of real-time and embedded systems, 3 run-time profiles based on RTSJ are identified, the hard real-time Java profile , the soft real-time Java profile and the flexible real-time Java profile . These profiles also provide support for distributed applications based on both synchronous and asynchronous communication methods. In order to ensure that executing applications are functionally correct and satisfy resource constraints, a required tool set is described, including analysis tools for schedule-ability or functional correctness verification. Finally, results from a proof-of-concept implementation of ANRTS platforms and tool set, and their use for three different applications (avionics, automotive telematics, ambient system) are reported, confirming the feasibility of the ANRTS approach.

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

real-time java
distributed systems
soft real-time
hard real-time
functional verification
architecture neutral platform
business-critical application
mission-critical application
resource schedule-ability
safety-critical application


HER-2-Targeted Antisense Oligonucleotide Results in Sensitization of Head and Neck Cancer Cells to Chemotherapeutic Agents Existing HER-2 targeted therapies for human head and neck cancers, usually administered in combination with chemotherapeutic drugs or irradiation, include monoclonal antibodies to HER-2, receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitors and HER-2 specific immunotoxins. Instead of targeting the existing protein, interference with HER-2 mRNA translation by antisense oligonucleotides may be a more efficient method to downregulate levels of HER-2 protein for combination therapy. To test this hypothesis we have used a phosphorothioate pentadecamer, complementary to the HER-2 mRNA initiation codon region (AS HER-2 ODN), to increase sensitivity to four chemotherapeutic agents in human head and neck cancer cell lines, all of which express low levels of the HER-2 protein. To improve delivery into tumor cells, the AS HER-2 ODN was complexed with our previously established folate-liposome delivery system. Cell survival assays and Western blot analysis data demonstrated that folate-liposome mediated AS HER-2 oligonucleotide treatment inhibited cell growth and HER-2 expression, and induced apoptosis in SCC-25CP cells. Moreover, there was a synergistic effect on the percent of apoptotic cells. Additionally, the combination of folate-liposome-AS HER-2 ODN and CDDP had a synergistic effect on the induction of apoptosis. Using confocal microscopy, FITC labeled ODN (FITC-ODN) in complex with folate-liganded, rhodamine (Rh) labeled, cationic liposomes was observed to enter SCC-25CP head and neck tumor cells within 3 to 6 h. Intracellularly, the FITC-ODN separated from the Rh-folate-liposomes, and FITC-ODN accumulated in the nucleus while Rh-liposomes remained in punctate cytoplasmic structures. Thus, folate-liposome-mediated delivery of AS HER-2 ODN has potential as a new means of increasing the responsiveness of head and neck cancer to conventional chemotherapy.

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

head and neck cancer cell lines
antisense oligonucleotides
apoptosis

her-2
ligand liposome delivery
chemosensitization


WATERMARKING ON COMPRESSED DATA INTEGRATING CONVOLUTION CODING IN INTEGER WAVELETS This paper explores the scope of integer wavelets in watermarking on compressed image with the aid of convolution coding as channel coding. Convolution coding is applied on compressed host data, instead of its direct application on watermark signal as used widely for robustness improvement in conventional system. Two-fold advantages, namely flexibility in watermarking through the creation of redundancy on the compressed data as well as protection of watermark information from additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) attack are achieved. Integer wavelet is used to decompose the encoded compressed data that leads to lossless processing and creation of correlation among the host samples due to its mathematical structure. Watermark information is then embedded using dither modulation (DM)-based quantization index modulation (QIM). The relative gain in imperceptibility and robustness performance are reported for direct watermark embedding on entropy decoded host, using repetition code, convolution code, and finally the combined use of channel codes and integer wavelets. Simulation results show that 6.24 dB (9.50 dB) improvement in document-to-watermark ratio (DWR) at watermark power 12.73 dB (16.81 dB) and 15 dB gain in noise power for watermark decoding at bit error rate (BER) of 10(-2) are achieved, respectively over direct watermarking on entropy decoded data.

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

compressed data
convolution coding
integer wavelets


Gross Elevation of TT Virus Genome Load in the Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells of Cancer Patients TT virus (TTV) is a recently described circular DNA virus of about 3.8 kb, which is related to the circoviridae viruses. It is commonly detected in healthy subjects and no association with any specific disease has been established. TTV was initially thought to be hepatotropic, but subsequent reports have shown that it is detectable in other tissues, including kidney, prostate, mammary gland, brain, bone marrow, and peripheral blood mononuclear cells. Plasma samples from cancer patients and healthy subjects were tested for the presence or absence of TTV by heminested polymerase chain reaction (PCR). We also developed a quantitative competitive PCR (QC-PCR) assay for TTV that permits accurate measurement of TTV DNA load. Using this assay, the TTV genome load in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) of healthy control subjects (n= 50) and patients with various types of cancer (n= 148), including breast cancer, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, colon cancer, hepatocellular carcinoma, nasopharyngeal carcinoma, and other cancers, was measured. TTV DNA was detected in 69 of 100 plasma samples (69%) of cancer patients tested and in 39 of 100 plasma samples (39%) randomly selected from 1000 plasma samples of blood donors (p 250 copies per 100,000 PBMCs, 93.2% of cancer patients were positive compared to only 4% of healthy control subjects. Almost all the cancer patients have TTV infection and their TTV genome load in PBMCs is significantly higher than that in control subjects. It remains to be elucidated whether such findings are specific to cancer patients or occur in all seriously ill subjects.

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

tt virus
hepatocellular carcinoma
polymerase chain reaction
genome load
peripheral blood mononuclear cells

quantitative competitive polymerase chain reaction


Thin crack observation in a reinforced concrete bridge pier test using image processing and analysis An image analysis method for crack observation in a concrete pier is proposed. This method manifests concrete cracks before there became visible to the naked eyes. We present the procedures, flowchart, and software implementation of this method.

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

thin crack
crack observation
image analysis
reinforced concrete

structural experiments
surface strain measurement


On Time-Optimal Trajectories in Non-Uniform Mediums This paper addresses the problem of finding time-optimal trajectories in two-dimensional space, where the movers speed monotonically decreases or increases in one of the spaces coordinates. We address such problems in different settings for the velocity function and in the presence of obstacles. First, we consider the problem without any obstacles. We show that the problem with linear speed decrease is reducible to the de lHpitals problem, and that, for this case, the time-optimal trajectory is a circular segment. Next, we show that the problem with linear speed decreases and rectilinear obstacles can be solved in polynomial time by a dynamic program. Finally, we consider the case without obstacles, where the medium is non-uniform and the movers velocity is a piecewise linear function. We reduce this problem to that of solving a system of polynomial equations of fixed degree, for which algebraic elimination theory allows us to solve the problem to optimality.

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

49-xx calculus of variations and optimal control

49k30 optimal solutions belonging to restricted classes


WESTT (workload, error, situational awareness, time and teamwork): an analytical prototyping system for command and control Modern developments in the use of information technology within command and control allow unprecedented scope for flexibility in the way teams deal with tasks. These developments, together with the increased recognition of the importance of knowledge management within teams present difficulties for the analyst in terms of evaluating the impacts of changes to task composition or team membership. In this paper an approach to this problem is presented that represents team behaviour in terms of three linked networks (representing task, social network structure and knowledge) within the integrative WESTT software tool. In addition, by automating analyses of workload and error based on the same data that generate the networks, WESTT allows the user to engage in the process of rapid and iterative analytical prototyping. For purposes of illustration an example of the use of this technique with regard to a simple tactical vignette is presented.

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

analytical prototyping
command and control
workload

network enabled capability
social networks
knowledge networks
human error


Large-scale transit itinerary planning under uncertainty A two-phase approach for rapid large-scale transit itinerary planning under uncertainty. Phase I: route-path database pre-computation. Phase II: real-time itinerary optimization under uncertainty. Two approaches for optimization under uncertainty: probabilistic and robust shortest-path. More reliable transit itinerary plans developed within seconds for real-world requests.

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

robust shortest path
probabilistic shortest path
time-dependent network


A novel double RESURF LDMOS and a versatile JFET device used as internal power supply and current detector for SPIC In this paper, a novel double RESURF LDMOS with multiple rings in non-uniform drift region is proposed and successfully fabricated. The proposed device maximizes the benefits of the double RESURF technique by optimizes key process and device geometrical parameters in order to achieve the lowest on-resistance with the desired breakdown voltage. In addition, a versatile JFET device is firstly developed. The JFET device cannot only be used as the current detector, but also be used as the internal power supply for SPIC. Besides, it is compatible with Bipolar-CMOS technology, without any additional processes required.

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

resurf ldmos
spic
current detector
jfet
power supply


British Standard 7666 as a framework for geocoding land and property information the UK This article examines the role of British Standard 7666 in the development of a national framework for geocoding land and property information in the United Kingdom. The author assesses how local authorities, and other agencies concerned with property and address datasets, are coping with the introduction of British Standard 7666, and examines the prospects and limitations of this development. British Standard 7666 has four parts, comprising specifications for street gazetteer; land and property gazetteer; addresses; and public rights of way. The organisation coordinating the introduction of British Standard 7666, Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA), is also overseeing the development and maintenance of a National Land and Property Gazetteer (NLPG) based on British Standard 7666. The introduction of the new addressing standard has mainly been prompted by Britain's effort to set up a national cadastral service to replace the obsolescent property registration system currently in place.

national land and property gazetteer (nlpg)


High Contrast HDR Video Tone Mapping Based on Gamma Curves In this paper we propose a new tone mapping method for HDR video. Two types of gamma tone mapping are blended to preserve local contrast in the entire range of luminance. Our method achieves high quality tone mapping especially for the HDR video that has a nonlinear response to scene radiance. Additionally, we apply it to an object-aware tone mapping method for camera surveillance. This method achieves high visibility of target objects in the tone mapped HDR video. We examine the validity of our methods through simulation and comparison with conventional work.

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


Portfolio selection based on upper and lower exponential possibility distributions In this paper, two kinds of possibility distributions, namely, upper and lower possibility distributions are identified to reflect experts' knowledge in portfolio selection problems. Portfolio selection models based on these two kinds of distributions are formulated by quadratic programming problems. It can be said that a portfolio return based on the lower possibility distribution has smaller possibility spread than the one on the upper possibility distribution. In addition, a possibility risk can be defined as an interval given by the spreads of the portfolio returns from the upper and the lower possibility distributions to reflect the uncertainty in real investment problems. A numerical example of a portfolio selection problem is given to illustrate our proposed approaches.

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

quadratic programming
possibility distribution

fuzzy set
investment analysis
possibility portfolio


Bundle methods for sum-functions with easy components: applications to multicommodity network design We propose a version of the bundle scheme for convex nondifferentiable optimization suitable for the case of a sum-function where some of the components are easy, that is, they are Lagrangian functions of explicitly known compact convex programs. This corresponds to a stabilized partial DantzigWolfe decomposition, where suitably modified representations of the easy convex subproblems are inserted in the master problem as an alternative to iteratively inner-approximating them by extreme points, thus providing the algorithm with exact information about a part of the dual objective function. The resulting master problems are potentially larger and less well-structured than the standard ones, ruling out the available specialized techniques and requiring the use of general-purpose solvers for their solution; this strongly favors piecewise-linear stabilizing terms, as opposed to the more usual quadratic ones, which in turn may have an adverse effect on the convergence speed of the algorithm, so that the overall performance may depend on appropriate tuning of all these aspects. Yet, very good computational results are obtained in at least one relevant application: the computation of tight lower bounds for Fixed-Charge Multicommodity Min-Cost Flow problems.

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

stabilized partial dantzigwolfe decomposition


Validating differential relationships between risk categories and project performance as perceived by managers Effectively controlling software risk helps ensure project performance. Although the relationship between risk and software project performance has been continuously examined, project managers who have attempted to apply existing knowledge to mitigate risky areas remain confused. This study presents two distinct risk prioritization strategies to assist practitioners in developing risk mitigation plans when considering the performance aspects that a particular project should pursue. On the basis of data from 139 software projects, this study shows that each aspect related to project performance is influenced by at least two types of software project risks: objective risks and resilience risks. In particular, objective risks negatively influence all aspects of project performance. Finally, the study shows that using either a risk-focused prioritization strategy or a performance-actualized prioritization strategy provides a gradual management foundation for controlling risks without worrying about excess or deficient risk management investments.

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

risk management
software project risks
project performance
prioritization strategy


Real-time one-dimensional motion estimation and its application in computer vision Traditional optical flow methods are designed to generate two-dimensional (2D) motion fields. However in some applications, only the motion field along a predefined line is needed, while the rest of the redundant 2D region (Cong et al., CVPR, 2009) can be ignored. In this paper, we propose a general framework for estimating one-dimensional (1D) motion field using the \(L_1\) norm metric, which can be flexible for adding any constraints depending on the specific intention. Compared with 2D methods in model calculation, which often obtain a local optimal solution, our 1D version has the advantage of real-time global optimization and sub-pixel accuracy with a large displacement capacity. The synthesized experiments have justified the effectiveness of our 1D model. Two vision applications are investigated: (i) for crowd counting, we design a novel unified framework for both line of interest and region of interest counting using our 1D motion model to mosaic the dynamic blobs. Such a framework can adapt to new site without scene-specific learning and overcome overfitting. (ii) For visual odometry, we apply our 1D model to estimate the linear velocity of the robot in real time and obtain a comparable result with the benchmark Encoder. Experiments verified that our proposed model can produce satisfactory results in real time.

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

motion estimation
crowd counting
visual odometry

one-dimensional optical flow
dynamic programming


On the dimension of splines spaces over T-meshes with smoothing cofactor-conformality method ? A general formula for the dimension of the spline space over the T-mesh is provided, The diagonalizable T-mesh is introduced, A necessary and sufficient condition to characterize the diagonalizable T-meshes is proved, Some new dimension results for the spline space over T-meshes that do not have a nested structure is provided.

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

t-splines
spline space over t-mesh
smoothing cofactor-conformality


a k-12 college partnership To combat the decline of teaching computing courses in high schools, a plan was created to offer professional development (in both content and pedagogy) to high school computing teachers, and to have college faculty partner with those high school teachers to implement innovative curricula. This paper describes a pilot program that was run in support of an NSF Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) project that funded this plan of action. Professional development activities were offered during summer 2006 and the resulting curriculum was taught in high school the following academic year (2006-2007).

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

programming
object-oriented
program visualization
k-12
alice


Monolithic silicon optocoupler engineering based on tapered waveguides The increased need for further miniaturization of biosensors poses an increased need for the integrated optical fibers to bend, fold or change direction within the biosensor chip. In this work, we explore the effect tapering brings to the coupling efficiency of fibers both theoretically and experimentally. In addition, we also explore and discuss the role of the cladding materials into the efficient stirring of light in conjunction with the tapering geometries used in this study.

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

integrated optics
planar waveguides
tapers
line edge roughness
chemosensors


Accuracy bounds and optimal computation of robot localization We present an optimal method for estimating the current location of a mobile robot by matching an image of the scene taken by the robot with a model of the known environment. We first derive a theoretical accuracy bound and then give a computational scheme that can attain that bound, which can be viewed as describing the probability distribution of the current location. Using real images, we demonstrate that our method is superior to the naive least-squares method. We also confirm the theoretical predictions of our theory by applying the bootstrap procedure.

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

mobile robot
localization
theoretical accuracy bound
bootstrap


Logo detection with extendibility and discrimination Logos are specially designed marks that identify goods, services, and organizations using distinguished characters, graphs, signals, and colors. Identifying logos can facilitate scene understanding, intelligent navigation, and object recognition. Although numerous logo recognition methods have been proposed for printed logos, a few methods have been specifically designed for logos in photos. Furthermore, most recognition methods use codebook-based approaches for the logos in photos. A codebook-based method is concerned with the generation of visual words for all the logo models. When new logos are added, the codebook reconstruction is required if effectiveness is a crucial factor. Moreover, logo detection in natural scenes is difficult because of perspective tilt and non-rigid deformation. Therefore, this study develops an extendable, but discriminating, model-based logo detection method. The proposed logo detection method is based on a support vector machine (SVM) using edge-based histograms of oriented gradient (HOGE) as features through multi-scale sliding window scanning. Thereafter, anti-distortion affine scale invariant feature transform (ASIFT) is used for logo verification with constraints on the ASIFT matching pairs and neighbors. The experimental results using the public Flickr-Logo database confirm that the proposed method has a higher retrieval and precision accuracy compared to existing model-based methods.

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

edge-based histogram of oriented gradient


parallel accelerated isocontouring for out-of-core visualization In this paper we introduce a scheme for static analysis that allows us to partition large geometric datasets at multiple levels of granularity to achieve both load balancing in parallel computations and minimal access to secondary memory in out-of-core computations. The idea is illustrated and fully exploited for the case of isosurface extraction, but extendible to a class of algorithms based on a small set of parameters and for which an appropriate static analysis can be performed.

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

partition
visualization
extraction
parallel
isosurface
load balancing
static analysis
case
access
paper
minimal
class
scheme

parallel algorithms
unstructured grids
t3e
volume rendering
scientific visualization
memorialized
parallel computation
core
algorithm
computational fluid dynamics
parallel rendering


Blogging pragmatics and pedagogy: An adventure in faculty development As university faculty are increasingly called upon to do more with less, particularly to teach more students with fewer resources, technology can provide viable solutions to pedagogical dilemmas. Faculty developers are frequently tasked with introducing faculty to or coaching them in the use of technological solutions. With respect to blogs, the typical show-and-tell approach to technology awareness that our faculty development center uses seemed inadequate, given the complexity of blog design, implementation, and maintenance. Instead, we found the best way to instruct university faculty in the use of blogs is to give them an opportunity to participate in a blogging community as part of a Course in College Teaching (CCT). We experimented with two different approaches in two different sections of our CCT. This paper reports on the current blogging culture in higher education, describes our specific context for utilizing blogs, shares implementation decisions and learning affordances, and forwards a set of lessons learned.

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

weblogs
online pedagogy
educational technology


Approximate inference in Bayesian networks using binary probability trees The present paper introduces a new kind of representation for the potentials in a Bayesian network: binary probability trees. They enable the representation of context-specific independences in more detail than probability trees. This enhanced capability leads to more efficient inference algorithms for some types of Bayesian networks. This paper explains the procedure for building a binary probability tree from a given potential, which is similar to the one employed for building standard probability trees. It also offers a way of pruning a binary tree in order to reduce its size. This allows us to obtain exact or approximate results in inference depending on an input threshold. This paper also provides detailed algorithms for performing the basic operations on potentials (restriction, combination and marginalization) directly to binary trees. Finally, some experiments are described where binary trees are used with the variable elimination algorithm to compare the performance with that obtained for standard probability trees. (C) 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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

variable elimination algorithm
probability trees

bayesian networks inference
approximate computation
deterministic algorithms


Selecting appropriate sellers in online auctions through a multi-attribute reputation calculation method Online auctions have become immensely popular and created massive cash turnover in recent years. The volume of trade on eBay, the largest auction site in the world, reached US$6 billion in 2008. However, for a user intent on purchasing an item from an auction site, selecting an appropriate seller from the numerous choices is not an easy task. Even though most auction sites provide a concise binary reputation management mechanism to model the reputation of a trader through an integer value rating system, such a simple mechanism does not give users enough information about their potential trading partners. It is difficult to infer the right judgment rule correctly from knowledge of summing positive and negative ratings alone. We focus on developing an effective reputation model for online auctions to help users select a suitable seller. To accomplish this, four feature factors strongly related to online auction characteristics are adopted to assess the reputation of a trader. We also propose a multi-attribute reputation management (MARM) support tool to assist users in choosing sellers when using auction sites. In this research, actual transaction data collected from eBay were used to demonstrate the effectiveness of our method. Our results show that MARM is able to select more suitable sellers than other methods. (C) 2010 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.

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

e-business
quality of service
seller selection


Constructing Nearly Orthogonal Latin Hypercubes for Any Nonsaturated Run-Variable Combination We present a new method for constructing nearly orthogonal Latin hypercubes that greatly expands their availability to experimenters. Latin hypercube designs have proven useful for exploring complex, high-dimensional computational models, but can be plagued with unacceptable correlations among input variables. To improve upon their effectiveness, many researchers have developed algorithms that generate orthogonal and nearly orthogonal Latin hypercubes. Unfortunately, these methodologies can have strict limitations on the feasible number of experimental runs and variables. To overcome these restrictions, we develop a mixed integer programming algorithm that generates Latin hypercubes with little or no correlation among their columns for most any determinate run-variable combination-including fully saturated designs. Moreover, many designs can be constructed for a specified number of runs and factors-thereby providing experimenters with a choice of several designs. In addition, our algorithm can be used to quickly adapt to changing experimental conditions by augmenting existing designs by adding new variables or generating new designs to accommodate a change in runs.

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

correlation
latin hypercube
nearly orthogonal
orthogonal
saturated

mixed integer program
multicollinearity
optimization
simulation


Learning identity with radial basis function networks Radial basis function (RBF) networks are compared with other neural network techniques on a face recognition task for applications involving identification of individuals using low-resolution video information. The RBF networks are shown to exhibit useful shift, scale and pose (y-axis head rotation) invariance after training when the input representation is made to mimic the receptive field functions found in early stages of the human vision system. In particular, representations based on difference of Gaussian (DoG) filtering and Gabor wavelet analysis are compared. Extensions of the techniques to the case of image sequence analysis are described and a time delay (TD) RBF network is used for recognising simple movement-based gestures. Finally, we discuss how these techniques can be used in real-life applications that require recognition of faces and gestures using low-resolution video images.

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 B 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

face recognition
invariance
receptive field functions


Efficient large-scale configuration via integer linear programming Configuration of large-scale applications in an engineering context requires a modeling environment that allows the design engineer to draft the configuration problem in a natural way and efficient methods that can process the modeled setting and scale with the number of components. Existing configuration methods in artificial intelligence typically perform quite well in certain subareas but are hard to use for general-purpose modeling without mathematical or logics background (the so-called knowledge acquisition bottleneck) and/or have scalability issues. As a remedy to this important issue both in theory and in practical applications, we use a standard modeling environment like the Unified Modeling Language that has been proposed by the configuration community as a suitable object-oriented formalism for configuration problems. We provide a translation of key concepts of class diagrams to inequalities and identify relevant configuration aspects and show how they are treated as an integer linear program. Solving an integer linear program can be done efficiently, and integer linear programming scales well to large configurations consisting of several thousands components and interactions. We conduct an empirical study in the context of package management for operating systems and for the Linux kernel configuration. We evaluate our methodology by a benchmark and obtain convincing results in support for using integer linear programming for configuration applications of realistic size and complexity.

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

configuration
integer linear programming
package management
unified modeling language


Validation of model-guided placement of external ventricular drains Inaccurate placement of external ventricular drains (EVDs) is a common issue in cerebrospinal diversion procedures. The conventional freehand technique results in a high fraction of sub-optimally placed catheters, and the use of image guidance can improve these results. The purpose of this paper is the validation of the use of an average model for guidance of EVD 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 O O O O O O O O O O

external ventricular drain (evd)
navigation
neurosurgery


Worst case behavior of list algorithms for dynamic scheduling of non-unit execution time tasks with arbitrary precedence constrains Performance properties of list scheduling algorithms under various dynamic assumptions are analyzed. The focus is on bounds for scheduling directed acyclic graphs with arbitrary precedence constrains and arbitrary task processing times subject to minimizing the makespan. New performance bounds are derived and compared with known results.

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


A new approach for selecting portfolio of new product development projects The most decisive factor that survives enterprises under stiff competition is the development of new product (NPD), and when entering the product development stage after the fuzzy front end, a best project portfolio should be finalized in order to potentially create expected revenue and competitive advantage. However, even it reaches the end of the fuzzy front stage; the NPD project is still significantly involved with uncertainties, complexities and fuzziness. To assist R&D managers making decision in this environment, this study proposes a new approach which combines fuzzy set theory and multi-criteria group decision making method into a NPD project portfolio selection model. This model takes into account project performance, project delivery and project risk, and formulates the selection decision of NPD project portfolio as a fuzzy linear programming problem. The illustrative example shows that the model proposed can generate projects with the highest success rate under limited resources and manpower.

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 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 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


Effective analytic functions One approach for computations with special functions in computer algebra is the systematic use of analytic functions whenever possible. This naturally leads to problems of how to answer questions about analytic functions in a fully effective way. Such questions comprise the determination of the radius of convergence or the evaluation of the analytic continuation of the function at the endpoint of a broken line path. In this paper, we propose a first definition for the notion of an effective analytic function and we show how to effectively solve several types of differential equations in this context. We will limit ourselves to functions in one variable. (c) 2005 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

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

complex analysis
algorithm
majorant method


Context-based near-lossless compression of EEG signals using neural network predictors Compression and transmission of electroencephalography (EEG) signal for telemedicine applications have made the stringent demand on the quality of the reconstructed signal. Although lossless compression scheme involving predictorencoder satisfies the perfect reconstruction quality, the amount of compression it yields is very less thereby utilizing more bandwidth. Facing this reality, more and more users in medical community accept near-lossless methods to compress signal more effectively while maintaining a tight numerical bound on the maximum allowable error ? ? between the original and the reconstructed medical signals. Even though effective decorrelation is performed through the prediction step, there is sufficient structure remaining in the quantized residue that can be further explored by suitable error modeling schemes, thereby the effect of compression can be improved further. This paper discusses a context-based near-lossless compression using neural network predictors for the compression of EEG signals. Four neural network models, namely, single-layer and multi-layer perceptrons, Elman network and a generalized regression neural network are used and the results are compared with adaptive linear predictors such as LMS adaptive FIR filter and autoregressive (AR) model. It is found from the experimental results that the single-layer perceptron predictor yields the best results (at ?=3 ? = 3 ) among the different predictors used with a saving of 2.5 and 0.51bits when using lossless and near-lossless compression scheme without error modeling.

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

compression
eeg
error modeling
neural network


Enterprise resource planning: Implementation procedures and critical success factors Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems are highly complex information systems. The implementation of these systems is a difficult and high cost proposition that places tremendous demands on corporate time and resources. Many ERP implementations have been classified as failures because they did not achieve predetermined corporate goals. This article identifies success factors, software selection steps, and implementation procedures critical to a successful implementation. A case study of a largely successful ERP implementation is presented and discussed in terms of these key factors.

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

enterprise resource planning
critical success factors
implementation procedures

business process reengineering
project management


Citation choice and innovation in science studies What are the factors which render an article more likely to be cited? Using social network analysis of citations between published scholarly works, the nascent field around Social Studies of Science is examined from its incipience in 1971 until 2008. To gauge intellectual positioning, closeness centrality and orthodoxy rates are derived from bibliographic networks. Bibliographic orthodoxy is defined as the propensity of an article to cite other highly popular works. Orthodoxy and closeness centrality have differing effects on citation rates, varying across historical periods of development in the field. Effects were modest, but significant. In early time periods, articles with higher orthodoxy rates were cited more, but this effect dissipated over time. In contrast, citations associated with closeness centrality increased over time. Early SSS citation networks were smaller, less structurally cohesive and less modular than later networks. In contrast, later networks were larger, more structurally cohesive, more modular and less dense. These changes to the global SSS knowledge networks are linked to changes in the scientific reward structure ensconced in the network, particularly regarding orthodoxy and closeness centrality.

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


How influential has academic and industrial research been in current software life cycles? A retrospective analysis of four mainstream activities Knowledge transfer is an important responsibility of universities and research institutes as part of their contribution to society. In the field of software engineering, several studies have been performed to show the influence of research in popular technologies such as middleware systems. However, there is no scholarly analysis of the influence that research has had in mainstream activities of current software life cycles. We analyse how methodological research has influenced activities of widespread use in current software life cycles. To keep this goal into manageable bounds, we focus on four very successful trends of current practice: iterative development, architecture-centric development, requirements-driven development, and coherent method integration. We follow different forms of evidence backwards in time. As signs of influence we admit the following categories: citations included in papers and standards, interviews, historical essays, people movement, and acquisitions of companies. For each one of the mentioned activities, we obtain a trace diagram showing the indirect influence that pieces of research have had in the selected activities of software life cycles. Our results support the following claims: (1) mainstream dissemination of the analysed methodological research has taken on the order of 2040 years; (2) interdisciplinarity has been important in the research that influenced some very popular activities of current software life cycles; (3) research on life cycles is more influential when it originates from large development projects; and (4) probably the best results can be obtained if industrial research goes hand in hand with academic research.

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

history of computing
practice of software development
standardisation


designing application-specific networks on chips with floorplan information With increasing communication demands of processor and memory cores in Systems on Chips (SoCs) , scalable Networks on Chips (NoCs) are needed to interconnect the cores. For the use of NoCs to be feasible in today's industrial designs, a custom-tailored, application-specific NoC that satisfies the design objectives and constraints of the targeted application domain is required. In this work, we present a design methodology that automates the synthesis of such application-specific NoC architectures. We present a floorplan aware design method that considers the wiring complexity of the NoC during the topology synthesis process. This leads to detecting timing violations on the NoC links early in the design cycle and to have accurate power estimations of the interconnect. We incorporate mechanisms to prevent deadlocks during routing, which is critical for proper operation of NoCs. We integrate the NoC synthesis method with an existing design flow, automating NoC synthesis, generation, simulation and physical design processes. We also present ways to ensure design convergence across the levels. Experiments on several SoC benchmarks are presented, which show that the synthesized topologies provide a large reduction in network power consumption (2.78x on average) and improvement in performance (1.59x on average) over the best mesh and mesh-based custom topologies. An actual layout of a multimedia SoC with the NoC designed using our methodology is presented, which shows that the designed NoC supports the required frequency of operation (close to 900 MHz) without any timing violations. We could design the NoC from input specifications to layout in 4 hours, a process that usually takes several weeks.

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

communication
network
physical design
mesh
generation
use
simulation
input
performance
design
layout
reduction
links
timing
convergence
processor
method
power consumption
topology
methodology
floorplan
multimedia
custom
flow
process
routing
interconnect
power
synthesis
complexity
networks on chips

deadlock
applications
scalability
benchmark
object
experience
constraint
informal
industrial design
architecture
deadlock-free routing
memorialized
design methodologies
critic
design method
integrability


Approximate series representations of linear operations on second-order stochastic processes: Application to simulation Series representations of the more usual linear operations in weak sense on a second-order stochastic process are studied. The starting point of this analysis is the optimal Cambanis expansion of the stochastic process considered. Likewise, the extensions of the approximate series expansions based on the Rayleigh-Ritz method are presented for such linear operations on the process. The main advantages of these extensions are that they are computationally feasible and entail a significant reduction in the computational burden. Finally, their applicability as a practical simulation tool is examined.

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

linear operations in weak sense
simulation

series representations of stochastic processes


computer forensics workshop for undergraduate students This paper describes our experience in the design and implementation of a computer forensics specialisation for the Bachelor of Computer Science degree and its capstone subject Computer Forensics Workshop. Our motivation for introducing this specialisation was to respond to the growing demand for professional services in computer forensics by the government and industry as well as to attract undergraduate students back to computing. Computer forensics is an emerging multidisciplinary field with foundations in computer science and law, and academically it is best positioned as a stream in general computer science degrees. The capstone subject in the specialisation, Computer Forensics Workshop, is practically oriented with a substantial laboratory component. The subject is taught by a team of academics, each contributing their expert knowledge in operating systems, file systems, network security and cryptography. The aim is to prepare the students to enter the job market as a professional computer forensics specialist, either in a law enforcement agency or a business organisation relying on computer information systems.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 forensics education
curriculum design


Examining the Efficiency of Models Using Tangent Coordinates or Principal Component Scores in Allometry Studies Most of the studies in medical and biological sciences are related to the examination of geometrical properties of an organ or organism. Growth and allometry studies are important in the way of investigating the effects of diseases and the environmental factors effects on the structure of the organ or organism. Thus, statistical shape analysis has recently become more important in the medical and biological sciences. Shape is all geometrical information that remains when location, scale and rotational effects are removed from an object. Allometry, which is a relationship between size and shape, plays an important role in the development of statistical shape analysis. The aim of the present study was to compare two different models for allometry which includes tangent coordinates and principal component scores of tangent coordinates as dependent variables in multivariate regression analysis. The results of the simulation study showed that the model constructed by taking tangent coordinates as dependent variables is more appropriate than the model constructed by taking principal component scores of tangent coordinates as dependent variables, for all sample sizes.

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

procrustes analysis
tangent space coordinates


Correlation between safety assessments in the drivercar interaction design process With the functional revolution in modern cars, evaluation methods to be used in all phases of drivercar interaction design have gained importance. It is crucial for car manufacturers to discover and solve safety issues early in the interaction design process. A current problem is thus to find a correlation between the formative methods that are used during development and the summative methods that are used when the product has reached the customer. This paper investigates the correlation between efficiency metrics from summative and formative evaluations, where the results of two studies on sound and navigation system tasks are compared. The first, an analysis of the J.D. Power and Associates APEAL survey, consists of answers given by about two thousand customers. The second, an expert evaluation study, was done by six evaluators who assessed the layouts by task completion time, TLX and Nielsen heuristics. The results show a high degree of correlation between the studies in terms of task efficiency, i.e. between customer ratings and task completion time, and customer ratings and TLX. However, no correlation was observed between Nielsen heuristics and customer ratings, task completion time or TLX. The results of the studies introduce a possibility to develop a usability evaluation framework that includes both formative and summative approaches, as the results show a high degree of consistency between the different methodologies. Hence, combining a quantitative approach with the expert evaluation method, such as task completion time, should be more useful for drivercar interaction design.

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


The EFECT framework for interprofessional education in the patient centered medical home The very nature of the Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) necessitates new instructional models that prepare learners for the roles they will have to assume in these transformed primary care practices. In this manuscript we describe a new instructional framework that seeks to blend the goals of patient-centered care and inter-professional education, and can be implemented in existing training environments while practice transformation continues to proceed. We propose a 5-step process, the EFECT framework, which is simultaneously a sequence of tasks for effective patient care and a guide for the learners and faculty in teaching and evaluating that care delivery. These steps include: (1) Eliciting a patient-centered narrative, (2) Facilitating an inter-professional team discussion, (3) Evaluating clinical evidence, (4) Creating a shared care plan, and (5) Tracking outcomes. We then report preliminary descriptive outcomes from the first EFECT pilot. Our proposed framework supports learners' abilities to construct a patient-centered narrative from multiple professional perspectives as the basis for developing an evidence-based, integrated care plan between the patient and the inter-professional care team and deliberately following up on outcomes. We present this framework to stimulate a process for creating new curricula and evaluative tools to measure and promote learner functioning in medical home environments.

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

patient-centered medical home
medical education
inter-professional


Upper bound on the number of vertices of polyhedra with 0, 1-constraint matrices In this note we give upper bounds for the number of vertices of the polyhedron P (A, b) = {x is an element of R-d: Ax <= b) when the m x d constraint matrix A is subjected to certain restriction. For instance, if A is a 0/1-matrix, then there can be at most d! vertices and this bound is tight, or if the entries of A are non-negative integers so that each row sums to at most C, then there can be at most C-d vertices. These bounds are consequences of a more general theorem that the number of vertices of P (A, b) is at most d! (.) W/D, where W is the volume of the convex hull of the zero vector and the row vectors of A, and D is the smallest absolute value of any non-zero d x d subdeterminant of A. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

computational geometry
linear programming


Improving the Hough Transform gathering process for affine transformations In this paper, we show that significant wrong evidence can be generated when the Hough Transform (HT) is used to extract arbitrary shapes under rigid transformations. In order to reduce the amount of wrong evidence, we consider two types of constraints. First, we define constraints by considering invariant features. Secondly, we consider constraints defined via gradient direction information. Our results show that these constraints can significantly improve the gathering strategy, leading to identification of the correct parameters. The presented formulation is valid for any rigid transformations represented by affine mappings.

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

shape extraction
shape discrimination
object recognition
geometric invariance
geometric constraints


Exploiting Ubiquitous Data Collection for Mobile Users in Wireless Sensor Networks We study the ubiquitous data collection for mobile users in wireless sensor networks. People with handheld devices can easily interact with the network and collect data. We propose a novel approach for mobile users to collect the network-wide data. The routing structure of data collection is additively updated with the movement of the mobile user. With this approach, we only perform a limited modification to update the routing structure while the routing performance is bounded and controlled compared to the optimal performance. The proposed protocol is easy to implement. Our analysis shows that the proposed approach is scalable in maintenance overheads, performs efficiently in the routing performance, and provides continuous data delivery during the user movement. We implement the proposed protocol in a prototype system and test its feasibility and applicability by a 49-node testbed. We further conduct extensive simulations to examine the efficiency and scalability of our protocol with varied network settings.

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

wireless sensor networks
data collection
mobile user


Expressions of risk awareness and concern through Twitter: On the utility of using the medium as an indication of audience needs Twitter can help manage emergencies as individuals can provide updates from the field. Little is known about the ways in which people use Twitter under the circumstances. We examined Twitter use in the hours leading up to the landfall of Hurricane Sandy. Twitter content may be useful for identifying the needs of different communities.

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

social media
emergency management
risk communication
crisis communication


a methodology for p2p traffic measurement using application signature work-in-progress P2P application has become tremendously popular over the last few years, now accounting for a significant share of the total network traffic. P2P protocols used arbitrary ports to camouflage its traffic to avoid detection and recognition with standard measurement tools. This paper presents a measurement system which reliably detects and measures P2P traffic in real-time. The methodology is based on using application level signatures implemented by Netfilter extension as well as packet classifier. The results from test in a large university network indicate that this approach not only can significantly improve the P2P traffic volume estimates but also provided the performance required for practical applications.

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


An improved adaptive sampling scheme for the construction of explicit boundaries This article presents an improved adaptive sampling scheme for the construction of explicit decision functions (constraints or limit state functions) using Support Vector Machines (SVMs). The proposed work presents substantial modifications to an earlier version of the scheme (Basudhar and Missoum, Comput Struct 86(19-20):1904-1917, 2008). The improvements consist of a different choice of samples, a more rigorous convergence criterion, and a new technique to select the SVM kernel parameters. Of particular interest is the choice of a new sample chosen to remove the "locking" of the SVM, a phenomenon that was not understood in the previous version of the algorithm. The new scheme is demonstrated on analytical problems of up to seven dimensions.

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

support vector machines
adaptive sampling


On personalizing Web search using social network analysis Most of the existing Web search solutions are built for satisfying broad set of users regardless whether nave or professionals. Further, with the emergence of high speed internet applications and advanced Web 2.0 based Rich Internet Applications (i.e. blogs, wikis, etc.), it has become much easier for users to publish data over the Web. This brings a challenge for Web search solutions to let individual users find the right information as per their preferences. Different users of the Web may have different preferences. Search results for the same query from different users may differ in priority for individual users. In this paper, we describe our approach of enabling personalized Web search for users based on their preferences. It is a challenge in itself to have the preferences of the users known to and considered by search engines. We have designed and developed our unique approach of finding the preferences of users from the relevant parts of their social networks and communities. We believe that the information related to the queries posed by users may have strong correlation with relevant information in their social networks. In order to find out the personal interests and the social-contexts, we find out (1) activities of users in their social-networks, and (2) relevant information from users social networks, based on our proposed trust and relevance matrices. We have developed a mechanism that extracts information from a users social network and uses it to re-rank the results from a search engine. We have also discussed the implementation and evaluation of our proposed solution by emphasizing how it improves the Web search.

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


Wiener-based ICI Cancellation Schemes for OFDM Systems over Fading Channels The subcarriers of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems may fail to keep orthogonal to each other under time-varying channels. The loss of orthogonality among the subcarriers will degrade the system performace, and this effect is named intercarrier interference (ICI). In this paper, a Wiener-based successive interference cancellation (SIC) scheme is proposed to detect the OFDM signals. It provides good ICI cancellation performance; however, it suffers large computation complexity. Therefore, a modified Wiener-based SIC scheme is further proposed to reduce the computation complexity. Simulation results show the performance of the Wiener-based SIC scheme is better than those of zero forcing, zero forcing plus SIC and original Wiener-based schemes. Furthermore, with the modified Wiener-based SIC scheme, the performance is still better than the others. Although the performace of the modified Wiener-based SIC scheme suffers little degradation compared to Wiener-based SIC scheme, the computation complexity can be dramatically reduced.

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

orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (ofdm)

successive interference cancellation (sic)


Finite element simulations using symbolic computing In our work on modelling of phase change, fluid flow and heat transfer in materials processes, it is crucial to have complete control of the mathematical models, and the numerical simulation of the models. We have developed a toolbox in Maple which can be used to generate complete finite element codes in 1, 2 or 3 dimensions, from a symbolic specification of the mathematical problem. It has been used to create codes used in our research on welding, crystal growth, flow of viscoelastic liquids and more. The possibility of defining a complex problem in a compact readable form, without compromising the flexibility and accessibility of the model and the numerical methods, has changed the way we use simulations in research radically. (C) 1999 IMACS/Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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

finite element simulations
maple
symbolic

pde, problem solving environment
pse
partial differential equations


Global attractivity of a nonautonomous logistic difference equation with delay Consider the nonautonomous delay logistic difference equation Delta y(n) = p(n)y(n) (1 - y(n)-k(n)/lambda), n - 0,1,..., where (p(n))(n greater than or equal to 0) is a sequence of nonnegative real numbers, (k(n))(n greater than or equal to 0) is a sequence of positive integers, (n - Icn) is nondecreasing, lim(n -->infinity)(n - k(n)) = infinity, and lambda is a positive constant. We obtain new sufficient conditions for the global attractivity of the equilibrium lambda of equation (1.1), which improve some recent results established in [1]. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

global attractivity
logistic difference equation


enhancing debugging of multiple missing control errors in reversible logic Researchers are looking for alternatives to overcome the upcoming limits of conventional hardware technologies. Reversible logic thereby established itself as a promising direction so that several methods for synthesis, verification, and testing of reversible circuits have already been proposed. However, also methods for debugging, i.e., to determine error candidates in case of a failed verification, are required to complete the design flow. Even if first approaches have already been proposed, debugging of reversible circuits still is in the beginning. In this paper, we present an alternative method to automatically debug reversible circuits. We thereby focus on missing control errors -- an established error model in the design of reversible circuits. A new notion of an error candidate is proposed that relies on the observation of a necessary condition for error locations in reversible circuits. Using this notion, a set of error candidates is obtained that differs from the error candidates returned by previous methods. Thus, combining the approaches enhances the overall debugging flow. Experimental results demonstrate that a higher accuracy is obtained in significantly shorter run-time.

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


Cost-sensitive case-based reasoning using a genetic algorithm: Application to medical diagnosis The paper studies the new learning technique called cost-sensitive case-based reasoning (CSCBR) incorporating unequal misclassification cost into CBR model. Conventional CBR is now considered as a suitable technique for diagnosis, prognosis and prescription in medicine. However it lacks the ability to reflect asymmetric misclassification and often assumes that the cost of a positive diagnosis (an illness) as a negative one (no illness) is the same with that of the opposite situation. Thus, the objective of this research is to overcome the limitation of conventional CBR and encourage applying CBR to many real world medical cases associated with costs of asymmetric misclassification errors. The main idea involves adjusting the optimal cut-off classification point for classifying the absence or presence of diseases and the cut-off distance point for selecting optimal neighbors within search spaces based on similarity distribution. These steps are dynamically adapted to new target cases using a genetic algorithm. We apply this proposed method to five real medical datasets and compare the results with two other cost-sensitive learning methodsC5.0 and CART. Our finding shows that the total misclassification cost of CSCBR is lower than other cost-sensitive methods in many cases. Even though the genetic algorithm has limitations in terms of unstable results and over-fitting training data, CSCBR results with GA are better overall than those of other methods. Also the paired t-test results indicate that the total misclassification cost of CSCBR is significantly less than C5.0 and CART for several datasets. We have proposed a new CBR method called cost-sensitive case-based reasoning (CSCBR) that can incorporate unequal misclassification costs into CBR and optimize the number of neighbors dynamically using a genetic algorithm. It is meaningful not only for introducing the concept of cost-sensitive learning to CBR, but also for encouraging the use of CBR in the medical area. The result shows that the total misclassification costs of CSCBR do not increase in arithmetic progression as the cost of false absence increases arithmetically, thus it is cost-sensitive. We also show that total misclassification costs of CSCBR are the lowest among all methods in four datasets out of five and the result is statistically significant in many cases. The limitation of our proposed CSCBR is confined to classify binary cases for minimizing misclassification cost because our proposed CSCBR is originally designed to classify binary case. Our future work extends this method for multi-classification which can classify more than two groups.

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

misclassification cost
genetic algorithm
medical diagnosis

cost-sensitive case-based reasoning
heart disease
diabetes
hepatitis
breast cancer