A Novel Scheme for Key Performance Indicator Prediction and Diagnosis With Application to an Industrial Hot Strip Mill In this paper, a data-driven scheme of key performance indicator (KPI) prediction and diagnosis is developed for complex industrial processes. For static processes, a KPI prediction and diagnosis approach is proposed in order to improve the prediction performance. In comparison with the standard partial least squares (PLS) method, the alternative approach significantly simplifies the computation procedure. By means of a data-driven realization of the so-called left coprime factorization (LCF) of a process, efficient KPI prediction, and diagnosis algorithms are developed for dynamic processes, respectively, with and without measurable KPIs. The proposed KPI prediction and diagnosis scheme is finally applied to an industrial hot strip mill, and the results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.

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

data-driven
key performance indicator (kpi)


Enhancing depth-perception with flexible volumetric halos Volumetric data commonly has high depth complexity which makes it difficult to judge spatial relationships accurately. There are many different ways to enhance depth perception, such as shading, contours, and shadows. Artists and illustrators frequently employ halos for this purpose. In this technique, regions surrounding the edges of certain structures are darkened or brightened which makes it easier to judge occlusion. Based on this concept, we present a flexible method for enhancing and highlighting structures of interest using GPU-based direct volume rendering. Our approach uses an interactively defined halo transfer function to classify structures of interest based on data value, direction, and position. A feature-preserving spreading algorithm is applied to distribute seed values to neighboring locations, generating a controllably smooth field of halo intensities. These halo intensities are then mapped to colors and opacities using a halo profile function. Our method can be used to annotate features at interactive frame rates.

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


An intensive case study on kernel-based relation extraction Relation extraction refers to a method of efficiently detecting and identifying predefined semantic relationships within a set of entities in text documents. Numerous relation extractionfc techniques have been developed thus far, owing to their innate importance in the domain of information extraction and text mining. The majority of the relation extraction methods proposed to date is based on a supervised learning method requiring the use of learning collections; such learning methods can be classified into feature-based, semi-supervised, and kernel-based techniques. Among these methods, a case analysis on a kernel-based relation extraction method, considered the most successful of the three approaches, is carried out in this paper. Although some previous survey papers on this topic have been published, they failed to select the most essential of the currently available kernel-based relation extraction approaches or provide an in-depth comparative analysis of them. Unlike existing case studies, the study described in this paper is based on a close analysis of the operation principles and individual characteristics of five vital representative kernel-based relation extraction methods. In addition, we present deep comparative analysis results of these methods. In addition, for further research on kernel-based relation extraction with an even higher performance and for general high-level kernel studies for linguistic processing and text mining, some additional approaches including feature-based methods based on various criteria are introduced.

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

relation extraction
text mining
information extraction


fast distributed algorithms for (weakly) connected dominating sets and linear-size skeletons Motivated by routing issues in ad hoc networks, we present polylogarithmic-time distributed algorithms for two problems. Given a network, we first show how to compute connected and weakly connected dominating sets whose size is at most O (log?) times optimal, ? being the maximum degree of the input network. This is best-possible if NP ? D TIME [ n O (log log n ) ] and if the processors are limited to polynomial-time computation. We then show how to construct dominating sets which satisfy the above properties, as well as the "low stretch" property that any two adjacent nodes in the network have their dominators at a distance of at most O (log n ) in the network. (Given a dominating set S , a dominator of a vertex u is any v ? S such that the distance between u and v is at most one.) We also show our time bounds to be essentially optimal.

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

distance
network
input
log
size
computation
distributed algorithms
dominating sets
routing
ad hoc networks

processor polynomial optimality timing dominance skeleton


Feature selection for unsupervised learning In this paper, we identify two issues involved in developing an automated feature subset selection algorithm for unlabeled data: the need for finding the number of clusters in conjunction with feature selection, and the need for normalizing the bias of feature selection criteria with respect to dimension. We explore the feature selection problem and these issues through FSSEM (Feature Subset Selection using Expectation-Maximization (EM) clustering) and through two different performance criteria for evaluating candidate feature subsets: scatter separability and maximum likelihood. We present proofs on the dimensionality biases of these feature criteria, and present a cross-projection normalization scheme that can be applied to any criterion to ameliorate these biases. Our experiments show the need for feature selection, the need for addressing these two issues, and the effectiveness of our proposed solutions.

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

clustering
feature selection
unsupervised learning


Numerical errors resulting from finite-difference approximation in computations of a one-dimensional Schrodinger equation with the Trotter formula The parallel algorithm for solving time-dependent Schrodinger equations devised by De Raedt and based on the Trotter formula is not only simple but also unconditionally stable, explicit, and local. We consider the numerical errors resulting from the finite-difference approximation of De Raedt's algorithm by comparing an exact solution of a free particle with the approximate solution calculated by using the Trotter formula, which depends on the size of the spatial-temporal lattice. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

schrodinger equation
trotter formula
parallel algorithm


An accept-reject algorithm for the positive multivariate normal distribution The need to simulate from a positive multivariate normal distribution arises in several settings, specifically in Bayesian analysis. A variety of algorithms can be used to sample from this distribution, but most of these algorithms involve Gibbs sampling. Since the sample is generated from a Markov chain, the user has to account for the fact that sequential draws in the sample depend on one another and that the sample generated only follows a positive multivariate normal distribution asymptotically. The user would not have to account for such issues if the sample generated was i.i.d. In this paper, an accept-reject algorithm is introduced in which variates from a positive multivariate normal distribution are proposed from a multivariate skew-normal distribution. This new algorithm generates an i.i.d. sample and is shown, under certain conditions, to be very efficient.

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

skewed normal distribution
principal components


A case study in participatory priority setting for a Scandinavian research program Continuing attempts to align science and technology policies with industrial and societal needs have aroused interest in the determination of research priorities. In this paper, we report a case study where leading experts from industry and public administration were assisted by multicriteria decision analysis in the planning of a collaborative research program for Scandinavian forestry and forest industries. We also address processual and methodological challenges in the deployment of multicriteria methods, and argue that such methods can contribute to the quality of decision support processes in related contexts.

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

research and technology development programs


Comparison of different higher order finite element schemes for the simulation of Lamb waves Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) applications call for both efficient and powerful numerical tools to predict the behavior of ultrasonic guided waves. When considering waves in thin-walled structures, so called Lamb waves, conventional linear or quadratic pure displacement finite elements soon reach their limits. The spatial as well as temporal discretisation, required to obtain good quality results has to be very fine. This results in enormous computational costs (computational time and memory storage requirements) when ultrasonic wave propagation problems are solved in the time domain. To resolve this issue several higher order finite element methods with polynomial degrees p>2 p > 2 are proposed. The objective of the current article is to develop such higher order schemes and to verify their capabilities with respect to accuracy and numerical performance. To the best of the authors knowledge such comparison has not been reported in literature, yet. Specifically, spectral elements based on Lagarange polynomials (SEM), p-elements using the normalized integrals of the Legendre polynomials (p-FEM) and isogeometric elements utilizing non-uniform rational B-splines (NURBS, N-FEM) are discussed in this paper. By solving a two-dimensional benchmark problem, their advantages and drawbacks with respect to Lamb wave propagation are highlighted. The results of the convergence studies are then used to derive guidelines for estimating the optimal element size for a given finite element type and polynomial degree template. These findings serve the purpose to determine the optimal mesh configuration a priori and thus, save a considerable amount of computational effort. The proposed guideline is then tested on a three-dimensional structure with a conical hole showing an excellent agreement with the predicted behaviour.

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

lamb wave analysis
higher order finite elements
isogeometric finite elements
p-fem
spectral finite elements


Structure topology optimization: fully coupled level set method via FEMLAB This paper presents a procedure which can easily implement the 2D compliance minimization structure topology optimization by the level set method using the FEMLAB package. Instead of a finite difference solver for the level set equation, as is usually the case, a finite element solver for the reaction-diffusion equation is used to evolve the material boundaries. All of the optimization procedures are implemented in a user-friendly manner. A FEMLAB code can be downloaded from the homepage www.imtek.de/simulation and is free for educational purposes.

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

femlab
level set method
structure topology optimization

finite element method
reaction-diffusion equation


DESIGN OF EXPERIMENTS ON NEURAL NETWORK'S PARAMETERS OPTIMIZATION FOR TIME SERIES FORECASTING IN STOCK MARKETS Artificial neural network (ANN) model has been used for years to conduct research in stock price prediction for three reasons. First, it has a higher prediction accuracy rate in empirical research. Second, it is not subject to the assumption of having samples from a normal distribution. Third, it can deal with non-linear problems. Nevertheless, the accuracy of prediction relies on the parameter settings of neural network as well as the complexities of problems and the neural network architecture; the results of the analysis could be even more significant with the selection of optimal parameters and network architecture. Currently, as a way of setting parameters, most researchers employed the trial and error method. However, this method is very time-consuming and labor-intensive and may not result in the optimal parameters. Therefore, this research took advantage of a back propagation neural network (BPNN) for the purpose of parameter optimization through constructing a model of stock price prediction, applying design of experiment (DOE) to systematize experiment scheduling,, and methods of main effects analysis and interaction analysis. The research used two datasets of financial ratios from 50 blue chip companies in Taiwanese stock market and 40 listed American banks in New York stock exchange as experimental samples. Research results showed that the correlation forecasting, root mean squared error (RMSE), and computing time, which can effectively increase the accuracy of stock price prediction, are better than traditional statistical methods and conventional neural network model.

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

stock price prediction
back propagation neural network
design of experiment
financial ratios


Semantic video scene segmentation and transfer ? New semi-supervised method to semantically segment a scene based on video activity. Learned functional categories are used to segment different scenes (scene transfer). We introduce new trajectory features useful for semantic segmentation. Only a small subset of relevant features leads to high classification accuracy. Proposed method achieves state-of-the-art scene classification and transfer results.

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

video analysis
semi-supervised learning
functional modeling


On the injectivity of Parikh matrix mappings We investigate the number of (scattered) subword occurrences and Parikh matrices, especially the case where the matrix determines the word uniquely. A condition introduced in this paper, called gamma-property, turns out to be a powerful tool for such unambiguous matrices. Interconnections with the general theory of subword histories are also pointed out.

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 B O O O O O

scattered subword
number of subwords
ambiguity


Construction of all non-reducible descriptors We present a computational procedure based on a decision-tree model for the identification and construction of all non-reducible descriptors in a supervised pattern recognition problem in which pattern descriptions consist of Boolean features. We illustrate the use of the procedure through its application to the standard problem of recognizing Arabic numerals. We also present an analysis of the computational complexity of the procedure.

O O O 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 B O O O

supervised pattern recognition
complexity

training table
binary features
non-reducible descriptors
decision-tree model
np-complete


Query relaxation by structure and semantics for retrieval of logical Web documents Since the Web encourages hypertext and hypermedia document authoring (e.g., HTML or XML), Web authors tend to create documents that are composed of multiple pages connected with hyperlinks. A Web document may be authored in multiple ways, such as, 1) all information in one physical page, or 2) a main page and the related information in separate linked pages. Existing Web search engines, however, return only physical pages containing keywords. In this paper, we introduce the concept of information unit, which can be viewed as a logical Web document consisting of multiple physical pages as one atomic retrieval unit. We present an algorithm to efficiently retrieve information units. Our algorithm can perform progressive query processing. These functionalities are essential for information retrieval on the Web and large XML databases. We also present experimental results on synthetic graphs and real Web data.

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

web proximity search
link structures
progressive processing


An Analysis of Generalized Slotted-Aloha Protocols Aloha and its slotted variation are commonly deployed Medium Access Control (MAC) protocols in environments where multiple transmitting devices compete for a medium, yet may have difficulty sensing each other's presence (the "hidden terminal problem"). Competing 802.11 gateways, as well as most modern digital cellular systems, like GSM, are examples. This paper models and evaluates the throughput that can be achieved in a system where nodes compete for bandwidth using a generalized version of slotted-Aloha protocols. The protocol is implemented as a two-state system, where the probability that a node transmits in a given slot depends on whether the node's prior transmission attempt was successful. Using Markov Models, we evaluate the channel utilization and fairness of this class of protocols for a variety of node objectives, including maximizing aggregate throughput of the channel, each node selfishly maximizing its own throughput, and attacker nodes attempting to jam the channel. If all nodes are selfish and strategically attempt to maximize their own throughput, a situation similar to the traditional Prisoner's Dilemma arises. Our results reveal that under heavy loads, a greedy strategy reduces the utilization, and that attackers cannot do much better than attacking during randomly selected slots.

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

markovian decision
prisoner's dilemma
short-term fairness
slotted-aloha
stackelberg game


Seroprevalence of Avian Paramyxovirus 1, 2, and 3 in Captive and Free-Living Birds of Prey in Spain (Preliminary Results) Since December 1997, 700 blood plasma samples from 31 different species of captive and free-living birds of prey from Spain were analyzed by hemagglutination inhibition (HI) test for the presence of antibodies to avian paramyxovirus (aPMV) 1,2, and 3. Out of 700 birds, 120 tested positive for aPMV-1, 10 birds had antibodies to aPMV-2, and 4 birds tested positive against aPMV-3. Prevalence of antibodies against aPMV-1 was significantly higher in captive than in free-living birds of prey and in Falconiformes than in Strigidae and Accipitridae. Infection or exposure in captive birds may be due to the use of avian-derived food in rehabilitation and captive-breeding centers. This may be of concern at the time of reintroduction of these birds into free-living populations.

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

avian paramyxovirus 1
and 3
birds of prey


Generalized vector complementarity-type problems in topological vector spaces In this paper, we introduced the generalized vector variational inequality-type problem and the generalized vector complementarity-type problem in the setting of topological vector space. By utilizing a modified version of the FanKKM theorem, we investigated the nonemptyness and compactness of solution sets of these problems without the demipseudomonotonicity assumption. Further, we prove that solution sets of both the problems are equivalent to each other under some suitable conditions. The results of this paper generalize and improve several results that appeared recently in the literature.

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

px p x -upper sign continuous mapping px p x px p x p x


LAD-CBM; new data processing tool for diagnosis and prognosis in condition-based maintenance This paper investigates the application of a data mining technique called Logical Analysis of Data (LAD) to condition-based maintenance. The existing classification techniques are mainly based on statistical analysis and modeling approaches. This paper presents a classification technique based on combinatory and Boolean theory. It is shown that LAD is particularly suitable for detecting the state of equipment because of its new way of pre-processing noisy and missing data. A numerical example and an application are presented.

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

decision-making
logical analysis of data (lad)
condition-based maintenance (cbm)
boolean functions


Modelling count response variables in informetric studies: Comparison among count, linear, and lognormal regression models The negative binomial often seems to be more appropriate than other count models for informetric data. Linear regression model predicted negative values for a few of the response variables modelled. Linear regression model performed worse than both the negative binomial and lognormal models. Overall, the negative binomial model performed slightly better than the lognormal model.

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

linear regression model
informetric studies

count response variable
count regression models
negative binomial regression model
lognormal regression model


Production-oriented models for speech recognition Acoustic modeling in speech recognition uses very little knowledge of the speech production process. At many levels our models continue to model speech as a surface phenomenon. Typically, hidden Markov model (HMM) parameters operate primarily in the acoustic space or in a linear transformation thereof-, state-to-state evolution is modeled only crudely, with no explicit relationship between states, such as would be afforded by the use of phonetic features commonly used by linguists to describe speech phenomena, or by the continuity and smoothness of the production parameters governing speech. This survey article attempts to provide an overview of proposals by several researchers for improving acoustic modeling in these regards. Such topics as the controversial Motor Theory of Speech Perception, work by Hogden explicitly using a continuity constraint in a pseudo-articulatory domain, the Kalman filter based Hidden Dynamic Model, and work by many groups showing the benefits of using articulatory features instead of phones as the underlying units of speech, will be covered.

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

articulatory modeling
linear dynamical systems


establishing mobile ad-hoc networks in 802.11 infrastructure mode Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks (MANETs) rely on the 802.11 ad-hoc mode to establish communication with nearby peers. In practice, this makes MANETs hard to realize. While 802.11-compliant mobile devices implement the ad-hoc mode on the hardware layer, the software layer typically does not implement support for ad-hoc networking in terms of ad-hoc routing and name resolution protocols. Modern mobile operating systems, such as Android and iOS, even hide the inherent ad-hoc functionality of the wireless card through restrictions in the OS. In contrast to this, support for the 802.11 infrastructure mode is a commodity. We propose establishing ad-hoc networks using the 802.11 infrastructure mode. In MA-Fi (Mobile Ad-Hoc Wi-Fi), a small core of mobile router nodes (RONs) provides infrastructure mode network access to mobile station nodes (STANs). As STANs also act as a station in infrastructure networks of other RONs, MA-Fi achieves multi-hop communication between RON and STAN devices in the overall network. We show the creation and operation of mobile ad-hoc networks using MA-Fi. We focus on mobility of RONs and STANs as well as topology control in the overall network.

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

network virtualization
mobile ad-hoc networks


randomized directed testing (redirect) for simulink/stateflow models The Simulink/Stateflow (SL/SF) environment from Math-works is becoming the de facto standard in industry for model based development of embedded control systems. Many commercial tools are available in the market for test case generation from SL/SF designs; however, we have observed that these tools do not achieve satisfactory coverage in cases when designs involve nonlinear blocks and Stateflow blocks occur deep inside the Simulink blocks. The recent past has seen the emergence of several novel techniques for testing large C, C++ and Java programs; prominent among them are directed automated random testing (DART), hybrid concolic testing and feedback-directed random testing. We believe that some of these techniques could be lifted to testing of SL/SF based designs; REDIRECT (RandomizEd DIRECted Testing), the proposed testing method of this paper, is an attempt towards this direction. Specifically, REDIRECT uses a careful combination of the above techniques, and in addition, the method uses a set of pattern-guided heuristics for tackling nonlinear blocks. A prototype tool has been developed and the tool has been applied to many industrial strength case studies. Our experiments indicate that a careful choice of heuristics and certain combinations of random and directed testing achieve better coverages as compared to the existing commercial tools. 1

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

hybrid systems
simulink/stateflow models
model based testing


Vanquishing the XCB question: The methodological discovery of the last shortest single axiom for the equivalential calculus With the inclusion of an effective methodology, this article answers in detail a question that, for a quarter of a century, remained open despite intense study by various researchers. Is the formula XCB = e(x, e(e(e(x, y), e(z, y)), z)) a single axiom for the classical equivalential calculus when the rules of inference consist of detachment (modus ponens) and substitution? Where the function e represents equivalence, this calculus can be axiomatized quite naturally with the formulas e(x, x), e(e(x, y), e(y, x)),and e(x, y), e(e(y, z), e(x, z))), which correspond to reflexivity, symmetry, and transitivity, respectively. (We note that e(x, x) is dependent on the other two axioms.) Heretofore, thirteen shortest single axioms for classical equivalence of length eleven had been discovered, and XCB was the only remaining formula of that length whose status was undetermined. To show that XCB is indeed such a single axiom, we focus on the rule of condensed detachment, a rule that captures detachment together with an appropriately general, but restricted, form of substitution. The proof we present in this paper consists of twenty-five applications of condensed detachment, completing with the deduction of transitivity followed by a deduction of symmetry. We also discuss some factors that may explain in part why XCB resisted relinquishing its treasure for so long. Our approach relied on diverse strategies applied by the automated reasoning program OTTER. Thus ends the search for shortest single axioms for the equivalential calculus.

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

equivalence
equivalential calculus
single axioms
detachment
xcb
otter
automated reasoning

shortest single axioms
condensed detachment


Nonlinear modeling of soil deformation modulus through LGP-based interpretation of pressuremeter test results Soil deformation modulus is an essential parameter for the analysis of behavior of substructures. Despite its importance, little attention is paid to developing empirical models for predicting the deformation moduli obtained from the field tests. To cope with this issue, this paper presents the development of a new prediction model for the pressuremeter soil deformation modulus utilizing a linear genetic programming (LGP) methodology. The LGP model relates the soil secant modulus obtained from the pressuremeter tests to the soil index properties. The best model was selected after developing and controlling several models with different combinations of the influencing parameters. The experimental database used for developing the models was established upon several pressuremeter tests conducted on different soil types at depths of 340m. To verify the applicability of the derived model, it was employed to estimate the soil moduli of portions of test results that were not included in the analysis. Further, the generalization capability of the model was verified via several statistical criteria. The sensitivity of the soil deformation modulus to the influencing variables was examined and discussed. Moisture content and soil dry unit weight were found to be efficient representatives of the initial state and consolidation history of the soil for determining its deformation modulus. The results indicate that the LGP approach accurately characterizes the soil deformation modulus leading to a very good prediction performance. The correlation coefficients between the experimental and predicted soil modulus values are equal to 0.908 and 0.901 for the calibration and testing data sets, respectively.

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

soil deformation modulus
linear genetic programming
pressuremeter test


Generalizing Database Forensics In this article we present refinements on previously proposed approaches to forensic analysis of database tampering. We significantly generalize the basic structure of these algorithms to admit new characterizations of the "where" axis of the corruption diagram. Specifically, we introduce page-based partitioning as well as attribute-based partitioning along with their associated corruption diagrams. We compare the structure of all the forensic analysis algorithms and discuss the various design choices available with respect to forensic analysis. We characterize the forensic cost of the newly introduced algorithms, compare their forensic cost, and give our recommendations. We then introduce a comprehensive taxonomy of the types of possible corruption events, along with an associated forensic analysis protocol that consolidates all extant forensic algorithms and the corresponding type(s) of corruption events they detect. The result is a generalization of these algorithms and an overarching characterization of the process of database forensic analysis, thus providing a context within the overall operation of a DBMS for all existing forensic analysis algorithms.

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

algorithms
forensic cost
forensic analysis protocol

performance
security
compliant records
forensic analysis algorithm
monochromatic algorithm
a3d algorithm
page-based partitioning
attribute-based partitioning
corruption event taxonomy


LMI-based nonlinear fuzzy observer-controller design for uncertain MIMO nonlinear systems Based on the variable structure system theory, we develop a nonlinear fuzzy observer-controller design method for a class of uncertain nonlinear systems that can be represented by a Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy model. We use a sliding mode observer and a sliding mode controller as the local state observer and the local controller. In terms of linear matrix inequalities (LMls), we derive sufficient conditions for the existence of the fuzzy observer and the fuzzy controller. We also derive LMI conditions for the existence of the fuzzy observer and the fuzzy controller guaranteeing the alpha-stability or generalized H-2/H infinity performance constraints. We show that the observer and the controller can be independently designed, i.e., the separation property holds. Finally, we give simple LMI-based design algorithms, together with an example.

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

fuzzy system
linear matrix inequality (lmi)
switching surface
uncertain nonlinear system


A comparison of the Discontinuous-Galerkin- and Spectral-Difference-Method on triangulations using PKD polynomials This paper gives a first numerical comparison of the Discontinuous-Galerkin-(DG) and Spectral-Difference-Method (SD) under almost equivalent conditions for smooth test cases.

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

discontinuous galerkin method
spectral difference method
hyperbolic conservation laws


A distributed model of the saccade system: simulations of temporally perturbed saccades using position and velocity feedback Interrupted saccades, movements that are perturbed in mid-flight by pulsatile electrical stimulation in the omnipause neuron region, are known to achieve final eye displacements with accuracies that are similar to normal saccades even in the absence of visual input following the perturbation. In an attempt to explain the neurophysiological basis for this phenomenon, the present paper describes a model of the saccadic system that represents the superior colliculus as a dynamic two-dimensional, topographically arranged array of laterally interconnected units. A distributed feedback pathway to the colliculus from downstream elements, providing both eye position and velocity signals is incorporated in the model. With the help of a training procedure based on a genetic algorithm and gradient descent, the model is optimized to produce both the normal as well as slow saccades with similar accuracy. The slow movements are included in the training set to mimic the accurate saccades that occur despite alterations in alertness, as well as following various degenerative oculomotor diseases. Although interrupted saccades were not included in the training set, the model is able to produce accurate movement of this type as an emergent property for a wide range of perturbed eye velocity trajectories. Our model demonstrates for the first time, that by means of an appropriate feedback mechanism, a single-layered dynamic network can be made to retain a distributed memory of the remaining ocular displacement error even for interrupted and slow saccades. These results support the hypothesis that saccades are controlled by error feedback of signals that code efference copies of eye motion, and further, suggest a possible answer to a long standing question about the kind of the feedback signal, if any, that is received by the superior colliculus during saccadic eye movements.

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

distributed model
saccades
genetic algorithm

neural networks
oculomotor system
interrupted saccades


flash memory management based on predicted data expiry-time in embedded real-time systems Flash memory based embedded systems are becoming increasingly prevalent. Garbage collection mechanism is a critical issue in these systems, especially in embedded real-time systems. Therefore, in this article, we discuss the influence of the capacity utilization (percentage of fullness) of the flash memory on allocating and recycling, and propose a new flash memory management technique, namely PETFM. The proposed technique improves the performance of garbage collection mechanism by allocating free pages from different allocated-blocks for data to be updated, based on their predicted expiry-time. The analytical and experimental results show that garbage collection of PETFM is more efficient and effective under high capacity utilization in embedded real-time systems.

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 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

embedded real-time systems
ftl
data expiry-time


Feeding sequence selection in a manufacturing cell with four parallel machines ? This paper deals with the problem of finding the optimum feeding sequence in manufacturing cells with machines fed by robots. The particular real case of a cell with four parallel identical machines working alternately on two pallets each one, fed by one robot and with random assistance requirements, is introduced and analyzed. The cell has been modelled and simulation results for different feeding sequences are presented. A general discriminant function to select the best feeding sequence between a fixed and a variable sequence was determined using simulation results for different working and loading times and pattern recognition techniques.

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


TAO-robust backpropagation learning algorithm In several fields, as industrial modelling, multilayer feedforward neural networks are often used as universal function approximations. These supervised neural networks are commonly trained by a traditional backpropagation learning format, which minimises the mean squared error (mse) of the training data. However, in the presence of corrupted data (outliers) this training scheme may produce wrong models. We combine the benefits of the non-linear regression model ?-estimates [introduced by Tabatabai, M. A., Argyros, I. K. Robust Estimation and testing for general nonlinear regression models. Applied Mathematics and Computation. 58 (1993) 85101] with the backpropagation algorithm to produce the TAO-robust learning algorithm, in order to deal with the problems of modelling with outliers. The cost function of this approach has a bounded influence function given by the weighted average of two ? functions, one corresponding to a very robust estimate and the other to a highly efficient estimate. The advantages of the proposed algorithm are studied with an example.

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 B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 modelling
robust learning algorithm


accurate, scalable in-network identification of p2p traffic using application signatures The ability to accurately identify the network traffic associated with different P2P applications is important to a broad range of network operations including application-specific traffic engineering, capacity planning, provisioning, service differentiation,etc. However, traditional traffic to higher-level application mapping techniques such as default server TCP or UDP network-port baseddisambiguation is highly inaccurate for some P2P applications.In this paper, we provide an efficient approach for identifying the P2P application traffic through application level signatures. We firstidentify the application level signatures by examining some available documentations, and packet-level traces. We then utilize the identified signatures to develop online filters that can efficiently and accurately track the P2P traffic even on high-speed network links.We examine the performance of our application-level identification approach using five popular P2P protocols. Our measurements show thatour technique achieves less than 5\% false positive and false negative ratios in most cases. We also show that our approach only requires the examination of the very first few packets (less than 10packets) to identify a P2P connection, which makes our approach highly scalable. Our technique can significantly improve the P2P traffic volume estimates over what pure network port based approaches provide. For instance, we were able to identify 3 times as much traffic for the popular Kazaa P2P protocol, compared to the traditional port-based approach.

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

network
applications
traces
traffic engineering
performance
paper
traffic
online
p2p
identification
connection
server
false positive

measurement
application-level signatures
online application classification
efficiency
scalability
association
map
links
filtering
capacity-planning
traffic analysis
operability
signature
tracking
documentation


economical active feature-value acquisition through expected utility estimation In many classification tasks training data have missing feature values that can be acquired at a cost. For building accurate predictive models, acquiring all missing values is often prohibitively expensive or unnecessary, while acquiring a random subset of feature values may not be most effective. The goal of active feature-value acquisition is to incrementally select feature values that are most cost-effective for improving the model's accuracy. We present two policies, Sampled Expected Utility and Expected Utility-ES , that acquire feature values for inducing a classification model based on an estimation of the expected improvement in model accuracy per unit cost. A comparison of the two policies to each other and to alternative policies demonstrate that Sampled Expected Utility is preferable as it effectively reduces the cost of producing a model of a desired accuracy and exhibits a consistent performance across domains.

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

active learning
machine learning
cost-sensitive learning
data mining


evaluation and usability of programming languages and tools (plateau) Programming languages exist to enable programmers to develop software effectively. But how efficiently programmers can write software depends on the usability of the languages and tools that they develop with. The aim of this workshop is to discuss methods, metrics and techniques for evaluating the usability of languages and language tools. The supposed benefits of such languages and tools cover a large space, including making programs easier to read, write, and maintain; allowing programmers to write more flexible and powerful programs; and restricting programs to make them more safe and secure. This workshop gathers the intersection of researchers in the programming language, programming tool, and human-computer interaction communities to share their research and discuss the future of evaluation and usability of programming languages and tools. We are also interested in the input of other members of the programming research community working on related areas, such as refactoring, design patterns, program analysis, program comprehension, software visualization, end-user programming, and other programming language paradigms.

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

programming languages
usability
evaluation
tools


Robust Modeling of Constant Mean Curvature Surfaces We present a new method for modeling discrete constant mean curvature (CMC) surfaces, which arise frequently in nature and are highly demanded in architecture and other engineering applications. Our method is based on a novel use of the CVT (centroidal Voronoi tessellation) optimization framework. We devise a CVT-CMC energy function defined as a combination of an extended CVT energy and a volume functional. We show that minimizing the CVT-CMC energy is asymptotically equivalent to minimizing mesh surface area with a fixed volume, thus defining a discrete CMC surface. The CVT term in the energy function ensures high mesh quality throughout the evolution of a CMC surface in an interactive design process for form finding. Our method is capable of modeling CMC surfaces with fixed or free boundaries and is robust with respect to input mesh quality and topology changes. Experiments show that the new method generates discrete CMC surfaces of improved mesh quality over existing methods.

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

constant mean curvature
mesh quality
centroidal voronoi tessellation


Second order Mond-Weir type duality for multiobjective programming involving Second order (C, alpha, rho, d)-convexity In this paper, we introduce a class of second order (C, alpha, rho, d)-convexity. Under the (C, alpha, rho, d)-convexity assumptions on the functions involved, weak, strong and strict converse duality theorems are established for a second order Mond-Weir type multiobjective dual. Our results generalize these existing dual results which were discussed by Ahmad et al [Second-order (F, alpha, rho, d)-convexity and duality in multiobjective programming, Information Science, 176(2006)3094-3103].

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 B I O O O

second order duality
efficient
(c, alpha, rho, d)-convexity


Adaptive Pinning Control of Deteriorated Nonlinear Coupling Networks With Circuit Realization This paper deals with a class of complex networks with nonideal coupling networks, and addresses the problem of asymptotic synchronization of the complex network through designing adaptive pinning control and coupling adjustment strategies. A more general coupled nonlinearity is considered as perturbations of the network, while a serious faulty network named deteriorated network is also proposed to be further study. For the sake of eliminating these adverse impacts for synchronization, indirect adaptive schemes are designed to construct controllers and adjusters on pinned nodes and nonuniform couplings of un-pinned nodes, respectively. According to Lyapunov stability theory, the proposed adaptive strategies are successful in ensuring the achievement of asymptotic synchronization of the complex network even in the presence of perturbed and deteriorated networks. The proposed schemes are physically implemented by circuitries and tested by simulation on a Chua's circuit network.

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

adaptive pinning control
circuit realization
nonlinear coupling networks
synchronization


Application of graph theory: Relationship of antimycobacterial activity of quinolone derivatives with eccentric connectivity index and Zagreb group parameters. Relationship between topological descriptors and antimycobacterial activity of quinolone derivatives has been investigated using a data set comprising of 52 quinolone analogues including ciprofloxacin. Eccentric connectivity index, an adjacency cum distance based topological descriptor and Zagreb group parameters M-1 & M-2, adjacency based topological descriptors were employed for present study. The values of eccentric connectivity index and Zagreb group parameters M-1 & M-2 of each of 52 analogues comprising the data set were computed and active ranges were identified. Subsequently, a biological activity was assigned to each analogue involved in the data set which was then compared with the reported antimycobacterial activity against Mycobacterium fortuitum. Accuracy of prediction was found to vary from a maximum of similar to85% in case of eccentric connectivity index to a minimum of similar to81% in case of Zagreb group parameter M-2.

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

eccentric connectivity index
mycobacterium

topological indices and zagreb group parameters


A comparative study of compressed sensing approaches for 3-D synthetic aperture radar image reconstruction ? This paper investigates two compressed sensing (CS) approaches that can be used to reconstruct 3-D synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images with undersampled measurements. Combining CS with the range migration algorithm (RMA), using either Stolt transform or non-uniform fast Fourier transform (NUFFT), yields two different approaches: Stolt-CS and NUFFT-CS. These approaches can decrease the load of data acquisition while recovering satisfactory 3-D SAR images through l1 l 1 -norm optimization. A simulated image is used as the ground truth to facilitate the comparative study. The 2-D structured similarity (SSIM) index is extended to 3-D to assess the quality of the reconstructed images. Both the simulation and the experimental reconstruction results demonstrate that the Stolt-CS contributes little to image quality improvement or computational complexity reduction due to the inaccuracy of the Stolt transform. In contrast, the NUFFT-CS achieves a good tradeoff between the reconstruction quality and the computational costs.

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

synthetic aperture radar (sar)
range migration algorithm (rma)
3-d radar imaging
compressed sensing (cs)


Modeling of celiac disease immune response and the therapeutic effect of potential drugs Celiac disease (CD) is an autoimmune disorder that occurs in genetically predisposed people and is caused by a reaction to the gluten protein found in wheat, which leads to intestinal villous atrophy. Currently there is no drug for treatment of CD. The only known treatment is lifelong gluten-free diet. The main aim of this work is to develop a mathematical model of the immune response in CD patients and to predict the efficacy of a transglutaminase-2 (TG-2) inhibitor as a potential drug for treatment of CD.

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


a large-scale performance study of cluster-based high-dimensional indexing High-dimensional clustering is used by some content-based image retrieval systems to partition the data into groups; the groups (clusters) are then indexed to accelerate processing of queries. Recently, the Cluster Pruning approach was proposed as a simple way to produce such clusters. While the original evaluation of the algorithm was performed within a text indexing context at a rather small scale, its simplicity motivated us to study its behavior in an image indexing context at a much larger scale. This paper summarizes the results of this study and shows that while the basic algorithm works fairly well, three extensions dramatically improve its performance and scalability, accelerating both query processing and the construction of clusters, making Cluster Pruning a promising basis for building large-scale systems that require a clustering algorithm.

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

nearest neighbor
high dimensional
approximate search method


Applying the extended mass-constraint EM algorithm to image retrieval We extend the mass-constraint data clustering and vector quantization algorithm to estimate Gaussian Mixture Models (GMMs) as image features applying to the image retrieval problems. The GMM feature is an alternative method to histograms to represent data density distributions. Histograms are well known for their advantages including rotation invariance, low calculation load, and so on. The GMM maintains the rotation invariance properties; moreover, it addresses the high-dimensional problems due to which histograms usually suffer inefficiency problems. The extended mass-constraint (EMass) GMM estimation algorithm is compared with the typical ExpectationMaximization(EM) algorithm, and the deterministic annealing EM (DAEM) algorithm. The three algorithms are applied to train a GMM for a set of simulation data, and compared with the log-likelihood values. From the comparison results, we know that DAEM still has strong dependence on initial data point selection, which is the main problem we need to solve by taking advantage of the deterministic annealing methods. Thus the DAEM algorithm is not chosen to estimate GMM density functions for image retrieval. The EM and EMass algorithms are then applied to train GMMs from image RGB color features for the purpose of image retrieval. Finally the GMM features are combined with the Local Binary Pattern (LBP) features to achieve higher precision retrieval. After we compare the precision/recall curves and mean average precisions achieved by two algorithms, we conclude that the extended mass-constraint algorithm is a better solution for GMM estimation, and combining the GMM and Local Binary Pattern (LBP) provides a new promising feature for image retrieval.

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

image retrieval
em
deterministic annealing


INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY INVESTMENT AND MANUFACTURING WORKER PRODUCTIVITY In 1987, Nobel laureate Robert So low cynically commented about the ubiquity of computers except in the productivity statistics. Since then, economists and management researchers have debated over whether IT matters in improving firm performance and the economy. For years, IT effects have been examined from largely three streams: macro perspective (the entire economy), micro perspective (firm) and a middle ground approach (industry). Industry level studies, however, appear to be less clear than those studies at macro- or micro- levels. This study examines the association of IT investment with manufacturing worker productivity at the industry level using a panel dataset of 322 six-digit NAICS industries over the period 2002-2008. Results show that IT investment has contributed to the improvement of manufacturing worker productivity across several measures.

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

manufacturing productivity
it productivity paradox


mining a logical set of microarray data from heterogeneous multi-platform microarrays In recent years, the microarray technology has been utilized in various applications such as the profiling of mRNAs, assessment of DNA copy number, genotyping, and detection of methylated sequences. These heterogeneous platforms could be co-analyzed, for cross-validation. In this paper, our result of integral genomic analyses of first phase multi-platform microarrays project, in collaboration with five genome research centers of Korea, is presented. Four different platforms have been used, and we believe that predictive models generated by heterogeneous microarray platforms analyses can be validated better than those generated on a single platform data set.

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 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


Developmental Trauma is Associated with Behavioral Hyperarousal, Altered HPA Axis Activity, and Decreased Hippocampal Neurotrophin Expression in the Adult Rat Effects of early-life trauma on adult behavioral responses, corticosterone (CORT) concentration, and levels of nerve growth factor (NGF), brain-derived neutrophic factor (BDNF), and neurotrophin-3 (NT-3) in hippocampus and frontal cortex were investigated. Traumatized animals showed an increase in rearing in both the elevated plus maze and open field after adult restress, higher basal levels of CORT, lower levels of BDNF in dorsal hippocampus, and lower levels of NT-3 in dorsal and ventral hippocampus. Trauma-related behavioral hyperarousal and altered hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis activity may be mediated by decreases in hippocampal neurotrophin expression

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

dorsal hippocampus
ventral hippocampus
bdnf
ngf

nt-3
adrenal glands
time-dependent sensitization
early-life stress


Robust forecasting of mortality and fertility rates: A functional data approach A new method is proposed for forecasting age-specific mortality and fertility rates observed over time. This approach allows for smooth functions of age, is robust for outlying years due to wars and epidemics, and provides a modelling framework that is easily adapted to allow for constraints and other information. Ideas from functional data analysis, nonparametric smoothing and robust statistics are combined to form a methodology that is widely applicable to any functional time series data observed discretely and possibly with error. The model is a generalization of the LeeCarter (LC) model commonly used in mortality and fertility forecasting. The methodology is applied to French mortality data and Australian fertility data, and the forecasts obtained are shown to be superior to those from the LC method and several of its variants.

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

fertility forecasting
functional data
nonparametric smoothing

mortality forecasting
principal components
robustness


Molecular characterization, modeling and docking of CYP107CB2 from Bacillus lehensis G1, an alkaliphile The putative gene CYP107CB2 from Bacillus lehensis G1 was classified into cytochrome P450 superfamily. CYP107CB2 is likely to interact with vitamin D3, 25-hydroxyvitamin D3 and 1?-hydroxyvitamin D3 as they were proximally located to the heme-iron. The findings provide important clues on substrates selectiveness to identify functional properties of new CYP107CB2. CYP107CB2 is a biologically active protein to produce 1?,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 from 1?-hydroxyvitamin D3.

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

cytochrome p450 monooxygenase
1?
25-dihydroxyvitamin d3
homology modeling
molecular docking


How novices design business processes Process modeling is an important design practice in organizational improvement projects. In this paper, we examine the design of business process diagrams in contexts where novice analysts only have basic design tools such as paper and pencils available, and little to no understanding of formalized modeling approaches. Based on a quasi-experimental study with 89 BPM students, we identify five distinct process design archetypes ranging from textual to hybrid and graphical representation forms. We examine the quality of the designs and identify which representation formats enable an analyst to articulate business rules, states, events, activities, temporal and geospatial information in a process model. We found that the quality of the process designs decreases with the increased use of graphics and that hybrid designs featuring appropriate text labels and abstract graphical forms appear well-suited to describe business processes. We further examine how process design preferences predict formalized process modeling ability. Our research has implications for practical process design work in industry as well as for academic curricula on process design.

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


Arabic GramCheck: a grammar checker for arabic Arabic is a Semitic language that is rich in its morphology and syntax. The very numerous and complex grammar rules of the language may be confusing for the average user of a word processor. In this paper, we report our attempt at developing a grammar checker program for Modern Standard Arabic, called Arabic GramCheck. Arabic GramCheck can help the average user by checking his/her writing for certain common grammatical errors; it describes the problem for him/her and offers suggestions for improvement. The use of the Arabic grammatical checker can increase productivity and improve the quality of the text for anyone who writes Arabic. Arabic GramCheck has been successfully implemented using SICStus Prolog on an IBM PC. The current implementation covers a well-formed subset of Arabic and focuses on people trying to write in a formal style. Successful tests have been performed using a set of Arabic sentences. It is concluded that the approach is promising by observing the results as compared to the output of a commercially available Arabic grammar checker. Copyright (C) 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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

arabic natural language processing
grammatical checking
common arabic grammar errors
grammar checkers


A new algorithm for elimination of common subexpressions The problem of an efficient hardware implementation of multiplications with one or more constants is encountered in many different digital signal-processing areas, such as image processing or digital filter optimization. In a more general form, this is a problem of common subexpression elimination, and as such it also occurs in compiler optimization and many high-level synthesis tasks. An efficient solution of this problem can yield significant improvements in important design parameters like implementation area or power consumption. In this paper, a new solution of the multiple constant multiplication problem based on the common subexpression elimination technique is presented. The performance of our method is demonstrated primarily on a finite-duration impulse response filter design. The idea is to implement a set of constant multiplications as a set of add-shift operations and to optimize these with respect to the common subexpressions afterwards. We show that the number of add/subtract operations can be reduced significantly this way. The applicability of the presented algorithm to the different high-level synthesis tasks is also indicated. Benchmarks demonstrating the algorithm's efficiency are included as well.

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

common subexpression elimination
optimization


Achieving high availability and performance computing with an HA-OSCAR cluster High availability (HA) computing has long gained much attention in enterprise and mission critical systems. HA goals are to maximize the uptime, thus undoubtedly complementing high-performance computing (HPC) objectives. HA-OSCAR is a project that aims to improve HA in commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS)-based HPC environments. In this paper, we introduce a multi-head HPC cluster architecture. Server redundancy is an initial key aspect aiming toward downtime reduction. Two HA-OSCAR types, activestandby and activeactive, are studied. We evaluate system dependability for given two models. Stochastic Reward Nets (SRN) are used to model the system availability. We describe our SRN modeling using Stochastic Petri Net Package, and compute several interesting results that characterize HA-OSCAR availability.

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

stochastic reward nets
high availability
dependability


Finite element model updating based on eigenvalue and strain energy residuals using multiobjective optimisation technique The numerical results from a finite element (FE) model often differ from the experimental results of real structures. FE model updating is often required to identify and correct the uncertain parameters of FE model and is usually posed as an optimisation problem. Setting up of an objective function, selecting updating parameters and using robust optimisation algorithm are three crucial steps in FE model updating. In this paper, a multiobjective optimisation technique is used to extremise two objective functions simultaneously which overcomes the difficulty of weighing the individual objective function of more objectives in conventional FE model updating procedure. Eigenfrequency residual and modal strain energy residual are used as two objective functions of the multiobjective optimisation. Only few updating parameters are selected on the basis of the prior knowledge of the dynamic behaviours of the structure and eigenfrequency sensitivity study. The proposed FE model updating procedure is first applied to the simulated simply supported beam. This case study shows that the methodology is robust with an effective detection of assumed damaged elements. The procedure is then successfully applied to the updating of a precast continuous box girder bridge that was tested on field under operational conditions.

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

finite element
model updating
modal strain energy
objective function
eigenfrequency

structural dynamics
vibration test
modal expansion


Outlier detection in large data sets In this paper we propose a method for correctly detecting outliers based on a new technique developed to simultaneously evaluate mean, variance and outliers. This method is capable of self-regulating its robustness to suit the experimental data set under analysis, so as to overcome shortcomings of: (i) non-robust methods such as the least sum of squares; (ii) the need of the user in defining a trimmed sub-set of experimental points such as in least trimmed sum of squares; and (iii) the possibility to read the data set only once to evaluate the mean, variance, and outliers of a population by preserving robustness. (C) 2010 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

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


using magnets in physical blocks that behave as programming objects In this paper we describe the implementation of GameBlocks, a novel digital manipulative system for coding simple programme sequences to control a toy robot. A contact-less, magnetic field-based mechanism for transferring information about the blocks is described. The mechanical and electronic system components are described. We position this implementation in relation to prior related work. Problems encountered are given, with suggestions for future work.

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

tui
digital manipulatives
montessori-inspired manipulatives
illiterate programmer


Parametric study of a UWB parallel-plate monopole antenna for operation in the 5- to 20-GHz band A directional ultra-wideband (UWB) planar antenna is presented in this article. The obtained antenna bandwidth is in the order of 10:1. The directional behavior is gotten by slating a planar monopole antenna with respect to the ground plane. The UWB and directional characteristics of this antenna was obtained by optimizing four parameters: bevelling and slating angles, the size of the matching impedance hole, and the ratio between the height and width of the radiating element. The relatively easy construction of the antenna is one of its main features along with its gain, which goes from 0 to 8.1 dB in the band from 2.6 to 20 GHz. Results obtained by simulation and measurements are in close agreement. (c) 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

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


Parsimonious regularized extreme learning machine based on orthogonal transformation Recently, two parsimonious algorithms were proposed to sparsify extreme learning machine (ELM), i.e., constructive parsimonious ELM (CP-ELM) and destructive parsimonious ELM (DP-ELM). In this paper, the ideas behind CP-ELM and DP-ELM are extended to the regularized ELM (RELM), thus obtaining CP-RELM and DP-RELM. For CP-RELM(DP-RELM), there are two schemes to realize it, viz. CP-RELM-I and CP-RELM-II(DP-RELM-I and DP-RELM-II). Generally speaking, CP-RELM-II(DP-RELM-II) outperforms CP-RELM-I(DP-RELM-I) in terms of parsimoniousness. Under nearly the same generalization, compared with CP-ELM(DP-ELM), CP-RELM-II(DP-RELM-II) usually needs fewer hidden nodes. In addition, different from CP-ELM and DP-ELM, for CP-RELM and DP-RELM the number of candidate hidden nodes may be larger than the number of training samples, which assists the selection of much better hidden nodes for constructing more compact networks. Finally, eleven benchmark data sets divided into two groups are utilized to do experiments and the usefulness of the proposed algorithms is reported.

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

extreme learning machine
orthogonal transformation

sparseness
tikhonov regularization
condition number


Age differences in constraints encountered by seniors in their use of computers and the internet The purpose of this cross-sectional study was to explore older computer users constraints at various age stages. We investigated perceived barriers experienced by older adults in the use of computer-mediated information technology in different age segments (the pre-senior, the youngold, and the older-old). Two hundred forty-three senior computer users participated in the study. Respondents ages ranged from 50 to 93. Results from exploratory factor analysis and one-way analysis of variance suggested that there were four dimensions of constraints encountered by seniors while dealing with computer-based technologies: Intrapersonal, interpersonal, structural, and functional constraints. These results indicated that senior users might face diverse barriers at different age stages. Implications for developing an effective programming for older adults and research limitations were discussed at the end.

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

constraints
older adults
computer
internet
information technology


Cryptanalysis of an Off-Line Electronic Cash Scheme Based on Proxy Blind Signature Proxy blind signature is an important cryptographic primitive and plays an essential role in construction of the electronic cash (e-cash). Recently, Tan (2001, An offline electronic cash scheme based on proxy blind signature. Comput. J., 54, 505-512) proposed a new proxy blind signature scheme and applied it to electronic cash. The scheme was claimed as being provably secure under the Discrete Log assumption, DBDH assumption and Chosen-Target CDH assumption in the random oracle model. In this paper, we show that Tan's proxy blind signature scheme is insecure by demonstrating several attacks in which a malicious original signer can forge both valid proxy signature keys of arbitrary proxy signers and a proxy blind signature on an arbitrary message with respect to any proxy signer directly. We also discuss some weaknesses in the e-cash scheme proposed by Tan.

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


POINCARE CODE: A package of open-source implements for normalization and computer algebra reduction near equilibria of coupled ordinary differential equations The Poincare code is a MAPLE project package that aims to gather significant computer algebra normal form (and subsequent reduction) methods for handling nonlinear ordinary differential equations. As a first version, a set of fourteen easy-to-use MAPLE commands is introduced for symbolic creation of (improved variants of Poincare's) normal forms as well as their associated normalizing transformations. The software is the implementation by the authors of carefully studied and followed up selected normal form procedures from the literature, including some authors' contributions to the subject. As can be seen, joint-normal-form programs involving Lie-point symmetries are of special interest and are published in CPC Program Library for the first time, Hamiltonian variants being also very useful as they lead to encouraging results when applied, for example, to models from computational physics like Henon-Heiles. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

maple package
poincare-dulac normal form
birkhoff-gustavson normal form
joint normal form
lie transform


On learning to estimate the block directional image of a fingerprint using a hierarchical neural network This paper presents a hierarchical neural network architecture for computing fingerprints block directional images. Two separately trained neural networks are connected in series. First, the fingerprint image is divided into 1616 blocks, each block is submitted to the first network which is a back propagation neural network. It has four counters in its output layer one for each direction to count the main directional codes in each fingerprint block. The output of this network is considered the feature vector for the fingerprint block, which is then submitted to the second network. The second network is a self-organized feature maps neural network uses an unsupervised learning strategy to group the fingerprint blocks into distinct directional classes. In this scheme, there is more than one sub-class for each directional class, an agglomerative hierarchical cluster algorithm for merging two clusters is used to merge two classes if their corresponding distances are below a specified threshold. Results obtained with a real world data set indicate the effectiveness of the proposed architecture.

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

fingerprints
block directional image
directional classes

hierarchical neural networks
self-organized feature maps
counting neural networks
back-propagation neural networks
clusters merging
fingerprint blocks classification


Online fuzzy identification for an intelligent controller based on a simple platform The paper presents the identification issues of the self-tuning nonlinear controller ASPECT (Advanced control algorithmS for ProgrammablE logiC conTrollers). The controller is implemented on a simple PLC platform with an extra mathematical coprocessor, but is intended for the advanced control of complex processes. The model of the controlled plant is obtained by means of experimental modelling. A special batch-wise algorithm that is based on the TakagiSugeno model and uses fuzzy instrumental variables technique is described in the paper. Many robustness problems of the classical adaptive approaches can be circumvented to some extent by the proposed batch-wise approach combined with a supervisory mechanism. The paper also includes some experimental results on the hydraulic pilot plant and some simulation case studies.

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

programmable controllers
online learning
nonlinear control systems
ph neutralisation process


use a little history This poster describes a work in progress regarding the use of history in computing courses. Its focus revolves around the Computing History Resources and Adaptation (CHRAD) project, partially funded by the National Science Foundation. Elements of the presentation include how history can make computing courses interesting and how it can stimulate greater appreciation between technological and social issues.

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 I O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 particle swarm optimization algorithm for makespan and total flowtime minimization in the permutation flowshop sequencing problem In this paper, a particle swarm optimization algorithm (PSO) is presented to solve the permutation flowshop sequencing problem (PFSP) with the objectives of minimizing makespan and the total flowtime of jobs. For this purpose, a heuristic rule called the smallest position value (SPV) borrowed from the random key representation of Bean [J.C. Bean, Genetic algorithm and random keys for sequencing and optimization, ORSA Journal of Computing 6(2) (1994) 154160] was developed to enable the continuous particle swarm optimization algorithm to be applied to all classes of sequencing problems. In addition, a very efficient local search, called variable neighborhood search (VNS), was embedded in the PSO algorithm to solve the well known benchmark suites in the literature. The PSO algorithm was applied to both the 90 benchmark instances provided by Taillard [E. Taillard, Benchmarks for basic scheduling problems, European Journal of Operational Research, 64 (1993) 278285], and the 14,000 random, narrow random and structured benchmark instances provided by Watson et al. [J.P. Watson, L. Barbulescu, L.D. Whitley, A.E. Howe, Contrasting structured and random permutation flowshop scheduling problems: Search space topology and algorithm performance, ORSA Journal of Computing 14(2) (2002) 98123]. For makespan criterion, the solution quality was evaluated according to the best known solutions provided either by Taillard, or Watson et al. The total flowtime criterion was evaluated with the best known solutions provided by Liu and Reeves [J. Liu, C.R. Reeves, Constructive and composite heuristic solutions to the P??Ci scheduling problem, European Journal of Operational Research 132 (2001) 439452], and Rajendran and Ziegler [C. Rajendran, H. Ziegler, Ant-colony algorithms for permutation flowshop scheduling to minimize makespan/total flowtime of jobs, European Journal of Operational Research, 155(2) (2004) 426438]. For the total flowtime criterion, 57 out of the 90 best known solutions reported by Liu and Reeves, and Rajendran and Ziegler were improved whereas for the makespan criterion, 195 out of the 800 best known solutions for the random and narrow random problems reported by Watson et al. were improved by the VNS version of the PSO algorithm.

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

scheduling
particle swarm optimization
permutation flowshop
variable neighborhood search
makespan
total flowtime


On the numerical Greens function technique for cracks in Reissners plates The numerical Greens function (NGF) technique, previously proposed by the present authors, is here extended to fracture mechanics problems involving Reissners plate theory. The technique numerically produces a plate bending fundamental Greens function that automatically includes embedded cracks to be used in the classical boundary element method (BEM) to solve this class of problems. The applications discussed include torsion, bending moment and shear force loadings. In addition, also presented is a series of numerical results computed in terms of normalized stress intensity factors to illustrate the good accuracy of the procedure.

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

lefm
reissner theory
hyper-singular formulation
cracked plate bending


Finding rule groups to classify high dimensional gene expression datasets Microarray data provides quantitative information about the transcription profile of cells. To analyze microarray datasets, methodology of machine learning has increasingly attracted bioinformatics researchers. Some approaches of machine learning are widely used to classify and minebiological datasets. However, many gene expression datasets are extremely high dimensionality, traditional machine learning methods cannot be applied effectively and efficiently. This paper proposes a robust algorithm to find out rule groups to classify gene expression datasets. Unlike the most classification algorithms, which select dimensions (genes) heuristically to form rules groups to identify classes such as cancerous and normal tissues, our algorithm guarantees finding out best-k dimensions (genes) to form rule groups for the classification of expression datasets. Our experiments show that the rule groups obtained by our algorithm have higher accuracy than that of other classification approaches. (c) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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


towards automatic tuning of adaptive computations in autonomic middleware An autonomic middleware performs adaptive computations on the fly that bring benefits to the system while consuming additional resources such as CPU and memory. These computations can sometimes interfere with normal business functions of the system due to resource competition, especially when under heavy load. In this paper, we propose an approach to tuning the computation levels and thus controlling the resource costs of the adaptive computations in an autonomic middleware. The tuning (i.e., upgrading or degrading) of the computation levels is performed automatically based on the varying workloads, and the features and gains of the adaptive computations. The essence of our approach is to enable a flexible tradeoff between business functions and adaptive computations by executing the latter dynamically when resources are limited and competed. We present tuning policies and mechanisms to suit different adaptive computations, and implement an automatic tuning framework to investigate our approach. The experiment on the framework indicates that it is effective and efficient to improve the performance of the middleware system.

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

adaptive computations
autonomic middleware


STAP processing and SIRV modeling: robustness and persymmetty In the STAP framework, this paper proposes a review of SIRV modelling for detection and estimation. These processes allow to extend the detection and estimation theory to the STAP problem in a non-Gaussian and heterogeneous background. Some theoretical tools (estimators, detectors) are presented jointly with their attractive properties (SIRV GEAR, robustness, secondary data number reduction) which allow to significantly outperform conventional, e.g. Gaussian based, ones.

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

adaptive signal detection
gaussian and non-gaussian clutter
sirv theory
covariance matrix estimation
persymmetry
robust estimation


Schedulability Analysis of Global Scheduling Algorithms on Multiprocessor Platforms This paper addresses the schedulability problem of periodic and sporadic real-time task sets with constrained deadlines preemptively scheduled on a multiprocessor platform composed by identical processors. We assume that a global work-conserving scheduler is used and migration from one processor to another is allowed during a task lifetime. First, a general method to derive schedulability conditions for multiprocessor real-time systems will be presented. The analysis will be applied to two typical scheduling algorithms: Earliest Deadline First (EDF) and Fixed Priority (FP). Then, the derived schedulability conditions will be tightened, refining the analysis with a simple and effective technique that significantly improves the percentage of accepted task sets. The effectiveness of the proposed test is shown through an extensive set of synthetic experiments.

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

multiprocessor scheduling
real-time systems
task migration


Enhanced delta-two-stream approximation model of diffuse solar radiation and its application to computation of solar irradiation on tilted surfaces This paper presents an enhanced approximate model for computation of atmospheric radiative transfer. That model can be used for computing the solar irradiation on tilted surfaces, a current problem for many purposes and in particular for solar power installations design. The present model takes into consideration one term more than the classical delta-Eddington two-stream model in the spherical harmonics decomposition of atmospheric diffuse radiance. This makes possible a better description of the radiance near the horizon. Despite that extension, due to an additional constraint, the radiance expression results in a sum of only three exponential function of altitude, as in the original delta d-Eddington two-stream model. Using that result as the source term of the diffuse radiance equation, an even better solution is easily obtained as it is easy to integrate exponential functions. Comparison is achieved with irradiance experimental values and with an empirical expression of the radiance, both extracted from the literature.

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