the indexable web is more than 11.5 billion pages In this short paper we estimate the size of the public indexable web at 11.5 billion pages. We also estimate the overlap and the index size of Google, MSN, Ask/Teoma and Yahoo!

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

indexing
search engines
estimates
size of the web
index sizes


The Global-ISP paradigm We present a new paradigm, called Global-ISP (G-ISP). Its goal is to solve, or at least alleviate, problems of inter-domain routing, such as slow convergence, and lack of QoS and multicast support. One of the most important properties of the proposed paradigm is that it can be gradually deployed on the Internet. A G-ISP can be viewed as an additional ISP that provides transit services to its customers over an overlay network. Because a G-ISP differs from a regular ISP, some extension to the standard BGP protocol is required. This extension and its effects on the BGP protocol are described in this paper. Algorithms for building a G-ISP overlay network and their applications are also presented.

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


An urban containment planning support system for Beijing Urban containment policies, including urban growth boundaries, urban service boundaries and greenbelts, have been extensively discussed worldwide for managing urban growth. This paper focuses on the issues associated with supporting an urban containment plan and its application in China using a planning support system. The background is that the urban containment plan has been enacted as a new component of the urban plan under the City Planning Law of the Peoples Republic of China. In China, the accommodating or restrictive features are integrated as control factors (CFs), which include control indicators for land-use type control, urban activity control, building height control, as well as underground development control. This paper proposes an urban containment planning support system (UC-PSS) based on ArcGIS for automatically compiling the Beijing urban containment plan considering 60 control factors with various control indicators. The compiled plan was also applied for reviewing urban master and district detail plans in Beijing supported by the UC-PSS. The effectiveness of UC-PSS was comprehensively evaluated from the perspectives of planning compilation and planning review via interviewing urban containment planners (main users of the UC-PSS) in Beijing.

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

planning support system (pss)
uniform analysis zone (uaz)
control factor


Modeling and systematic analysis of biomarker validation using selected reaction monitoring Discovery and validation of protein biomarkers with high specificity is the main challenge of current proteomics studies. Different mass spectrometry models are used as shotgun tools for the discovery of biomarkers. Validation of a set of selected biomarkers from a list of candidates is an important stage in the biomarker identification pipeline. Validation is typically done by triple quadrupole (QQQ) mass spectrometry (MS) running in selected reaction monitoring (SRM) mode. Although the individual modules of this pipeline have been studied, there is little work on integrating the components from a systematic point of view.

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

mass spectrometry (ms)
selected reaction monitoring (srm)
triple quadrupole (qqq) systems


A fragile digital watermarking technique by number theoretic transform This paper suggests that a watermarking technique based on the number theoretic transform (NTT) may effectively be employed for detecting alterations on lossless digital master images. Due to its fragility, the NTT-based technique is sensitive to detecting alterations, compared with that based on the discrete Fourier transform (DFT).

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

digital watermarking
detecting alterations
discrete fourier transform
number theoretic transform


Ergonomics investigation of retail ice cream operations A comprehensive ergonomics evaluation of retail ice cream shops, including field and laboratory data collection, was conducted using a human:workplace model approach to ergonomics practice. The goal of the evaluation was to provide recommendations to enhance the health, safety, and productivity of shop employees. Active and passive surveillance and facility walk-throughs were used to guide the selection of analyses. A primary focus of the investigation was quantifying the task demands of scooping ice cream, which have not been documented in the literature. This goal was accomplished through the use of a custom-designed instrumented ice cream scoop. Data were collected at an ice cream shop under typical conditions, while the laboratory experiment investigated task demands of ice cream scooping over a range of realistic temperatures. Manual materials handling task analyses and anthropometric evaluations comprised the majority of other analyses performed. Recommendations are presented that are applicable to the operation of retail ice cream shops that serve hard (i.e., scooped) ice cream.

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


An empirically-based process for software architecture evaluation Software systems undergo constant change causing the architecture of the system to degenerate over time. Reversing system degeneration takes extra effort and delays the release of the next version. Improved architecture is intangible and does not translate into visible user features that can be marketed. Due to a lack of representative metrics, technical staff has problems arguing that stopping degeneration is indeed necessary and that the effort will result in an improved architecture that will pay off. We believe that architectural metrics would give technical staff better tools to demonstrate that the architecture has improved. This paper defines and uses a set of architectural metrics and outlines a process for analyzing architecture to support such an argument. The paper reports on a case study from a project where we restructured the architecture of an existing client-server system written in Java while adding new functionality. The modules of the existing version of the system were "library-oriented" and had a disorganized communication structure. The new architecture is based on components and utilizes the mediator design pattern. The goal of the study is to evaluate the new architecture from a maintainability perspective. The paper describes our evaluation process, the metrics used, and provides some preliminary results. The architectural evaluation shows that the components of the system are only loosely coupled to each other and that an architectural improvement has occurred from a maintenance perspective. The process used to evaluate the architecture is general and can be reused in other 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 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 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 B O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O


A MODEL FOR PREDICTING CLASS MOVEMENT IN AN INHERITANCE HIERARCHY In this paper, we present an empirical study to investigate whether class movement and re-location within inheritance hierarchy can be predicted based on size, coupling and cohesion for four Java open-source systems. Our results showed that class movement may not be predicted based on coupling and cohesion, and while class size was found to be a factor that may help predict class movement, it does not per se predict class movement within an inheritance hierarchy. We found a significantly higher odds ratio for larger classes to be moved within an inheritance hierarchy than that of smaller classes, suggesting that, counter-intuitively, larger classes tend to be more susceptible to movement than smaller classes. We also found that in the four systems, while classes with high coupling, low cohesion and larger size tended to be moved within their respective inheritance hierarchy, classes with high coupling, low cohesion and relatively smaller size tended to be candidate classes for deletion. Finally, while we found that class coupling and size tended to rise as the systems evolved we found no statistical support for class cohesion to decline. Directed towards developers and project managers, the message that the research conveys is that excessive growth in class size is at the root of a class' deterioration in terms of movement; developmental controls should be exercised to avoid such growth.

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


Transient behaviour of queueing systems with correlated traffic In this paper, we present the time-dependent solutions of various stochastic processes associated with a finite Quasi-Birth-Death queueing system. These include the transient queueing solutions, the transient departure and loss intensity processes and certain transient cumulative measures associated with the queueing system. The focus of our study is the effect of the arrival process correlation on the queueing system before it reaches steady-state. With the aid of numerous examples, we investigate the strong relationship between the time scales of variation of the arrival process and those of the transient queueing, loss and departure processes. These time-dependent solutions require the computation of the exponential of the stochastic generator matrix G which may be of very large order. This precludes the use of known techniques to solve the matrix exponential such as the eigenvalue decomposition of G. We present a numerical technique based on the computation of the Laplace Transform of the matrix exponential which may then be numerically inverted to obtain the time-dependent solutions. In this paper, we also propose new QoS metrics based on transient measures and efficient techniques for their computation.

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

transient performance
numerical analysis


Test-Case Reduction for C Compiler Bugs To report a compiler bug, one must often find a small test case that triggers the bug. The existing approach to automated test-case reduction, delta debugging, works by removing substrings of the original input; the result is a concatenation of substrings that delta cannot remove. We have found this approach less than ideal for reducing C programs because it typically yields test cases that are too large or even invalid (relying on undefined behavior). To obtain small and valid test cases consistently, we designed and implemented three new, domain-specific test-case reducers. The best of these is based on a novel framework in which a generic fixpoint computation invokes modular transformations that perform reduction operations. This reducer produces outputs that are, on average, more than 25 times smaller than those produced by our other reducers or by the existing reducer that is most commonly used by compiler developers. We conclude that effective program reduction requires more than straightforward delta debugging.

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

compiler testing
compiler defect
automated testing
random testing
bug reporting
test-case minimization


Verifying Coalitions in 3-Party Systems Multiplayer games are played by a set of agents, where, at each round, all players give their moves, and the combination of their moves defines the successor states for the game. In such games, the players pursue certain goals with their moves and in that pursuit, they can form coalitions to fulfill a common objective. In this paper, we adopt this model of multiplayer coalition games in the context of 3-party systems, consisting of a module, its environment, and a controller. The winning objective of our game is given as a specification in linear temporal logic and the module and controller together attempt to satisfy the specification for all possible strategies of the environment. In this paper, we analyze the problem for various degrees of observability of the module-controller pair, and provide quantified Boolean formula-based methods for investigating the existence of a winning coalition strategy. The coalition strategy can only be fulfilled on carefully implementing both the module and the controller such that they can cooperate. We also consider the problem where the implementations of the module and the controller are available and we present a dynamic simulation-based approach for verifying whether these implementations conform to the coalition requirements. In case, they do not, we provide algorithms for designing the winning strategy for an intelligent environment to drive the coalition to a refutation.

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

quantified boolean formulas (qbf)
realizability
simulation
test generation


Estimation of conditional quantiles by a new smoothing approximation of asymmetric loss functions In this paper, nonparametric estimation of conditional quantiles of a nonlinear time series model is formulated as a nonsmooth optimization problem involving an asymmetric loss function. This asymmetric loss function is nonsmooth and is of the same structure as the so-called 'lopsided' absolute value function. Using an effective smoothing approximation method introduced for this lopsided absolute value function, we obtain a sequence of approximate smooth optimization problems. Some important convergence properties of the approximation are established. Each of these smooth approximate optimization problems is solved by an optimization algorithm based on a sequential quadratic programming approximation with active set strategy. Within the framework of locally linear conditional quantiles, the proposed approach is compared with three other approaches, namely, an approach proposed by Yao and Tong (1996), the Iteratively Reweighted Least Squares method and the Interior-Point method, through some empirical numerical studies using simulated data and the classic lynx pelt series. In particular, the empirical performance of the proposed approach is almost identical with that of the Interior-Point method, both methods being slightly better than the Iteratively Reweighted Least Squares method. The Yao-Tong approach is comparable with the other methods in the ideal cases for the Yao-Tong method, but otherwise it is outperformed by other approaches. An important merit of the proposed approach is that it is conceptually simple and can be readily applied to parametrically nonlinear conditional quantile estimation.

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

asymmetric loss function
nonlinear time series
optimization

prediction
smooth approximation
lynx data


Fast algorithms for the Sylvester equation AX-XBT=C For given matrices Al is an element of F-m X m, B is an element of F-n X n , and C is an element of F-m X n over an arbitrary field F, the matrix equation AX - XBT = C has a unique solution X is an element of F-m X n if and only if A and B have disjoint spectra. We describe an algorithm that computes the solution X for m, n less than or equal toN with O(N-beta . logN) arithmetic operations in F, where beta > 2 is such that M X M matrices can be multiplied with O(M-beta) arithmetic operations, e.g., beta = 2.376. It seems that before no better bound than O(m(3) . n(3)) arithmetic operations was known. The state of the art in numerical analysis is O(n(3) + m(3)) flops, but these algorithms (due to Bartels/Stewart and Golub/Nash/van Loan) involve Schur decompositions, i.e., they compute the eigenvalues of at least one of A and B, and can hence not be transferred for general F. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. AH rights reserved.

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


Learning automata-based virtual backoff algorithm for efficient medium access in vehicular ad hoc networks In vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs), the effect of signal distortions due to the existence of adjoining vehicles and the high degrees of mobility of the nodes affect the reliability of transmission. This paper presents a learning automata (LA)-based solution, named LAVBA, for reliable and efficient medium access control, based on virtual backoff algorithm (VBA), in VANETs. In VBA, a counter is used at each node for fair distributed channel access. The performance of VBA medium access depends on the selection of the sequence number. We use an LA-based approach for obtaining an optimal sequence number. It is observed that the performance of the proposed scheme is improved, when compared to the legacy schemes such as distributed coordination function (DCF) and VBA.

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

virtual backoff algorithm
learning automata
channel access


Vehicle classification framework: a comparative study Video surveillance has significant application prospects such as security, law enforcement, and traffic monitoring. Visual traffic surveillance using computer vision techniques can be non-invasive, cost effective, and automated. Detecting and recognizing the objects in a video is an important part of many video surveillance systems which can help in tracking of the detected objects and gathering important information. In case of traffic video surveillance, vehicle detection and classification is important as it can help in traffic control and gathering of traffic statistics that can be used in intelligent transportation systems. Vehicle classification poses a difficult problem as vehicles have high intra-class variation and relatively low inter-class variation. In this work, we investigate five different object recognition techniques: PCA?+?DFVS, PCA?+?DIVS, PCA?+?SVM, LDA, and constellation-based modeling applied to the problem of vehicle classification. We also compare them with the state-of-the-art techniques in vehicle classification. In case of the PCA-based approaches, we extend face detection using a PCA approach for the problem of vehicle classification to carry out multi-class classification. We also implement constellation model-based approach that uses the dense representation of scale-invariant feature transform (SIFT) features as presented in the work of Ma and Grimson (Edge-based rich representation for vehicle classification. Paper presented at the international conference on computer vision, 2006, pp. 11851192) with slight modification. We consider three classes: sedans, vans, and taxis, and record classification accuracy as high as 99.25% in case of cars vs vans and 97.57% in case of sedans vs taxis. We also present a fusion approach that uses both PCA?+?DFVS and PCA?+?DIVS and achieves a classification accuracy of 96.42% in case of sedans vs vans vs taxis.

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

computer vision
video surveillance
traffic monitoring
vehicle classification

pattern recognition
machine vision and scene understanding
image processing


ExpansionTool: Concept-based query expansion and construction We develop a deductive data model for concept-based query expansion. It is based on three abstraction levels: the conceptual, linguistic and string levels. Concepts and relationships among them are represented at the conceptual level. The linguistic level gives natural language expressions for concepts. Each expression has one or more matching patterns at the string level. The models specify the matching of the expression in database indices built in varying ways. The data model supports a declarative concept-based query expansion and formulation tool, the ExpansionTool, for heterogeneous IR system environments. Conceptual expansion is implemented by a novel intelligent operator for traversing transitive relationships among cyclic concept networks. The number of expansion links followed, their types, and weights can be used to control expansion. A sample empirical experiment illustrating the use of the ExpansionTool in IR experiments is presented.

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

query formulation
conceptual models
ontology
concept-based information retrieval


Optimal maintenance of two stochastically deteriorating machines with an intermediate buffer We consider a manufacturing system in which an input generating installation transfers a raw material to a subsequent production unit. Both machines deteriorate stochastically with usage and may fail. For each machine the deteriorating process is described by some known transition probabilities between different degrees of deterioration. A buffer has been built between the two machines in order to cope with unexpected failures of the installation. A discrete-time Markov decision model is formulated for the optimal preventive maintenance of both machines. The maintenance times are geometrically distributed and the cost structure includes operating costs, storage costs, maintenance costs and costs due to the lost production. It is proved that for fixed buffer content and for fixed deterioration degree of one machine, the average-cost optimal policy initiates a preventive maintenance of the other machine if and only if its degree of deterioration exceeds some critical level. We study, by means of numerical results, the effect of the variation of some parameters on the optimal policy and on the minimum average cost. For the case in which the maintenance times follow continuous distributions, an approximate discrete-time Markov decision model is proposed.

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

maintenance
buffer
markov decision model
minimum average cost


enacting protocols by commitment concession Commitment protocols formalize interactions among autonomous, heterogeneous agents, leaving the agents' local policies unspecified. This paper studies the problem of agents enacting commitment protocols, which inherently requires that their policies cohere with the given protocols. Specifically, in many important settings, if agents incautiously create and discharge commitments, they can expose themselves to certain risk; conversely, if the agents are (excessively) cautious, a protocol enactment may deadlock. This paper adopts the well-known idea of monotonic concession, but specializes and enhances it with the particular features of commitments. Specifically, this paper formulates inference rules for commitment concession that respect the nature of commitments. Next, it shows how commitments can be systematically revised as the agents incrementally engage each other in enacting their protocol. This paper demonstrates how such rules can be applied in practice, and identifies conditions under which progress and termination of protocol enactment can be guaranteed.

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


Towards virtualized and automated software performance test architecture In this paper, we propose the towards virtualized and automated software performance test architecture. In general, test engineers use the public performance testwares such as Load Runner, Silk Performer to validate the performance efficiency of their own systems. In case that they do not allowed to use the performance testwares due to the technical limitations in the testwares, most testers should perform the testing in manually. According to the waste of computer and human resources resulted from the situation, we need to propose the test automation scheme by using the virtualization technology to prevent the dissipation in the test environment which has limited resources. The system architecture considered efficient usage of computer resources and test automation to reduce human acts are addressed mainly in this paper. we describe our proposed method which deals with the system architecture and test automation procedures. In our system architecture, we will show how to use the virtual machines and the types of the virtual machines for performance measurement. In addition, the six steps of the test automation are introduced for the automated testing procedures. Finally, a number of experiments show that the proposed schemes allow offering the possibility for automated software performance testing by using the virtualization.

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

performance testing
test automation
virtualization

software testing
software performance engineering


Towards Fault-Tolerant Fine-Grained Data Access Control for Smart Grid Data access control within smart grids is a challenging issue because of the environmental noise and interferences. On one hand side, fine-grained data access control is essential because illegal access to the sensitive data may cause disastrous implications and/or be prohibited by the law. On the other hand, fault tolerance of the access control is very important, because of the potential impacts (implied by the errors) which could be significantly more serious than the ones regarding general data. In particular, control bits corruption could invalidate the security operation. To address the above challenges, this paper proposes a dedicated data access control scheme that is able to enforce fine-grained access control and resist against the corruptions implied by the noisy channels and the environmental interferences. The proposed scheme exploits a state-of-the-art cryptographic primitive called Fuzzy identity-based encryption with the lattice based access control and dedicated error-correction coding. We evaluate our proposed scheme by extensive simulations in terms of error correcting capability and energy consumption and results show the efficiency and feasibility of the proposed scheme. To our best knowledge, this paper is the first which addresses fault tolerant fine-grained data access control for smart grid.

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


Pel reconstruction on FPGA-augmented TriMedia This paper presents a TriMedia processor extended with three reconfigurable designs for entropy decoding (ED), inverse quantization (IQ), and two-dimensional (2-D) inverse discrete cosine transform (IDCT), and assesses the performance gain that is provided by such extensions when performing MPEG2-compliant pel reconstruction. We first describe an extension of the TriMedia architecture, which consists of a multiple-context field programmable gate array (FPGA)-based reconfigurable functional unit (RFU), a configuration unit managing the reconfiguration of the RFU, and their associated instructions. Then, we address the computation of the ED, IQ, and 2-D IDCT tasks, and propose to provide reconfigurable hardware support for a variable-length decoder that can decode two symbols per call (VLD-2), An inverse quantizer that can dequantize four coefficients per call (IQ-4), and an 1-D IDCT (1-D IDCT). The most important aspects concerning the. implementation of the FPGA-mapped VLD-2, IQ-4, and I-D IDCT units, as well as the organization of the software routines calling these FPGA-mapped computing units are outlined. Experimental results indicate that by configuring each of the VLD-2, IQ-4, and 1-D IDCT units on a different FPGA context, and by activating the contexts as needed, the FPGA-augmented TriMedia can perform MPEG2-compliant pel reconstruction with an average speed-up of 1.4 x over the standard TriMedia.

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

very long instruction word (vliw) processors


Algorithms for the analysis of polysomnographic recordings with customizable criteria The diagnosis of Sleep Apnoea-Hypopnoea Syndrome requires the visual inspection of a recording containing a large number of physiological parameters of the patient - the polysomnogram. The purpose of this visual inspection is the identification and characterization of different types of pathological events that occur over these parameters. These events are defined by a set of morphological criteria. Based on these criteria, commercial tools have been developed to support clinicians in the task of visually inspecting polysomnograms. This article argues that the standard morphological criteria are just guiding recommendations that experienced physicians often adapt to each specific diagnostic context. Thus, tools that support the analysis of polysomnograms ideally should use flexible criteria that could be easily customizable by clinicians. In this paper, we propose algorithms capable of identifying pathological events relevant in the diagnosis of SAHS using custom criteria that are acquired directly from the clinician. These algorithms take advantage of the Fuzzy Set Theory to capture and handle the vagueness and uncertainty that are characteristics of medical knowledge. Knowledge acquisition using the traditional linguistic approach of the Fuzzy Sets Theory is supported by a desktop tool. However, the authors feel that some of the criteria that need to be acquired are more visual in nature than linguistic. An alternative mechanism for the visual acquisition of these criteria is proposed. Finally, when presenting the pathological events that have been identified, the tool uses several visual metaphors designed to simplify visual inspection of the polysomnogram. We have validated our proposal over 69 h of polysomnographic recordings arising from 12 patients that were subjected to a sleep study. 95.7% of the events identified were correct detections. The rate of false negatives was 1.6%. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

sleep apnoea-hypopnoea syndrome
structural pattern recognition
clinical user interfaces


THE LIVING APPLICATION: A SELF-ORGANIZING SYSTEM FOR COMPLEX GRID TASKS We present the living application, a method to autonomously manage applications on the grid. During its execution on the grid, the living application makes choices on the resources to use in order to complete its tasks. These choices can be based on the internal state, or on autonomously acquired knowledge from external sensors. By giving limited user capabilities to a living application, the living application is able to port itself from one resource topology to another. The application performs these actions at run-time without depending on users or external workflow tools. We demonstrate this new concept in a special case of a living application: the living simulation. Today, many simulations require a wide range of numerical solvers and run most efficiently if specialized nodes are matched to the solvers. The idea of the living simulation is that it decides itself which grid machines to use based on the numerical solver currently in use. In this paper we apply the living simulation to modeling the collision between two galaxies in a test setup with two specialized computers. This simulation switches at run-time between a GPU-enabled computer in the Netherlands and a GRAPE-enabled machine that resides in the United States, using an oct-tree N-body code whenever it runs in the Netherlands and a direct N-body solver in the United States.

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

grid workflow
multi-scale
n-body simulation
self-organizing system


Adaptive thresholds for neural networks with synaptic noise The inclusion of a macroscopic adaptive threshold is studied for the retrieval dynamics of both layered feedforward and fully connected neural network models with synaptic noise. These two types of architectures require a different method to be solved numerically. In both cases it is shown that, if the threshold is chosen appropriately as a function of the cross-talk noise and of the activity of the stored patterns, adapting itself automatically in the course of the recall process, an autonomous functioning of the network is guaranteed. This self-control mechanism considerably improves the quality of retrieval, in particular the storage capacity, the basins of attraction and the mutual information content.

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

adaptive threshold
retrieval dynamics
autonomous functioning

layered networks
fully connected networks


on the numerical solution to linear problems using stochastic arithmetic It has been recently shown that computation with stochastic numbers as regard to addition and multiplication by scalars can be reduced to computation in familiar vector spaces. This result allows us to solve certain practical problems with stochastic numbers and to compare algebraically obtained results with practical applications of stochastic numbers, such as the ones provided by the CESTAC method. Such comparisons give additional information related to the stochastic behavior of random roundings in the course of numerical computations. A number of original numerical experiments are presented that agree with the expected theoretical results.

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

cestac method
stochastic arithmetic
stochastic numbers

linear stochastic system
s-space
standard deviations


Countermeasures to prevent detection failure of a vehicle approaching on collision course This study investigated causal factor of perceptual failure and possible countermeasure of crossing path crashes at clear-sighted unsignalised intersections. Crossing path crashes involving two vehicles at intersections are a common and serious problem, and perceptual failure has been identified as a predominant causal factor. Previous studies have showed that late detection of a crossing vehicle frequently occurs even when there are no visual obstructions, at such as rural intersections. With using a fixed-based driving simulator, three experiments were performed to investigate a drivers ability to detect a periphery presented cross traffic while approaching an intersection. In Experiment 1, drivers ability to detect crossing vehicles in their peripheral field of view was studied, both in conditions of vehicles following a collision and a non-collision trajectory. In Experiment 2, we examined whether abrupt appearance of a vehicle on collision course would improve detection performance. In Experiment 3, we tested potential of collision warning, if it affects voluntary visual scanning, improving the detection performance regarding hazards cross traffic. The results of Experiment 1 showed that vehicles on collision course vehicles were detected late. This suggested that the late detection could be related to the lack of motion visible in the peripheral view. In Experiment 2, it was found that abrupt appearance effect (pop-up from road side occluding furniture) improves detection performance of a crossing vehicle. The results of Experiment 3 demonstrated that cross traffic collision warnings were beneficial for preventing late detection responses by means of encouraging voluntary visual scanning. Less attention attractive visual properties of hazardous cross traffic attributed to mutual approaching course can cause recognition failure. Drivers gaze shift to potential conflicting direction, either reflective or voluntary manner, is crucially important for preventing crossing path crashes at such as rural intersections.

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

rural intersection
intersection accident


A STEP-compliant process planning system for CNC turning operations Over the last 50 years, there have been many significant enhancements in computer aided systems which have influenced the CNC technology. One area that can be considered as a bottleneck to these CNC enhancements, and in particular to interoperability in CNC manufacturing is G&M part programming (ISO 6983). To overcome this bottleneck, the new standard ISO 14649, known as STEP-NC, is being developed to provide detailed information on component design, process planning and machining strategies to manufacture parts for the next generation of intelligent CNCs. This standard forms the basis of a new paradigm shift in the CNC domain to support digital modelling of CNC manufacturing resources. The research in this paper aims to identify major issues and develop new software tools to demonstrate the feasibility of interoperable CNC manufacturing based on STEP-NC. Besides the literature review on recent research and development on STEP-NC, this paper proposes a Process Planning System (PPS) with surface roughness chosen as the process planning objective. PPS consists of five modules: program reader, process planner, STEP-NC CAD viewer, STEP-NC CAM viewer and program writer. The reader is responsible for interpreting the geometry and the manufacturing data from a STEP-NC text file into a stored data list. The process planner uses this data list and enables users to evaluate surface roughness based on a mathematical model. Through the STEP-NC CAD viewer, the part geometry can be shown and via the STEP-NC CAM viewer the toolpath can be verified. Finally, the writer converts the stored STEP-NC data of the system into an updated STEP-NC file. An example case study component is used to demonstrate the PPS and show the interfacing of the STEP-NC data.

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


Convergence and instability of iterative procedures on the one-dimensional SchrdingerPoisson problem Here we study the convergence of numeric solutions for the one-dimensional SchrdingerPoisson problem for electrons confined into a semiconductor quantum well structure. One kind of algorithm that is largely used is based on a simple iterative procedure that is finished when the solution is achieved when particular parameter (for example, an energy) converges. There is also the possibility of the employ of a mixing parameter to control the variation of a particular parameter of the system, or to fix the number of iterations while a particular parameter of the system is gradually increased (for example, the electron density). We show that the two latter algorithms are capable of solving the problem for a wider class of situations if compared to the former iterative without mixing, without significant loss of precision.

O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 RNS Montgomery modular multiplication algorithm We present a new RNS modular multiplication for very large operands. The algorithm is based on Montgomery's method adapted to mixed radix, and is performed using a Residue Number System. By choosing the moduli of the RNS system reasonably large and implementing the system on a ring of fairly simple processors, an effect corresponding to a redundant high-radix implementation is achieved. The algorithm can be implemented to run in O(n) time on O(n) processors. where n is the number of moduli in the RNS system, and the unit of time is a simple residue operation, possibly by table look-up. Two different implementations are proposed, one based on processors attached to a broadcast bus, another on an oriented ring structure.

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 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

residue number system
modular multiplication


Vector retrieval, fuzzy retrieval and the universal fuzzy IR surface for IR evaluation It is shown that vector information retrieval (IR) and general fuzzy IR uses two types of fuzzy set operations: the original Zadeh minmax operations and the so-called probabilistic sum and algebraic product operations. The universal IR surface, valid for classical 01 IR (i.e. where ordinary sets are used) and used in IR evaluation, is extended to and reproved for vector IR, using the probabilistic sum and algebraic product model. We also show (by counterexample) that, using the Zadeh minmax fuzzy model, yields a breakdown of this IR surface.

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


Habitat patterns in forested landscapes: management practices and the uncertainty associated with natural disturbances We present the results of a study to examine the effects of management actions and natural disturbances in influencing the evolution of habitat patterns on forested lands. TELSA, a spatially explicit vegetation succession model with the ability to apply user-defined management actions and stochastic wildfires calibrated to local conditions, was used to evaluate changes in several indicators of habitat condition. We assessed seral stage and patch size changes over multiple 200-year simulations under a constant rate of harvest within each of these analyses. In the absence of natural disturbances, old growth habitat and large patches of forest of similar age and tree species composition decreased unless special management practices were applied. Old-growth management area reserves and periodic aggregated cutblock harvesting entries helped maintain forest seral stage distribution at the target level, and patch size characteristics similar to the patterns that would have occurred under historic natural disturbances. Adding wildfire to the management scenarios substantially reduced the amount of old-growth habitat in designated old-growth management area reserves, compromising the ability to maintain old-growth at target levels. A 50% increase in the area designated as old-growth management area reserves would be required to offset the loss of old growth due to wildfire. Although the amount of old-growth habitat was diminished by wildfire, the availability of large habitat patches greater than 250 ha increased. We discuss the need to consider the role of management and natural disturbances in landscape planning, and suggest that redundancy is essential to maintain those features vulnerable to stochastic disturbances. Landscape scenario modeling can facilitate the development of risk averse plans, and encourage the development of innovative approaches to achieving timber and non-timber objectives.

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

habitat management
habitat simulation models


Decentralized mixed H-2/H-infinity filtering for discrete time fuzzy large-scale systems This paper is concerned with decentralized mixed H-2/H-infinity filter design for discrete time fuzzy large-scale systems. Each of them consists of N sub-systems which are represented by Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy models. The main objective is to design stable filters that minimize a guaranteed cost index and to achieve a prescribed H-infinity performance. Based on Lyapunov theory, it is shown that the sufficient conditions guaranteeing stability and achieving prescribed performance are established by solving a set of linear matrix inequalities. A simulation example is also given to show the effectiveness of the present approach.

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

mixed h-2/h-infinity filtering
fuzzy large-scale system
takagi-sugeno fuzzy system


Multiple statistical models for soft decision in noisy speech enhancement Most speech enhancement algorithms are based on the assumption that speech and noise are both Gaussian in the discrete cosine transform (DCT) domain. For further enhancement of noisy speech in the DCT domain, we consider multiple statistical distributions (i.e., Gaussian, Laplacian and Gamma) as a set of candidates to model the noise and speech. We first use the goodness-of-fit (GOF) test in order to measure how far the assumed model deviate from the actual distribution for each DCT component of noisy speech. Our evaluations illustrate that the best candidate is assigned to each frequency bin depending on the Signal-to-Noise-Ratio (SNR) and the Power Spectral Flatness Measure (PSFM). In particular, since the PSFM exhibits a strong relation with the best statistical fit we employ a simple recursive estimation of the PSFM in the model selection. The proposed speech enhancement algorithm employs a soft estimate of the speech absence probability (SAP) separately for each frequency bin according to the selected distribution. Both objective and subjective tests are performed for the evaluation of the proposed algorithms on a large speech database, for various SNR values and types of background noise. Our evaluations show that the proposed soft decision scheme based on multiple statistical modeling or the PSFM provides further speech quality enhancement compared with recent methods through a number of subjective and objective tests. (c) 2006 Pattern Recognition Society. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

speech enhancement
dct
gaussian
laplacian
gamma
gof
psfm
sap


Solitary wave simulations of Complex Modified Korteweg-de Vries Equation using differential quadrature method Complex Modified Korteweg-deVries Equation is solved numerically using differential quadrature method based on cosine expansion. Three test problems, motion of single solitary wave, interaction of solitary waves and wave generation, are simulated. The accuracy of the method is measured via the discrete root mean square error norm L(2), maximum error norm L,, for the motion of single solitary wave since it has an analytical solution. A rate of convergency analysis for motion of single solitary wave containing both real and imaginary parts is also given. Lowest three conserved quantities are computed for all test problems. A comparison with some earlier works is given. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

differential quadrature method
solitary waves
interaction


A co-boost framework for learning object categories from Google Images with 1st and 2nd order features Conventional object recognition techniques rely heavily on manually annotated image datasets to achieve good performances. However, collecting high quality datasets is really laborious. The image search engines such as Google Images seem to provide quantities of object images. Unfortunately, a large portion of the search images are irrelevant. In this paper, we propose a semi-supervised framework for learning visual categories from Google Images. We exploit a co-training algorithm, the CoBoost algorithm, and integrate it with two kinds of features, the 1st and 2nd order features, which define bag of words representation and spatial relationship between local features, respectively. We create two boosting classifiers based on the 1st and 2nd order features in the training, during which one classifier provides labels for the other. The 2nd order features are generated dynamically rather than extracted exhaustively to avoid high computation. An active learning technique is also introduced to further improve the performance. Experimental results show that the object models learned from Google Images by our method are competitive with the state-of-the-art unsupervised approaches and some supervised techniques on the standard benchmark datasets.

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

1st and 2nd order features
google images


Stateless Fair Admission Control The heavily loaded flows usually occupy more bandwidth than that of the lightly loaded flows under congested traffic conditions. Without effective bandwidth management mechanisms, malicious users may violate congestion control principles in order to get maximum bandwidth. Therefore, how to provide fair bandwidth sharing with low implementation complexity is a critical issue for high-speed networks. An active queue management mechanism, stateless fair admission control (SFAC), is proposed in this paper, which can provide good fairness on bandwidth allocation. Furthermore, the SFAC does not have to maintain per-flow state in each router. The main idea of the SFAC is that two admission thresholds can optimally change according to traffic variations. By comparing the admission thresholds with the hit number of each arrival packet, the SFAC is able to guarantee fair buffer occupancy for each flow. The SFAC employs a single first in, first out buffer, so that it can provide fair bandwidth sharing. In a word, the SFAC is completely stateless, so it possesses the great advantage of being easy to implement. Computer simulations concluded that the SFAC is capable of providing good fair bandwidth sharing under a range of traffic conditions.

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

active queue management
admission control
fairness
stateless


An ensemble of logical-type neuro-fuzzy systems Neuro-fuzzy classifiers are characterized by incorporation of the expert knowledge into their construction. The most popular neuro-fuzzy systems are Mamdani-type systems. The main groups of neuro-fuzzy systems are also Takagi-Sugeno and logical-type systems. The latter were very rarely studied in the literature, however it was shown that logical-type reasoning transpired to be better suited for classification tasks whereas Mamdani-type reasoning for approximation problems (Rutkowska & Nowicki, 2000; Rutkowski & Cpalka, 2003, 2005). It is well known that an ensemble of several classifiers improves classification accuracy. Many ensembling methods are meta-learning techniques, thus they can be used to design ensembles of various member classifiers. In the paper an ensemble of logical-type neuro-fuzzy systems, based on S-implications, is proposed. The design of such an ensemble, and fuzzy ensemble in general, is a challenging task and encounters technical difficulties. The major problem is that such an ensemble contains separate rule bases which cannot be directly merged. As systems are separate, we cannot treat fuzzy rules coming from different systems as rules from the same (single) system. In the paper, the problem is addressed by a novel design of fuzzy systems constituting the ensemble, resulting in normalization of individual rule bases during learning. Several experiments illustrate the idea presented in the paper. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

classifier ensembles
neuro-fuzzy systems


Soft computing applications on a SR-30 turbojet engine The use of soft computing algorithms in hardware-in-the-loop applications has been investigated. A fuzzy logic controller (FLC) was designed and successfully tested on the Turbine Technologies SR-30 turbojet engine for the main-stage operation of the engine. A transfer function model of the plant was obtained using frequency-response methods. To ensure safe operation of the engine, a PID controller was first tested on the engine, and both the PID and FLC controllers were tested in a simulated environment before being used with the engine. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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


Analysis of temporomandibular joint sounds in orthodontic patients In this work, we investigate the progress of temporomandibular joint (TMJ) sounds during orthodontic treatment. The study of changes in TMJ sounds might help to determine whether there are relations between various types of sounds and the dental malocclusions. TMJ vibrations from patients with lateral cross-bite and Class II Division 1 malocclusions are recorded by means of accelerometers during jaw opening and closing cycles. Then signals are analyzed using the discrete evolutionary transform. Joint timefrequency moments calculated from the evolutionary spectrum are used as features for the classification of TMJ vibrations by a neural network. Signals are classified at different stages of treatment and the results are discussed.

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

temporomandibular joint sounds
orthodontic treatment


Improved predictorcorrector method for solving fuzzy initial value problems In this paper, an improved predictorcorrector (IPC) method is proposed to solve the fuzzy initial value problem. The IPC method is generated by combining an explicit three-step method and an implicit two-step method. The methods are compared with the methods discussed in [T. Allahviranloo, N. Ahmady, E. Ahmady, Numerical solution of fuzzy differential equations by predictorcorrector method, Information Sciences 177(7) (2007) 16331647], and are shown to be more accurate. The convergence and stability of the proposed methods are also presented in detail. These methods are illustrated by solving some examples.

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 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

fuzzy differential equations
improved predictorcorrector method

fuzzy cauchy problem
explicit fde solution
implicit fde solution


Probabilistic methods for centroidal Voronoi tessellations and their parallel implementations Centroidal Voronoi tessellations (CVTs) are Voronoi tessellations of a region such that the generating points of the tessellations are also the centroids of the corresponding Voronoi cells. In this paper, some probabilistic methods for determining CVTs and their parallel implementations on distributed memory systems are presented. By using multi-sampling in a new probabilistic algorithm we introduce, more accurate and efficient approximations of CVTs are obtained without the need to explicit construct Voronoi diagrams. The new algorithm lends itself well to parallelization, i.e., near prefect linear speed up in the number of processors is achieved. The results of computational experiments performed on a CRAY T3E?600 system are provided which illustrate the superior sequential and parallel performance of the new algorithm when compared to existing algorithms. In particular, for the same amount of work, the new algorithms produce significantly more accurate CVTs.

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

centroidal voronoi tessellations
parallel implementations

probabilistic algorithms
rejection method


improving biomedical document retrieval using domain knowledge Research articles typically introduce new results or findings and relate them to knowledge entities of immediate relevance. However, a large body of context knowledge related to the results is often not explicitly mentioned in the article. To overcome this limitation the state-of-the-art information retrieval approaches rely on the latent semantic analysis in which terms in articles are projected to a lower dimensional latent space and best possible matches in this space are identified. However, this approach may not perform well enough if the number of explicit knowledge entities in the articles is too small compared to the amount of knowledge in the domain. We address the problem by exploiting a domain knowledge layer, a rich network of relations among knowledge entities in the domain extracted from a large corpus of documents. The knowledge layer supplies the context knowledge that lets us relate different knowledge entities and hence improve the information retrieval performance. We develop and study a new framework for i) learning and aggregating the relations in the knowledge layer from the literature corpus; ii) and for exploiting these relations to improve the information-retrieval of relevant documents.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 B I O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 stochastic programming approach for range query retrieval problems One of the important issues in range query (RQ) retrieval problems is to determine the key's resolution for multiattribute records. Conventional models need to be improved because of potential degeneracy, less desired computability, and possible inconsistency with the partial match query (PMQ) models. This paper presents a new RQ model to overcome these drawbacks and introduces a new methodology, stochastic programming (SP), to conduct the optimization process. The model is established by using a monotone increasing function to. characterize range sizes. Three SP approaches, wait-and-see (WS), here-and-now (HN), and scenario tracking (ST) methods are integrated into this RQ model. Analytical expressions of the optimal solution are derived. It seems that HN has advantage over WS because the latter usually involves complicated multiple summations or integrals. For the ST method, a nonlinear programming software package is designed. Results of numerical experiments are presented that optimized a 10-dimensional RQ model and tracked a middle size (100) and a large size (1,000) scenarios.

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

partial match query
range query
stochastic programming

multiattribute hashing
physical data organization


efficient data structure for representing and simplifying simplicial complexes in high dimensions We study the simplification of simplicial complexes by repeated edge contractions. First, we extend to arbitrary simplicial complexes the statement that edges satisfying the link condition can be contracted while preserving the homotopy type. Our primary interest is to simplify flag complexes such as Rips complexes for which it was proved recently that they can provide topologically correct reconstructions of shapes. Flag complexes (sometimes called clique complexes ) enjoy the nice property of being completely determined by the graph of their edges. But, as we simplify a flag complex by repeated edge contractions, the property that it is a flag complex is likely to be lost. Our second contribution is to propose a new representation for simplicial complexes particularly well adapted for complexes close to flag complexes. The idea is to encode a simplicial complex K by the graph G of its edges together with the inclusion-minimal simplices in the set difference G - K. We call these minimal simplices blockers . We prove that the link condition translates nicely in terms of blockers and give formulae for updating our data structure after an edge contraction. Finally, we observe in some simple cases that few blockers appear during the simplification of Rips complexes, demonstrating the efficiency of our representation in this context.

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

simplicial complexes
flag complexes
edge contraction
clique complexes
high dimensions
data structure

homotopy equivalence
shape reconstruction
shape simplification
vietoris-rips complexes


Architecture-driven reliability optimization with uncertain model parameters It is currently considered good software engineering practice to decide between design alternatives based on quantitative architecture evaluations for different quality attributes, such as reliability and performance. However, the results of these quantitative architecture evaluations are dependent on design-time estimates for a series of model-parameters, which may not be accurate and have to be estimated subject heterogeneous uncertain factors. As a result, sub-optimal design decisions may be taken. To overcome this problem, we present a novel robust optimization approach that deals with parameter uncertainties at the design phase of software-intensive systems. This work specifically focuses on architecture-based reliability evaluation models. The proposed approach is able to find good solutions that restrict the impact of parameter uncertainties, and thus provides better decision support. The accuracy and scalability of the presented approach is validated with an industrial case study and a series of experiments with generated examples in different problem sizes.

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 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

architecture optimization
parameter uncertainty
probabilistic quality prediction
monte-carlo simulation


Dispatching in flowshops with bottleneck machines This paper addresses the problem of dispatching in flowshops with bottleneck machines. The presence of bottleneck machines results in the restricted throughput in flowshops. The objective is to develop dispatching rules for scheduling by taking into account the presence of bottleneck machines. The measures of performance are the minimization of total flowtime of jobs, the minimization of the sum of earliness and tardiness of jobs, and the minimization of total tardiness of jobs, considered separately. Many existing conventional dispatching rules and the proposed dispatching rules have been extensively investigated for their performance by generating a large number of problems of various sizes and bottleneck conditions. The results of the experimental investigation show that the proposed dispatching rules emerge to be superior to the conventional dispatching rules. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

bottleneck machines
dispatching rules
flowtime
earliness
tardiness


An efficient ear localization technique This paper proposes an efficient technique for automatic localization of ear from side face images. The technique is rotation, scale and shape invariant and makes use of the connected components in a graph obtained from the edge map of the side face image. It has been evaluated on IIT Kanpur database consisting of 2672 side faces with variable sizes, rotations and shapes and University of Notre Dame database containing 2244 side faces with variable background and poor illumination. Experimental results reveal the efficiency and robustness of the technique. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

O O B I O O O O O O 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

skin segmentation
biometrics
ear recognition


Optimal and heuristic algorithms for quality-of-service routing with multiple constraints The multi-constrained path (MCP) selection problem occurs when the quality-of-services (QoS) are supported for point-to-point connections in the distributed multimedia applications deployed on the Internet. This NP-complete problem is concerned about how to determine a feasible path between two given end-points, so that a set of QoS path constraints can be satisfied simultaneously. Based on the branch-and-bound technique and tabu-searching strategy, an optimal algorithm and a tabu-search based heuristic are developed in this paper for solving the MCP problem with multiple constraints. The experimental results show that our tabu-search based heuristic not only outperforms the previous method published in literature, but also demonstrates that it is indeed a highly efficient method for solving the MCP problem in large-scale networks.

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

quality-of-service
branch-and-bound
tabu-search
multi-constrained path
cognitive packet networks


Principal components transform-partial least squares: a novel method to accelerate cross-validation in PLS regression This work proposes a new approach for building PLS regression models, Principal Components Transfonn-PLS (PCT-PLS), which is based on a full eigen decomposition (NIPALS) of the X matrix before proceeding to the PLS regression. This method dramatically accelerates the cross-validation of the calibration models and is at the same time parsimonious in computer memory requirements. This is most noticeable for the huge data sets that are common nowadays. This new approach preserves all the PLS modeling properties, such as robustness and regression vector interpretability, thus facilitating the application of this new procedure to building calibration models. The proposed technique will allow the application of PLS modeling to much larger data sets than was previously feasible. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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


Video metamorphosis using dense flow fields When we perform video metamorphosis, it would be desirable to make smooth morphing transitions simultaneously along with the original motion in the image sequences. In this paper, we present a novel semi-automatic video morphing technique that exhibits this behavior. Our technique effectively exploits temporal coherence and automatic image matching. One-to-one dense mappings between pairs of corresponding frames are obtained by applying a compositing procedure and a hierarchical image matching technique. These dense mappings can be initialized with sparse frame-to-frame feature correspondences obtained semi-automatically by integrating a friendly user interface with a robust feature tracking algorithm. Experimental results show that our approach to video metamorphosis can produce superior results. Copyright (C) 2004 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 B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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


Direct extraction of curvature-based metric shape from stereo by view-modulated receptive fields Any computation of metric surface structure from horizontal disparities depends on the viewing geometry, and analysing this dependence allows us to narrow down the choice of viable schemes. For example, all depth-based or slant-based schemes (i.e. nearly all existing models) are found to be unrealistically sensitive to natural errors in vergence. Curvature-based schemes avoid these problems and require only moderate, more robust view-dependent corrections to yield local object shape, without any depth coding. This fits the fact that humans are strikingly insensitive to global depth but accurate in discriminating surface curvature. The latter also excludes coding only affine structure. In view of new adaptation results, our goal becomes to directly extract retinotopic fields of metric surface curvatures (i.e. avoiding intermediate disparity curvature). To find a robust neural realisation, we combine new exact analysis with basic neural and psychophysical constraints. Systematic, step-by-step 'design' leads to neural operators which employ a novel family of 'dynamic' receptive fields (RFs), tuned to specific (bi-)local disparity structure. The required RF family is dictated by the non-Euclidean geometry that we identify as inherent in cyclopean vision. The dynamic RF-subfield patterns are controlled via gain modulation by binocular vergence and version, and parameterised by a cell-specific tuning to slant. Our full characterisation of the neural operators invites a range of new neurophysiological tests. Regarding shape perception, the model inverts widely accepted interpretations: It predicts the various types of errors that have often been mistaken for evidence against metric shape extraction.

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

neural computation
visual psychophysics
'isotropic' geometry
gauge frames


Optimal replacement policy for a cumulative damage model with time deterioration This paper considers a replacement policy for a cumulative damage model. A unit suffers two kinds of damage which occurs either by shocks or increases with time. It fails only when the total amount of damage exceeds a failure level K. For the purpose of preventing failure, the damage is checked when each shock occurs and a unit is replaced before failure when the total damage exceeds a threshold level k. The expected cost rate is obtained, and an optimal level k* which minimizes it is derived, when shocks occur in a Poisson process. Numerical examples are finally given. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

cumulative damage model
replacement policy
expected cost

maintenance
nonhomogeneous poisson process


Compact formulations of the Steiner Traveling Salesman Problem and related problems The Steiner Traveling Salesman Problem (STSP) is a variant of the TSP that is particularly suitable when routing on real-life road networks. The standard integer programming formulations of both the TSP and STSP have an exponential number of constraints. On the other hand, several compact formulations of the TSP, i.e., formulations of polynomial size, are known. In this paper, we adapt some of them to the STSP, and compare them both theoretically and computationally. It turns out that, just by putting the best of the formulations into the CPLEX branch-and-bound solver, one can solve instances with over 200 nodes. We also briefly discuss the adaptation of our formulations to some related problems.

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 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

traveling salesman problem
integer programming


Terrain Generation Using Procedural Models Based on Hydrology We present a framework that allows quick and intuitive modeling of terrains using concepts inspired by hydrology. The terrain is generated from a simple initial sketch, and its generation is controlled by a few parameters. Our terrain representation is both analytic and continuous and can be rendered by using varying levels of detail. The terrain data are stored in a novel data structure: a construction tree whose internal nodes define a combination of operations, and whose leaves represent terrain features. The framework uses rivers as modeling elements, and it first creates a hierarchical drainage network that is represented as a geometric graph over a given input domain. The network is then analyzed to construct watersheds and to characterize the different types and trajectories of rivers. The terrain is finally generated by combining procedural terrain and river patches with blending and carving operators.

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


data queuing in gprs/4g networks The performance of radio resource allocation in GPRS network is critical for the dimensioning and the optimization of next generation 4G networks with GPRS capacity. Previous work has analyzed this problem, however in the present work a two dimension Markov chain, using guard channels for handover calls and priority for voice calls to pre-empt GPRS data packets is assumed. Moreover a queue is considered to be valid only for the pre-empted data packets.

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


The hidden gender effect in online collaboration: An experimental study of team performance under anonymity Controlled experiment of gender composition on team performance under anonymity. Female-dominated teams are more productive than male-dominated teams. Female students are no more productive than male students. Female students act more collaboratively.

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

team gender composition
online education
wiki


A Fast Geometric Method for Defuzzification of Type-2 Fuzzy Sets Generalized type-2 fuzzy logic systems cannot currently be used for practical problems because the amount of computation required to defuzzify a generalized type-2 fuzzy set is too large. This paper presents a new method for defuzzifing a type-2 fuzzy set. The new much faster technique is based on geometric representations and operations. The results of a real world example contained in this paper show this new approach to be over 200 000 times faster than type-reduction. We present a new method for assessing the accuracy of the membership function of a type-2 fuzzy set. This method is used to show that the new representation used by the defuzzifier is not detrimental to the accuracy of the set. We also discuss the differences between the new approach and type-reduction, identifying the origin of this massive improvement in execution speed.

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

computational geometry
type-2 fuzzy logic
type-reduction


Decision making logic for flexible assembly lines reconfiguration We examine a decision making mechanism for the generation of efficient shop floor reconfiguration plans. The mechanism exploits the use of autonomous and flexible manufacturing units such as autonomous mobile manipulators, cooperating robots and flexible grippers with multiple connection points. An intelligent search algorithm was introduced to efficiently (in terms of computational time and power) derive reconfiguration plans. A multi criteria decision making method is introduced in for the evaluation of the reconfiguration plans, accounting for Reconfiguration time, Average Resource utilization and Annual production volume. Evaluation of the decision making logic performance through simulation in an automotive assembly case study.

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

autonomous manufacturing systems
reconfigurable manufacturing
reconfiguration logic
tasks assignment algorithm


Effects of electrode dislocation on electromyographic activity and relative rest time: effectiveness of compensation by a normalisation procedure Myofeedback seems a promising technique to treat myalgia related to computer work. A garment with embedded electrodes allows independent use by the subject. However, this inevitably results in electrode dislocations that can cause such variability in the electromyogram (EMG) parameters that the treatment fails. The objective was to investigate the variability introduced by electrode displacement on EMG root mean square (RMS) and relative rest time (RRT) and the effect of a normalisation procedure using a reference contraction to compensate for this. Dislocation was simulated using simultaneous recordings of pairs of electrodes situated 15 mm apart on the trapezius muscle, surrounding a central electrode pair at the standard position. To assess sensitivity for electrode displacement, intrasubject variability was used. To assess the effects of normalisation, both intra and inter-subject variability were used. Results indicated a large sensitivity of RMS to electrode displacements, with no differences between typing (42%) and the reference task (43%). No systematic changes were found relative to a specific electrode dislocation. Normalisation of RMS resulted in a decrease in the sensitivity for electrode displacement (33%), but did not decrease inter-subject variability (27%). The median value of the intra-subject variability of RRT, using a fixed threshold, was 4.9%, whereas the normalised threshold did not decrease the intra-subject variability (7%). The results suggest that RRT is suitable for individual follow-up measurements and applications such as myofeedback, without the need for a normalisation procedure. The use of RMS requires considerably more care, owing to its large sensitivity to electrode displacement and lack of substantial effects of normalisation.

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

electromyography
gaps
electrode position


Power-aware scoreboard alternatives for multimedia processors Intels XScale which has powered many multimedia applications uses scoreboard to control instruction execution. Scoreboard stalls the pipeline whenever a source operand or functional unit is needed but not available. While waiting for the availability of the resources, the processor accesses the scoreboard every cycle. Such accesses consume energy without contributing to performance. We address this inefficiency by investigating stall behaviour and introduce an adaptive technique to avoid regular access to the scoreboard during stall periods. Our study shows that by using our technique and for the representative subset of MiBench benchmark suite studied here, it is possible to reduce scoreboard energy consumption by up to 33% while maintaining performance cost within 0.25%.

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Recursive FIR filter structures on FPGA A new approach to piecewise-polynomial approximation and recursive implementation structures for linear-phase Finite Impulse Response (FIR) filters have been recently proposed. In this paper, we describe hardware prototype implementations of the new structures for all four types of linear-phase FIR filters using a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) based platform. Narrowband lowpass filters and narrowband differentiators are used as design examples to demonstrate the functionality and efficiency of the implementations. The required wordlength and resource usage is analyzed.

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finite impulse response (fir) digital filters


Belief revision and way-finding Belief revision is required when veridical information surfaces that contradicts what was previously thought to be the case. In way-finding, belief revision frequently occurs, for example, when the travelled route has led one astray, instead of to ones chosen destination. In past cognitive research, the topics of belief revision and way-finding have been treated in isolation. Here, we introduce an approach for linking the two fields and assess belief revision as it occurs in the process of way-finding. We report the results of two experiments that put participants in (virtual) situations where elements of a previously learned route description do not match the actual environment (thereby requiring the revision of a previously held belief). Experiment 1 puts participants in a highly artificial virtual environment where the landmarks to be used in navigation have a low degree of semantic salience (houses of various color). Experiment 2 puts subjects in a photorealistic environment where the objects to be used in navigation are well-known landmarks (such as the Eiffel Tower) and thus have a high degree of semantic salience. In both experiments, participants are confronted with T-junctions, where a landmark that was expected to indicate the correct route is discovered to be in an unexpected location. The results of the experiments show that a participants choice of route, in such cases, is affected by differences in the structure of the relevant initial instruction. More precisely, the route chosen by participants is affected by whether the relevant landmark was described as being on the same side of the path as they were instructed to turn (congruent case) or as located on the opposite side of the path as they were instructed to turn (incongruent case).

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


Application of formal languages in polynomial transformations of instances between NP-complete problems We propose the usage of formal languages for expressing instances of NP-complete problems for their application in polynomial transformations. The proposed approach, which consists of using formal language theory for polynomial transformations, is more robust, more practical, and faster to apply to real problems than the theory of polynomial transformations. In this paper we propose a methodology for transforming instances between NP-complete problems, which differs from Garey and Johnson's. Unlike most transformations which are used for proving that a problem is NP-complete based on the NP-completeness of another problem, the proposed approach is intended for extrapolating some known characteristics, phenomena, or behaviors from a problem A to another problem B. This extrapolation could be useful for predicting the performance of an algorithm for solving B based on its known performance for problem A, or for taking an algorithm that solves A and adapting it to solve B.

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formal languages
polynomial transformations


Genetic adaptive identification and control1 Genetic algorithms are computer programs that are developed to crudely emulate the evolution of biological populations according to Darwins theory of natural selection and the concept of inheritance from genetics put forward by Mendel. Suppose that a controller for a plant is viewed as an individual decision-maker that has been chosen from a population of possible decision-makers to generate a control input to the plant. Suppose that in real-time a population of such decision-makers evolves. The best decision-maker from the evolving population is chosen at each step to control the plant, and using the principles of inheritance and survival of the fittest, good decision-makers will be more likely to propagate through the population as it evolves. Generally, as the population evolves and the best decision-maker is chosen at each time step, it adapts to its environment (i.e. the controller adapts to the plant and anything that influences it) and enhanced closed-loop system performance can be obtained. Also, even if there are plant parameter variations or disturbances, the population of decision-makers (controllers) will continually adapt to its environment to try to maintain good performance. This paper discusses a variety of such genetic adaptive control methods, and gives an extensive comparative analysis of their performance relative to conventional adaptive control techniques for an illustrative control application.

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