Computer simulations of exponentially convergent networks with large impulses This paper demonstrates the use of a semi-discretization technique for obtaining a discrete-time analogue of an exponentially convergent network that is subject to impulses with large magnitude. Prior to implementing the analogue for computer simulations, we investigate its exponential convergence towards a unique equilibrium state and thereby obtain a family of sufficiency conditions governing the network parameters and the impulse magnitude and frequency. Although the time-step does not appear in the conditions that govern the network parameters, its value needs to be sufficiently small in order for the analogue displays correct convergence behaviour of the network when subjected particularly to large impulses. (c) 2007 IMACS. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

semi-discretization
discrete-time analogue
exponential stability


Influence of contamination on the electrical activity of crystal defects in silicon It is shown by EBIC that dislocation activity is controlled by the degree of metal contamination. The activity can be affected by external gettering and hydrogenation. DLTS investigations showed that the occurrence and features of the dislocation-related C1 line also depend on the amount of contamination. In small amounts, the impurities are believed to be tightly bonded to the dislocation core, resulting in a rather sharp energetic distribution of levels of the C1 line. At larger concentrations, the impurities are accommodated as a cloud in the dislocation strain field, giving rise to a broad energetic distribution of levels of C1. It is suggested that only impurity atoms in the cloud can be removed by external gettering and/or passivated by hydrogenation.

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


The Impact of Cloud Computing: Should the IT Department Be Organized as a Cost Center or a Profit Center? How does the adoption of cloud computing by a firm affect the organizational structure of its information technology (IT) department? To analyze this question, we consider an IT department that procures IT services from a cloud computing vendor and enhances these services for consuming units within the firm. Our model incorporates the competitive environment faced by the cloud vendor, which affects the price of the cloud vendor. We find that when the cloud vendor faces intense competition, the cost-center organizational model is preferred over the profit-center model. Infrastructure services such as basic storage, e-mail, and raw computing face intense competition, and our results suggest that such services be offered as a free corporate resource under the cost-center organizational structure. When the cloud vendor has pricing power, a profit-center organizational structure is likely to be preferred. Our results suggest that highly differentiated services such as cloud-based enterprise-wide enterprise resource planning or business intelligence be offered under the profit-center structure. Finally, the profit-center structure provides greater internal quality enhancement to cloud-based IT services than the cost center.

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

chargeback
cloud computing
iaas
it governance
paas
saas
supply chain


Power-rate synchronization of coupled genetic oscillators with unbounded time-varying delay In this paper, a new synchronization problem for the collective dynamics among genetic oscillators with unbounded time-varying delay is investigated. The dynamical system under consideration consists of an array of linearly coupled identical genetic oscillators with each oscillators having unbounded time-delays. A new concept called power-rate synchronization, which is different from both the asymptotical synchronization and the exponential synchronization, is put forward to facilitate handling the unbounded time-varying delays. By using a combination of the Lyapunov functional method, matrix inequality techniques and properties of Kronecker product, we derive several sufficient conditions that ensure the coupled genetic oscillators to be power-rate synchronized. The criteria obtained in this paper are in the form of matrix inequalities. Illustrative example is presented to show the effectiveness of the obtained results.

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

power-rate synchronization
unbounded time-varying delay


Developments and trends in the parallel solution of linear systems In this review paper, we consider some important developments and trends in algorithm design for the solution of linear systems concentrating on aspects that involve the exploitation of parallelism. We briefly discuss the solution of dense linear systems, before studying the solution of sparse equations by direct and iterative methods. We consider preconditioning techniques for iterative solvers and discuss some of the present research issues in this field.

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

linear systems
parallelism
iterative methods
preconditioning

dense matrices
sparse matrices
tridiagonal systems
direct methods
krylov methods


A new fuzzy set merging technique using inclusion-based fuzzy clustering This paper proposes a new method of merging parameterized fuzzy sets based on clustering in the parameters space, taking into account the degree of inclusion of each fuzzy set in the cluster prototypes. The merger method is applied to fuzzy rule base simplification by automatically replacing the fuzzy sets corresponding to a given cluster with that pertaining to cluster prototype. The feasibility and the performance of the proposed method are studied using an application in mobile robot navigation. The results indicate that the proposed merging and rule base simplification approach leads to good navigation performance in the application considered and to fuzzy models that are interpretable by experts. In this paper, we concentrate mainly on fuzzy systems with Gaussian membership functions, but the general approach can also be applied to other parameterized fuzzy sets.

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

fuzzy clustering
fuzzy sets
inclusion
merging


A Wide Voltage Range Digital I/O Design Using Novel Floating N-Well Circuit A fully bidirectional mixed-voltage input/output (I/O) buffer using a novel floating N-well circuit is presented. To provide appropriate gate voltages for output stage transistors, a dynamic gate bias generator without gate-oxide overstress effect is implemented. The proposed I/O also takes advantage of a novel gate-tracking circuit and a PAD voltage detector by means of eliminating the leakage current such that the compatibility among all subcircuits is ensured. Our design is proved on silicon using 0.18 mu m CMOS process that when VDDIO is 5.0/3.3/1.8/1.2/0.9 V, the maximum data rate is found to be 80/80/125/100/80 MHz, respectively, with a given capacitive load of 10 pF.

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

floating n-well
mixed-voltage
wide-range input/output (i/o) buffer


The relative value of labeled and unlabeled samples in pattern recognition with an unknown mixing parameter We observe a training set Q composed of l labeled samples {(X(1).theta(1)),...(X(l),theta(l))} and u unlabeled samples {X'(1),...X'(u)}. The labels theta(i) are independent random variables satisfying Pr {theta 2--- = 1} = eta, Pr {theta(i) = 2} = 1 - eta. The labeled observations X(2) are independently distributed with conditional density f(theta i)(.) given theta(2). Let (X(0), theta(0)) be a new sample, independently distributed as the samples in the training set. We observe X(0) and we wish to infer the classification theta(0). In this paper we first assume that the distributions f(1)(.) and f(2)(.) are given and that the mixing parameter eta is unknown, We show that the relative value of labeled and unlabeled samples in reducing the risk of optimal classifiers is the ratio of the Fisher informations they carry about the parameter eta. We then assume that two densities g(1)(.) and g(2)(.) are given, but we do not know whether g(1)(.) = f(1)(.) and g(2)(.) = f(2)(.) or if the opposite holds, nor do we know eta. Thus the learning problem consists of both estimating the optimum partition of the observation space and assigning the classifications to the decision regions, Here, we show that labeled samples are necessary to construct a classification rule and that they are exponentially more valuable than unlabeled samples.

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

pattern recognition
labeled and unlabeled samples

supervised learning
unsupervised learning
bayesian method
laplace's integral
asymptotic theory


Effect of management support, training, and user involvement on system usage and satisfaction in Kuwait Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to investigate the organizational factors and human motivations affecting information systems and information technology (IS/IT) usage and user's satisfaction in an Arabic country. Design/methodology/approach - The study develops a research model that links three organizational factors (top management support - TMS, availability of training, and user's involvement) to IS/IT usage and end-user's satisfaction via the mediation of TAM beliefs (usefulness and ease-of-use) by 382 IS users. The model was examined through the LISREL. Findings - The results indicate that IS/IT usage and user satisfaction is largely influenced by perceived usefulness. Among the organizational factors, TMS was found to have the strongest effect on IS/IT usage and user's satisfaction, followed by availability of training and user involvement. Research limitations/implications - This study focuses on perceptions of respondents from public organizations who have had high experience with IS/IT. These perceptions are based on a one-time survey. For better validity, a longitudinal study with additional variables is needed. Practical implications - This study is useful for practitioners who want to increase and boost system usage and user's atisfaction in the Arab region. Originality/value - This paper highlights the motives of IS/IT usage and user's satisfaction in the Arab world and to educate researchers about how IS/IT is perceived by end-users in Kuwait.

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

communication technologies
senior management


Genetic algorithm for the design of molecules with desired properties The design of molecules with desired properties is still a challenge because of the largely unpredictable end results. Computational methods can be used to assist and speed up this process. In particular, genetic algorithms have proved to be powerful tools with a wide range of applications, e.g. in the field of drug development. Here, we propose a new genetic algorithm that has been tailored to meet the demands of de novo drug design, i.e. efficient optimization based on small training sets that are analyzed in only a small number of design cycles. The efficiency of the design algorithm was demonstrated in the context of several different applications. First, RNA molecules were optimized with respect to folding energy. Second, a spinglass was optimized as a model system for the optimization of multiletter alphabet biopolymers such as peptides. Finally, the feasibility of the computer-assisted molecular design approach was demonstrated for the de novo construction of peptidic thrombin inhibitors using an iterative process of 4 design cycles of computer-guided optimization. Synthesis and experimental fitness determination of only 600 different compounds from a virtual library of more than 10(17) molecules was necessary to achieve this goal.

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

thrombin inhibitor screening
computer-assisted drug discovery
peptide library
de novo design


A layer-2 extension to hash-based IP traceback Hash-based IP traceback is a technique to generate audit trails for traffic within a network. Using the audit trails, it reconstructs not only the true attack paths of a Distributed Denial of Service attack (DDoS attack), but also the true path of a single packet attack. However, hash-based IP traceback cannot identify attacker nodes themselves because it has no audit trail on the subnet's layer-2 network under the detected leaf router, which is the nearest node to an attacker node on a layer-3 network. We propose a layer-2 extension to hash-based IP traceback, which stores two identifiers with packets' audit trails while reducing the memory requirement for storing identifiers. One of these identifiers shows the leaf router's interface through which an attacking packet came, and the other represents the ingress port on a layer-2 switch through which the attacking packet came. We implement a prototype on FreeBSD and evaluate it in a preliminary experiment.

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

distributed denial of service attack (ddos)


parameter variations and impact on circuits and microarchitecture Parameter variation in scaled technologies beyond 90nm will pose a major challenge for design of future high performance microprocessors. In this paper, we discuss process, voltage and temperature variations; and their impact on circuit and microarchitecture. Possible solutions to reduce the impact of parameter variations and to achieve higher frequency bins are also presented.

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

challenge technologies variation design temperature process paper microarchitecture future circuits

high-performance
parameter variation
body bias
high performance deisgn


Reliability worth applied to transmission expansion planning based on ant colony system This paper proposes a new methodology to solve transmission expansion planning (TEP) problems in power system, based on the metaheuristic ant colony optimisation (ACO). The TEP problem includes the search for the least cost solution, bearing in mind investment cost and reliability worth. Reliability worth is considered through the assessment of the interruption costs represented by the index LOLC loss of load cost. The focus of this work is the development of a tool for the multi-stage planning of transmission systems and how reliability aspects can influence on the decision-making process. The applications of the proposed methodology are illustrated through case studies carried out using a test system and a real sub-transmission network.

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

ant colony system
interruption costs
reliability worth
transmission expansion planning


Weighted nonbinary repeat-accumulate codes Repeat-accumulate (RA) codes are random-like codes having remarkably good performance over an additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel, like turbo and low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes. In this correspondence, we introduce an ensemble of random codes called "weighted nonbinary repeat-accumulate (WNRA) codes" whose encoder consists of a nonbinary repeater, a weighter, a pseudorandom symbol interleaver, and an accumulator over a finite field GF (q). They can be decoded in a simple way by applying the sum-product algorithm to their factor graphs over GF (q). Simulation results show that WNRA codes with proper weighting values over GF (4) or GF (8) are superior to binary RA codes on AWGN channels.

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

factor graph
iterative decoding
repeat-accumulate (ra) codes
sum-product algorithm


Premenstrual and Menstrual Changes in the Macaque and Human Endometrium According to current theory, endometriosis is initiated during retrograde menstruation when menstrual fragments flow out of the fimbriated end of the fallopian tubes and become established on the ovarian surface or other sites in the peritoneal cavity. In recent years, new data have accumulated on the properties of menstruating tissue itself, and several laboratories agree that this tissue is rich in matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) that may facilitate endometriotic implantation. Recently, we found that vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and its receptor VEGFR-2 (KDR) were dramatically upregulated in the stromal cells of the superficial endometrial zones by progesterone (P) withdrawal during the premenstrual phase. A unique role of VEGF at this stage of the cycle may be to stimulate MMP expression in stromal cells because VEGF, KDR, and MMPs were all coordinately induced in these cells in the superficial zone of the primate endometrium by P withdrawal. The rich content of MMPs and VEGF in the menstrual fragments could facilitate attachment and angiogenesis of menstrual fragments in ectopic sites. In addition, a variety of chemokines, cytokines, and cellular regulators are induced by P withdrawal in the premenstrual human endometrium. These include NF?B, prostaglandins, interleukin-8 (IL-8), cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2), and monocyte chemotactic peptide-1 (MCP-1), among others. The perivascular expression of several of these factors may facilitate the rapid invasion of leukocytes into the endometrium, especially in the superficial zones. Consequently, menstrual fragments may be rich in IL-8 and MCP-1, both of which would add to the angiogenic potential of such fragments in ectopic sites. In sum, menstrual tissue is rich in VEGF, KDR, MMPs, leukocytes, chemokines, cytokines, and prostaglandins, all factors that may facilitate attachment and angiogenesis when menstrual fragments exit from the tubes and implant on pelvic sites. Additional research on these and other factors in premenstrual and menstrual endometrium may deepen our understanding of both the establishment and progression of this debilitating disease.

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

endometrium menstruation vegf kdr mmps prostaglandins angiogenesis


p-FEMs in biomechanics: Bones and arteries The p-version of the finite element method (p-FEM) is extended to problems in the field of biomechanics: the mechanical response of bones and arteries. These problems are extremely challenging, partly because the constitutive models governing these materials are very complex and have not been investigated by sufficiently rigorous methods. Furthermore, these biological structures have a complex geometrical description (substructures with high aspect ratios), undergo finite deformations (arteries), are anisotropic and almost incompressible (arteries). The intrinsic verification capabilities and high convergence rates demonstrated for linear problems are being exploited and enhanced here, so that validation of the results can be easily conducted by comparison to experimental observations. In the first part of the paper we present p-FE models for patient-specific femurs generated semi-automatically from quantitative computed tomography (qCT) scans with inhomogeneous linear elastic material assigned directly from the qCT scan. The FE results are being verified and thereafter validated on a cohort of 17 fresh-frozen femurs which were defrosted, qCT-scanned, and tested in an in vitro setting. The complex combined passiveactive mechanical response of human arteries is considered in the second part and the enhancement of p-FEMs to these non-linear problems is detailed. We apply a new p-prediction algorithm in the iterative scheme and demonstrate the efficiency of p-FEMs compared to traditional commercial h-FEMs as Abaqus (in respect of both degrees of freedom and CPU times). The influence of the active response is shown to be crucial if a realistic mechanical response of an artery is sought.

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


BE-TANOS: Feasibility and technology limitations The aim of this work is to investigate the physical mechanisms behind the write/erase and retention performances of band gap engineering (BE) layers used as tunnel oxide in charge trap memory stack. The investigation of the BE layers alone will be completed with the analyses of its integration within a TANOS (TaN/Alumina/Nitride/Oxide/Silicon) stack, pointing out the correlation between electrical performance and reliability limits. Good write/erase/retention performances can be achieved with BE tunnel oxide by using silicon nitride layer integrated in SiO2Si3N4SiO2 stack, as long as all different mechanisms are taken into account in optimizing stack composition: hole injection which improves erase efficiency, charge trapping and de-trapping from the thin silicon nitride which causes program instabilities and initial charge loss which does not significantly impact long term retention. All these phenomena make very crucial the BE tunnel process control and difficult its use for multi-level application.

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

silicon nitride charge trapping memories


Window capturing-based application sharing under heterogeneous window systems Application sharing enables users to share a program running on one computer with other people in a group work such as desktop conferencing. In this paper we propose an application sharing method using window capturing to share applications under MS-Windows with Win 3.1/95/NT and X window system and evaluate the performance of the prototype system. To overcome the system performance degradation as a function of the number of participants, we propose an efficient retransmission strategy to minimize end-to-end delay. With the use of the window capturing method, the prototype system allows any MS-Windows application to be shared regardless of not only the window systems but also the version-up of window systems.

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


Asymptotic behavior of the loss rate for Markov-modulated fluid queue with a finite buffer We consider a Markov-modulated fluid queue with a finite buffer. It is assumed that the fluid flow is modulated by a background Markov chain which may have different transitions when the buffer content is empty or full. In Sakuma and Miyazawa (Asymptotic Behavior of Loss Rate for Feedback Finite Fluid Queue with Downward Jumps. Advances in Queueing Theory and Network Applications, pp. 195-211, Springer, Cambridge, 2009), we have studied asymptotic loss rate for this type of fluid queue when the mean drift of the fluid flow is negative. However, the null drift case is not studied. Our major interest is in asymptotic loss rate of the fluid queue with a finite buffer including the null drift case. We consider the density of the stationary buffer content distribution and derive it in matrix exponential forms from an occupation measure. This result is not only useful to get the asymptotic loss rate especially for the null drift case, but also it is interesting in its own light.

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

fluid queue
finite buffer
loss rate
asymptotic behavior
null drift


a syntactic approach to fixed point computation on finite domains We propose a syntactic approach to performing fixed point computation on finite domains. Finding fixed points in finite domains for monotonic fuctions is an essential task when calculating abstract semantics of functional programs. Previous methods for fixed point finding have been mainly based on semantic approaches which may be very inefficient even for simple programs. We outline the development of a syntactic approach, and show that the syntactic approach is sound and complete with respect to semantics. A few examples are provided to illustrate this syntactic approach.

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

task sound examples semantic computation

program
method
abstraction
developer
domain
fixed-points
completeness
functional programming


Wireless Robotics: Opportunities and Challenges Wireless robotics is one of the emerging fields in the world of automation. In-spite of research and standardization efforts around the world, the definition of the term Robot is still evolving. Robots have found application in many domains including home automation, industrial automation, health-care, surveillance, reconnaissance, planetary exploration or rescue missions. This paper addresses some of the opportunities, research challenges and standardization issues in wireless robotics with the focus on wireless and networking aspects.

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


Leader election in oriented star graphs Leader election in a network plays an important role in the area of distributed algorithm design. Structural properties of the network as well as presence of direction on the edges of the network greatly affects the complexity of the leader election problem, which is primarily measured by the message complexity of the protocol. Our purpose in the present article is to adapt the existing distributed match making concepts to design a linear time leader election algorithm for star graphs. Star graphs have been extensively studied as an attractive alternative for the well-known hypercubes for network design. Linear election algorithms for oriented hypercubes is known; no such algorithm exists for oriented star graphs. (c) 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

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

leader election
star graphs
distributed match making
message complexity


Approximating the minimum clique cover and other hard problems in subtree filament graphs Subtree filament graphs are the intersection graphs of subtree filaments in a tree. This class of graphs contains subtree overlap graphs, interval filament graphs, chordal graphs, circle graphs, circular-arc graphs, cocomparability graphs, and polygon-circle graphs. In this paper we show that, for circle graphs, the clique cover problem is NP-complete and the h-clique cover problem for fixed h is solvable in polynomial time. We then present a general scheme for developing approximation algorithms for subtree filament graphs, and give approximation algorithms developed from the scheme for the following problems which are NP-complete on circle graphs and therefore on subtree filament graphs: clique cover, vertex colouring, maximum k-colourable subgraph, and maximum h-coverable subgraph.

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

subtree filament graph
circle graph
np-complete
approximation algorithm


Estimators of error covariance matrices for small area prediction Prediction for the mixed model requires estimates of covariance matrices. There is often a direct estimate of the within area covariance matrix, and for survey samples this is an estimate of the sampling covariance matrix. The estimated covariance matrix may have large sampling variance, suggesting parametric modeling for the matrix. The model can play a role at various points in the construction of predictions for proportions for small areas. Simulations demonstrate that efficiency for predictions is improved by using a model for the covariance matrix in the estimator of mean parameters and in constructing the coefficients in the predictor.

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

complex surveys
small area estimation
prediction of proportions


Topology optimization of an acoustic metamaterial with negative bulk modulus using local resonance We propose a level set-based topology optimization to design acoustic metamaterials using the Finite Element Method. We formulate the optimization problem using effective material properties. A two-step optimization process enabled to handle the design of effective bulk modulus. In all examples we successfully obtain optimized shapes with negative bulk modulus.

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

acoustic metamaterials
negative bulk modulus
topology optimization

level set method
adjoint variable method
local resonator


Distance metric-based time-efficient fuzzy algorithm for abnormal magnetic resonance brain image segmentation Image segmentation is one of the significant computational applications of the biomedical field. Automated computational methodologies are highly preferred for medical image segmentation since these techniques are immune to human perception error. Artificial intelligence (AI)-based techniques are often used for this process since they are superior to other automated techniques in terms of accuracy and convergence time period. Fuzzy systems hold a significant position among the AI techniques because of their high accuracy. Even though these systems are exceptionally accurate, the time period required for convergence is exceedingly high. In this work, a novel distance metric-based fuzzy C-means (FCM) algorithm is proposed to tackle the low-convergence-rate problem of the conventional fuzzy systems. This modified approach involves the concept of distance-based dimensionality reduction of the input vector space that substantially reduces the iterative time period of the conventional FCM algorithm. The effectiveness of the modified FCM algorithm is explored in the context of magnetic resonance brain tumor image segmentation. Experimental results show promising results for the proposed approach in terms of convergence time period and segmentation efficiency. Thus, this algorithm proves to be highly feasible for time-oriented real-time applications.

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

brain images
convergence rate
fuzzy c-means


Recommendation system for localized products in vending machines This paper proposes a framework of localized product recommendation system for automatic vending machines applications. The goal is to offer suitable recommendations of localized products to customers in distinct locations. We develop a hybrid technique that combines a meta-heuristic approach, clustering technique, classification, and statistical method. In the approach, an intelligent system is implemented to analyze product attributes and determine localized products based on the transaction data. To prove the feasibility and effectiveness of proposed approach, we implemented the system in several automatic vending machines owned by an information service company of Taiwan. Nine machines were selected and compared from two locations: living lab by Institute for Information Industry of Taiwan at Song-shan District and business office building at Nei-hu District in Taipei. The real life experiments showed that the profit of vending machine increases after applying our system.

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

localized products recommendation system


Block checker/diagonal transformation matrices, their properties, and the interplay with fast-lifting This article introduces what we call block checker matrices with some specific structures characterised by a set of integers, and then introduces the permutation matrices called block checker/diagonal (BCD) transformation matrices that relate block checker matrices with block diagonal matrices through similarity transformations. The study is motivated by the importance of the fast-lifting technique in control theory, especially in the study of sampled-data systems and time-delay systems. More precisely, it is partly motivated by the desire for alleviating the bother of describing the class of the matrices commuting with block diagonal matrices, and for such a purpose the permutation with BCD transformation matrices is helpful. The study further extends to investigating the various useful properties among BCD transformation matrices, as well as their interplay relations with various variants of fast-lifting, e.g. full-vector fast-lifting and subvector-wise fast-lifting, or one-stage fast-lifting and two-stage fast-lifting. The usefulness of the results in the context of the fast-lifting treatment is also suggested.

O O O O O O O O O O O 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 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

block diagonal matrix
block checker matrix
commutativity
fast-lifting
mu-analysis


Design of an expert system for sorting pistachio nuts through decision tree and fuzzy logic classifier This paper presents an expert system for sorting open and closed shell pistachio nuts. A prototype was set up to detect closed shell pistachio nuts by dropping them onto a steel plate and recording the acoustic signals that was generated when a kernel hit the plate. To determine the important characteristics and to unravel the significance of these signals, further analysis or processing was required. J48 decision tree (DT) is used for both feature selection and classification. Initially, the J48 DT was used for selecting the best statistical features that will discriminate among two classes from impact acoustic signals. The output of J48 DT algorithm was then converted into crisp IF-THEN rules and membership function sets of the fuzzy classifier. Four IF-THEN rules, generated from the extracted features of J48 DT, were required by the fuzzy classifier. To evaluate the performance of the expert system, data on 300 nuts of open and closed shells were used. The data were initially divided into two parts: 210 instances (70%) for training and the remaining 90 instances (30%) for testing the classifier. The correct classification rate and RMSE for the training set were 99.52% and 0.07, and for the test set were 95.56% and 0.21, respectively. These encouraging results as well as the robustness of the FIS based expert system makes the approach ideal for automated inspection systems. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

pistachio nuts
sorting
classification
expert system
fuzzy classifier
decision tree


music artist style identification by semi-supervised learning from both lyrics and content Efficient and intelligent music information retrieval is a very important topic of the 21st century. With the ultimate goal of building personal music information retrieval systems, this paper studies the problem of identifying "similar" artists using both lyrics and acoustic data. The approach for using a small set of labeled samples for the seed labeling to build classifiers that improve themselves using unlabeled data is presented. This approach is tested on a data set consisting of 43 artists and 56 albums using artist similarity provided by All Music Guide. Experimental results show that using such an approach the accuracy of artist similarity classifiers can be significantly improved and that artist similarity can be efficiently identified.

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


Dual-resource TCP/AQM for processing-constrained networks This paper examines congestion control issues for TCP flows that require in-network processing on the fly in network elements such as gateways, proxies, firewalls and even routers. Applications of these flows are increasingly abundant in the future as the Internet evolves. Since these flows require use of CPUs in network elements, both bandwidth and CPU resources can be a bottleneck and thus congestion control must deal with "congestion" on both of these resources. In this paper, we show that conventional TCP/AQM schemes can significantly lose throughput and suffer harmful unfairness in this environment, particularly when CPU cycles become more scarce (which is likely the trend given the recent explosive growth rate of bandwidth). As a solution to this problem, we establish a notion of dual-resource proportional fairness and propose an AQM scheme, called Dual-Resource Queue (DRQ), that can closely approximate proportional fairness for TCP Reno sources with in-network processing requirements. DRQ is scalable because it does not maintain per-flow states while minimizing communication among different resource queues, and is also incrementally deployable because of no required change in TCP stacks. The simulation study shows that DRQ approximates proportional fairness without much implementation cost and even an incremental deployment of DRQ at the edge of the Internet improves the fairness and throughput of these TCP flows. Our work is at its early stage and might lead to an interesting development in congestion control research.

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

cpu capacity
efficiency
proportional fairness
tcp-aqm
transmission link capacity


Performance evaluation of advanced spectrum functionalities for future radio networks This paper presents novel spectral resource management (SRM) functionalities of WINNER(double dagger) project. The proposed SRM spectrum architecture uses more efficient resource allocation techniques where flexible spectrum access and usage leads to more capable and faster services with high quality-of-service (QoS) giving more user satisfaction than conventional networks. In this context., short-term (ST) spectrum assignment is proposed where spectral resources are exchanged between WINNER radio access networks (RANs) on a fast basis, leading to a better utilization of the spectrum. Moreover, multi-band scheduler (MBS) and base station (BS) to BS communications are presented as key enablers for efficient dynamic spectrum management. Performance gains of ST spectrum assignment are analyzed in a multi-network, multi-cell environment based on realistic traffic patterns while taking inter-cell interference into account. The results confirm that spectrum availability and utilization can be considerably enhanced. Copyright (C) 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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

flexible spectrum use
spectrum sharing and coexistence
radio resource management
cognitive radios


A New Approach to High-accuracy Road Orthophoto Mapping Based on Wavelet Transform Existing orthophoto map based on satellite photography and aerial photography is not precise enough for road marking. This paper proposes a new approach to high-accuracy orthophoto mapping. The approach uses inverse perspective transformation to process the image information and generates the orthophoto fragment. The offline interpolation algorithm is used to process the location information. It processes the dead reckoning and the EKF location information, and uses the result to transform the fragments to the global coordinate system. At last it uses wavelet transform to divides the image to two frequency bands and uses weighted median algorithm to deal with them separately. The result of experiment shows that the map produced with this method has high accuracy.

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

orthophoto map
offline interpolation
weighted median
wavelet transform


An encompassing prior generalization of the SavageDickey density ratio An encompassing prior (EP) approach to facilitate Bayesian model selection for nested models with inequality constraints has been previously proposed. In this approach, samples are drawn from the prior and posterior distributions of an encompassing model that contains an inequality restricted version as a special case. The Bayes factor in favor of the inequality restriction then simplifies to the ratio of the proportions of posterior and prior samples consistent with the inequality restriction. This formalism has been applied almost exclusively to models with inequality or about equality constraints. It is shown that the EP approach naturally extends to exact equality constraints by considering the ratio of the heights for the posterior and prior distributions at the point that is subject to test (i.e.,the SavageDickey density ratio). The EP approach generalizes the SavageDickey ratio method, and can accommodate both inequality and exact equality constraints. The general EP approach is found to be a computationally efficient procedure to calculate Bayes factors for nested models. However, the EP approach to exact equality constraints is vulnerable to the BorelKolmogorov paradox, the consequences of which warrant careful consideration.

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

bayesian model selection
inequality constraints
equality constraints
borelkolmogorov paradox


Legacy An increasing proportion of the effort of skilled programmers is devoted to servicing the legacy of software. The techniques and tools currently in use to tackle the problem take good advantage of the results of past research into programming theory. I suggest that new generations of tools will be based on concepts and principles developed by basic research of the present and by future research directed at currently outstanding challenges. These points are illustrated by examples drawn from my personal experience. They show that academic research and education can contribute to industrial development and production in an atmosphere of mutual respect for their different allegiances and timescales, and in recognition of convergence of their long-term goals. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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

software engineering
legacy code
software maintenance
formal methods


VRDD: applying irtual eality visualization to protein ocking and esign We have developed an interactive docking program called VRDD. It offers various modes of displaying molecules in an immersive, three-dimensional virtual reality (VR) environment. It allows a user to interactively perform molecular docking aided by automatic docking and side chain conformational search. Binding free energies are computed in real time, and the program enables the user to explore only clash-free orientations of a ligand. VRDD also supplies visual and auditory feedback during docking and side chain search, indicating the levels of atomic overlap and interaction energy. The stunning VR graphics immerse users in the scene and can maximally stimulate their design intuition. We have tested VRDD on three cases with increasing complexity: a nine-residue-long peptide bound to a major histocompatibility complex (MHC) molecule, barstar bound to barnase, and an antibody bound to a hemagglutinin. Without prior knowledge, combinations of hand-docking and automatic refinement led to accurate complex structures for the first two complexes. The third case, for which all automatic docking algorithms failed to identify the correct complex in a previous blind test, also failed for VRDD. Our results show that the combination of VR docking and automatic docking can make unique contributions to molecular modeling.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 reality
molecular docking
interactive docking

computer graphics
cave
binding free energy calculations


Delay-dependent robust asymptotic state estimation of Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy Hopfield neural networks with mixed interval time-varying delays This paper investigates delay-dependent robust asymptotic state estimation of fuzzy neural networks with mixed interval time-varying delay. In this paper, the Takagi-Sugeno (T-S) fuzzy model representation is extended to the robust state estimation of Hopfield neural networks with mixed interval time-varying delays. The main purpose is to estimate the neuron states, through available output measurements such that for all admissible time delays, the dynamics of the estimation error is globally asymptotically stable. Based on the Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional which contains a triple-integral term, delay-dependent robust state estimation for such T-S fuzzy Hopfield neural networks can be achieved by solving a linear matrix inequality (LMI), which can be easily facilitated by using some standard numerical packages. The unknown gain matrix is determined by solving a delay-dependent LMI. Finally two numerical examples are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

linear matrix inequality
hopfield neural networks
state estimation

t-s fuzzy model
lyapunov-krasovskii functional


Speech enhancement based on perceptual filter bank improvement In this paper, a new denoising approach is presented based on perceptual analysis. The noisy signal is split by a gammatone filterbank with nonlinear frequency distributions according to ERB scale. The frequency masking threshold is calculated in each sub-band according to the Johnston model in the output of the Wiener filter. This threshold is then used in the gain function given by the perceptual filter. The evaluation tests are performed by using objective criterion including perceptual evaluation of speech quality as well as subjective criterion including mean opinion score. Obtained results show that the proposed method achieves best results in terms of quality and intelligibility of enhanced signal.

O O O O O 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

non-uniform multi-band analysis
masking proprieties


Relationships and social rules: Teens social network and other ICT selection practices The issue of how teens choose social networks and information communication technologies (ICT's) for personal communication is complex. This study focused on describing how U.S. teens from a highly technological suburban high school select ICT's for personal communication purposes. Two research questions guided the study: (a) What factors influence high school seniors selection of online social networks and other ICT's for everyday communication? (b) How can social network theory (SNT) help to explain how teens select online social networks and other ICT's for everyday communication purposes? Using focus groups, a purposive sample of 45 teens were asked to discuss (a) their preferred methods for communicating with friends and family and why, (b) the reasons why they chose to engage (or not to engage) in online social networking, (c) how they selected ICT's for social networking and other communication purposes, and (d) how they decided whom to accept as online friends. Findings indicated that many factors influenced participants ICT selection practices including six major categories of selection factors: relationship factors, information/communication factors, social factors, systems factors, self-protection factors, and recipient factors. SNT was also helpful in explaining how friendship was a major determining factor in their communication media and platform choices.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 mediated communications
qualitative research
adolescents


Computation of vortex-induced vibrations of long structures using a wake oscillator model: Comparison with DNS and experiments We consider here the dynamics of flexible slender systems undergoing vortex-induced vibration (VIV). This type of motion results from the coupling between the oscillating wake due to cross-flow and the structure motion. Practical applications are mainly found in the field of ocean engineering, where long flexible structures such as risers or mooring cables are excited by sea currents. The wake dynamics is here represented using a distributed wake oscillator coupled to the dynamics of the slender structure, a cable or a tensioned beam. This results in two coupled partial differential equations with one variable for the solid displacement and one for the wake fluctuating lift. This simplified model of the wake dynamics has been previously validated on simple experiments. Here, comparisons with direct numerical simulation results are done for both uniform and non-uniform flow. Comparison is also performed between the wake oscillator predictions and some experimental results on long cables. The results of those comparisons show that the proposed method can be used as simple computational tool in the prediction of some aspects of vortex induced vibrations of long flexible structures.

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

vortex-induced vibration
van der pol
waves
fluidstructure interaction


Advanced Glycation Endproducts in Chronic Heart Failure Advanced glycation endproducts (AGEs) have been proposed as factors involved in the development and progression of chronic heart failure (CHF). Cross-linking by AGEs results in vascular and myocardial stiffening, which are hallmarks in the pathogenesis of CHF. Additionally, stimulation of receptors by AGEs may affect endothelial function and myocardial calcium uptake and may perpetuate coronary sclerosis in CHF. CHF is common in conditions with AGE accumulation, such as diabetes and renal failure. This review describes in detail the interrelation of plasma AGEs, renal function, and the severity and prognosis in clinical CHF patients with mild to moderate loss of renal function. This association is compared with the relation between tissue AGE accumulation (marked by skin autofluorescence) and diastolic dysfunction in renal failure. The evidence reviewed here provides support for the assumed role of AGEs in determining the severity and prognosis of CHF, but also highlights the differences in this relation between plasma and tissue AGEs and between patients with and without advanced renal failure. Ongoing clinical intervention trials to reduce AGE accumulation in patients with CHF may elucidate the causal role of AGEs in the development and course of CHF.

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

heart failure
advanced glycation endproducts
renal function


Algorithms for advanced packet classification with ternary CAMs Ternary content-addressable memories (TCAMs) have gained wide acceptance in the industry for storing and searching Access Control Lists (ACLs). In this paper, we propose algorithms for addressing two important problems that are encountered while using TCAMs: reducing range expansion and multi-match classification. Our first algorithm addresses the problem of expansion of rules with range fields-to represent range rules in TCAMs, a single range rule is mapped to multiple TCAM entries, which reduces the utilization of TCAMs. We propose a new scheme called Database Independent Range PreEncoding (DIRPE) that, in comparison to earlier approaches, reduces the worst-case number of TCAM entries a single rule maps on to. DIRPE works without prior knowledge of the database, scales when a large number of ranges is present, and has good incremental update properties. Our second algorithm addresses the problem of finding multiple matches in a TCAM. When searched, TCAMs return the first matching entry; however, new applications require either the first few or all matching entries. We describe a novel algorithm, called Multi-match Using Discriminators (MUD), that finds multiple matches without storing any per-search state information in the TCAM, thus making it suitable for multi-threaded environments. MUD does not increase the number of TCAM entries needed, and hence scales to large databases. Our algorithms do not require any modifications to existing TCAMs and are hence relatively easy to deploy. We evaluate the algorithms using real-life and random databases.

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

packet classification
ternary cams
range


speeding up adaptation of web service compositions using expiration times Web processes must often operate in volatile environments where the quality of service parameters of the participating service providers change during the life time of the process. In order to remain optimal, the Web process must adapt to these changes. Adaptation requires knowledge about the parameter changes of each of the service providers and using this knowledge to determine whether the Web process should make a different more optimal decision. Previously, we defined a mechanism called the value of changed information which measures the impact of expected changes in the service parameters on the Web process, thereby offering a way to query and incorporate those changes that are useful and cost-efficient. However, computing the value of changed information incurs a substantial computational overhead. In this paper, we use service expiration times obtained from pre-defined service level agreements to reduce the computational overhead of adaptation. We formalize the intuition that services whose parameters have not expired need not be considered for querying for revised information. Using two realistic scenarios, we illustrate our approach and demonstrate the associated computational savings.

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

adaptation
expiration times
volatile environments


Nonlinear transient computation A novel transient computation device is presented which performs computations on time-varying input signals. The inputs perturb the device causing transients in its internal dynamics. These transients are characteristic of the inputs and are reflected in the device's output. Previous approaches to transient computation have used large reservoirs of neurons. The proposed device consists of only two neurons with nonlinear internal dynamics. Experimental evidence is given to demonstrate that this device possesses two properties required for performing computations on time-dependent signals: a separation and an approximation property. It is also shown that this device can perform noise resistant pattern recognition.

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

chaos
liquid state machine
spiking neural network


Lip contour extraction from color images using a deformable model The use of visual information from lip movements can improve the accuracy and robustness of a speech recognition system. In this paper, a region-based lip contour extraction algorithm based on deformable model is proposed. The algorithm employs a stochastic cost function to partition a color lip image into lip and non-lip regions such that the joint probability of the two regions is maximized. Given a discrete probability map generated by spatial fuzzy clustering, we show how the optimization of the cost function can be done in the continuous setting. The region-based approach makes the algorithm more tolerant to noise and artifacts in the image. It also allows larger region of attraction, thus making the algorithm less sensitive to initial parameter settings. The algorithm works on unadorned lips and accurate extraction of lip contour is possible.

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

lip modeling
parameter estimation
lipreading


To what extent can maintenance problems be predicted by code smell detection? - An empirical study Context: Code smells are indicators of poor coding and design choices that can cause problems during software maintenance and evolution. Objective: This study is aimed at a detailed investigation to which extent problems in maintenance projects can be predicted by the detection of currently known code smells. Method: A multiple case study was conducted, in which the problems faced by six developers working on four different Java systems were registered on a daily basis, for a period up to four weeks. Where applicable, the files associated to the problems were registered. Code smells were detected in the pre-maintenance version of the systems, using the tools Borland Together and InCode. In-depth examination of quantitative and qualitative data was conducted to determine if the observed problems could be explained by the detected smells. Results: From the total set of problems, roughly 30% percent were related to files containing code smells. In addition, interaction effects were observed amongst code smells, and between code smells and other code characteristics, and these effects led to severe problems during maintenance. Code smell interactions were observed between collocated smells (i.e., in the same file), and between coupled smells (i.e., spread over multiple files that were coupled). Conclusions: The role of code smells on the overall system maintainability is relatively minor, thus complementary approaches are needed to achieve more comprehensive assessments of maintainability. Moreover, to improve the explanatory power of code smells, interaction effects amongst collocated smells and coupled smells should be taken into account during analysis. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

code smells
maintainability
empirical study


answering conceptual queries with ferret Programmers seek to answer questions as they investigate the functioning of a software system, such as "which execution path is being taken in this case?" Programmers attempt to answer these questions, which we call conceptual queries , using a variety of tools. Each type of tool typically highlights one kind of information about the system, such as static structural information or control-flow information. Unfortunately for the programmer, the tools seldom directly answer the programmer's conceptual queries. Instead, the programmer must piece together results from different tools to determine an answer to the initial query. At best, this process is time consuming and at worst, this process can lead to data overload and disorientation. In this paper, we present a model that supports the integration of different sources of information about a program. This model enables the results of concrete queries in separate tools to be brought together to directly answer many of a programmer's conceptual queries. In addition to presenting this model, we present a tool that implements the model, demonstrate the range of conceptual queries supported by this tool, and present the results of use of the conceptual queries in a small field study.

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

software representation models
tool integration


Dynamic rationing policies for product with incremental upgrading demands In environments in which several distinct classes of demand exist for a fixed number of a perishable product and backlogging is not allowed, the total sales revenue depends on the sales number for each demand-class. In such environments it is important to establish a rationing policy that provides decision rules for accepting or denying individual requests during the entire planning period. Thus, a dynamic rationing policy is proposed to meet the situation wherein a significant number of rejected customers are expected to sequentially request the next higher-fare demand-class. The proposed dynamic rationing policy has the ability to revise decision rules according to the actual selling status over the entire planning period.

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

decision analysis
production differentiation


Selecting batch size in discrete-time two-phase queuing system This paper discusses the modeling and analysis of a discrete-time two-phase queuing system. Packets arrive at the system according to a Bernoulli process and receive batch service in the first queue and individual service in the second queue. We study the queue length, average waiting time of packets in the first queue and the effect of batch size on the waiting time. (c) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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


effective content organization and retrieval within point-to-multipoint channels towards mobile grid iptv Abundant information in the Grid is being delivered to enormous destinations among which the mobile users maybe the mainstream in near future. Accordingly, the bottleneck exists at the last mile from the Grid backbone to those mobile terminals where wireless environment places limitations on the rate and amount of communication. Point-to-multipoint (PTM) communication is an effective solution to this limitation. This paper develops the PTM parallel channels content organization mechanism to support timely and reliable access to the common interested information on the Mobile Grid, which has great practical value in the mobile IPTV application scenario. Moreover, we systemically study the parallel channels content organization for non-concurrent and concurrent content retrieval, and then contribute better content organization and retrieving algorithms which fully utilized the concurrent parallel content retrieval capability. The algorithms proposed could deliver information in a very high-performance way to larger user groups so as to achieve shorter response time and less network latency, both for the source-side and for the destination-side. We demonstrate the effectiveness of related mechanisms using a number of examples and some performance experiments.

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


On an implicit assessment of fuzzy volatility in the Black and Scholes environment In this work we suggest a methodology to obtain the membership of a non-observable parameter through implicit information. To this aim we profit from the interpretation of membership functions as coherent conditional probabilities. We develop full details for the well known Black and Scholes pricing model where the membership of the volatility parameter is obtained from a sample of either asset prices or market prices for options written on that asset. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

coherent conditional probability assessments and extension


Optical study of germanium nanostructures grown on a Si(118) vicinal substrate Photoluminescence (PL) measurements were carried out on Si/Ge(n)/Si0.7Ge0.3/Si structures (n is varying from 1 to 7ML) deposed by gas source molecular beam epitaxy (GS-MBE) on Si(100) surfaces and high index Si(118) vicinal surfaces. Ge nanostructures were confined on the top of the undulation of the Si0.3Ge0.7 wetting layer, according to the StranskiKrastanov growth mode. PL measurements reveal a correlation between the substrate orientation and the island morphology: square dots for (001) and wires for (118) surface orientation. The results suggest that the SiGe wetting layer is required to ensure a good dot size uniformity. The dependence of the luminescence on the excitation power and the PL decay time indicate that the luminescence transitions likely occur in a type-II band line up. Finally, the dot-related PL persists up to room temperature which is very promising for optoelectronic device applications.

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

photoluminescence
germanium nanostructures
molecular beam epitaxy
luminescence

high index surface
type-ii recombination


Evaluating Temporal Robustness of Mobile Networks The application of complex network models to communication systems has led to several important results: nonetheless, previous research has often neglected to take into account their temporal properties, which in many real scenarios play a pivotal role. At the same time, network robustness has come extensively under scrutiny. Understanding whether networked systems can undergo structural damage and yet perform efficiently is crucial to both their protection against failures and to the design of new applications. In spite of this, it is still unclear what type of resilience we may expect in a network which continuously changes over time. In this work, we present the first attempt to define the concept of temporal network robustness: we describe a measure of network robustness for time-varying networks and we show how it performs on different classes of random models by means of analytical and numerical evaluation. Finally, we report a case study on a real-world scenario, an opportunistic vehicular system of about 500 taxicabs, highlighting the importance of time in the evaluation of robustness. Particularly, we show how static approximation can wrongly indicate high robustness of fragile networks when adopted in mobile time-varying networks, while a temporal approach captures more accurately the system performance.

O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 B I O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 novel document ranking method using the discrete cosine transform We propose a new Spectral text retrieval method using the Discrete Cosine Transform ( DCT). By taking advantage of the properties of the DCT and by employing the fast query and compression techniques found in vector space methods ( VSM), we show that we can process queries as fast as VSM and achieve a much higher precision.

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

indexing methods
information search and retrieval
fast fourier transforms


on the application of pairing based cryptography to wireless sensor networks Recent research results have shown that Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) is feasible on resource constrained sensor nodes. In this work we demonstrate that the related but more complex primitives of Pairing Based Cryptography(PBC) are also well suited for sensor devices. We present the first in-depth study on the application and implementation of PBC to Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). Our implementations are all the fastest yet reported, and have been implemented across a range of WSN processors. On a system level we investigate the application of a simple non-interactive key exchange scheme that is particularly suitable for many WSN scenarios. We also present a novel variant of the key exchange protocol which can be useful in even more demanding applications, and which partially solves the problem of node compromise attacks.

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 B 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

security protocols
pairing-based cryptography


Postnatal Development of Prefrontal Inhibitory Circuits and the Pathophysiology of Cognitive Dysfunction in Schizophrenia The typical appearance of the clinical features of schizophrenia during late adolescence or early adulthood suggests that adolescence-related neurodevelopmental events may contribute to the pathophysiology of this disorder. Here the role that GABA-mediated inhibition in the dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) plays in regulating working memory, a core cognitive process that matures late and that is disturbed in schizophrenia, is reviewed. Recent studies are summarized that demonstrate (1) that certain pre- and postsynaptic markers of GABA neurotransmission in the monkey DLPFC exhibit striking changes during adolescence, and (2) that these same markers are markedly altered in the DLPFC of subjects with schizophrenia. The implications of these findings for treatment and prevention strategies are discussed.

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

dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex (dlpfc)


Self-organized task allocation to sequentially interdependent tasks in swarm robotics In this article we present a self-organized method for allocating the individuals of a robot swarm to tasks that are sequentially interdependent. Tasks that are sequentially interdependent are common in natural and artificial systems. The proposed method does neither rely on global knowledge nor centralized components. Moreover, it does not require the robots to communicate. The method is based on the delay experienced by the robots working on one subtask when waiting for input from another subtask. We explore the capabilities of the method in different simulated environments. Additionally, we evaluate the method in a proof-of-concept experiment using real robots. We show that the method allows a swarm to reach a near-optimal allocation in the studied environments, can easily be transferred to a real robot setting, and is adaptive to changes in the properties of the tasks such as their duration. Finally, we show that the ideal setting of the parameters of the method does not depend on the properties of the environment.

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

foraging
self-organization
swarm intelligence
multi-agent systems


A New Color Space Based Constellation Diagram and Modulation Scheme for Color Independent VLC In this paper, generation of a constellation diagram, data to light intensity mapping, and light intensity to data demapping are introduced for the visible light communication (VLC) systems. We propose a new constellation diagram and modulation scheme named generalized color modulation (GCM) based on light color space which can be uniquely applied to modulate the light signals used to deliver data information regardless of target colors of VLC signals. At first, we describe the generation of a constellation in a light color space considering the target color of VLC signals. Then we represent the data symbols as constellation points, resulting in every data symbol having a specific position and corresponding color in the light color space. After that, we determine the position of received signal points in the light color space at the receiver by manipulating the intensities of received signals from the photo detectors. Finally, we convert these received points to data symbols by matching them to the constellation points generated by the receiver. We consider both single color and multiple colors scenarios and investigate two cases to obtain the color information at the receiver. Simulation results show that our proposed scheme can be applied to the development of a more efficient VLC system.

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

constellation diagram
gcm
light color space
visible light communication


Early slip detection with a tactile sensor based on retina The interest in tactile sensors is increasing as their use in complex unstructured environments is demanded, like in telepresence, minimal invasive surgery, robotics etc. The array of pressure data provided by these devices can be treated with different image processing algorithms to extract miscellaneous information. However, as in the case of vision chips or artificial retinas, problems arise when the size of the array and the computational complexity increase. Having a look at the skin, the information collected by every mechanoreceptor is not sent to the brain for its processing, but some complex pre-processing is performed to fit the limited throughput of the nervous system. This is specially important for high bandwidth demanding tasks, as the case of slip detection with tactile sensors, which is demanding in computing requirements. Here we show some results from a tactile processor based on circuitry proposed for an artificial retina that has been modified to mimic the way the biological skin works.

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


Fault tolerant algorithm based on dynamic and active load balancing for redundant services A new Some-Read-Any-Write (SRAW) fault tolerant algorithm for redundant services is presented that allows a system to adjust failures dynamically in order to keep the availability and improve the performance. SRAW is based upon dynamic and active load balancing. By introducing dynamic and active load balancing scheme into redundant services, not only the processing speed of requests can be greatly improved, but also the load balancing can be simply and efficiently achieved. Integrated with consistency protocol in this paper, SRAW can also be applied to state services. The performance of SRAW algorithm is also analyzed, and comparisons with other fault tolerant algorithms, especially with RAWA, indicate that SRAW efficiently improves the performance of redundant services with guaranteeing system availability.

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


Detecting and refactoring code smells in spreadsheet formulas Spreadsheets are used extensively in business processes around the world and just like software, spreadsheets are changed throughout their lifetime causing understandability and maintainability issues. This paper adapts known code smells to spreadsheet formulas. To that end we present a list of metrics by which we can detect smelly formulas; a visualization technique to highlight these formulas in spreadsheets and a method to automatically suggest refactorings to resolve smells. We implemented the metrics, visualization and refactoring suggestions techniques in a prototype tool and evaluated our approach in three studies. Firstly, we analyze the EUSES spreadsheet corpus, to study the occurrence of the formula smells. Secondly, we analyze ten real life spreadsheets, and interview the spreadsheet owners about the identified smells. Finally, we generate refactoring suggestions for those ten spreadsheets and study the implications. The results of these evaluations indicate that formula smells are common, that they can reveal real errors and weaknesses in spreadsheet formulas and that in simple cases they can be refactored.

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


Cognitive Centres: technology for designing the future Methodology and implementation experience Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to introduce and conceptualize the topic of Cognitive Centres. It emphasizes the importance of complexity management and cognitive technologies in management practice. Design/methodology/approach - It elaborates the relevance of different types of models for management: Stafford Beer's operations room, viable system model, subject-object and subject-subject management models, expert-based mathematical modelling and computational experiment, organizational-activity games theory and cybernetic (Viplan) methodology. Findings - The paper suggests models and approaches for strategic management. It shows the inadequacy of a subject-object management model for industrial or regional governance. It integrates a communicative management approach, complexity management methods, the USSR's Gosplan experience of long-term planning, the Keldysh Institute of Applied Mathematics experience of modelling extremely complex systems and modern cognitive and information technologies into the concept of a Cognitive Centre. Practical implications - Cognitive Centres can enhance the adaptation and viability of a large network of small organizations: public enterprises, business and not-for-profit regional industries. The paper describes two cases of practical implementation. Originality/value - The paper contributes to research on management models that integrates cybernetics, cognitive technologies and computational experiments.

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

general management
russia
decision support systems
cognition
communication


defining and continuous checking of structural program dependencies Dependencies between program elements need to be modeled from different perspectives reflecting architectural, design, and implementation level decisions. To avoid erosion of the intended structure of the code, it is necessary to explicitly codify these different perspectives on the permitted dependencies and to detect violations continuously and incrementally as software evolves. We propose an approach that uses declarative queries to group source elements - across programming language module boundaries - into overlapping ensembles. The dependencies between these ensembles are also specified as logic queries. The approach has been integrated into the incremental build process of Eclipse to ensure continuous checking, using an engine for tabled and incremental evaluation of logic queries. Our evaluation shows that our approach is fast enough for day-to-day use along the incremental build process of modern IDEs.

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

static analysis
controlling program dependencies
datalog


MMAPDNG: A new, fast code backed by a memory-mapped database for simulating delayed ? ? -ray emission with MCNPX package The simulation of the emission of beta-delayed gamma rays following nuclear fission and the calculation of time-dependent energy spectra is a computational challenge. The widely used radiation transport code MCNPX includes a delayed gamma-ray routine that is inefficient and not suitable for simulating complex problems. This paper describes the code MMAPDNG (Memory-Mapped Delayed Neutron and Gamma), an optimized delayed gamma module written in C, discusses usage and merits of the code, and presents results. The approach is based on storing required Fission Product Yield (FPY) data, decay data, and delayed particle data in a memory-mapped file. When compared to the original delayed gamma-ray code in MCNPX, memory utilization is reduced by two orders of magnitude and the ray sampling is sped up by three orders of magnitude. Other delayed particles such as neutrons and electrons can be implemented in future versions of MMAPDNG code using its existing framework.

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


Routing approach based on rate of transmission failure in ZigBee networks with changing mobility In this paper, we propose and evaluate a Transmission Failure Based Routing Algorithm (TFBRA) for low power consumption in ZigBee networks with changing mobility. We analyse the traffic with different routing algorithms which are stated in ZigBee specification. The effects of different factors on data communication are discussed. As the variation of mobility results in changing possibility of sending routing request as well as varying routing performance, the probability of transmission failure in one hop is used to describe node mobility. The TFBRA compares this rate with the threshold which is computed based on hardware condition to decide the routing scheme in ZigBee network. The scheme utilises the information in neighbour table and network address for mobility estimation without any extra communication. The simulation results show that the proposed approach achieves better performance than original routing schemes in ZigBee specification by obtaining lower network load and larger ratio of successful data transmission.

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

zigbee networks
node mobility
power consumption

routing selection
transmission failure rate
wireless sensor networks


Intuitiveness of Vibrotactile Speed Regulation Cues Interpretations of vibrotactile stimulations were compared between two participant groups. In both groups, the task was to evaluate specifically designed tactile stimulations presented to the wrist or chest. Ascending, constant, and descending vibration frequency profiles of the stimuli represented information for three different speed regulation instructions: "accelerate your speed," " keep your speed constant," and " decelerate your speed," respectively. The participants were treated differently so that one of the groups was first taught (i.e., primed) the meanings of the stimuli, whereas the other group was not taught (i.e., unprimed). The results showed that the stimuli were evaluated nearly equally in the primed and the unprimed groups. The best performing stimuli communicated the three intended meanings in the rate of 88% to 100% in the primed group and in the unprimed group in the rate of 71% to 83%. Both groups performed equally in evaluating " keep your speed constant" and " decelerate your speed" information. As the unprimed participants performed similarly to the primed participants, the results suggest that vibrotactile stimulation can be intuitively understood. The results suggest further that carefully designed vibrotactile stimulations could be functional in delivering easy-to-understand feedback on how to regulate the speed of movement, such as in physical exercise and rehabilitation applications.

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

design
experimentation
human factors
human-computer interaction
heart rate monitor
haptic feedback
iconic information
priming
intuitive decision making


Reconstruction of crack profile using fuzzy logic Purpose - The aim of the paper is to develop an algorithm based on fuzzy logic (FL) systems for reconstructing cracks shapes, which will be faster and simpler to learn than neural networks, especially in case of large training set. Design/methodology/approach - The inverse model in defectoscopy can be considered as reverse model of the whole measurement process (crack-sensor-output). The most important disadvantage of the inverse neural models with dynamic networks is that the performance of training is disappointing due to large training set and many inputs of such networks. The paper proposes the FL as the substitute of neural network. The typical ANFIS networks are sufficient only for simulating systems with small number of inputs. For this reason the paper developed the learning algorithm that produces relatively small number of rules and it can be used in case of systems with hundred of inputs and thousands of training pairs. Findings - This paper provides details about algorithm for reconstructing cracks profiles that produces relatively small number of rules of the fuzzy system. The basis rule of inverse model with moving window for one- and multi-frequency method is described. The results of profile identification in 2D and 3D space for real and simulated data are presented as well. Originality/value - Generally, the algorithm proposed in this paper can be widely used for simulating multi-input systems, which are described by a large training set.

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