Development of computer-assisted virtual field trips to support multidisciplinary learning Multidisciplinary courses are being developed at a number of US colleges and universities to highlight the connections between the rise or fall of world civilizations and the sustainable or unsustainable uses of soil and water resources. The content presented in these courses is complex because it includes concepts from disciplines as varied as geology, soil science, politics, economics, history, and anthropology. The learning goals for the courses include developing skills in the critical analysis of complex "real-world" problems for which there is often no simple or correct solution. Didactic materials for such courses are limited. Field trips to sites around the world that present some of the issues covered in the course would be ideal, but are logistically challenging. We considered that a series of virtual field trips (VFTs) to sites around the world would allow us to present students with complicated real-world situations, with which to practice critical analysis skills. The VFTs envisaged are neither tutorials nor field/lab exercises. Rather, they are meant to be complex, multi-faceted representations of a past or current civilization and how it affects or is affected by its environment. We expect that the students will use the VFTs to explore the relationships between physical geography and culture and how the decisions or actions of a civilization impact natural resources and the environment and thus affect its fate. A goal of the VFTs is that through consideration of their experiences, students arrive at novel associations that lead to dynamic in-class dialogue about the material presented and a deeper understanding of the intricacies of the situation in the field. This article describes the process of assembling a VFT, and analyzes the technological and didactic choices the process requires. Our experience with a pilot VFT suggests that no single medium (i.e., video clips, interactive maps, animation sequences, etc.) is comprehensive enough to meet the course learning goals. Thus, a web-based, open architecture format was selected for the VFTs because of its simplicity, flexibility and extensibility. Each medium was selected for its ability to support the course learning goals. The learning process was mediated by the VFT text, questions for thought, and in-class discussions. Preliminary results with the pilot VFT are encouraging. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

applications in subject area
media in education
multimedia/hypermedia systems
post-secondary education
virtual reality


Eddy-current based determining of conductivity and permittivity The eddy-current based approach has found a wide utility in conductometry, as well as in testing of good conducting materials (sigma similar to 10(6)S/m). Its main advantage is that it enables non-contact measurements to be taken. The paper deals with an eddy-current based transducer or testing of poor conducting materials, the electromagnetic parameters of which are approximately equal to those of living tissues (mu = mu(0), sigma similar to 0.5S/m, epsilon similar to 100 epsilon(0)).

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


Noise correction on Rician distributed data for fibre orientation estimators New complex tissue microstructure estimators have been presented recently in order to elucidate white matter fibre orientations. Since these algorithms are based on the diffusion-weighted signal profile, the estimations are affected by noise artefacts. The proven robustness of these methods cannot counteract distortions since the statistical Rician behavior has not been taken into account. In this study, two techniques to counteract the noise distortions are presented to improve the fibre orientation estimations. Simulations and in vim experiments show an improvement in the angular resolution and convergence or the results. One of these strategies represents a good compromise between computational cost and result improvements.

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

high angular resolution diffusion imaging (hardi)


Low-complexity tools in AVS part 7 Audio Video coding Standard (AVS) is established by the AVS Working Group of China. The main goal of AVS part 7 is to provide high compression performance with relatively low complexity for mobility applications. There are 3 main low-complexity tools: deblocking filter, context-based adaptive 2D-VLC and direct intra prediction. These tools are presented and analyzed respectively. Finally, we compare the performance and the decoding speed of ANIS part 7 and H.264 baseline profile. The analysis and results indicate that AVS part 7 achieves similar performance with lower cost.

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

avs part 7
deblocking filter
direct intra prediction


Reverse bifurcations in a quartic family We show a family of real quartic maps exhibits reverse bifurcations. Also called cycle-annihilating transitions, reverse bifurcations have been known for the Hnon map for several years, but are not present in the logistic map. We use trapping squares to explain these quartic reverse bifurcations.

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

period-doubling bifurcation
reverse bifurcation
trapping square


evolution and sustainability of a wildlife monitoring sensor network As sensor network technologies become more mature, they are increasingly being applied to a wide variety of applications, ranging from agricultural sensing to cattle, oceanic and volcanic monitoring. Significant efforts have been made in deploying and testing sensor networks resulting in unprecedented sensing capabilities. A key challenge has become how to make these emerging wireless sensor networks more sustainable and easier to maintain over increasingly prolonged deployments. In this paper, we report the findings from a one year deployment of an automated wildlife monitoring system for analyzing the social co-location patterns of European badgers ( Meles meles ) residing in a dense woodland environment. We describe the stages of its evolution cycle, from implementation, deployment and testing, to various iterations of software optimization, followed by hardware enhancements, which in turn triggered the need for further software optimization. We report preliminary descriptive analyses of a subset of the data collected, demonstrating the significant potential our system has to generate new insights into badger behavior. The main lessons learned were: the need to factor in the maintenance costs while designing the system; to look carefully at software and hardware interactions; the importance of a rapid initial prototype deployment (this was key to our success); and the need for continuous interaction with domain scientists which allows for unexpected optimizations.

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

rfid technology
in-network storage
duty cycling


A complexity-level analysis of the sensor planning task for object search Object search is the task of searching for a given 3D object in a given 3D environment by a controllable camera. Sensor planning for object search refers to the task of how to select the sensing parameters of the camera so as to bring the target into the field of view of the camera and to make the image of the target to be easily recognized by the available recognition algorithms. In this paper, we study the task of sensor planning for object search from the theoretical point of view. We formulate the task and point out many of its important properties. we then analyze this task from the complexity level and prove that this task is NP-Complete.

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 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 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 B O O O O O O O O

sensor planning
object search
complexity


decreasing low-voltage manufacturing-induced delay variations with adaptive mixed-voltage-swing circuits One of the major problems faced by the designer when operating CMOS static logic circuits at low power supply voltages (normalized to V T is that the delay spread introduced by today's IC manufacturing variations can increase dramatically. In this paper we describe an approach for decreasing the delay spread and power spread in ICs based on adaptively servoing the circuits between static CMOS operation and QuadRail operation. An on-chip series-regulator employing a dummy delay path is used to generate the adaptive low swing power supply rails making this approach fully compatible with a standard CMOS IC design methodology. Simulation results are presented demonstrating that for a 16 * 16+36-bit multiplier-accumulator designed in 0.5m CMOS process the proposed approach decreases the delay spread from 3.9X to 2.3X and the power spread from 3.6X to 1.8X.

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

manufacturing variations
simulation
design
delay
low power
process
power
logic
paper
circuits

low power cmos logic
low voltage logic circuits
adapt
regulation
variation
manufacturability
standardization
operability
design methodologies
mixed-swing cmos logic
low voltage


A watershed-scale design optimization model for stormwater best management practices U.S. Environmental Protection Agency developed a decision-support system, System for Urban Stormwater Treatment and Analysis Integration (SUSTAIN), to evaluate alternative plans for stormwater quality management and flow abatement techniques in urban and developing areas. SUSTAIN provides a public domain tool capable of evaluating the optimal location, type, and cost of stormwater best management practices (BMPs) needed to meet water quality and quantity goals. It is a tool designed to provide critically needed support to watershed practitioners in evaluating stormwater management options based on effectiveness and cost to meet their existing program needs. SUSTAIN is intended for users who have a fundamental understanding of watershed and BMP modeling processes. How SUSTAIN is setup described here using a case study, conducted by actual data from an existing urban watershed. The developed SUSTAIN model was calibrated by observed rainfall and flow data, representing the existing conditions. The SUSTAIN model developed two BMP cost-effectiveness curves for flow volume and pollutant load reductions. A sensitivity analysis was also conducted by varying important BMP implementation specifications.

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 B I O O 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

stormwater management
bmp modeling
design optimization model

decision-support system
best management practices (bmps)
low impact development (lid)
green infrastructure (gi)
cost-effectiveness


A new architecture for concurrent lazy cyclic reference counting on multi-processor systems Multi-processor systems have become the standard in current computer architectures. Software developers have the possibility to take advantage of the additional computing power available to concurrent programs. This paper presents a way to automatically use additional processors, by performing memory management concurrently. A new architecture with little explicit synchronization for concurrent lazy cyclic reference counting is described. This architecture was implemented and preliminary performance tests point at significant efficiency improvements over the sequential counterpart.

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

garbage collection
concurrent garbage collection


Interoperability and HealthGRID Objectives. GRID technology, with initiatives like the GGF, will have the potential to allow both competition and interoperability not only among applications and toolkits, but also among implementations of key services. The pyramid of eHealth interoperability should be achieved from standards in communication and data security, storage and processing, to the policy initiatives, including organizational protocols, financing procedures, and legal framework. The open challenges for GRID use in clinical fields illustrate the potential of the combination of grid technologies with medical routine into a wider interoperable fromework. Methods: The Telemedicine Alliance is a consortium (ESA, WHO and ITU), initiated in 2002, in building a vision for the provision of eHealth to European citizens by 2010. After a survey with more that 50 interviews of experts, interoperability was identified as the main showstopper to eHealth implementation. Results. There are already several groups and organizations contributing to standardization. TM-Alliance is supporting the "e-Health Standardization Coordination Group" (eHSCG). Conclusions: It is now, in the design and development phase of GRID technology in Health, the right moment to act with the aim of achieving an interoperable and open framework The Health area should benefit from the initiatives started at the GGF in terms of global architecture and services definitions, as well as from the security and other web services applications developed under the Internet umbrella. There is a risk that existing important results of the standardization efforts in this area are not taken up simply because they are not always known.

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

healthgrid
interoperability
standards
telemedicine alliance
who
itu


Image Segmentation Using a Local GMM in a Variational Framework In this paper, we propose a new variational framework to solve the Gaussian mixture model (GMM) based methods for image segmentation by employing the convex relaxation approach. After relaxing the indicator function in GMM, flexible spatial regularization can be adopted and efficient segmentation can be achieved. To demonstrate the superiority of the proposed framework, the global, local intensity information and the spatial smoothness are integrated into a new model, and it can work well on images with inhomogeneous intensity and noise. Compared to classical GMM, numerical experiments have demonstrated that our algorithm can achieve promising segmentation performance for images degraded by intensity inhomogeneity and noise.

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

image segmentation
gaussian mixture model
regularization
inhomogeneous intensity


A reconfigurable FTL (flash translation layer) architecture for NAND flash-based applications In this article, a novel FTL (flash translation layer) architecture is proposed for NAND flash-based applications such as MP3 players, DSCs (digital still cameras) and SSDs (solid- state drives). Although the basic function of an FTL is to translate a logical sector address to a physical sector address in flash memory, efficient algorithms of an FTL have a significant impact on performance as well as the lifetime. After the dominant parameters that affect the performance and endurance are categorized, the design space of the FTL architecture is explored based on a diverse workload analysis. With the proposed FTL architectural framework, it is possible to decide which configuration of FTL mapping parameters yields the best performance, depending on the differing characteristics of various NAND flash-based applications.

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

reconfigurable architecture
performance analysis


A snapshot of information use patterns of academics in British universities Purpose - This paper aims to study information behaviour of academics in the digital age. Compares information behaviour of British university academics in three disciplines - computer and information sciences, business/management, and English literature. Design/methodology/approach - Discusses information behaviour of academics in the digital age. Findings - English academics make higher use of printed information resources, such as text and reference books, than academics of any other discipline included in this study; they generally tended to be the least frequent users of electronic resources such as full-text databases, indexing and abstracting databases, search engines, and internet sites. CIS academics generally tended to make greatest use of electronic-based information resources, and the least use of print-based information resources, and business/management academics fell somewhere in between these two disciplines. CIS academics were generally the most enthusiastic about the benefits of electronic resources, whereas English academics were the least enthusiastic about them. Nearly a quarter of English academics disagreed to some extent that electronic information was easier to use than printed resources, which might go some way to explain their lower use of electronic materials, and higher use of printed materials. Research limitations/implications - Results of the quantitative study should have been supported and substantiated by quantitative analyses. Similar studies involving users from many more disciplines could show better discipline-wise differences in user behaviour. Originality/value - This is a research paper based on a nation-wide survey of academics in British universities.

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

digital libraries
information retrieval
academic staff
united kingdom


IBC-Based Entity Authentication Protocols for Federated Cloud Systems Cloud computing changes the service models of information systems and accelerates the pace of technological innovation of consumer electronics. However, it also brings new security issues. As one of the important foundations of various cloud security solutions, entity authentication is attracting increasing interest of many researchers. This article proposes a layered security architecture to provide a trust transmission mechanism among cloud systems maintained by different organizations. Based on the security architecture, four protocols are proposed to implement mutual authentication, data sharing and secure data transmission in federated cloud systems. The protocols not only can ensure the confidentiality of the data transferred, but also resist man-in-the-middle attacks and masquerading attacks. Additionally, the security properties of the four protocols have been proved by S-pi calculus formal verification. Finally, the performance of the protocols is investigated in a lab environment and the feasibility of the security architecture has been verified under a hybrid cloud system.

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 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

cloud computing
layered security architecture

security protocol
s-pi calculus
identity-based cryptography


Computer-assisted estimation of leaf damage caused by spider mites The article describes a new method to assess the impact of the two-spotted spider mite, Tetranychus urticae Koch, on host plants. The method is based on measurement of the leaf area damaged using a computerized image analysis technique. Injured leaves were scanned on a common flat bed color scanner to obtain grey scale images. MATHEMATICA software was used for image analyzes. Leaf damage was defined as the ratio of the number of leaf image pixels in the damaged area to the total number of pixels of the entire leaf image. The precision of the proposed method was compared with two other methods based on the leaf damage index and the chlorophyll fluorescence, respectively. Results show that both the newly proposed normalized proportion of leaf area damaged (NPLAD) method and the leaf damage index method are sensitive enough to show significant differences in leaf damage after exposure to different densities of spider mites. The chlorophyll fluorescence method, in contrast, did not give satisfactory results. Advantages of the computer-assisted estimation of damage caused by T. urticae feeding are discussed.

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

acari
tetranychidae
herbivory
feeding damage
injury assessment
computer image analysis


Designing an extensible architecture for Personalized Ambient Information Ambient displays provide us with information in the background of our awareness. However, as each user has individual wishes and needs of how, which and when information is presented, the acceptance of ambient displays is low. In this paper we introduce an extensible architecture for personalized ambient information. We employ a notification system to extend the capability of a fixture to display more than one variable. Multiple variables can be updated by multiple information providers. Thereby, our architecture covers a broader spectrum of notifications from alarms to ambient information. We evaluate our concept within a dual-task experiment in comparison to preset notifications. The results show a level of self-interruption which is significantly lower than using preset notifications. Therefore our approach outperforms preset notifications and moves ambient displays closer to secondary displays in humancomputer interaction.

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

ambient fixture
ambient display
peripheral display
ubiquitous computing


interactive detection of network anomalies via coordinated multiple views This paper presents a new approach to intrusion detection that supports the identification and analysis of network anomalies using an interactive coordinated multiple views (CMV) mechanism. A CMV visualization consisting of a node-link diagram, scatterplot, and time histogram is described that allows interactive analysis from different perspectives, as some network anomalies can only be identified through joint features in the provided spaces. Spectral analysis methods are integrated to provide visual cues that allow identification of malicious nodes. An adjacency-based method is developed to generate the time histogram, which allows users to select time ranges in which suspicious activity occurs. Data from Sybil attacks in simulated wireless networks is used as the test bed for the system. The results and discussions demonstrate that intrusion detection can be achieved with a few iterations of CMV exploration. Quantitative results are collected on the accuracy of our approach and comparisons are made to single domain exploration and other high-dimensional projection methods. We believe that this approach can be extended to anomaly detection in general networks, particularly to Internet networks and social networks.

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

coordinated multiple views
intrusion detection
sybil attacks
spectral analysis


Exemplar longest common subsequence In this paper, we investigate the computational and approximation complexity of the Exemplar Longest Common Subsequence (ELCS) of a set of sequences (ELCS problem), a generalization of the Longest Common Subsequence problem, where the input sequences are over the union of two disjoint sets of symbols, a set of mandatory symbols and a set of optional symbols. We show that different versions of the problem are APX-hard even for instances with two sequences. Moreover, we show that the related problem of determining the existence of a feasible solution of the ELCS of two sequences is NP-hard. On the positive side, we first present an efficient algorithm for the ELCS problem over instances of two sequences where each mandatory symbol can appear in total at most three times in the sequences. Furthermore, we present two fixed-parameter algorithms for the ELCS problem over instances of two sequences where the parameter is the number of mandatory symbols.

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

comparative genomics
algorithm design and analysis
combinatorial algorithms
analysis of algorithms
problem complexity


Is this brand ephemeral? A multivariate tree-based decision analysis of new product sustainability Decision tree methodology has become an increasingly important tool set in the field of decision science. We develop a multivariate, tree-based decision system for a new application: the determination of whether a newly launched consumer product should be allowed to continue in a highly competitive market. The system is designed to overcome a shortcomingthe inability to capture multivariate interactionsof traditional decision methods. We apply the proposed method to an instant noodle sales data set that contains 38million transactions, and compare results across several methods.

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

sequential pattern analysis
new products
ebonsai
multivariate decision system


On simultaneously identifying outliers and heteroscedasticity without specific form Assuming homogeneous variance in a normal regression model is not always appropriate as invalid standard inference procedures may result from the improper estimation of the standard error when the disturbance process in a regression model presents heteroscedasticity. When both outliers and heteroscedasticity exist, the inflation of the scales estimate can deteriorate. Using graphical analysis, this study identifies outliers under heteroscedastic error without specifying a functional form. A jigsaw plot with two kinds of cut-off points differentiates both outlying and heteroscedastic characteristics for each observation in the data. The proposed approach is based on the concept of the weighted least absolute deviation estimator. Furthermore, plugging the resulting residuals into the estimation of the heteroscedasticity-consistent covariance matrix leads to a robust quasi-t t test for the estimated coefficients.

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


On a compact encoding of the swap automaton New algorithm for the Pattern Matching with Swaps problem. Method based on finite automata and word-level parallelism. We improve over the existing bound in the word-RAM model.

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

combinatorial problems
string algorithms
automata theory
word-level parallelism


Modelling coastal barrier breaching flows with well-balanced shock-capturing technique This paper presents a coastal hydrodynamic model for simulating coastal barrier breaching flows through an inlet which are mostly induced by extreme hydrological conditions such as storm/hurricane surges, waves and tides. In order to simulate wave field and wave-induced flow field in a coast, a wave action spectral model is coupled with a hydrodynamic model. The Godunov-type shock-capturing technique is used in the hydrodynamic model to simulate the supercritical flows and shocks driven by the extreme storm conditions. The hydrodynamic model is based on the solution of depth-averaged non-linear shallow water equations with all physical forcings common to coastal hydrological conditions so that it is capable of simulating multiple flow regimes, in which subcritical, transcritical, or supercritical flows may happen. The bed slope terms in the system of equations are treated in such a way that exact balance between flux gradient and bed slope terms is achieved under still water condition. The wave model readily provides the radiation stresses that represent the shortwave-averaged forcings in a water column and take into account wave-induced nearshore currents. In the coupled system, the models are operated systematically. The coastal hydrodynamic model is shown to accurately reproduce analytical and benchmark numerical solutions. To further test the accuracy of the model, flow through a coastal inlet with a storm surge is simulated and the results are compared with an established coastal flow model. Finally, the model is examined to simulate a severe storm surge that develops supercritical flows and the results are found to be encouraging. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

shallow water equations
storm surge
coastal flow

supercritical flow
radiation stress
process-based model
finite volume method


Interspliced transcription chimeras: Neglected pathological mechanism infiltrating gene accession queries? Over half of the DNA of mammalian genomes is transcribed, and one of the emerging enigmas in the field of RNA research is intergenic splicing or transcription induced chimerism. We argue that fused low-copy-number transcripts constitute neglected pathological mechanism akin to copy number variation, due to loss of stoichiometric subunit ratios in protein complexes. An obstacle for transcriptomics meta-analysis of published microarrays is the traditional nomenclature of merged transcript neighbors under same accession codes. Tandem transcripts cover 420% of genomes but are only loosely overlapping in population. They were most enriched in systems medicine annotations concerning neurology, thalassemia and genital disorders in the GeneGo Inc. MetaCore-MetaDrugTM knowledgebase, evaluated with external randomizations here. Clinical transcriptomics is good news since new disease etiologies offer new remedies. We identified homeotic HOX-transfactors centered around BMI-1, the Grb2 adaptor network, the kallikrein system, and thalassemia RNA surveillance as vulnerable hotspot chimeras. As a cure, RNA interference would require verification of chimerism from symptomatic tissue contra healthy control tissue from the same patient.

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

clinical transcriptomics
systems medicine
intergenic splicing
chimerism


Interval reliability of typical systems with partially known probabilities Most probabilistic methods of the system reliability analysis assume that the component lifetime distributions are known precisely and the system components are independent. The paper considers reliability analysis of typical systems when the above assumptions are violated and there is only some partial information about the component lifetime distributions. The analysis is based on considering sets of possible probability distributions consistent with available information. All resulting expressions are obtained in the explicit form. The impact of incompleteness of initial data on the resulting system reliability measures is illustrated by a numerical example.

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

uncertainty modelling
imprecise probabilities
incomplete information
series and parallel systems
lower and upper bounds


Computation of restoration of ligand response in the random kinetics of a prostate cancer cell signaling pathway Mutation and/or dysfunction of signaling proteins in the mitogen activated protein kinase (MAPK) signal transduction pathway are frequently observed in various kinds of human cancer. Consistent with this fact, in the present study, we experimentally observe that the epidermal growth factor (EGF) induced activation profile of MAP kinase signaling is not straightforward dose-dependent in the PC3 prostate cancer cells. To find out what parameters and reactions in the pathway are involved in this departure from the normal dose-dependency, a model-based pathway analysis is performed. The pathway is mathematically modeled with 28 rate equations yielding those many ordinary differential equations (ODE) with kinetic rate constants that have been reported to take random values in the existing literature. This has led to us treating the ODE model of the pathways kinetics as a random differential equations (RDE) system in which the parameters are random variables. We show that our RDE model captures the uncertainty in the kinetic rate constants as seen in the behavior of the experimental data and more importantly, upon simulation, exhibits the abnormal EGF dose-dependency of the activation profile of MAP kinase signaling in PC3 prostate cancer cells. The most likely set of values of the kinetic rate constants obtained from fitting the RDE model into the experimental data is then used in a direct transcription based dynamic optimization method for computing the changes needed in these kinetic rate constant values for the restoration of the normal EGF dose response. The last computation identifies the parameters, i.e., the kinetic rate constants in the RDE model, that are the most sensitive to the change in the EGF dose response behavior in the PC3 prostate cancer cells. The reactions in which these most sensitive parameters participate emerge as candidate drug targets on the signaling pathway. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

prostate cancer cell
dynamic optimization

egf induced cell signaling
map kinase pathway
random differential equation
parameter estimation
convergence in probability


Three and two-valued Lukasiewicz theories in the formal deductive system L* (NM-logic) In order to offer a logic foundation for fuzzy reasoning and to reduce the gap between fuzzy reasoning and artificial intelligence, a new formal deductive system L* was introduced in 1996. it was proved that the prominent nilpotent minimum logic is a logic system equivalent to L*. As is well known, in classical propositional logic, there is a one-to-one correspondence between deductively closed theories and topologically closed subsets of the Stone space of all maximally consistent theories. Recently, by means of the strong completeness of L*, we obtained the structural and topological characterizations of maximally consistent theories in this logic. It was proved that the set of all maximally consistent theories over L* with an induced topology is a Cantor space. In order to establish a similar connection between theories over L* and closed subsets of this topological space to the classical case, we introduce in this paper the notion of three-valued Lukasiewicz theory and the notion of two-valued Lukasiewicz (Boolean) theory. We prove that there is also a one-to-one correspondence between deductively closed three-valued Lukasiewicz theories and closed subsets of the space, and Boolean theories correspond to the closed subsets of the subspace of all maximally consistent Boolean theories. Lastly, we give an alternative proof for the structural characterization of the maximality of consistent theories over L* by induction on the complexity of formulas, which is independent of the strong completeness of L* and also independent of the perfectness of the standard R(0)-algebra. Crown Copyright (C) 2008 Published by 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 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 B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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

nilpotent minimum logic
boolean theory
cantor space

non-classical logics
formal deductive system l*
r(0)-algebra
maximally consistent theory
three-valued lukasiewicz theory
finite separation property


An applied calculus for spatial accessibility reasoning Recent attempts to perform formal knowledge representation and reasoning in cell biology have presented new challenges to spatial reasoning. In this paper we formalize two distinct notions of containment that were so motivated and which are relevant to reasoning about physical systems, a notion of being inside and a notion of being restricted. We develop a formal vocabulary for purposes of representing and reasoning about restrictive containment and formalize three kinds of accessibility that are each salient to attempts to reason about the possibility of interaction between pairs of objects in a system. We also consider the relation of this calculus to the well known Region Connection Calculus and related calculi for reasoning about containment. Finally, we discuss methods for implementing in a context of uncertainty, within a planning system and discuss an application to some simple representation and reasoning tasks in virology.

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

qualitative spatial reasoning
molecular biology
bayesian reasoning


Optimised

simulated

annealing

for

Ising

spin

glasses

We

present

several

efficient

implementations

of

the

simulated

annealing

algorithm

for

Ising

spin

glasses

on

sparse

graphs.

In

particular,

we

provide

a

generic

code

for

any

choice

of

couplings,

an

optimised

code

for

bipartite

graphs,

and

highly

optimised

implementations

using

multi-spin

coding

for

graphs

with

small

maximum

degree

and

discrete

couplings

with

a

finite

range.

The

latter

codes

achieve

up

to

spin

flips

per

nanosecond

on

modern

Intel

CPUs.

We

also

compare

the

performance

of

the

codes

to

that

of

the

special

purpose

D-Wave

devices

built

for

solving

such

Ising

spin

glass

problems.

Program

title:

SimAn

Catalogue

identifier:

Program

summary

Program

obtainable

from:

CPC

Program

Library,

Queens

University,

Belfast,

N.

Ireland

Licensing

provisions:

GNU

General

Public

License,

version

No.

of

lines

in

distributed

program,

including

test

data,

etc.:

No.

of

bytes

in

distributed

program,

including

test

data,

etc.:

Distribution

format:

tar.gz

Programming

language:

C++,

OpenMP

for

parallelization.

Computer:

Any

PC.

Operating

system:

Linux/OS

X/UNIX.

Has

the

code

been

vectorised

or

parallelized?:

Parallelized

using

OpenMP.

RAM:

Variable,

from

a

few

megabytes.

Classification:

Nature

of

problem:

Ising

spin

glass

ground

states

on

sparse

graphs.

Solution

method:

Simulated

annealing.

Running

time:

From

milliseconds

to

seconds.

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


Two-dimensional cache-oblivious sparse matrixvector multiplication In earlier work, we presented a one-dimensional cache-oblivious sparse matrixvector (SpMV) multiplication scheme which has its roots in one-dimensional sparse matrix partitioning. Partitioning is often used in distributed-memory parallel computing for the SpMV multiplication, an important kernel in many applications. A logical extension is to move towards using a two-dimensional partitioning. In this paper, we present our research in this direction, extending the one-dimensional method for cache-oblivious SpMV multiplication to two dimensions, while still allowing only row and column permutations on the sparse input matrix. This extension requires a generalisation of the compressed row storage data structure to a block-based data structure, for which several variants are investigated. Experiments performed on three different architectures show further improvements of the two-dimensional method compared to the one-dimensional method, especially in those cases where the one-dimensional method already provided significant gains. The largest gain obtained by our new reordering is over a factor of 3 in SpMV speed, compared to the natural matrix ordering.

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

matrixvector multiplication
sparse matrix
parallel computing

recursive bipartitioning
fine-grain
cache-oblivious


Permittivity of amorphous hydrogenated carbon (a-C:H) films as a function of thermal annealing New metal-insulator-semiconductor structures with a composite insulating layer, consisting of an amorphous hydrogenated carbon (a-C:H) film and a silicon dioxide, were obtained on silicon substrates. Carbon films were deposited on SiO2 layer by radio-frequency plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (rf PECVD) method from methane. The structures were annealed at the annealing temperature Ta=250, 275, 300, and 350C. CV characteristics of the annealed and as-grown metal-amorphous carbon-oxide-semiconductor (MCOS) structures were examined at room temperature at a frequency of 1MHz and compared with CV characteristics of the classic metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) system. High-frequency CV curves of both MCOS and MOS structures were used for extracting the permittivity ?a-C:H of carbon films before and after thermal annealing. ?a-C:H showed no variations with subsequent annealing of the structure up to Ta=250C, but it was observed to decrease from 5.6 to 2.8 as the film was annealed from 250C up to 300C with the most rapid changes occuring between 275 and 300C.

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

amorphous hydrogenated carbon
annealing
permittivity


Tower of Knowledge for scene interpretation: A survey ? We surveyed ToK approaches, proposed by Professor Maria Petrou, in the late year of her life, with her colleagues. ToK approaches take advantage from the cue of human language, for scene interpretation. We cover the topics of exploiting either vertical or horizontal relationships of units in ToK architecture.

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


Efficient Content-Based Publish/Subscribe Systems over Peer-to-Peer Networks Content-based publish/subscribe provides a convenient platform for users to specify their interested events as subscribers and ensure publications to be efficiently delivered to those users who are interested in the contents of them. Significantly, the current research trend is towards involving peer-to-peer network technology into this kind of system for scalability and fault tolerance. The dominant factor of system performance is to hash subscriptions and events into peer nodes for having time and space efficiency. In this paper, we propose two approaches with and without user clustering, respectively. Moreover, we introduce data replication and partition techniques to further distribute system workload. Our proposed system is more practical and flexible than existing ones. The performance is evaluated through a discrete event based simulator.

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

publish/subscribe
content-based
peer-topeer network
data replication/partition


Hybrid intelligence aspects of programming in *AIDA algorithmic pictures Programming in algorithmic pictures is presented. Programs in pictures are special information resources. Techniques enhancing comprehension of users apply super-characters with annotations. Data/knowledge acquisition is based on clusters of different views. Confidence of users in making decision is based on the previous decisions of others.

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

programming in pictures
*aida
algorithmic cyberfilm


7 Themes for guiding situated ergonomic assessments of medical devices: A case study of an inpatient glucometer We report a case study of a situated ergonomic assessment of a modern inpatient blood glucose meter. We identify 19 issues with the design and use of the device. We identify 7 broad themes that can help guide future situated studies of medical devices. We highlight the need for more ergonomic case studies and guidance following the implementation of BS EN 62366.

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


Zero-configuration indoor localization over IEEE 802.11 wireless infrastructure With the technical advances in ubiquitous computing and wireless networking, there has been an increasing need to capture the context information (such as the location) and to figure it into applications. In this paper, we establish the theoretical base and develop a localization algorithm for building a zero-configuration and robust indoor localization and tracking system to support location-based network services and management. The localization algorithm takes as input the on-line measurements of received signal strengths (RSSs) between 802.11 APs and between a client and its neighboring APs, and estimates the location of the client. The on-line RSS measurements among 802.11 APs are used to capture (in real-time) the effects of RF multi-path fading, temperature and humidity variations, opening and closing of doors, furniture relocation, and human mobility on the RSS measurements, and to create, based on the truncated singular value decomposition (SVD) technique, a mapping between the RSS measure and the actual geographical distance. The proposed system requires zero-configuration because the on-line calibration of the effect of wireless physical characteristics on RSS measurement is automated and no on-site survey or initial training is required to bootstrap the system. It is also quite responsive to environmental dynamics, as the impacts of physical characteristics changes have been explicitly figured in the mapping between the RSS measures and the actual geographical distances. We have implemented the proposed system with inexpensive off-the-shelf Wi-Fi hardware and sensory functions of IEEE 802.11, and carried out a detailed empirical study in our departmental building, Siebel Center for Computer Science. The empirical results show the proposed system is quite robust and gives accurate localization results.

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

location estimation
signal strength based localization
ieee 802.11 wireless infrastructure


On the remoteness function in median graphs ? A profile on a graph G G is any nonempty multiset whose elements are vertices from G G . The corresponding remoteness function associates to each vertex x?V(G) x ? V ( G ) the sum of distances from x x to the vertices in the profile. Starting from some nice and useful properties of the remoteness function in hypercubes, the remoteness function is studied in arbitrary median graphs with respect to their isometric embeddings in hypercubes. In particular, a relation between the vertices in a median graph G G whose remoteness function is maximum (antimedian set of G G ) with the antimedian set of the host hypercube is found. While for odd profiles the antimedian set is an independent set that lies in the strict boundary of a median graph, there exist median graphs in which special even profiles yield a constant remoteness function. We characterize such median graphs in two ways: as the graphs whose periphery transversal number is 2, and as the graphs with the geodetic number equal to 2. Finally, we present an algorithm that, given a graph G G on n n vertices and m m edges, decides in O(mlogn) O ( m log n ) time whether G G is a median graph with geodetic number 2.

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

hypercube
median graph
remoteness function
geodetic number
periphery transversal


Soft-constrained inference for Named Entity Recognition Named Entity Recognition is addressed by constraining inference in CRF. An two phases integer linear programming approach is proposed. Complex relationships among labels are automatically extracted from data. Extracted relationships are introduced as soft constraints in the ILP formulation. The proposed method significantly outperforms the state of the art approach.

O O O B I I B I I 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

named entity recognition
integer linear programming

conditional random fields
rule extraction


Grobner bases and Diophantine analysis A novel application of Grobner bases to study the number of positive solutions to systems of generalised Pell equations is proposed and discussed. (C) 2008 Published by Elsevier 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

grobner basis
generalised pell equation
davenport's lemma


Accelerating differential evolution using an adaptive local search We propose a crossover-based adaptive local search (LS) operation for enhancing the performance of standard differential evolution (DE) algorithm. Incorporating LS heuristics is often very useful in designing an effective evolutionary algorithm for global optimization. However, determining a single LS length that can serve for a wide range of problems is a critical issue. We present a LS technique to solve this problem by adaptively adjusting the length of the search, using a hill-climbing heuristic. The emphasis of this paper is to demonstrate how this LS scheme can improve the performance of DE. Experimenting with a wide range of benchmark functions, we show that the proposed new version of DE, with the adaptive LS, performs better, or at least comparably, to classic DE algorithm. Performance comparisons with other LS heuristics and with some other well-known evolutionary algorithms from literature are also presented.

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

differential evolution (de)
local search (ls)
memetic algorithm (ma)


Low-power state encoding for partitioned FSMs with mixed synchronous/asynchronous state memory Partitioned finite state machine (FSM) architectures in general enable low-power implementations and it has been shown that for these architectures, state memory based on both synchronous and asynchronous storage elements gives lower power consumption compared to their fully synchronous counterparts. In this paper we present state encoding techniques for a partitioned FSM architecture based on mixed synchronous/asynchronous state memory. The state memory, in this case, is composed of a synchronous local state memory and an asynchronous global state memory. The local state memory uses synchronous storage elements and is shared by all sub-FSMs. The global state memory operates asynchronously and is responsible for handling the interaction between sub-FSMs. Even though the partitioned FSM contains the asynchronous mechanism, its input/output behaviour is still cycle by cycle equivalent to the original monolithic synchronous FSM. In this paper, we discuss the low-power state encoding method for the implementation of partitioned FSM with mixed synchronous/asynchronous state memory. For the local state assignment a, what we call, state-bundling procedure is presented to enable states residing in different sub-FSMs to share the same state codes. Based on state-bundles, two state encoding techniques, in which one is the employment of binary encoding and the other is the further optimization for low power, are compared.

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

mixed synchronous/asynchronous
finite state machine partitioning


Robust and automated three-dimensional segmentation of densely packed cell nuclei in different biological specimens with Lines-of-Sight decomposition Due to the large amount of data produced by advanced microscopy, automated image analysis is crucial in modern biology. Most applications require reliable cell nuclei segmentation. However, in many biological specimens cell nuclei are densely packed and appear to touch one another in the images. Therefore, a major difficulty of three-dimensional cell nuclei segmentation is the decomposition of cell nuclei that apparently touch each other. Current methods are highly adapted to a certain biological specimen or a specific microscope. They do not ensure similarly accurate segmentation performance, i.e. their robustness for different datasets is not guaranteed. Hence, these methods require elaborate adjustments to each dataset.

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

image segmentation
image processing
algorithm
approximately convex decomposition
clustering
three-dimensional microscopy
spheroid
mouse embryo


Complexity of manipulation, bribery, and campaign management in Bucklin and fallback voting A central theme in computational social choice is to study the extent to which voting systems computationally resist manipulative attacks seeking to influence the outcome of elections, such as manipulation (i.e., strategic voting), control, and bribery. Bucklin and fallback voting are among the voting systems with the broadest resistance (i.e., NP-hardness) to control attacks. However, only little is known about their behavior regarding manipulation and bribery attacks. We comprehensively investigate the computational resistance of Bucklin and fallback voting for many of the common manipulation and bribery scenarios; we also complement our discussion by considering several campaign-management problems for these two voting rules.

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

computational social choice
manipulation
bribery
campaign management
fallback voting

complexity theory
voting theory
bucklin voting


Similarity preserving low-rank representation for enhanced data representation and effective subspace learning Latent Low-Rank Representation (LatLRR) delivers robust and promising results for subspace recovery and feature extraction through mining the so-called hidden effects, but the locality of both similar principal and salient features cannot be preserved in the optimizations. To solve this issue for achieving enhanced performance, a boosted version of LatLRR, referred to as Regularized Low-Rank Representation (rLRR), is proposed through explicitly including an appropriate Laplacian regularization that can maximally preserve the similarity among local features. Resembling LatLRR, rLRR decomposes given data matrix from two directions by seeking a pair of low-rank matrices. But the similarities of principal and salient features can be effectively preserved by rLRR. As a result, the correlated features are well grouped and the robustness of representations is also enhanced. Based on the outputted bi-directional low-rank codes by rLRR, an unsupervised subspace learning framework termed Low-rank Similarity Preserving Projections (LSPP) is also derived for feature learning. The supervised extension of LSPP is also discussed for discriminant subspace learning. The validity of rLRR is examined by robust representation and decomposition of real images. Results demonstrated the superiority of our rLRR and LSPP in comparison to other related state-of-the-art algorithms.

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

subspace recovery
laplacian regularization
feature learning

low-rank representation
similarity preservation
enhanced representation


shakespeare's complete works as a benchmark for evaluating multiscale document navigation techniques In this paper, we describe an experimental platform dedicated to the comparative evaluation of multiscale electronic-document navigation techniques. One noteworthy characteristic of our platform is that it allows the user not only to translate the document (for example, to pan and zoom) but also to tilt the virtual camera to obtain freely chosen perspective views of the document. Second, the platform makes it possible to explore, with semantic zooming, the 150,000 verses that comprise the complete works of William Shakespeare. We argue that reaching and selecting one specific verse in this very large text corpus amounts to a perfectly well defined Fitts task, leading to rigorous assessments of target acquisition performance. For lack of a standard, the various multiscale techniques that have been reported recently in the literature are difficult to compare. We recommend that Shakespeare's complete works, converted into a single document that can be zoomed both geometrically and semantically, be used as a benchmark to facilitate systematic experimental comparisons, using Fitts' target acquisition paradigm.

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

fitts' law
evaluation benchmark
evaluation standard


IMPROVED APPROXIMATION ALGORITHMS FOR PRIZE-COLLECTING STEINER TREE AND TSP We study the PRIZE-COLLECTING STEINER TREE (PCST), PRIZE-COLLECTING TRAVELING SALESMAN (PCTSP), and PRIZE-COLLECTING PATH (PC-PATH) problems. Given a graph (V, E) with a cost on each edge and a penalty (a.k.a. prize) on each node, the goal is to find a tree (for PCST), cycle (for PCTSP), or path (for PC-PATH) that minimizes the sum of the edge costs in the tree/cycle/path and the penalties of the nodes not spanned by it. In addition to being a useful theoretical tool for helping to solve other optimization problems, PCST has been applied fruitfully by AT&T to the optimization of real-world telecommunications networks. The most recent improvements for the first two problems, a 2-approximation algorithm for each, appeared first in 1992; a 2-approximation for PC-PATH appeared in 2003. The natural linear programming relaxation of PCST has an integrality gap of 2, which has been a barrier to further improvements for this problem. We present (2-epsilon)-approximation algorithms for all three problems, connected by a unified technique for improving prize-collecting algorithms that allows us to circumvent the integrality gap barrier. Specifically, our approximation ratio for PRIZE-COLLECTING STEINER TREE is below 1.9672.

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

approximation algorithms
steiner tree
traveling salesman


Accurate pre-RTL temperature-aware design using a parameterized, geometric thermal model Preventing silicon chips from negative, even disastrous thermal hazards has become increasingly challenging these days; Considering thermal effects early in the design cycle is thus required. To achieve this, an accurate yet fast temperature model together with an early-stage, thermally optimized, design flow are needed. In this paper, we present an improved block- based compact thermal model (HotSpot 4.0) that automatically achieves good accuracy even under extreme conditions. The model has been extensively validated with detailed finite- element thermal simulation tools. We also show that properly modeling package components and applying the right boundary conditions are crucial to making full- chip thermal models like HotSpot accurately resemble what happens in the real world. Ignoring or oversimplifying package components can lead to inaccurate temperature estimations and potential thermal hazards that are costly to fix in later design stages. Such a full- chip and package thermal model can then be incorporated into a thermally optimized design flow, where it acts as an efficient communication medium among computer architects, circuit designers, and package designers in early microprocessor design stages to achieve early and accurate design decisions and also faster design convergence. For example, the temperature- leakage interaction can be readily analyzed within such a design flow to predict potential thermal hazards such as thermal runaway. An example SoC design illustrates the importance of adopting such a thermally optimized design flow in early design stages.

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

compact thermal model
early design stages
leakage
temperature
thermally optimized design flow


Retinal blood vessels extraction using probabilistic modelling The analysis of retinal blood vessels plays an important role in detecting and treating retinal diseases. In this review, we present an automated method to segment blood vessels of fundus retinal image. The proposed method could be used to support a non-intrusive diagnosis in modern ophthalmology for early detection of retinal diseases, treatment evaluation or clinical study. This study combines the bias correction and an adaptive histogram equalisation to enhance the appearance of the blood vessels. Then the blood vessels are extracted using probabilistic modelling that is optimised by the expectation maximisation algorithm. The method is evaluated on fundus retinal images of STARE and DRIVE datasets. The experimental results are compared with some recently published methods of retinal blood vessels segmentation. The experimental results show that our method achieved the best overall performance and it is comparable to the performance of human experts.

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


SEMI-SUPERVISED LEARNING FOR PERSONALIZED WEB RECOMMENDER SYSTEM To learn a Web browsing behavior model a large amount of labelled data must be available beforehand However, lieu often the labelled data is limited and expensive to generate, since labelling typically requires human expertise It could be even worse when we want to train personalized model This paper proposes to train a personalized Web browsing behavior model by some-supervised learning The preliminary result based on the data from our user study shows that semi-supervised learning performs fairly well even though there are very few labelled data we can obtain from the specific user

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

web behavioral modeling
data mining
computational cyberpsychology


Citation-based journal ranks: The use of fuzzy measures This article considers a real-world application of the Choquet integral-based classifier to the problem of ranking of scientific journals. We attempted to predict rankings given by panels of experts, by using available citation indices. We compare the Choquet integral fit by the least absolute deviation criterion as a classifier against other ordinal classification methods, before interpreting the fuzzy measure weights and indices. Our findings show that the journal rankings data set is difficult to model accurately due to inconsistencies and lack of monotonicity, but that the Choquet integral still performs well as a classifier. (C) 2010 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 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O


Distributed bucket processing: A paradigm embedded in a framework for the parallel processing of pixel sets Large datasets, such as pixels and voxels in 2D and 3D images can usually be reduced during their processing to smaller subsets with less datapoints. Such subsets can be the objects in the image, features edges or corners or more general, regions of interest. For instance, the transformation from a set of datapoints representing an image, to one or more subsets of datapoints representing objects in the image, is due to a segmentation algorithm and may involve both the selection of datapoints as well as a change in datastructure. The massive number of pixels in the original image, points to a data parallel approach, whereas the processing of the various objects in the image is more suitable for task parallelism. In this paper we introduce a framework for parallel image processing and we focus on an array of buckets that can be distributed over a number of processors and that contains pointers to the data from the dataset. The benefit of this approach is that the processor activity remains focussed on the datapoints that need processing and, moreover, that the load can be distributed over many processors, even in a heterogeneous computer architecture. Although the method is generally applicable in the processing of sets, in this paper we obtain our examples from the domain of image processing. As this method yields speedups that are data dependent, we derived a run-time evaluation that is able to determine if the use of distributed buckets is beneficial.

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

data parallel processing
task parallel processing
real-time image processing


Updating Markov chain models using the ensemble Kalman filter The problem we address is how to condition discrete variables with a prior described by a Markov chain model to a set of continuous, nonlocal observations. This is motivated by the need for improved approaches to condition geological facies descriptions of a reservoir to production data. In this study, we assume that the spatial arrangement of facies can be modeled by a Markov chain model. The conditioning to nonlocal observations consists of two primary steps. First, the ensemble Kalman filter is used to assimilate data without regard for the discrete nature of the variables, or the probability of transition from one state to another. Second, the updated realizations are projected onto the discrete state space using an algorithm for finding the sequence of states with maximum probability. The method, which is based on the Viterbi algorithm, is not iterative and is capable of assimilating nonlocal data such as production data with some limitations. We demonstrate the application of the method first with an example in which the data are nonlocal but linear. The second example is a nonlinear fluid flow example in which data are assimilated sequentially. For the linear problem, the distribution of conditional realizations from the approximate algorithm was found to be indistinguishable from the distribution of realizations from an exact sampling algorithm (McMC). Finally, we discuss how to generalize the methodology from the 1D example presented here to more general cases.

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

ensemble kalman filter
markov chain models
viterbi algorithm


Supporting Community Emergency Management Planning through a Geocollaboration Software Architecture Emergency management is more than just events occurring within an emergency situation. It encompasses a variety of persistent activities such as planning, training, assessment, and organizational change. We are studying emergency management planning practices in which geographic communities (towns and regions) prepare to respond efficiently to significant emergency events. Community emergency management planning is an extensive collaboration involving numerous stakeholders throughout the community and both reflecting and challenging the communitys structure and resources. Geocollaboration is one aspect of the effort. Emergency managers, public works directors, first responders, and local transportation managers need to exchange information relating to possible emergency event locations and their surrounding areas. They need to examine geospatial maps together and collaboratively develop emergency plans and procedures. Issues such as emergency vehicle traffic routes and staging areas for command posts, arriving media, and personal first responders vehicles must be agreed upon prior to an emergency event to ensure an efficient and effective response. This work presents a software architecture that facilitates the development of geocollaboration solutions. The architecture extends prior geocollaboration research and reuses existing geospatial information models. Emergency management planning is one application domain for the architecture. Geocollaboration tools can be developed that support community-wide emergency management planning and preparedness. This paper describes how the software architecture can be used for the geospatial, emergency management planning activities of one community.

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

collaboration architecture
software design
emergency planning


integration of induction generator dynamics in multimachine system transient analysis The impact of electrical transients of asynchronous wind generators on the synchronous generators is often ignored to keep the analysis of multimachine systems simple. A steady drift of slip from the nominal value, while of no consequence from power flow viewpoint, will exhibit erroneous transient profile. This article presents a multimachine power system model using a unified rotor angle concept for the asynchronous machine. A frequency controller has been installed on the induction generator to eliminate the steady state slip error. Simulation results show that the induction generator angle dependent transform used along with the frequency controller yield good dynamic behavior of the multimachine system eliminating the slip dependent transients.

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

dynamic modeling of wind systems
wind generation


editing requirements for data base applications and their implementation on the indy backend kernel An extrapolation of user and hardware cost trends indicate that future systems should provide more complete functionality, simplicity of use, and reliability by increasing the amount of hardware present in the system. For data base systems, this can be done by providing very high level data languages and by implementing them directly in hardware. These goals are realized with a simple hardware arrangement called INDY, which uses inexpensive memory technologies (such as charge coupled devices, magnetic bubbles, or discs). This paper first discusses the data definition and editing requirements of data languages. Then the implementation of these requirements on the INDY backend kernel is described. Finally, a comparison is made of the various memory technologies for suitability to INDY.

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

requirements
applications
use
technologies
systems
reliability
goals
data base
definition
arrangement
implementation
data
hardware
paper
future
cost
user

edit device language functional memorialized comparisons completeness


Embedding a Pair of Graphs in a Surface, and the Width of 4-dimensional Prismatoids A prismatoid is a polytope with all its vertices contained in two parallel facets, called its bases. Its width is the number of steps needed to go from one base to the other in the dual graph. The first author recently showed that the existence of counter-examples to the Hirsch conjecture is equivalent to that of d-prismatoids of width larger than d, and constructed such prismatoids in dimension five. Here we show that the same is impossible in dimension four. This is proved by looking at the pair of graph embeddings on a 2-sphere that arise from the normal fans of the two bases of Q.

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


System performance analyses of out-of-order superscalar processors using analytical method This research presents a novel analytic model to predict the instruction execution rate of superscalar processors using the queuing model with finite-buffer size and synchronous operation mode. The proposed model is also able to analyze the performance relationship between cache and pipeline. The proposed model takes into account various kinds of architectural parameters such as instruction-level parallelism, branch probability, the accuracy of branch prediction, cache miss, and etc. To prove the correctness of the model, we performed extensive simulations and compared the results with the analytic model. Simulation results showed that the proposed model can estimate the average execution rate accurately within 10% error in most cases. The proposed model can explain the causes of performance bottleneck which cannot be uncovered by the simulation method only. The model is also able to show the effect of the cache miss on the performance of out-of-order issue superscalar processors, which can provide an valuable information in designing a balanced system.

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

superscalar processor
instruction-level parallelism
in-order issue
out-of-order issue
instruction window
reorder buffer


A Real-Time Hybrid Architecture for Biped Humanoids with Active Vision Mechanisms A real-time hybrid control architecture for biped humanoid robots is proposed. The architecture is modular and hierarchical. The main robot's functionalities are organized in four parallel modules: perception, actuation, world-modeling, and hybrid control. Hybrid control is divided in three behavior-based hierarchical layers: the planning layer, the deliberative layer, and the reactive layer, which work in parallel and have very different response speeds and planning capabilities. The architecture allows: (1) the coordination of multiple robots and the execution of group behaviors without disturbing the robot's reactivity and responsivity, which is very relevant for biped humanoid robots whose gait control requires real-time processing. (2) The straightforward management of the robot's resources using resource multiplexers. (3) The integration of active vision mechanisms in the reactive layer under control of behavior-dependant value functions from the deliberative layer. This adds flexibility in the implementation of complex functionalities, such as the ones required for playing soccer in robot teams. The architecture is validated using simulated and real Nao humanoid robots. Passive and active behaviors are tested in simulated and real robot soccer setups. In addition, the ability to execute group behaviors in real- time is tested in international robot soccer competitions.

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

hybrid control architecture
active vision
nao humanoid robots
robot soccer


A new category of Hermitian upwind schemes for computational acoustics II. Two-dimensional aeroacoustics This is the second paper of a series in which we build and study third-order Hermitian upwind schemes for numerically solving linear aeroacoustics. In this paper, we extend the method to non-stationary flows. For this purpose, we employ a family of six-wave models to discretize the space operator. This family is parametrized by an acoustic propagation angle. From this wave modelling, specific boundary conditions are proposed to treat effectively subsonic/supersonic boundary conditions. A sequence of numerical simulations is then carried out and makes it possible to examine the effectiveness of the scheme.

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

hermitian schemes
upwind discretization
wave-modelling
time-fluctuation
outflow/radiation boundary conditions
linear aeroacoustics
simple waves
wave model


Dynamic search space transformations for software test data generation Among the tasks in software testing, test data generation is particularly difficult and costly. In recent years, several approaches that use metaheuristic search techniques to automatically obtain the test inputs have been proposed. Although work in this field is very active, little attention has been paid to the selection of an appropriate search space. The present work describes an alternative to this issue. More precisely, two approaches which employ an Estimation of Distribution Algorithm as the metaheuristic technique are explained. In both cases, different regions are considered in the search for the test inputs. Moreover, to depart from a region near to the one containing the optimum, the definition of the initial search space incorporates static information extracted from the source code of the software under test. If this information is not enough to complete the definition, then a grid search method is used. According to the results of the experiments conducted, it is concluded that this is a promising option that can be used to enhance the test data generation process.

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

evolutionary algorithms
dynamic representations
estimation of distribution algorithms
search based test data generation


3D tangentially injected swirling recirculating flow in a nozzle with a slotted-tube-Effects of groove parameters A numerical prediction for 3D swirling recirculating flow in an air-jet spinning nozzle with a slotted-tube is carried out with the realizable k-epsilon turbulence model. The effects of the groove parameters on the flow and yarn properties are investigated. The simulation results show that some factors, such as reverse flow upstream of the injector, vortex breakdown downstream of the injector, corner recirculation zone (CRZ) behind the step and vortex ring in the groove caused by the groove geometric variation, are significantly related to fluid flow, and consequently to yarn properties. With increasing groove height, the length of the CRZ increases, while the initial vortex ring in the groove decreases and a same direction rotating vortex forms in the bottom of the groove. Similarly, as the groove width increases, the extent of both vortex breakdown in downstream of the injectors and the vortex ring in the groove increases slightly, whereas the CRZ lengths in stream-wise direction decrease. Some factors, such as the negative tangential velocities, the size of the vortex rings in the grooves and the CRZ, are constant for nozzles with different groove lengths. Copyright (C) 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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

vortex breakdown
corner recirculation zone
vortex ring
groove
injector


Extreme point characterizations for infinite network flow problems We study capacitated network flow problems with demands defined on a countably infinite collection of nodes having finite degree. This class of network flow models includes, for example, all infinite horizon deterministic dynamic programs with finite action sets, because these are equivalent to the problem of finding a shortest path in an infinite directed network. We derive necessary and sufficient conditions for flows to be extreme points of the set of feasible flows. Under an additional regularity condition met by all such problems with integer data, we show that a feasible solution is an extreme point if and only if it contains neither a cycle nor a doubly-infinite path consisting of free arcs (an arc is free if its flow is strictly between its upper and lower bounds). We employ this result to show that the extreme points can be characterized by specifying a basis. Moreover, we establish the integrality of extreme point flows whenever node demands and arc capacities are integer valued. We illustrate our results with an application to an infinite horizon economic lot-sizing problem. (C) 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

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

infinite horizon optimization
infinite trees
extreme point solutions
basic solutions


Atomic

force

microscope

characterization

of

PAH/PAZO

multilayers

The

buildup

of

a

poly[1-[4-(3-carboxy-4-hydroxyphenylazo)

benzene

sodium

salt]

(PAZO)

layer

adsorbed

onto

a

already

adsorbed

layer

of

poly(allylamine

hydrochloride)

(PAH)

was

shown

to

be

ruled

by

two

processes,

a

nucleation

process

which

occurs

for

short

adsorption

times

and

a

process

having

longer

characteristic

times.

During

the

nucleation

process

the

adsorbed

amount

is

seen

to

increase

very

rapidly

and

is

dependent

of

PAZO

concentration.

The

adsorbed

PAZO

molecules

create

a

potential

barrier

that

to

make

difficult

that

more

molecules

are

adsorbed.

However

the

presence

of

cations

in

the

solution

accounts

for

adsorption

the

continuation

of

adsorption

in

a

second

process,

as

they

tend

to

be

adsorbed

lowering

the

potential

barrier

and

allowing

more

PAZO

molecules

to

be

adsorbed.

These

processes

are

shown

to

be

consistent

with

surface

morphology

evolution,

it

was

observed

an

increase

of

roughness

for

short

adsorption

periods

of

time

and

a

subsequent

decrease

of

the

surface

roughness

for

longer

adsorption

times.

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


On weighted unbalanced linguistic aggregation operators in group decision making We generalize linguistic evaluation values and their weights in group decision-making (GDM) problems based on unbalanced linguistic terms. The GDM problems include two types of weights: belief degrees of linguistic evaluation values and experts weights. Due to the time pressure and conflict of multi-source of information, etc., experts may have various evaluations values on alternatives. The belief degree is used to represent the confidence level of the values. The experts weight is used to represent the differences among experts importance which caused by experts experience or knowledge distinction. We propose the weighted unbalanced linguistic aggregation operators to synthesize linguistic evaluation value, belief degree and experts weights. Some desired properties of the operator are then studied, these properties show that the operator extends the linguistic weighted averaging operator (LWA) and the linguistic ordered weighted averaging (LOWA) operator. Finally, an illustrative example of human resource performance appraisal based on the linguistic aggregation operator is provided.

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

group decision making
unbalanced linguistic terms
linguistic aggregation operators
performance appraisal

the weighted linguistic aggregation operator


Environmental efficiency evaluation considering the maximization of desirable outputs and its application Production processes often produce by-products which have harmful effects on the environment. However, traditional Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) models cannot measure the efficiency evaluation of these undesirable outputs. This article aims to solve this problem. It gives an improved DEA-SBM model, named ISBM-DEA, and constructs an illustration to compare it with the Slacks-based measured DEA model. The results show that the new model's computing conclusions are highly related to the efficiency assessment of the DEA-SBM model, and it has a greater focus on the affects of undesirable outputs on production efficiency than the latter, which means that this new model has a greater extensive value for application and provides a better quantitative theoretical basis for environmental policy analysis. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

environmental efficiency
undesirable outputs


The effects of asymmetric neighborhood assignment in the MOEA/D algorithm The MOEA/D algorithm is one of the leading multiobjective evolutionary algorithms. The paper describes the effects that cause the MOEA/D algorithm to converge asymmetrically. This is undesirable, because a multiobjective optimizer should explore the solution space evenly. The paper gives some guidelines on how to avoid such asymmetries.

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

multiobjective optimization
moea/d algorithm
selective pressure


Federating access to digital objects: PictureAustralia This article discusses the successful Australian service, PictureAustralia, a collaboration which utilises the Web as a delivery mechanism for enhanced access to unique cultural materials. PictureAustralia has been a very useful platform for exploring the benefits and disadvantages of federated searching with an emphasis on interoperability, and it continues to provide opportunities to explore new protocols in the future.

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

australia
digital libraries
database management
collection management