An Objective Perceptual Quality-Based ADTE for Adapting Mobile SVC Video Content In this paper, we propose an Adaptation Decision-Taking Engine (ADTE) that targets the delivery of scalable video content in mobile usage environments. Our ADTE design relies on an objective perceptual quality metric in order to achieve video adaptation according to human visual perception, thus allowing to maximize the Quality of Service (QoS). To describe the characteristics of a particular usage environment, as well as the properties of the scalable video content, MPEG-21 Digital Item Adaptation (DIA) is used. Our experimental results show that the proposed ADTE design provides video content with a higher subjective quality than an ADTE using the conventional maximum-bit-allocation method.

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

adaptation
adte
quality metric
subjective quality
svc


A Memory-Efficient Pipelined Implementation of the Aho-Corasick String-Matching Algorithm With rapid advancement in Internet technology and usages, some emerging applications in data communications and network security require matching of huge volume of data against large signature sets with thousands of strings in real time. In this article, we present a memory-efficient hardware implementation of the well-known Aho-Corasick (AC) string-matching algorithm using a pipelining approach called P-AC. An attractive feature of the AC algorithm is that it can solve the string-matching problem in time linearly proportional to the length of the input stream, and the computation time is independent of the number of strings in the signature set. A major disadvantage of the AC algorithm is the high memory cost required to store the transition rules of the underlying deterministic finite automaton. By incorporating pipelined processing, the state graph is reduced to a character trie that only contains forward edges. Together with an intelligent implementation of look-up tables, the memory cost of P-AC is only about 18 bits per character for a signature set containing 6,166 strings extracted from Snort. The control structure of P-AC is simple and elegant. The cost of the control logic is very low. With the availability of dual-port memories in FPGA devices, we can double the system throughput by duplicating the control logic such that the system can process two data streams concurrently. Since our method is memory-based, incremental changes to the signature set can be accommodated by updating the look-up tables without reconfiguring the FPGA circuitry.

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

deterministic and nondeterministic finite automaton


Development of online suites of social science-based resources for health researchers and practitioners The burgeoning of the Internet has enormous potential for bringing scientific research into the hands of both health practitioners and health researchers to enhance their job performance. In this article, the authors give two examples of how carefully developed and organized online resources can leverage the engaging multimedia formats, ubiquitous access, and low cost of the Internet to address this goal. The article describes two new online suites of social and behavioral science-based resources designed for those in the HIV/AIDS and teen pregnancy prevention fields: HIV Research and Practice Resources and Teen Pregnancy Research and Practice Resources. Each online suite includes research data, survey instruments, prevention resources, and evaluation-related publications and tools that can enhance prevention research and practice. The article ends by peering into the future at how the field of health-related prevention and research might be further advanced using the Internet.

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

internet prevention health research practice


Deferring elimination of design alternatives in object-oriented methods While developing systems, software engineers generally have to deal with a large number of design alternatives. Current object-oriented methods aim to eliminate design alternatives whenever they are generated. Alternatives, however, should be eliminated only when sufficient information to take such a decision is available. Otherwise, alternatives have to be preserved to allow further refinements along the development process. Too early elimination of alternatives results in loss of information and excessive restriction of the design space. This paper aims to enhance the current object-oriented methods by modeling and controlling the design alternatives through the application of fuzzy-logic-based techniques. By using an example method, it is shown that the proposed approach increases the adaptability and reusability of design models. The method has been implemented and tested in our experimental CASE environment. Copyright (C) 2001 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.

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

object-oriented methods
fuzzy logic
adaptable design models
case environments
software artifacts


Fiber reinforced concrete properties - a multiscale approach This paper describes the development of a fiber reinforced concrete (FRC) unit cell for analyzing concrete structures by executing a multiscale analysis procedure using the theory of homogenization. This was achieved through solving a periodic unit cell problem of the material in order to evaluate its macroscopic properties. Our research describes the creation of an FRC unit cell through the use of concrete paste generic information e.g. the percentage of aggregates, their distribution, and the percentage of fibers in the concrete. The algorithm presented manipulates the percentage and distribution of these aggregates along with fiber weight to create a finite element unit cell model of the FRC which can be used in a multiscale analysis of concrete structures.

O O O O O O 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 B I O O O

frc-fibered reinforced concrete
concrete unit cell
elastic properties
mesoscale concrete finite element model


NEW SPLINE SPACES WITH GENERALIZED TENSION PROPERTIES The paper describes a new space of variable degree polynomials. This space is isomorphic to P(6), possesses a Bernstein like basis and has generalized tension properties in the sense that, for limit values of the degrees, its functions approximate quadratic polynomials. The corresponding space of C(3), variable degree splines is also studied. This spline space can be profitably used in the construction of shape preserving curves or surfaces.

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

bernstein basis
b-splines
shape preservation


ANTHEPROT: An integrated protein sequence analysis software with client/server capabilities ? Programs devoted to the analysis of protein sequences exist either as stand-alone programs or as Web servers. However, stand-alone programs can hardly accommodate for the analysis that involves comparisons on databanks, which require regular updates. Moreover, Web servers cannot be as efficient as stand-alone programs when dealing with real-time graphic display. We describe here a stand-alone software program called ANTHEPROT, which is intended to perform protein sequence analysis with a high integration level and clients/server capabilities. It is an interactive program with a graphical user interface that allows handling of protein sequence and data in a very interactive and convenient manner. It provides many methods and tools, which are integrated into a graphical user interface. ANTHEPROT is available for Windows-based systems. It is able to connect to a Web server in order to perform large-scale sequence comparison on up-to-date databanks. ANTHEPROT is freely available to academic users and may be downloaded at http://pbil.ibcp.fr/ANTHEPROT.

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

multiple alignment
secondary structure prediction


Cardioids-based faster authentication and diagnosis of remote cardiovascular patients In recent times, dealing with deaths associated with cardiovascular diseases (CVD) has been one of the most challenging issues. The usage of mobile phones and portable Electrocardiogram (ECG) acquisition devices can mitigate the risks associated with CVD by providing faster patient diagnosis and patient care. The existing technologies entail delay in patient authentication and diagnosis. However, for the cardiologists minimizing the delay between a possible CVD symptom and patient care is crucial, as this has a proven impact in the longevity of the patient. Therefore, every seconds counts in terms of patient authentication and diagnosis. In this paper, we introduce the concept of Cardioid based patient authentication and diagnosis. According to our experimentations, the authentication time can be reduced from 30.64 s (manual authentication in novice mobile user) to 0.4398 s (automated authentication). Our ECG based patient authentication mechanism is up to 4878 times faster than conventional biometrics like, face recognition. The diagnosis time could be improved from several minutes to less than 0.5 s (cardioid display on a single screen). Therefore, with our presented mission critical alerting mechanism on wireless devices, minute's worth of tasks can be reduced to second's, without compromising the accuracy of authentication and quality of diagnosis. Copyright (C) 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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

mission critical alerting
patient authentication
cardioid

cardiovascular disease detection
remote monitoring
wireless monitoring


A multiprocessor system-on-chip for real-time biomedical monitoring and analysis: ECG prototype architectural design space exploration In this article we focus on multiprocessor system-on- chip ( MPSoC) architectures for human heart electrocardiogram ( ECG) real time analysis as a hardware/ software ( HW/SW) platform offering an advance relative to state-of-the- art solutions. This is a relevant biomedical application with good potential market, since heart diseases are responsible for the largest number of yearly deaths. Hence, it is a good target for an application-specific system-on- chip (SoC) and HW/ SW codesign. We investigate a symmetric multiprocessor architecuture based on STMicroelecronics VLIW DSPs that process in real time 12-lead ECG signals. This architecture improves upon state-of-the-art SoC designs for ECG analysis in its ability to analyze the full 12 leads in real time, even with high sampling frequencies, and its ability to detect heart malfunction for the whole ECG signal interval. We explore the design space by considering a number of hardware and software architectural options. Comparing our design with present-day solutions from an SoC and application point-ofview shows that our platform can be used in real time and without failures.

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 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


Accurate Approximation of the Earth Mover's Distance in Linear Time Color descriptors are one of the important features used in content-based image retrieval. The dominant color descriptor (DCD) represents a few perceptually dominant colors in an image through color quantization. For image retrieval based on DCD, the earth mover's distance (EMD) and the optimal color composition distance were proposed to measure the dissimilarity between two images. Although providing good retrieval results, both methods are too time-consuming to be used in a large image database. To solve the problem, we propose a new distance function that calculates an approximate earth mover's distance in linear time. To calculate the dissimilarity in linear time, the proposed approach employs the space-filling curve for multidimensional color space. To improve the accuracy, the proposed approach uses multiple curves and adjusts the color positions. As a result, our approach achieves order-of-magnitude time improvement but incurs small errors. We have performed extensive experiments to show the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed approach. The results reveal that our approach achieves almost the same results with the EMD in linear time.

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

earth mover's distance
content-based image retrieval


Variable selection in linear regression: Several approaches based on normalized maximum likelihood The use of the normalized maximum likelihood (NML) for model selection in Gaussian linear regression poses troubles because the normalization coefficient is not finite. The most elegant solution has been proposed by Rissanen and consists in applying a particular constraint for the data space. In this paper, we demonstrate that the methodology can be generalized, and we discuss two particular cases, namely the rhomboidal and the ellipsoidal constraints. The new findings are used to derive four NML-based criteria. For three of them which have been already introduced in the previous literature, we provide a rigorous analysis. We also compare them against five state-of-the-art selection rules by conducting Monte Carlo simulations for families of models commonly used in signal processing. Additionally, for the eight criteria which are tested, we report results on their predictive capabilities for real life data sets.

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

gaussian linear regression
model selection
normalized maximum likelihood

rhomboidal constraint
ellipsoidal constraint


Spacetime adaptive finite difference method for European multi-asset options The multi-dimensional BlackScholes equation is solved numerically for a European call basket option using a prioria posteriori error estimates. The equation is discretized by a finite difference method on a Cartesian grid. The grid is adjusted dynamically in space and time to satisfy a bound on the global error. The discretization errors in each time step are estimated and weighted by the solution of the adjoint problem. Bounds on the local errors and the adjoint solution are obtained by the maximum principle for parabolic equations. Comparisons are made with Monte Carlo and quasi-Monte Carlo methods in one dimension, and the performance of the method is illustrated by examples in one, two, and three dimensions.

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

blackscholes equation
finite difference method
maximum principle


alpha-words and the radix order Let alpha = (a(1), a(2),...) be a sequence (finite or infinite) of integers with a(1) >= 0 and a(n) >= 1, for all n >= 2. Let {a, b} be an alphabet. For n >= 1, and r = r(1)r(2)...r(n) is an element of N(n) with 0 = 2. Many interesting combinatorial properties of alpha-words have been studied by Chuan. In this paper, we obtain some new methods of generating the distinct alpha-words of the same order in lexicographic order. Among other results, we consider another function r bar right arrow w[r] from the set of labels of alpha-words to the set of alpha-words. The string r is called a new label of the alpha-word w[r]. Using any new label of an nth-order alpha-word w, we can compute the number of the nth-order alpha-words that are less than w in the lexicographic order. With the radix orders <(r) on N(n) (regarding N as an alphabet) and {a, b}(+) with a <(r) b, we prove that there exists a subset D of the set of all labels such that w[r] <(r) w[s] whenever r, s is an element of D and r <(r) S. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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


A buyerseller game model for selection and negotiation of purchasing bids: Extensions and new models A number of efficiency-based vendor selection and negotiation models have been developed to deal with multiple attributes including price, quality and delivery performance. The efficiency is defined as the ratio of weighted outputs to weighted inputs. By minimizing the efficiency, Talluri [Eur. J. Operat. Res. 143(1) (2002) 171] proposes a buyerseller game model that evaluates the efficiency of alternative bids with respect to the ideal target set by the buyer. The current paper shows that this buyerseller game model is closely related to data envelopment analysis (DEA) and can be simplified. The current paper also shows that setting the (ideal) target actually incorporates implicit tradeoff information on the multiple attributes into efficiency evaluation. We develop a new buyerseller game model where the efficiency is maximized with respect to multiple targets set by the buyer. The new model allows the buyer to evaluate and select the vendors in the context of best-practice. By both minimizing and maximizing efficiency, the buyer can obtain an efficiency range within which the true efficiency lies given the implicit tradeoff information characterized by the targets. The current study establishes the linkage between buyerseller game models and DEA. Such a linkage can provide the buyer with correct evaluation methods based upon existing DEA models regarding the nature of bidding.

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

game models
efficiency
data envelopment analysis


A Bayesian latent variable model with classification and regression tree approach for behavior and credit scoring A Bayesian latent variable model with classification and regression tree approach is built to overcome three challenges encountered by a bank in credit-granting process. These three challenges include (1) the bank wants to predict the future performance of an applicant accurately; (2) given current information about cardholders credit usage and repayment behavior, financial institutions would like to determine the optimal credit limit and APR for an applicant; and (3) the bank would like to improve its efficiency by automating the process of credit-granting decisions. Data from a leading bank in Taiwan is used to illustrate the combined approach. The data set consists of each credit card holders credit usage and repayment data, demographic information, and credit report. Empirical study shows that the demographic variables used in most credit scoring models have little explanatory ability with regard to a cardholders credit usage and repayment behavior. A cardholders credit history provides the most important information in credit scoring. The continuous latent customer quality from the Bayesian latent variable model allows considerable latitude for producing finer rules for credit granting decisions. Compared to the performance of discriminant analysis, logistic regression, neural network, multivariate adaptive regression splines (MARS) and support vector machine (SVM), the proposed model has a 92.9% accuracy rate in predicting customer types, is less impacted by prior probabilities, and has a significantly low Type I errors in comparison with the other five approaches.

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

credit scoring
bayesian
latent variable model
classification and regression tree


The representation of manufacturing requirements in model-driven parts manufacturing Today there is a need to make process and production planning more cost-effective while not compromising the quality of the product. Manufacturing requirements are used to ensure producibility in early development phases and also as a source for continuous improvement of the manufacturing system. To make this possible it is essential to have correct, updated information available and to be able to trace the relations between requirements and their origin and subjects. To trace requirements' origin in resources or processes is today very difficult owing to system integration problems. This article discusses the relations that need to be represented and proposes the use of model-based methods to enable traceability of requirements. Because requirements are a collaborative effort a standard for information exchange is needed. The ISO10303 STEP application protocol AP233 System Engineering is proposed for this purpose.

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


Baldwinian learning utilizing genetic and heuristic algorithms for logic synthesis and minimization of incompletely specified data with Generalized ReedMuller (ANDEXOR) forms This research applies a new heuristic combined with a genetic algorithm (GA) to the task of logic minimization for incompletely specified data, with both single and multi-outputs, using the Generalized ReedMuller (GRM) equation form. The GRM equation type is a canonical expression of the Exclusive-Or Sum-of-Products (ESOPs) type, in which for every subset of input variables there exists not more than one term with arbitrary polarities of all variables. This ANDEXOR implementation has been shown to be economical, generally requiring fewer gates and connections than that of ANDOR logic. GRM logic is also highly testable, making it desirable for FPGA designs. The minimization results of this new algorithm tested on a number of binary benchmarks are given. This minimization algorithm utilizes a GA with a two-level fitness calculation, which combines human-designed heuristics with the evolutionary process, employing Baldwinian learning. In this algorithm, first a pure GA creates certain constraints for the selection of chromosomes, creating only genotypes (polarity vectors). The phenotypes (GRMs) are then learned in the environment and contribute to the GA fitness (which is the total number of terms of the best GRM for each output), providing indirect feedback as to the quality of the genotypes (polarity vectors) but the genotype chromosomes (polarity vectors) remain unchanged. In this process, the improvement in genotype chromosomes (polarity vectors) is the product of the evolutionary processes from the GA only. The environmental learning is achieved using a human-designed GRM minimization heuristic. As much previous research has presented the merit of ANDEXOR logic for its high density and testability, this research is the first application of the GRM (a canonical ANDEXOR form) to the minimization of incompletely specified data.

B I O O O O O O B I I 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 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

andexor forms
logic synthesis and minimization
baldwinian learning

incompletely specified generalized reedmuller forms


Energy stable numerical methods for hyperbolic partial differential equations using overlapping domain decomposition Overlapping domain decomposition methods, otherwise known as overset grid or chimera methods, are useful for simplifying the discretization of partial differential equations in or around complex geometries. Though in wide use, such methods are prone to numerical instability unless numerical diffusion or some other form of regularization is used, especially for higher-order methods. To address this shortcoming, high-order, provably energy stable, overlapping domain decomposition methods are derived for hyperbolic initial boundary value problems. The overlap is treated by splitting the domain into pieces and using generalized summation-by-parts derivative operators and polynomial interpolation. New implicit and explicit operators are derived that do not require regularization for stability in the linear limit. Applications to linear and nonlinear problems in one and two dimensions are presented, where it is found the explicit operators are preferred to the implicit ones.

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

high order finite difference methods
numerical stability
generalized summation-by-parts


The Impact of Cluster Representatives on the Convergence of the K-Modes Type Clustering As a leading partitional clustering technique, k-modes is one of the most computationally efficient clustering methods for categorical data. In the k-modes, a cluster is represented by a "mode," which is composed of the attribute value that occurs most frequently in each attribute domain of the cluster, whereas, in real applications, using only one attribute value in each attribute to represent a cluster may not be adequate as it could in turn affect the accuracy of data analysis. To get rid of this deficiency, several modified clustering algorithms were developed by assigning appropriate weights to several attribute values in each attribute. Although these modified algorithms are quite effective, their convergence proofs are lacking. In this paper, we analyze their convergence property and prove that they cannot guarantee to converge under their optimization frameworks unless they degrade to the original k-modes type algorithms. Furthermore, we propose two different modified algorithms with weighted cluster prototypes to overcome the shortcomings of these existing algorithms. We rigorously derive updating formulas for the proposed algorithms and prove the convergence of the proposed algorithms. The experimental studies show that the proposed algorithms are effective and efficient for large categorical datasets.

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

k-modes type clustering algorithms
weighted cluster prototype


Service quality and ERP implementation: A conceptual and empirical study of semiconductor-related industries in Taiwan This paper examines the effectiveness of the implementation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) in improving service quality in the Taiwanese semiconductor industry by assessing the expectations and the perceptions of service quality from the perspectives of both upstream manufacturers and downstream customers. The study first establishes a modified service quality gap model incorporating: (i) the downstream customers' expectations and perceptions, and (ii) the upstream manufacturers' perceptions of the customers' expectations and perceptions. An empirical study by questionnaire survey is then undertaken to investigate the gaps proposed in the research model. The results show that service quality gaps do exist in the Taiwanese semiconductor industry between upstream manufacturers that are implementing ERP and their downstream customers. The study shows that the proposed model provides valuable guidance to manufacturers with respect to the prevention, detection, and elimination of the demonstrated service quality gaps. The model thus helps manufacturers to evaluate the contribution of various ERP modules to improved customer satisfaction with service quality and also provides guidance on improvement strategies to enhance service quality by eliminating quality gaps. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

semiconductor industry
service quality gaps
erp implementation


Largest inscribed rectangles in convex polygons ? We consider approximation algorithms for the problem of computing an inscribed rectangle having largest area in a convex polygon on n vertices. If the order of the vertices of the polygon is given, we present a randomized algorithm that computes an inscribed rectangle with area at least (1??) ( 1 ? ? ) times the optimum with probability t in time O ( 1 ? log n ) for any constant t<1 t < 1 . We further give a deterministic approximation algorithm that computes an inscribed rectangle of area at least (1??) ( 1 ? ? ) times the optimum in running time O ( 1 ? 2 log n ) and show how this running time can be slightly improved.

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

geometric algorithms
largest area rectangle
inscribed rectangles in polygons


An effective node-selection scheme for the energy efficiency of solar-powered WSNs in a stream environment We propose an effective node-selection scheme in the stream environment of solar-powered WSNs. We analyzed the stream environment including single stream and cross-stream cases. The deployment conditions are appropriate to each stream case. Based on the node selection scheme, the number of active nodes and transmitted packets is minimized. The proposed scheme prolongs the lifetime of the solar-powered WSN in a stream environment.

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

sensor deployment
node-selection
solar-powered sensor
wireless sensor network


The concept of a quasi-particle and the non-probabilistic interpretation of wave mechanics In recent works of the author [found Phys 36 (2006) 1701-1717, Math Comput simul 74 (2007) 93-103], the argument has been made that Hertz's equations of electrodynamics reflect the material invariance (indifference) of the latter. Then the principle of material invariance was postulated in heu of Lorentz covariance. and the respective absolute medium wits named the metacontinuum Here. we go further to assume that the metacontinuum is a very thin but very stuff 3D hypershell in the 4D space The equation for the deflection of the shell along the fourth dimension is the "master" nonlinear dispersive equation of wave mechanics whose linear part (Euler-Bernoulli equation) is nothing else but the Schrodinger wave equation written for the real or the imaginary part of the wave function. The wave function has a clear non-probabilistic interpretation as the actual amplitude of the flexural deformation The "master" equation admits solitary-wave solutions/solutions that behave as quasi-particles (QPs). We stipulate that particles are our perception of the QPs (schaumkommen in Schrodinger's own words). We show the passage from the continuous Lagrangian of the field to the discrete Lagrangian of the centers of QPs and introduce the concept of (pseudo)mass. We interpret the membrane tension as all attractive (gravitational?) force acting between the QPs. Thus. it self-consistent unification of electrodynamics, wave mechanics, gravitation. and the wave-particle duality is achieved (C) 2009 IMACS. 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 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

luminiferous metacontinuum
maxwell-hertz electrodynamics
schrodinger wave mechanics
quasi-particles
particle-wave duality


An empirical study of the expressiveness of the functional basis Function models are frequently used in engineering design to describe the technical functions that a product performs. This paper investigates the use of the functional basis, a function vocabulary developed to aid in communication and archiving of product function information, in describing consumer products that have been decomposed, analyzed, modeled functionally, and stored in a Web-based design repository. The frequency of use of function terms and phrases in 11 graphical and 110 list-based representations in the repository is examined and used to analyze the organization and expressiveness of the functional basis and function models. Within the context of reverse engineering, we determined that the modeling resolution provided by the hierarchical levels, especially the tertiary level, is inadequate for function modeling; the tertiary terms are inappropriate for capturing sufficient details desired by modelers for archiving and reuse, and there is a need for a more expressive flow terms and flow qualifiers in the vocabulary. A critical comparison is also presented of two representations in the design repository: function structures and function lists. The conclusions are used to identify new research opportunities, including the extension of the vocabulary to incorporate flow qualifiers in addition to more expressive terms.

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


A 6.7 kbps vector sum excited linear prediction on TMS320C54X digital signal processor In this paper, a 6.7-kbps vector sum excited linear prediction (VSELP) coder with less computational complexity is presented. A very efficient VSELP codebook with nine basis vectors and a heuristic K-selection method (to reduce the search space and complexity) is constructed to obtain the stochastic codebook vector. The nine basis vectors are obtained by optimizing a set of randomly generated basis vectors. During the optimization process, we have trained the basis vectors to give the system apriori knowledge of the characteristics of the input. The coder is implemented on a TMS320C541 digital signal processor. The performance is evaluated by testing the 6.7-kbps VSELP coder with different test speech data taken from different speakers. The quality of the coder is estimated by comparing the performance of the 6.7-kbps VSELP coder with an 8-kbps VSELP speech coder based on the IS-54 standards. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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

vector sum excited linear prediction
digital signal processor

code excited linear prediction
linear predictive coding


A design-for-digital-testability circuit structure for Sigma-Delta modulators A design-for-digital-testability (DfDT) switched-capacitor circuit structure for testing Sigma-Delta modulators with digital stimuli is presented to reduce the overall testing cost. In the test mode, the DfDT circuits are reconfigured as a one-bit digital-to-charge converter to accept a repetitively applied Sigma-Delta modulated bit-stream as its stimulus. The single-bit characteristic ensures that the generated stimulus is nonlinearity free. In addition, the proposed DfDT structure reuses most of the analog components in the test mode and keeps the same loads for the operational amplifiers as if they were in the normal mode. It thereby achieves many advantages including lower cost, higher fault coverage, higher measurement accuracy, and the capability of performing at-speed tests. A second-order Sigma-Delta modulator was designed and fabricated to demonstrate the effectiveness of the DfDT structure. Our experimental results show that the digital test is able to measure a harmonic distortion lower than -106 dBFS. Meanwhile, the dynamic range measured with the digital stimulus is as high as 84.4 dB at an over-sampling ratio of 128. The proposed DfDT scheme can be easily applied to other types of Sigma-Delta modulators, making them also digitally testable.

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

analog-to-digital converter (adc)
design-for-testability (dft)
mixed-signal circuit testing
sigma-delta modulator


Local Community Detection Using Link Similarity Exploring local community structure is an appealing problem that has drawn much recent attention in the area of social network analysis. As the complete information of network is often difficult to obtain, such as networks of web pages, research papers and Facebook users, people can only detect community structure from a certain source vertex with limited knowledge of the entire graph. The existing approaches do well in measuring the community quality, but they are largely dependent on source vertex and putting too strict policy in agglomerating new vertices. Moreover, they have predefined parameters which are difficult to obtain. This paper proposes a method to find local community structure by analyzing link similarity between the community and the vertex. Inspired by the fact that elements in the same community are more likely to share common links, we explore community structure heuristically by giving priority to vertices which have a high link similarity with the community. A three-phase process is also used for the sake of improving quality of community structure. Experimental results prove that our method performs effectively not only in computer-generated graphs but also in real-world graphs.

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

social network analysis
community detection
link similarity


Leveraging information technology towards enhancing patient care and a culture of safety in the US Objectives: To heighten awareness about the critical issues currently affecting patient care and to propose solutions based on leveraging information technologies to enhance patient care and influence a culture of patient safety. Methods: Presentation and discussion of the issues affecting health care today, such as medical and medication-related errors and analysis of their root causes; proliferation of medical knowledge and medical technologies; initiatives to improve patient safety; steps necessary to develop a culture of safety; introduction of relevant enabling technologies; and evidence of results. Results and Conclusions: Medical errors affect not only mortality and morbidity, but they also create secondary costs leading to dissatisfaction by both provider and patient. Health care has been slow to acknowledge the benefits of enabling technologies to affect the quality of care. Evaluation of recent applications, such as the computerized patient record, physician order entry, and computerized alerting systems show tremendous potential to enhance patient care and influence the development of a culture focused on safety. They will also bring about changes in other areas, such as workflow and the creation of new partnerships among providers, patients, and payers.

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

medical errors
patient safety
information technology
computerized patient record
physician order entry

clinical decision support
clinical outcomes
evidence-based medicine


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

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


Measurement of wireless pressure sensors fabricated in high temperature co-fired ceramic MEMS technology High temperature co-fired ceramics (HTCCs) have wide applications with stable mechanical properties, but they have not yet been used to fabricate sensors. By introducing the wireless telemetric sensor system and ceramic structure embedding a pressure-deformable cavity, the designed sensors made from HTCC materials (zirconia and 96% alumina) are fabricated, and their capacities for the pressure measurement are tested using a wireless interrogation method. Using the fabricated sensor, a study is conducted to measure the atmospheric pressure in a sealed vessel. The experimental sensitivity of the device is 2 Hz/Pa of zirconia and 1.08 Hz/Pa of alumina below 0.5 MPa with a readout distance of 2.5 cm. The described sensor technology can be applied for monitoring of atmospheric pressure to evaluate important component parameters in harsh environments.

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

high temperature co-fired ceramic (htcc)


real time rectification using differentially encoded lookup table In this paper, we propose a new real time rectification technique based on the compressed lookup table. To compress the lookup table we adopt a differential encoding. As a result, we successfully constructed the rectification with obtaining the compression ratio of 73\% so as to fulfill real-time requirement (i.e., 40 fps at 74.25Mhz). Furthermore, our result on performance is comparable to the result of [17] that obtains 85fps at 90MHz for 640x512 images.

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

rectification
differential encoding
real time
lookup table


Development of a maximum likelihood regression tree-based model for predicting subway incident delay We develop a maximum likelihood regression tree-based model to predict subway incident delays. An AFT model is assigned to each terminal node in the maximum likelihood regression tree. Our tree-based model outperforms the traditional AFT models with fixed and random effects. Our tree-based model can account for the heterogeneity effect as well as avoid the over-fitting problem.

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

delay
maximum likelihood regression tree

subway incidents
accelerated failure time


Solving Inverse Frequent Itemset Mining with Infrequency Constraints via Large-Scale Linear Programs Inverse frequent set mining (IFM) is the problem of computing a transaction database D satisfying given support constraints for some itemsets, which are typically the frequent ones. This article proposes a new formulation of IFM, called IFMI (IFM with infrequency constraints), where the itemsets that are not listed as frequent are constrained to be infrequent; that is, they must have a support less than or equal to a specified unique threshold. An instance of IFMI can be seen as an instance of the original IFM by making explicit the infrequency constraints for the minimal infrequent itemsets, corresponding to the so-called negative generator border defined in the literature. The complexity increase from PSPACE (complexity of IFM) to NEXP (complexity of IFMI) is caused by the cardinality of the negative generator border, which can be exponential in the original input size. Therefore, the article introduces a specific problem parameter. that computes an upper bound to this cardinality using a hypergraph interpretation for which minimal infrequent itemsets correspond to minimal transversals. By fixing a constant k, the article formulates a k-bounded definition of the problem, called k-IFMI, that collects all instances for which the value of the parameter. is less than or equal to k-its complexity is in PSPACE as for IFM. The bounded problem is encoded as an integer linear program with a large number of variables (actually exponential w.r.t. the number of constraints), which is thereafter approximated by relaxing integer constraints-the decision problem of solving the linear program is proven to be in NP. In order to solve the linear program, a column generation technique is used that is a variation of the simplex method designed to solve large-scale linear programs, in particular with a huge number of variables. The method at each step requires the solution of an auxiliary integer linear program, which is proven to be NP hard in this case and for which a greedy heuristic is presented. The resulting overall column generation solution algorithm enjoys very good scaling as evidenced by the intensive experimentation, thereby paving the way for its application in real-life scenarios.

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

algorithms
theory
inverse problem
minimal hypergraph transversals
column generation simplex


An efficient optimization procedure for tetrahedral meshes by chaos search algorithm A simple and efficient local optimization-based procedure for node repositioning/smoothing of three-dimensional tetrahedral meshes is presented. The initial tetrahedral mesh is optimized with respect, to a specified element shape measure by chaos search algorithm, which is very effective for the optimization problems with only a few design variables. Examples show that the presented smoothing procedure can provide favorable conditions for local transformation approach and the quality of mesh can be significantly improved by the combination of these two procedures with respect to a specified element shape measure. Meanwhile, several commonly used shape measures for tetrahedral element, which are considered to be equivalent in some weak sense over a long period of time, are briefly re-examined in this paper. Preliminary study indicates that using different measures to evaluate the change of element shape will probably lead to inconsistent result for both well shaped and poorly shaped elements. The proposed smoothing approach can be utilized as an appropriate and effective tool for evaluating element shape measures and their influence on mesh optimization process and optimal solution.

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

mesh optimization
smoothing
chaos search algorithm
element shape measure


Ethical Issues in Selecting Embryos People involved in assisted reproduction frequently make decisions about which of several embryos to implant or which of several embryos to reduce from a multiple pregnancy. Yet, others have raised questions about the ethical acceptability of using sex or genetic characteristics as selection criteria. This paper reviews arguments for rejecting embryo selection and discusses the subject of choosing offspring in terms of the centrality of liberty and autonomous choice in ethics. It also presents a position on the acceptable scope of embryo selection and the professional responsibilities of those who practice reproductive medicine.

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

sex selection
reproductive choice
disabilities
discrimination


Competitive equilibrium in e-commerce: Pricing and outsourcing The success of firms engaged in e-commerce depends on their ability to understand and exploit the dynamics of the market. One component of this is the ability to extract maximum profit and minimize costs in the face of the harsh competition that the internet provides. We present a general framework for modeling the competitive equilibrium across two firms, or across a firm and the market as a whole. Within this framework, we study pricing choices and analyze the decision to outsource IT capability. Our framework is novel in that it allows for any number of distributions on usage levels, priceQoS tradeoffs, and price and cost structures.

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

e-commerce
non-cooperative nash equilibrium
qos


Numerical simulation of 3D fluid-structure interaction flow using an immersed object method with overlapping grids The newly developed immersed object method (IOM) [Tai CH, Zhao Y, Liew KM. Parallel computation of unsteady incompressible viscous flows around moving rigid bodies using an immersed object method with overlapping grids. J Comput Phys 2005; 207(l): 151-72] is extended for 3D unsteady flow simulation with fluid-structure interaction (FSI), which is made possible by combining it with a parallel unstructured multigrid Navier-Stokes solver using a matrix-free implicit dual time stepping and finite volume method [Tai CH, Zhao Y, Liew KM. Parallel computation of unsteady three-dimensional incompressible viscous flow using an unstructured multigrid method. In: The second M.I.T. conference on computational fluid and solid mechanics, June 17-20, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA, 2003; Tai CH, Zhao Y, Liew KM. Parallel computation of unsteady three-dimensional incompressible viscous flow using an unstructured multigrid method, Special issue on "Preconditioning methods: algorithms, applications and software environments. Comput Struct 2004; 82(28): 2425-36]. This uniquely combined method is then employed to perform detailed study of 3D unsteady flows with complex FSI. In the IOM, a body force term F is introduced into the momentum equations during the artificial compressibility (AC) sub-iterations so that a desired velocity distribution V-0 can be obtained on and within the object boundary, which needs not coincide with the grid, by adopting the direct forcing method. An object mesh is immersed into the flow domain to define the boundary of the object. The advantage of this is that bodies of almost arbitrary shapes can be added without grid restructuring, a procedure which is often time-consuming and computationally expensive. It has enabled us to perform complex and detailed 3D unsteady blood flow and blood-leaflets interaction in a mechanical heart valve (MHV) under physiological conditions. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

immersed object method
overlapping grids


Joint pricing and inventory control with a Markovian demand model We consider the joint pricing and inventory control problem for a single product over a finite horizon and with periodic review. The demand distribution in each period is determined by an exogenous Markov chain. Pricing and ordering decisions are made at the beginning of each period and all shortages are backlogged. The surplus costs as well as fixed and variable costs are state dependent. We show the existence of an optimal (s,S,p)-type feedback policy for the additive demand model. We extend the model to the case of emergency orders. We compute the optimal policy for a class of Markovian demand and illustrate the benefits of dynamic pricing over fixed pricing through numerical examples. The results indicate that it is more beneficial to implement dynamic pricing in a Markovian demand environment with a high fixed ordering cost or with high demand variability.

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

joint pricing and inventory control
markovian demand


privacy preserving learning in negotiation Machine learning techniques are widely used in negotiation systems. To get more accurate and satisfactory learning results, negotiation parties have the desire to employ learning techniques on the union of their past negotiation records. However, negotiation records are usually confidential and private, and owners may not want to reveal the details of these records. In this paper, we introduce a privacy preserving negotiation learning scheme that incorporate secure multiparty computation techniques into negotiation learning algorithms to allow negotiation parties to securely complete the learning process on a union of distributed data sets. As an example, a detailed solution for secure negotiation Q-learning is presented based on two secure multiparty computations: weighted mean and maximum. We also introduce a novel protocol for the secure maximum operation.

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


The relative utility of regression and artificial neural networks models for rapidly predicting the capacity of water supply reservoirs Rapid prediction tools for reservoir over-year and within-year capacities that dispense with the sequential analysis of time-series runoff data are developed using multiple linear regression and multi-layer perceptron, artificial neural networks (MLP-ANNs). Linear regression was used to model the total (i.e. within-year+over-year) capacity using the over-year capacity as one of the inputs, while the ANNs were used to simultaneously model directly the over-year and total capacities. The inputs used for the ANNs were basic runoff and systems variables such as the coefficient of variation (Cv) of annual and monthly runoff, minimum monthly runoff, the demand ratio and reservoir reliability. The results showed that all the models performed well during their development and when they were tested with independent data sets. Both models offer faster prediction tools for reservoir capacity at gauged sites when compared with behaviour simulation. Additionally, when the predictor variables can be evaluated at un-gauged sites using e.g. catchment characteristics, they make capacity estimation at such un-gauged sites a feasible proposition.

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 I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

storageyieldreliability
sequent-peak algorithm
over-year capacity
within-year capacity
multiple regression
un-gauged sites


An Access Delay Model for IEEE 802.11e EDCA We analyze the MAC access delay of the IEEE 802.11e enhanced distributed channel access (EDCA) mechanism under saturation. We develop a detailed analytical model to evaluate the influence of all EDCA differentiation parameters, namely AIFS, CWmin, CWmax, and TXOP limit, as well as the backoff multiplier beta. Explicit expressions for the mean, standard deviation, and generating function of the access delay distribution are derived. By applying numerical inversion on the generating function, we are able to efficiently compute values of the distribution. Comparison with simulation confirms the accuracy of our analytical model over a wide range of operating conditions. We derive simple asymptotics and approximations for the mean and standard deviation of the access delay, which reveal the salient model parameters for performance under different differentiation mechanisms. We also use the model to numerically study the differentiation performance and find that beta differentiation, though rejected during the standardization process, is an effective differentiation mechanism that has some advantages over the other mechanisms.

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

medium access delay
ieee 802.11e
qos
service differentiation


Slide presentations as speech suppressors: When and why learners miss oral information The objective of this study was to test whether information presented on slides during presentations is retained at the expense of information presented only orally, and to investigate part of the conditions under which this effect occurs, and how it can be avoided. Such an effect could be expected and explained either as a kind of redundancy effect due to excessive cognitive load caused by simultaneous presentation of oral and written information, or as a consequence of dysfunctional allocation of attention at the expense of oral information occurring in learners with a high subjective importance of slides. The hypothesized effect and these potential explanations were tested in an experimental study. In courses about literature search and access, 209 university students received a presentation accompanied either by no slides or by regular or concise PowerPoint slides. The retention of information presented orally and of information presented orally and on slides was measured separately in each condition and standardized for comparability. Cognitive load and subjective importance of slides were also measured. The results indicate a "speech suppression effect" of regular slides at the expense of oral information (within and across conditions), which cannot be explained by cognitive overload but rather by dysfunctional allocation of attention, and can be avoided by concise slides. It is concluded that theoretical approaches should account for the allocation of attention below the threshold of cognitive overload and its role for learning, and that a culture of presentations with concise slides should be established. (C) 2012 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

improving classroom teaching
media in education
post-secondary education
teaching/learning strategies


Development of a parallel Poisson's equation solver with adaptive mesh refinement and its application in field emission prediction A parallel electrostatic Poisson's equation solver coupled with parallel adaptive mesh refinement (PAMR) is developed in this paper. The three-dimensional Poisson's equation is discretized using the Galerkin finite element method using a tetrahedral mesh. The resulting matrix equation is then solved through the parallel conjugate gradient method using the non-overlapping subdomain-by-subdomain scheme. A PAMR module is coupled with this parallel Poisson's equation solver to adaptively refine the mesh where the variation of potentials is large. The parallel performance of the parallel Poisson's equation is studied by simulating the potential distribution of a CNT-based triode-type field emitter. Results with ?100?000 nodes show that a parallel efficiency of 84.2% is achieved in 32 processors of a PC-cluster system. The field emission properties of a single CNT triode- and tetrode-type field emitter in a periodic cell are computed to demonstrate their potential application in field emission prediction.

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

galerkin finite element method
parallel adaptive mesh refinement
field emission


Isogeometric analysis of the advective CahnHilliard equation: Spinodal decomposition under shear flow We present a numerical study of the spinodal decomposition of a binary fluid undergoing shear flow using the advective CahnHilliard equation, a stiff, nonlinear, parabolic equation characterized by the presence of fourth-order spatial derivatives. Our numerical solution procedure is based on isogeometric analysis, an approximation technique for which basis functions of high-order continuity are employed. These basis functions allow us to directly discretize the advective CahnHilliard equation without resorting to a mixed formulation. We present steady state solutions for rectangular domains in two-dimensions and, for the first time, in three-dimensions. We also present steady state solutions for the two-dimensional TaylorCouette cell. To enforce periodic boundary conditions in this curved domain, we derive and utilize a new periodic Bzier extraction operator. We present an extensive numerical study showing the effects of shear rate, surface tension, and the geometry of the domain on the phase evolution of the binary fluid. Theoretical and experimental results are compared with our simulations.

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

cahnhilliard equation
spinodal decomposition
shear flow
steady state
isogeometric analysis
bzier extraction


a vhdl compiler based on attribute grammar methodology This paper presents aspects of a compiler for a new hardware description language (VHDL) written using attribute grammar techniques. VHDL is introduced, along with the new compiler challenges brought by a language that extends an Ada subset for the purpose of describing hardware. Attribute grammar programming solutions are presented for some of the language challenges. The organization of the compiler and of the target virtual machine represented by the simulation kernel are discussed, and performance and code-size figures are presented. The paper concludes that attribute grammars can be used for large commercial compilers with excellent results in terms of rapid development time and enhanced maintainability, and without paying any substantial penalty in terms of either the complexity of the language that can be handled or the resulting compilation speed.

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

organization
simulation
hardware description language
methodology
maintainability
language
performance
compilation
complexity
hardware
paper
virtual machine
attribute grammars

challenge program aspect developer size code timing


an agent based framework for virtual medical devices In this paper we present the telemedical environment based on VMDs implemented with Java mobile agent technology, called aglets. The agent based VMD implementation provides ad-hoc agent interaction, support for mobile agents and different user interface components in the telemedical system. We have developed a VMD agent framework with four types of agents: data agents, processing agents, presentation agents, and monitoring agents. Data agents abstract data source, creating uniform view on different types of data, independent of data acquisition device. Processing agents produce derived data, such us FFT power spectrum, from raw data provided by the data agents. Presentation agents supply user interface components using a variety of user data views. User interface components are based on HTTP, SMS and WAP protocols. Monitoring agents collaborate with data and processing agents providing support for data mining operations, and search for relevant patterns. Typical example is monitoring for possible epileptic attacks. We have applied VMDs to facilitate distributed EEG analysis. We have found that the flexibility of distributed agent architecture is well suited for the telemedical application domain. This flexibility is particularly important in the case of an emergency, enabling swift system reconfiguration on the fly.

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

distributed systems
telemedicine
software agents


Finite Block Method in elasticity A new point collocation algorithm named Finite Block Method (FBM), which is based on the one-dimensional differential matrix is developed for 2D and 3D elasticity problems in this paper. The main idea is to construct the first order one-dimensional differential matrix for one block by using Lagrange series with uniformly distributed nodes. The higher order derivative matrix for one-dimensional problem is obtained. By introducing the mapping technique, a block of quadratic type is transformed from Cartesian coordinate(xyz) ( x y z ) to normalised coordinate (???) ( ? ? ? ) with 8 seeds or 20 seeds for two or three dimensions. The differential matrices in physical domain are determined from that in the normalised transformed system. Several 2D and 3D examples are given and comparisons have been made with either analytical solutions or the boundary element method to demonstrate the accuracy and convergence of this method.

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

1d mapping differential matrix
lagrange series expansion
functionally graded media
anisotropy


New adaptive compressors for natural language text Semistatic byte-oriented word-based compression codes have been shown to be an attractive alternative to compress natural language text databases, because of the combination of speed, effectiveness, and direct searchability they offer. In particular, our recently proposed family of dense compression codes has been shown to be superior to the more traditional byte-oriented word-based Huffman codes in most aspects. In this paper, we focus on the problem of transmitting texts among peers that do not share the vocabulary. This is the typical scenario for adaptive compression methods. We design adaptive variants of our semistatic dense codes, showing that they are much simpler and faster than dynamic Huffman codes and reach almost the same compression effectiveness. We show that our variants have a very compelling trade-off between compression/decompression speed, compression ratio, and search speed compared with most of the state-of-the-art general compressors. Copyright (C) 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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

natural language text compression
dynamic compression
searching compressed text


Organisational computer supported collaborative learning: the affect of context The purpose of this introduction is to provide a brief overview of the articles in this special issue and also a framework for understanding, designing and evaluating strategies for co-operative learning in the workplace and in educational environments. The special edition is divided into two partsIssue 1: Computer Supported Collaborative Learning in Formal Education, and Issue 2: Computer Supported Team and Organisational Learning in Workplaces. In general, Issue 1 focuses on collaborative learning in primary and secondary schools and in the University setting. Issue 2 is meant to focus on learning in complex and often highly stressful work situations which mostly require intensive communication in groups or teams and in each case allow for learning in the wider organisation. This introduction outlines a set of themes that can be found in the following papers and traces briefly how each paper fits within each discussion.

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

workplace learning
formal learning
activity theory
technology
organisations


Estimation of the proportion ratio under a simple crossover trial The proportion ratio (PR) of patient response is one of the most commonly used indices for measuring the relative treatment effect in a randomized clinical trial (RCT). Assuming a random effect multiplicative risk model, we develop two point estimators and three interval estimators in closed forms for the PR under a simple crossover RCT. On the basis of Monte Carlo simulation, we evaluate the performance of these estimators in a variety of situations. We note that the point estimator using a ratio of two arithmetic means of patient response probabilities over the two groups (distinguished by the order of treatment-received sequences) is generally preferable to the corresponding one using a ratio of two geometric means of patient response probabilities. We note that the three interval estimators developed in this paper can actually perform well with respect to the coverage probability when the number of patients per group is moderate or large. We further note that the interval estimator based on the ratio of two arithmetic means of patient response probabilities with the logarithmic transformation is probably the best among the three interval estimators discussed here. We use a simple crossover trial studying the suitability of two new inhalation devices for patients who were using a standard inhaler device delivering Salbutamol published elsewhere to illustrate the use of these estimators.

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

crossover trial
proportion ratio
coverage probability
interval estimator

binary data
bias
precision
point estimation


Pattern identification in biogeography Identifying common patterns among area cladograms that arise in historical biogeography is an important tool for biogeographical inference. We develop the first rigorous formalization of these pattern-identification problems. We develop metrics to compare area cladograms. We define the maximum agreement area cladogram (MAAC) and we develop efficient algorithms for finding the MAAC of two area cladograms, while showing that it is NP-hard to find the MAAC of several binary area cladograms. We also describe a linear-time algorithm to identify if two area cladograms are identical.

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

biogeography
area cladograms
maximum agreement area cladogram

distance metrics
maximum agreement subset


EAD and PEBD: Two Energy-Aware Duplication Scheduling Algorithms for Parallel Tasks on Homogeneous Clusters High-performance clusters have been widely deployed to solve challenging and rigorous scientific and engineering tasks. On one hand, high performance is certainly an important consideration in designing clusters to run parallel applications. On the other hand, the ever increasing energy cost requires us to effectively conserve energy in clusters. To achieve the goal of optimizing both performance and energy efficiency in clusters, in this paper, we propose two energy-efficient duplication-based scheduling algorithms-Energy-Aware Duplication (EAD) scheduling and Performance-Energy Balanced Duplication (PEBD) scheduling. Existing duplication-based scheduling algorithms replicate all possible tasks to shorten schedule length without reducing energy consumption caused by duplication. Our algorithms, in contrast, strive to balance schedule lengths and energy savings by judiciously replicating predecessors of a task if the duplication can aid in performance without degrading energy efficiency. To illustrate the effectiveness of EAD and PEBD, we compare them with a nonduplication algorithm, a traditional duplication-based algorithm, and the dynamic voltage scaling (DVS) algorithm. Extensive experimental results using both synthetic benchmarks and real-world applications demonstrate that our algorithms can effectively save energy with marginal performance degradation.

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

energy-aware scheduling
duplication algorithms


Design of K-means clustering-based polynomial radial basis function neural networks (pRBF NNs) realized with the aid of particle swarm optimization and differential evolution In this paper, we introduce an advanced architecture of K-means clustering-based polynomial Radial Basis Function Neural Networks (p-RBF NNs) designed with the aid of Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and Differential Evolution (DE) and develop a comprehensive design methodology supporting their construction. The architecture of the p-RBF NNs comes as a result of a synergistic usage of the evolutionary optimization-driven hybrid tools. The connections (weights) of the proposed p-RBF NNs being of a certain functional character and are realized by considering four types of polynomials. In order to design the optimized p-RBF NNs, a prototype (center value) of each receptive field is determined by running the K-means clustering algorithm and then a prototype and a spread of the corresponding receptive field are further optimized through running Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and Differential Evolution (DE). The Weighted Least Square Estimation (WLSE) is used to estimate the coefficients of the polynomials (which serve as functional connections of the network). The performance of the proposed model and the comparative analysis involving models designed with the aid of PSO and DE are presented in case of a nonlinear function and two Machine Learning (ML) datasets

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

polynomial radial basis function neural networks (p-rbf nns)

weighted least square estimation (wlse).


Computers that recognise and respond to user emotion: theoretical and practical implications Prototypes of interactive computer systems have been built that can begin to detect and label aspects of human emotional expression, and that respond to users experiencing frustration and other negative emotions with emotionally supportive interactions, demonstrating components of human skills such as active listening, empathy, and sympathy. These working systems support the prediction that a computer can begin to undo some of the negative feelings it causes by helping a user manage his or her emotional state. This paper clarifies the philosophy of this new approach to human computer interaction: deliberately recognising and responding to an individual user's emotions in ways, that help users meet their needs. We define user needs in a broader perspective than has been hitherto discussed in the HCI community, to include emotional and social needs, and examine technology's emerging capability to address and support such needs. We raise and discuss potential concerns and objections regarding this technology, and describe several opportunities for future work. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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

user emotions
affective computing
social interface
human-centred designs
empathetic interface
emotional needs


On visualization techniques for solar data mining Large-scale data mining is often aided with graphic visualizations to facilitate a better understanding of the data and results. This is especially true for visual data and highly detailed data too complex to be easily understood in raw forms. In this work, we present several of our recent interdisciplinary works in data mining solar image repositories and discuss the over-arching need for effective visualizations of data, metadata, and results along the way. First, we explain the complex characteristics and overwhelming abundance of image data being produced by NASAs Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). Then we discuss the wide scope of solar data mining and highlight visual results from work in data labeling, classification, and clustering. Lastly, we present an overview of the first-ever Content-Based Image Retrieval (CBIR) system for solar images, and conclude with a brief look at the direction of our future research.

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

solar images
visualization
data mining
cbir


Defeasible Contextual Reasoning with Arguments in Ambient Intelligence The imperfect nature of context in Ambient Intelligence environments and the special characteristics of the entities that possess and share the available context information render contextual reasoning a very challenging task. The accomplishment of this task requires formal models that handle the involved entities as autonomous logic-based agents and provide methods for handling the imperfect and distributed nature of context. This paper proposes a solution based on the Multi-Context Systems paradigm in which local context knowledge of ambient agents is encoded in rule theories (contexts), and information flow between agents is achieved through mapping rules that associate concepts used by different contexts. To handle imperfect context, we extend Multi-Context Systems with nonmonotonic features: local defeasible theories, defeasible mapping rules, and a preference ordering on the system contexts. On top of this model, we have developed an argumentation framework that exploits context and preference information to resolve potential conflicts caused by the interaction of ambient agents through the mappings, and a distributed algorithm for query evaluation.

O B I O O O B I O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 intelligence
contextual reasoning

defeasible reasoning
argumentation systems


Nonextensive Information Theoretic Kernels on Measures Positive definite kernels on probability measures have been recently applied to classification problems involving text, images, and other types of structured data. Some of these kernels are related to classic information theoretic quantities, such as (Shannon's) mutual information and the Jensen-Shannon (JS) divergence. Meanwhile, there have been recent advances in nonextensive generalizations of Shannon's information theory. This paper bridges these two trends by introducing nonextensive information theoretic kernels on probability measures, based on new JS-type divergences. These new divergences result from extending the the two building blocks of the classical JS divergence: convexity and Shannon's entropy. The notion of convexity is extended to the wider concept of q-convexity, for which we prove a Jensen q-inequality. Based on this inequality, we introduce Jensen-Tsallis (JT) q-differences, a nonextensive generalization of the JS divergence, and define a k-th order JT q-difference between stochastic processes. We then define a new family of nonextensive mutual information kernels, which allow weights to be assigned to their arguments, and which includes the Boolean, JS, and linear kernels as particular cases. Nonextensive string kernels are also defined that generalize the p-spectrum kernel. We illustrate the performance of these kernels on text categorization tasks, in which documents are modeled both as bags of words and as sequences of characters.

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

positive definite kernels
string kernels

nonextensive information theory
tsallis entropy
jensen-shannon divergence


Point multiplication on ordinary elliptic curves over fields of characteristic three In this paper we investigate the efficiency of cryptosystems based on ordinary elliptic curves over fields of characteristic three. We look at different representations for curves and consider some of the algorithms necessary to perform efficient point multiplication. We give example timings for our operations and compare them with timings for curves in characteristic two of a similar level of security. We show that using the Hessian form in characteristic three produces a point multiplication algorithm under 50 percent slower than the equivalent system in characteristic two. Thus it is conceivable that curves in characteristic three, could offer greater performance than currently perceived by the community.

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Determination of the heat-transfer coefficient during solidification of alloys We consider a three-phase inverse Stefan problem. Such a problem consists in a reconstruction of the function describing the coefficient of heat-transfer, when the positions of the moving solid and liquid interfaces are well-known. We introduce three partial problems for each phase (liquid, solid and mushy) separately. The solutions of these problems are used for the determination of the unknown heat-transfer coefficient. The missing data for a mushy (solid) phase are computed from over-determined data at the moving liquid (solid) interface taking into account the transmission condition. At the end we present numerical calculations in one dimension using piecewise linear continuous finite elements in order to demonstrate the efficiency of the designed numerical algorithm.

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

recovery of the heat-transfer coefficient


Simulation of land use spatial pattern of towns and villages based on CA-Markov model Firstly, this paper analyzes the basic principles and processes of the spatial pattern changes of land use in towns and villages, and the result shows that the land resource demands of urban development and population growth lead to the spatial pattern changes. Secondly, in order to grip land use changes better, the paper proposes a method for the simulation of spatial patterns. The simulating method can be divided into two parts: one is a quantitative forecast by using the Markov model, and the other is simulating the spatial pattern changes by using the CA model. The above two models construct the simulative model of the spatial pattern of land use in towns and villages. Finally, selecting Fangshan which is a district of Beijing as the experimental area, both the quantity and spatial pattern changing characteristics are investigated through building a changing dataset of land use by using spatial analysis methods based on the land use data in 2001, 2006 and 2008; CA-Markov is used to simulate the spatial pattern of land use in Fangshan for 2015. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

land use change
cellular automata
fangshan district in beijing


Observations of IPv6 traffic on a 6to4 relay FUNET has been operating a public, globally-used 6to4 (RFC 3056) relay router since November 2001. The traffic has been logged and is now analyzed to gather information of 6to4 and IPv6 deployment. Among other figures, we note that the number of 6to4 capable nodes has increased by an order of magnitude in half a year: in April 2004, there are records of about 2 million different 6to4 nodes using this particular relay. Vast majority of this is just testing the availability of the relay, done by the Microsoft Windows systems, but the real traffic has also increased over time. While the observed 6to4 traffic has typically consisted of relatively simple system-level applications, or applications by power users, the emergence of peer-to-peer applications such as BitTorrent was also observed.

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Modelling and control of the motion of a riderless bicycle rolling on a moving plane This work deals with the modelling and control of a riderless bicycle rolling on a moving plane. It is assumed here that the bicycle is controlled by a pedalling torque, a directional torque and by a rotor mounted on the crossbar that generates a tilting torque. In particular, a kinematic model of the bicycles motion is derived by using its dynamic model. Then, using this kinematic model, the expressions for the applied torques are obtained.

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 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

circular rotor plate
nonholonomic constraints
inverse dynamics control
stabilization


Simplified models of neocortical pyramidal cells preserving somatodendritic voltage attenuation Simplified models are needed for performing large-scale network simulations involving thousands of cells. Ideally, these models should be as simple as possible, but still capture important electrotonic properties, such as voltage attenuation. Here, we propose a method to design simplified models with correct voltage attenuation, based on camera-lucida reconstructions of neurons. The simplified model geometry is fit to the detailed model such that it preserves: (i) total membrane area, (ii) input resistance, (iii) time constant and (iv) voltage attenuation for current injection in the soma. Using the three dimensional reconstruction of a layer VI pyramidal cell, we show that this procedure leads to an efficient simplified model which preserves voltage attenuation for somatic current injection as well as for distributed synaptic inputs in dendrites. Attenuation was also correctly captured in the presence of synaptic background activity. These simplified models should be useful for performing network simulations of neurons with electrotonic properties consistent with detailed morphologies.

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

cerebral cortex
dendritic integration
computational models


Hybrid force-assisted 3-D assembly of helical nanobelts We present a new manipulation system for hybrid force assisted assembly. We propose a hybrid force assisted assembly process for 3-D helical nanobelts. Helical nanobelt tweezer and sensing probe have been assembled using the proposed method.

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

hybrid force-assisted assembly
ultra-flexible nanostructures
thin-film nanostructures
3-d helical nanobelts