Noise-tolerance community detection and evolution in dynamic social networks Dynamic complex social network is always mixed with noisy data and abnormal events always influence the network. It is important to track dynamic community evolution and discover the abnormal events for understanding real world. In this paper, we propose a novel algorithm Noise-Tolerance Community Detection (NTCD) to discover dynamic community structure that is based on historical information and current information. An updated algorithm is introduced to help find the community structure snapshot at each time step. One evaluation method based on structure and connection degree is proposed to measure the community similarity. Based on this evaluation, the latent community evolution can be tracked and abnormal events can be gotten. Experiments on different real datasets show that NTCD not only eliminates the influence of noisy data but also discovers the real community structure and abnormal events.

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

dynamic community detection
abnormal events detection
noise-tolerance


A faster fully polynomial approximation scheme for the single-machine total tardiness problem Lawler [E.L. Lawler, A fully polynomial approximation scheme for the total tardiness problem, Operations Research Letters 1 (1982) 207208] proposed a fully polynomial approximation scheme for the single-machine total tardiness problem which runs in O n 7 ? time (where n is the number of jobs and ? is the desired level of approximation). A faster fully polynomial approximation scheme running in O ( n 5 log n + n 5 ? ) time is presented in this note by applying an alternative rounding scheme in conjunction with implementing Kovalyovs [M.Y. Kovalyov, Improving the complexities of approximation algorithms for optimization problems, Operations Research Letters 17 (1995) 8587] bound improvement procedure.

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

total tardiness
fully polynomial approximation


Scattering basis representation in ballistic transport simulations of nanowire transistors The paper presents a basis expansion scheme for atomistic transport simulations in nanowire MOSFETs. Two simple methods are formulated to calculate current carrying states using a low-dimensional device Hamiltonian in the scattering basis representation. The proposed methods are computationally very cheap and their utility is confirmed by test self-consistent calculations in a p-Si nanowire device. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

ballistic transport
nanowire
basis representation


A Comprehensive Statistical Model for Cell Signaling Protein signaling networks play a central role in transcriptional regulation and the etiology of many diseases. Statistical methods, particularly Bayesian networks, have been widely used to model cell signaling, mostly for model organisms and with focus on uncovering connectivity rather than inferring aberrations. Extensions to mammalian systems have not yielded compelling results, due likely to greatly increased complexity and limited proteomic measurements in vivo. In this study, we propose a comprehensive statistical model that is anchored to a predefined core topology, has a limited complexity due to parameter sharing and uses micorarray data of mRNA transcripts as the only observable components of signaling. Specifically, we account for cell heterogeneity and a multilevel process, representing signaling as a Bayesian network at the cell level, modeling measurements as ensemble averages at the tissue level, and incorporating patient-to-patient differences at the population level. Motivated by the goal of identifying individual protein abnormalities as potential therapeutical targets, we applied our method to the RAS-RAF network using a breast cancer study with 118 patients. We demonstrated rigorous statistical inference, established reproducibility through simulations and the ability to recover receptor status from available microarray data.

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

stochastic approximation expectation maximization


a framework for architecture-driven service discovery Service discovery has been recognised as an important aspect in the development of service centric systems, i.e. software systems that are constructed based on the composition of web services. In order to develop service centric systems it is necessary to identify web services that can be combined to fulfil the functionality and quality criteria of the system being developed. In this paper we present a framework to support architecture-driven service discovery - that is the discovery of services that can provide the functionalities and satisfy properties and constraints of systems as specified during the design phase of the development lifecycle. Our framework assumes an iterative design process and allows for the (re-)formulation of the design models of service-centric systems based on the discovered services. A prototype tool has been developed and includes two main components: a UML 2.0 integration module, which derives queries from behavioural and structural UML design models and integrates the results of the queries; and a query execution engine, which performs the queries against service registries. The execution of the query is a two-stage process based on a similarity analysis algorithm.

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

profile
operations
service centric system
messages


Protein folding in simplified models with estimation of distribution algorithms Simplified lattice models have played an important role in protein structure prediction and protein folding problems. These models can be useful for an initial approximation of the protein structure, and for the investigation of the dynamics that govern the protein folding process. Estimation of distribution algorithms (EDAs) are efficient evolutionary algorithms that can learn and exploit the search space regularities in the form of probabilistic dependencies. This paper introduces the application of different variants of EDAs to the solution of the protein structure prediction problem in simplified models, and proposes their use as a simulation tool for the analysis of the protein folding process. We develop new ideas for the application of EDAs to the bidimensional and tridimensional (2-d and 3-d) simplified protein folding problems. This paper analyzes the rationale behind the application of EDAs to these problems, and elucidates the relationship between our proposal and other population-based approaches proposed for the protein folding problem. We argue that EDAs are an efficient alternative for many instances of the protein structure prediction problem and are indeed appropriate for a theoretical analysis of search procedures in lattice models. All the algorithms introduced are tested on a set of difficult 2-d and 3-d instances from lattice models. Some of the results obtained with EDAs are superior to the ones obtained with other well-known population-based optimization algorithms.

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

protein folding
protein structure prediction

estimation of distribution algorithm (edas)


a gui bug finding framework for android applications Users increasingly rely on mobile applications for computational needs. Google Android is a popular mobile platform, hence the correctness of Android applications is becoming increasingly important. Many Android correctness issues, however, fall outside the scope of traditional verification techniques, as they are due to the novelty of the platform and its activity- and event-oriented application construction paradigm. In this paper we present an approach for verifying Android applications with a focus on GUI bugs. We present techniques for detecting GUI bugs by automatic generation of test cases, feeding the application random events, instrumenting the VM, producing log/trace files and analyzing them post-run. These techniques have helped re-discover existing bugs and finding new bugs in Android applications.

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

test case generation
dynamic analysis
gui testing


Concurrent access control for multi-user and multi-processor systems based on trust relationships Concurrent access control is an old problem in many fields in Computer Science. It has been solved in many languages and systems, using mechanisms like monitors or priority queues. Nowadays computers implement multi-core capabilities. This means that they are virtually capable of execution of processes in parallel. This requires new techniques and open new issues in the field of concurrent access control. Moreover, most operating systems are multi-user; thus, we have to focus on a multi-processor multi-user scenario. Trust becomes a paramount aspect when building distributed applications; the same applies on a lower scale in modern computers. We propose the use of a trust graph that keeps record of the trust relationships of the system and helps in deciding on concurrent access requests. The information encoded in the graph will be used both in order to decide on the access requests and to order granted requests in terms of their associated trust level. Copyright (C) 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

O B I O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 non-linear thermodynamical model for steelconcrete bonding In Reinforced Concrete structures, the concrete damage configuration as well as the crack pattern distribution depend directly on bonding, and its implementation for numerical analysis is still complicated. In this work, a new thermodynamical non linear bond model is introduced taking into account tangential bond deterioration and coupling between tangential slip and normal decohesion/penetration. For FEM implementation, the model (based on a stressstrain relationship) is supported by a non-width interface element. The calibrated material parameters are grouped in four sets: elastic behavior; tangential degradation; crack friction and confinement; and normal behavior. Finally, some numerical examples are presented in this paper.

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

steelconcrete bonding
reinforced concrete
interface element

thermodynamical formulation
finite element method


The effect of load on agent-based algorithms for distributed task allocation Multi-agent algorithms inspired by the division of labour in social insects and by markets, are applied to a constrained problem of distributed task allocation. The efficiency (average number of tasks performed), the flexibility (ability to react to changes in the environment), and the sensitivity to load (ability to cope with differing demands) are investigated in both static and dynamic environments. A hybrid algorithm combining both approaches, is shown to exhibit improved efficiency and robustness. We employ nature inspired particle swarm optimisation to obtain optimised parameters for all algorithms in a range of representative environments. Although results are obtained for large population sizes to avoid finite size effects, the influence of population size on the performance is also analysed. From a theoretical point of view, we analyse the causes of efficiency loss, derive theoretical upper bounds for the efficiency, and compare these with the experimental results.

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

adaptive systems
distributed decision-making
response thresholds


Self-organisation of motion features with a temporal asynchronous dynamic vision sensor Neural circuits closer to the periphery tend to be organised in a topological way, i.e. stimuli which are spatially close tend to be mapped onto neighbouring processing neurons. The goal of this study is to show how motion features (optic-flow), which have an inherent spatio-temporal profile, can be self-organised using correlations of precise spike intervals. The proposed framework is applied to the spiking output of an asynchronous dynamic vision sensor (DVS), which mimics the workings of the mammalian retina. Our results show that our framework is able to form a topologic organisation of optic-flow features similar to that observed in the human middle temporal lobe.

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 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

self-organisation
motion perception
kohonen-network


Multi-objective optimization of volume shrinkage and clamping force for plastic injection molding via sequential approximate optimization Process parameters in plastic injection molding are optimized. Clamping force and volume shrinkage is simultaneously minimized. Sequential approximate optimization is used to identify the pareto-frontier. The pareto-frontier is identified with a small number of simulation runs.

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

abs acrylonitrilebutadienestyrene
bpn back propagation network
cae computer aided engineering
ei expected improvement
ga genetic algorithm
lhd latin hypercube design
moo multi-objective optimization
mps mode-pursuing sampling
pim plastic injection molding
rbf radial basis function
sao sequential approximate optimization


Image encryption based on three-dimensional bit matrix permutation The problems of pixel- or bit-level permutation are analyzed. A 3D bit level permutation is proposed. A random visiting to plain-image is proposed.

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


NOLISM: a pc program for the evaluation of parameters describing the non-linear dynamic behavior of soil materials The program NOLISM utilizes well established equations that describe the behavior of soil materials under dynamic loading. The program, which is written in Visual Basic and operates in the Microsoft Windows environment, greatly facilitates the evaluation of parameters necessary for the description of cyclic soil behavior by either the equivalent-linear or the non-linear inelastic models. The program input includes the values of readily available soil parameters, whose values can be selected following the suggestions included in the paper, or the direct results of dynamic tests. The output of NOLISM includes screen graphics and printouts that facilitate the preparation of input for other commercially available programs of ground seismic response and can be directly incorporated into technical reports. The graphics capabilities of NOLISM make it a valuable educational tool for teaching important aspects of soil behavior under cyclic loading.

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

dynamic/cyclic soil behavior
non-linear model
dynamic soil properties
low-amplitude shear modulus


Analytical models for mixed workload multimedia storage servers1 Efficient resource management is essential in providing scalability in large multimedia information systems serving a variety of applications. In order to explore design tradeoffs in such systems, what is needed are accurate analytical models of mixed workload servers with tractable solutions. Motivated by the need for mixed workload storage servers as well as the need for performance studies of such systems, we first present a family of scheduling algorithm for mixed workload storage servers. We then develop a set of corresponding analytical non-Markovian models. We show how our analytical solution methodology applies to this entire family of models and how it can be used to obtain performance measures of interest for different classes of workloads. Lastly, we illustrate through numerical examples how such models can be used to study performance tradeoffs and facilitate the making of design choices in mixed workload storage servers.

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

embedded markov chains
mixed workload scheduling
multimedia storage servers
uniformization


reflections on the memory wall This paper looks at the evolution of the "Memory Wall" problem over the past decade. It begins by reviewing the short Computer Architecture News note that coined the phrase, including the motivation behind the note, the context in which it was written, and the controversy it sparked. What has changed over the years? Are we hitting the Memory Wall? And if so, for what types of applications?

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


Mechanisms Determining Sensitivity of Baroreceptor Afferents in Health and Disease Baroreceptors sense and signal the central nervous system of changes in arterial pressure through a series of sensory processes. An increase in arterial pressure causes vascular distension and baroreceptor deformation, the magnitude of which depends on the mechanical viscoelastic properties of the vessel wall. Classic methods (e.g., isolated carotid sinus preparation) and new approaches, including studies of isolated baroreceptor neurons in culture, gene transfer using viral vectors, and genetically modified mice have been used to define the cellular and molecular mechanisms that determine baroreceptor sensitivity. Deformation depolarizes the nerve endings by opening a new class of mechanosensitive ion channel. This depolarization triggers action potential discharge through opening of voltage-dependent sodium (Na+) and potassium (K+) channels at the spike initiating zone (SIZ) near the sensory terminals. The resulting baroreceptor activity and its sensitivity to changes in pressure are modulated through a variety of mechanisms that influence these sensory processes. Modulation of voltage-dependent Na+ and K+ channels and the Na+ pump at the SIZ by membrance potential, action potential discharge, and chemical autocrine and paracrine factors are important mechanisms contributing to changes in baroreceptor sensitivity during sustained increases in arterial pressure and in pathological states associated with endothelial dysfunction, oxidative stress, and platelet activation.

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

pressoreceptors
aortic arch
blood pressure
sympathetic nerve activity
parasympathetic nerve activity
hypertension
atherosclerosis
sodium channels
potassium channels
reactive oxygen species
nitric oxide
prostacyclin
platelets
endothelium


Reconciling usability and interactive system architecture using patterns Traditional interactive system architectures such as MVC [Goldberg, A., 1984. Smaltalk-80: The Interactive Programming Environment, Addison-Wesley Publ.] and PAC [Coutaz, J., 1987. PAC, an implementation model for dialog design. In: Interact87, Sttutgart, September 1987, pp. 431436; Coutaz, J., 1990. Architecture models for interactive software: faillures and trends. In: Cockton, G. (Ed.), Engineering for HumanComputer Interaction, Elsevier Science Publ., pp. 137153.] decompose the system into subsystems that are relatively independent, thereby allowing the design work to be partitioned between the user interfaces and underlying functionalities. Such architectures extend the independence assumption to usability, approaching the design of the user interface as a subsystem that can designed and tested independently from the underlying functionality. This Cartesian dichotomy can be fallacious, as functionalities buried in the applications logic can sometimes affect the usability of the system. Our investigations model the relationships between internal software attributes and externally visible usability factors. We propose a pattern-based approach for dealing with these relationships. We conclude by discussing how these patterns can lead to a methodological framework for improving interactive system architectures, and how these patterns can support the integration of usability in the software design process.

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

user interface design patterns
software architecture
usability factors
software quality metrics
hci design principles


Edge-preserving filtering of images with low photon counts Edge-preserving filters such as local M-smoothers or bilateral filtering are usually designed for Gaussian noise. This paper investigates how these filters can be adapted in order to efficiently deal with Poissonian noise. In addition, the issue of photometry invariance is addressed by changing the way filter coefficients are normalized. The proposed normalization is additive, instead of being multiplicative, and leads to a strong connection with anisotropic diffusion. Experiments show that ensuring the photometry invariance leads to comparable denoising performances in terms of the root mean square error computed on the signal.

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

bilateral filtering
anisotropic diffusion
photometry invariance
poissonian noise

edge-preserving filter
local m-smoothers


A gravitational approach to edge detection based on triangular norms We study the method of Sun et al. for edge detection based on the Law of Universal Gravity. We analyze the effect of the substitution of the product operation by other triangular norms in the calculation of the gravitational forces. We treat edges as fuzzy sets for which membership degrees are extracted from the resulting gravitational force on each pixel. We consider several prototypical triangular norms and experimentally show that their features determine the kind of edges detected. The new method is tested on the Berkeley Segmentation Dataset, showing to be competitive compared to the Canny method.

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


Spatial reasoning in a fuzzy region connection calculus Although the region connection calculus (RCC) offers an appealing framework for modelling topological relations, its application in real-world scenarios is hampered when spatial phenomena are affected by vagueness. To cope with this, we present a generalization of the RCC based on fuzzy set theory, and discuss how reasoning tasks such as satisfiability and entailment checking can be cast into linear programming problems. We furthermore reveal that reasoning in our fuzzy RCC is NP-complete, thus preserving the computational complexity of reasoning in the RCC, and we identify an important tractable subfragment. Moreover, we show how reasoning tasks in our fuzzy RCC can also be reduced to reasoning tasks in the original RCC. While this link with the RCC could be exploited in practical reasoning algorithms, we mainly focus on the theoretical consequences. In particular, using this link we establish a close relationship with the Egg-Yolk calculus, and we demonstrate that satisfiable knowledge bases can be realized by fuzzy regions in any dimension. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

spatial reasoning
region connection calculus
fuzzy set theory


Teachers' acceptance and use of an educational portal In this study, teachers' acceptance and use of an educational portal is assessed based on data from two sources: usage data (number of logins, downloads, uploads, reactions and pages viewed) and an online acceptance questionnaire. The usage data is extracted on two occasions from the portal's database: at survey completion (T1) and twenty-two months later (T2). Framework for this study is C-TAM-TPB (Combined Technology Acceptance Model and Theory of Planned Behavior). 919 usable responses from teachers are obtained. Based on the observed use data at T1, four types of portal users are distinguished: 'new' (N = 37), 'light' (N = 641), 'medium' (N = 201), and 'heavy' (N = 40). Path analyses show that all predictor variables in C-TAM-TPB influence teachers' portal acceptance, but their significance level varies depending on the user type. The strongest predictors of behavioral intention to use the portal are attitude ('new') and perceived usefulness ('light', 'medium' and 'heavy'), with variance explained ranging from .39 ('medium') to .71 ('heavy'). The observed use data show that the portal is primarily used to search for and download material, rather than for sharing material or information. The use data at 12 show that teachers become more efficient in their search behavior and that the majority of the teachers use the portal more frequently. Guidelines are proposed to policymakers and school boards aiming to introduce a similar technology to teachers. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

learning communities
secondary education
evaluation of cal systems
human-computer interface


The effect of computerized simulation games on the moral development of junior and senior high-school students This study deals with the use of a computerized therapeutic simulation game for raising the moral level of junior and senior high-school students. Subjects were asked to play a computerized simulation game dealing with a variety of moral dilemmas and to develop moral dilemmas on their own to be used in the game. The effects of the game on moral development were determined by a moral development measure (MOTEC) set out by Ziv (1976). The levels of moral development of a research group (N=25) and control group (N=23) were measured before and after the subjects' exposure to the game. A total of six indices of moral development were used. Three of the indices (moral stages, punishment, and posttransgressional reactions) revealed a positive effect on the participants. The study concludes with a discussion of the effects of the therapeutic game on moral development and the potential uses of such computerized games in the classroom.

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


Scafida: A Scale-Free Network Inspired Data Center Architecture Data centers have a crucial role in current Internet architecture supporting content-centric networking. State-of-the-art data centers have different architectures like fat-tree [16, 10], DCell [12], or BCube [11]. However, their architectures share a common property: symmetry. Due to their symmetric nature, a tricky point with these architectures is that they are hard to be extended in small quantities. Contrary to state-of-the-art data center architectures, we propose an asymmetric data center topology generation method called Scafida inspired by scale-free networks; these data centers have not only small diameters and high fault tolerance, inherited by scale-free networks, but can also be scaled in smaller and less homogenous increments. We extend the original scale-free network generation algorithm of Barabasi and Albert [5] to meet the physical constraints of switches and routers. Despite the fact that our method artificially limits the node degrees in the network, our data center architectures keep the preferable properties of scale-free networks. Based on extensive simulations we present preliminary results that are promising regarding the error tolerance, scalability, and flexibility of the architecture.

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

design
reliability
management
scale-free network


Optimal placement of sensors for contaminant detection based on detailed 3D CFD simulations Purpose - Develop a method for the optimal placement of sensors in order to detect the largest number of contaminant release scenarios with the minimum amount of sensors. Design/methodology/approach - The method considers the general sensor placement problem. Assuming a given number of sensors, every release scenario leads to a sensor input. The data recorded from all the possible release scenarios at all possible sensor locations allow the identification of the best or optimal sensor locations. Clearly, if only one sensor is to be placed, it should be at the location that recorded the highest number of releases. This argument can be used recursively by removing from further consideration all releases already recorded by sensors previously placed. Findings - The method developed works well. Examples showing the effect of different wind conditions and release locations demonstrate the effectiveness of the procedure. Practical implications - The method can be used to design sensor systems for cities, subway stations, stadiums, concert halls, high value residential areas, etc. Originality/value - The method is general, and can be used with other physics-based models (puff, mass-conservation, RANS, etc.). The investigation also shows that first-principles CFD models have matured sufficiently to be run in a timely manner on PCs, opening the way to optimization based on detailed physics.

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

optimization techniques
hazardous materials
mathematical analysis


Robustness of temporal logic specifications for continuous-time signals In this paper, we consider the robust interpretation of Metric Temporal Logic (MTL) formulas over signals that take values in metric spaces. For such signals, which are generated by systems whose states are equipped with non-trivial metrics, for example continuous or hybrid, robustness is not only natural, but also a critical measure of system performance. Thus, we propose multi-valued semantics for MTL formulas, which capture not only the usual Boolean satisfiability of the formula, but also topological information regarding the distance, epsilon, from unsatisfiability. We prove that any other signal that remains epsilon-close to the initial one also satisfies the same MTL specification under the usual Boolean semantics. Finally, our framework is applied to the problem of testing formulas of two fragments of MTL, namely Metric Interval Temporal Logic (MITL) and closed Metric Temporal Logic (clMTL), over continuous-time signals using only discrete-time analysis. The motivating idea behind our approach is that if the continuous-time signal fulfills certain conditions and the discrete-time signal robustly satisfies the temporal logic specification, then the corresponding continuous-time signal should also satisfy the same temporal logic specification. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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


A design of near perfect reconstruction linear-phase QMF banks based on hybrid steepest descent method In this paper, we propose a projection based design of near perfect reconstruction QMF banks. An advantage of this method is that additional design specifications are easily implemented by defining new convex sets. To apply convex projection technique, the main difficulty is how to approximate the design specifications by some closed convex sets. In this paper, introducing a notion of Magnitude Product Space where a pair of magnitude responses of analysis filters is expressed as a point, we approximate design requirements of QMF banks by multiple closed convex sets in this space. The proposed method iteratively applies a convex projection technique, Hybrid Steepest Descent Method, to find a point corresponding to the optimal analysis filters at each stage, where the closed convex sets are dynamically improved. Design examples show that the proposed design method leads to significant improvement over conventional design methods.

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

near perfect reconstruction
convex projection technique
hybrid steepest descent method
magnitude product space


a model-driven environment for the deployment of pervasive service-oriented applications Service-oriented computing (SOC) defines an application as an assembly of loosely coupled software elements: services. Nowadays, SOC is very technology-driven. Engineers have to deal with numerous technologies for describing, publishing services and creating and manipulating services applications. In particular, the deployment of serviceoriented applications is a complex task, restricted to experts. By deploying, we mean installing, activating, deactivating, maintaining and deinstalling. This paper presents a modeldriven approach for the context-aware deployment of service-oriented applications in constrained services execution environments. This approach is based on several deployment-oriented meta-models and has been implemented in a tool. This work has been validated on an industrial use case.

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

model-driven deployment
service-oriented computing (soc)
pervasive computing
model-driven engineering


Solid modeling of polyhedral objects by Layered Depth-Normal Images on the GPU We introduce a novel solid modeling framework taking advantage of the architecture of parallel computing on modern graphics hardware. Solid models in this framework are represented by an extension of the ray representation Layered Depth-Normal Images (LDNI), which inherits the good properties of Boolean simplicity, localization and domain decoupling. The defect of ray representation in computational intensity has been overcome by the newly developed parallel algorithms running on the graphics hardware equipped with Graphics Processing Unit (GPU). The LDNI for a solid model whose boundary is represented by a closed polygonal mesh can be generated efficiently with the help of hardware accelerated sampling. The parallel algorithm for computing Boolean operations on two LDNI solids runs well on modern graphics hardware. A parallel algorithm is also introduced in this paper to convert LDNI solids to sharp-feature preserved polygonal mesh surfaces, which can be used in downstream applications (e.g.,finite element analysis). Different from those GPU-based techniques for rendering CSG-tree of solid models Hable and Rossignac (2007, 2005) [1]and[2], we compute and store the shape of objects in solid modeling completely on graphics hardware. This greatly eliminates the communication bottleneck between the graphics memory and the main memory.

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 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

solid modeler
complex objects
layered depth-normal images


WARRANTY CARDS AS A NEW SOURCE OF INDUSTRIAL MARKETING INFORMATION The paper proposes a solution to the information gap between industrial and marketing managers and their dealers. It outlines a model and a decision support system (DSS) which can turn warranty card data into operational information for forecasting retail sales and dealer inventories. The model is based on the average time in distribution (ATD), a new statistic calculated from warranty cards returned by customers. While warranty card returns are highly random both in number and arrival rate, the ATD is a relatively stable indicator of retail activities, providing an additional perspective on sales and forecasting. A possible system design is proposed by which the manager can manipulate such data in order to support his or her decisions.

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

dealer inventory
decision support system (dss)
simulation
age distribution


Semantics-based dynamic Web Service composition This paper presents a semantics-based dynamic service composition architecture that composes an application through combining distributed components based on the semantics of the components. This architecture consists of a component model called Component Service Model with Semantics (CoSMoS), a middleware called Component Runtime Environment (CoRE), and a service composition mechanism called Semantic Graph based Service Composition (SeGSeC). CoSMoS represents the semantics of components. CoRE provides interfaces to discover and access components modeled by CoSMoS. SeGSeC composes an application by discovering components through CoRE, and synthesizing a workflow of the application based on the semantics of the components modeled by CoSMoS. This paper describes the latest design of the semantics-based dynamic service composition architecture, and also illustrates the implementation of the architecture based on the Web Service standards, i.e. WSDL, RDF, SOAP, and UDDL The Web Service based implementation of the architecture allows existing Web Services to migrate onto the architecture without reimplementation. It also simplifies the development and deployment of a new Web Service on the architecture by automatically generating the necessary description files (i.e. WSDL and RDF files) of the Web Service from its runtime binary (i.e. a Java class file).

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

dynamic service composition
semantics
web service
component model


MPI-LAPl: An efficient implementation of MPI for IBM RS/6000 SP systems The IBM RS/6000 SP system is one of the most cost-effective commercially available high performance machines. IBM RS/6000 SP systems support the Message Passing Interface standard (MPI) and LAPI. LAPI is a low level, reliable, and efficient one-sided communication API library implemented on IBM IRS/6000 SP systems. This paper explains how the high performance of the LAPI library has been exploited in order to implement the MPI standard more efficiently than the existing MPI. It describes how to avoid unnecessary data copies at both the sending and receiving sides for such an implementation. The resolution of problems arising from the mismatches between the requirements of the MPI standard and the features of LAPI is discussed. As a result of this exercise, certain enhancements to LAPI are identified to enable an efficient implementation of MPI on LAPI. The performance of the new implementation of MPI is compared with that of the underlying LAPI itself. The latency (in polling and interrupt modes) and bandwidth of our new implementation is compared with that of the native MPI implementation on RS/6000 SP systems. The results indicate that the MPI implementation on LAPI performs comparably to or better than the original MPI implementation in most cases. Improvements of up to 17.3 percent in polling mode latency, 35.8 percent in interrupt mode latency, and 20.9 percent in bandwidth are obtained for certain message sizes. The implementation of MPI on top of LAPI also outperforms the native MPI implementation for the NAS Parallel Benchmarks.

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

interprocessor communication
fast messaging layers
networks of workstations
message passing interface (mpi)
clustering


Knowledge-Based Risk Management framework for Information Technology project The purpose of this paper is to explore the field of Risk Management (RM) in relation with Knowledge Management (KM). It attempts to present a conceptual framework, called Knowledge-Based Risk Management (KBRM) that employs KM processes to improve its effectiveness and increase the probability of success in innovative Information Technology (IT) projects. It addresses initiatives towards employing KM processes in RM processes by reviewing, interpreting the related and relevant literature and sheds light on integration with RM in the IT project. The paper exposes some pertinent elements needed for building the KBRM framework for IT projects and also suggests some instrument about the integration of KM and RM process to improve the RRP (Risk Response Planning) process efficiency. This paper will contribute to the literature and practice by providing a clear method for employing KBRM as a framework to keep organizations competitive within the business environment.

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

risk management knowledge
knowledge-based risk management
risk response planning


Options valuation by using radial basis function approximation This paper describes the valuation scheme of European, barrier, and Asian options of single asset by using radial basis function approximation. The option prices are governed with BlackScholes equation. The equation is discretized with CrankNicolson scheme and then, the option price is approximated with the radial basis functions with unknown parameters. In the European and the barrier options, the prices are governed with BlackScholes equation. The governing option of the Asian option, however, is different from them of the others. In that case, one has to adopt the other radial basis functions than that for the original BlackScholes equation. Finally, numerical results are compared with theoretical and finite difference solutions in order to confirm the validity of the present formulation.

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

option contract
european option
barrier option


Continuous space maximal coverage: Insights, advances and challenges Siting facilities in continuous space to maximize coverage of regional demand is an important planning problem. It is challenging to solve because demand is continuously distributed in a region and facilities may be sited anywhere in the region, suggesting that an infinite number of locations must be considered both as demand for service as well as a potential facility. An ingenious approach for solving continuous space coverage problems is abstracting continuously distributed demand as discrete spatial objects (points, lines or polygons), generating a finite dominating set from continuous space as candidate facility sites, and applying a discrete location coverage model. However, abstracting continuous demand and potential facility sites often introduces errors and uncertainties in coverage of regional demand, rendering findings (service and optimal facility locations) less than definitive. In this paper we examine the continuous space maximal coverage problem. Studies focused on locating antennas in Paradise Valley, Arizona and emergency warning sirens in Dublin, Ohio, are used to highlight issues and challenges in continuous space modeling. Potential paths forward are suggested based on empirical insights.

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

continuous space
coverage
finite dominating set


New algorithms for mining the reputation of participants of online auctions The assessment of credibility and reputation of contractors in online auctions is the key issue in providing reliable environment for customer-to-customer e-commerce. Confident reputation rating system is an important factor in managing risk and building customer satisfaction. Unfortunately, most online auction sites employ a very simple reputation rating scheme that utilizes user feedbacks and comments issued after committed auctions. Such schemes are easy to deceive and do not provide satisfactory protection against several types of fraud. In this paper we propose two novel measures of trustworthiness, namely, credibility and density. We draw inspiration from social network analysis and present two algorithms for reputation rating estimation. Our first algorithm computes the credibility of participants by an iterative search of inter-participant connections. Our second algorithm discovers clusters of participants who are densely connected through committed auctions. We test both measures on real-world data and we experimentally compare them with existing solutions.

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


language-based replay via data flow cut A replay tool aiming to reproduce a program's execution interposes itself at an appropriate replay interface between the program and the environment. During recording, it logs all non-deterministic side effects passing through the interface from the environment and feeds them back during replay. The replay interface is critical for correctness and recording overhead of replay tools. iTarget is a novel replay tool that uses programming language techniques to automatically seek a replay interface that both ensures correctness and minimizes recording overhead. It performs static analysis to extract data flows, estimates their recording costs via dynamic profiling, computes an optimal replay interface that minimizes the recording overhead, and instruments the program accordingly for interposition. Experimental results show that iTarget can successfully replay complex C programs, including Apache web server and Berkeley DB, and that it can reduce the log size by up to two orders of magnitude and slowdown by up to 50\%.

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


Empirical Hardness Models: Methodology and a Case Study on Combinatorial Auctions Is it possible to predict how long an algorithm will take to solve a previously-unseen instance of an NP-complete problem? If so, what uses can be found for models that make such predictions? This article provides answers to these questions and evaluates the answers experimentally. We propose the use of supervised machine learning to build models that predict an algorithm's runtime given a problem instance. We discuss the construction of these models and describe techniques for interpreting them to gain understanding of the characteristics that cause instances to be hard or easy. We also present two applications of our models: building algorithm portfolios that outperform their constituent algorithms, and generating test distributions that emphasize hard problems. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our techniques in a case study of the combinatorial auction winner determination problem. Our experimental results show that we can build very accurate models of an algorithm's running time, interpret our models, build an algorithm portfolio that strongly outperforms the best single algorithm, and tune a standard benchmark suite to generate much harder problem instances.

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

algorithm portfolios
combinatorial auctions

design
economics
experimentation
measurement
performance
empirical analysis of algorithms
runtime prediction


an online condition number query system Condition number of a matrix is an important measure in numerical analysis and linear algebra. It is a measure of stability or sensitivity of a matrix to numerical operations. However, the direct computation of the condition number of a matrix is very expensive in terms of CPU and memory cost, and becomes prohibitive for large size matrices. We propose to use data mining techniques to estimate the condition number of a given sparse matrix. In particular, we will use Support Vector Machine (SVM) to predict the condition numbers. That is, after computing the sparsity pattern features of a matrix, we use support vector regression (SVR) to predict its condition number. This Online Condition Number Query System (OCNQS) allows the users to submit their matrices and to obtain predicted condition numbers for their matrices. The accuracy of our prediction methods may not be as precise as the direct computation methods, but it is much faster. Our online system accepts matrices in Harwell-Boeing (HB) format and in standard MATLAB format. The users can use our system to estimate the condition number of their matrices through LAPACK software as well.

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


Capability curve based enhanced reactive power control strategy for stability enhancement and network voltage management Capability curve based coordinated reactive power controller for the DFIG. Impact of extended reactive power capability of the DFIG on network stability enhancement. Utilisation of partially loaded DFIG wind farms as dynamic reactive power resources. Network adaptive droop control methods and their feasibility for network voltage control.

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

capability curve
droop control
reactive power
voltage control

doubly-fed induction generators (dfig)
voltage stability


handheld usability Handheld devices have common challenges: small displays, awkward data input mechanisms, and spotty wireless connectivity. Good user interface design can overcome each of these challenges, or at least accommodate them in a fashion that benefits the user. The goal of this tutorial is to present challenges and strategies for designing user interfaces for handheld devices. It discusses how information architecture, paper prototyping, and usability testing are adapted from desktop software design for two-way email pagers, PDAs, and mobile telephone handsets. WAP, i-mode, RIM OS, Motorola Wisdom, Windows CE/Pocket PC, and Symbian OS will also be introduced.

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


why cryptosystems fail Designers of cryptographic systems are at a disadvantage to most other engineers, in that information on how their systems fail is hard to get: their major users have traditionally been government agencies, which are very secretive about their mistakes. In this article, we present the results of a survey of the failure modes of retail banking systems, which constitute the next largest application of cryptology. It turns out that the threat model commonly used by cryptosystem designers was wrong: most frauds were not caused by cryptanalysis or other technical attacks, but by implementation errors and management failures. This suggests that a paradigm shift is overdue in computer security; we look at some of the alternatives, and see some signs that this shift may be getting under way.

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

systems cryptanalysis users survey implementation model errors management failure

applications computation informal attack governance


Effect of porogen residue on electrical characteristics of ultra low-k materials Porogen residue (sp2 hybridized carbon) formed during UV curing of low-k materials increases leakage current and decreases breakdown voltage of low-k materials. The amount of porogen residue increases with increasing porosity of PECVD low-k films because of larger amount of co-deposited porogen. Electrical characteristics of PECVD ultra low-k films are significantly worse in comparison with CVD and SOG low-k film prepared without porogen. SOG low-k films prepared by self-assembling of nanocrystalline silica demonstrate very low leakage current. Removal of porogen residue significantly improves the electrical characteristics. Therefore, preparation of porogen residue free low-k films is an important challenge of future scaling of low-k materials.

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


Unicorn: Parallel adaptive finite element simulation of turbulent flow and fluid-structure interaction for deforming domains and complex geometry We present a framework for adaptive finite element computation of turbulent flow and fluid structure interaction, with focus on general algorithms that allow for complex geometry and deforming domains. We give basic models and finite element discretization methods, adaptive algorithms and strategies for efficient parallel implementation. To illustrate the capabilities of the computational framework, we show a number of application examples from aerodynamics, aero-acoustics, biomedicine and geophysics. The computational tools are free to download open source as Unicorn, and as a high performance branch of the finite element problem solving environment DOLFIN, both part of the FEniCS project. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

unicorn
dolfin
fenics
turbulent flow
fluid structure interaction
complex geometry

parallel adaptive finite element method
open source software
deforming domain


A generalized contraction principle in partial metric spaces In this paper, we prove fixed point theorems for generally contractive mappings in complete partial metric spaces. Theorems presented are generalizations of recent fixed point theorems of D. Ilic, V. Pavlovic, and V. Rakocevic. An example is also stated that illustrates our results are extensions of their theorems. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

fixed point theorems
partial metric spaces
generally contractive mappings


purpose based access control of complex data for privacy protection As privacy becomes a major concern for both consumers and enterprises, many research efforts have been devoted to the development of privacy protecting technology. We recently proposed a privacy preserving access control model for relational databases,where purpose information associated with a given data element specifies the intended use of the data element. In this paper, we extend our previous work to handle other advanced data managementsystems, such as the ones based on XML and the ones based on the object-relational data model. Another contribution of our paper isthat we address the problem of how to determine the purpose forwhich certain data are accessed by a given user. Our proposedsolution relies on the well-known RBAC model as well as the notionof conditional role which is based on the notions of role attributeand system attribute.

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


Multi-view 3D Human Pose Estimation in Complex Environment We introduce a framework for unconstrained 3D human upper body pose estimation from multiple camera views in complex environment. Its main novelty lies in the integration of three components: single-frame pose recovery, temporal integration and model texture adaptation. Single-frame pose recovery consists of a hypothesis generation stage, in which candidate 3D poses are generated, based on probabilistic hierarchical shape matching in each camera view. In the subsequent hypothesis verification stage, the candidate 3D poses are re-projected into the other camera views and ranked according to a multi-view likelihood measure. Temporal integration consists of computing K-best trajectories combining a motion model and observations in a Viterbi-style maximum-likelihood approach. Poses that lie on the best trajectories are used to generate and adapt a texture model, which in turn enriches the shape likelihood measure used for pose recovery. The multiple trajectory hypotheses are used to generate pose predictions, augmenting the 3D pose candidates generated at the next time step. We demonstrate that our approach outperforms the state-of-the-art in experiments with large and challenging real-world data from an outdoor setting.

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

human motion capture
articulated pose recovery
human computer interaction
surveillance


Robust voice activity detection directed by noise classification In this paper voice activity detection (VAD) is formulated as a two-class classification problem using support vector machines (SVM). The proposed method combines a noise robust speech processing feature extraction process together with SVM models trained in different background noises for speech/non-speech classification. A multi-class SVM is also used to classify background noises in order to select SVM model for VAD. The proposed VAD is tested with TIMIT data artificially distorted by different additive noise types and is compared with state-of-the-art VADs. Experimental results show that the proposed VAD can extract speech activity under poor SNR conditions, and it is also insensitive to variable levels of noise.

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

voice activity detection
noise classification

perceptual wavelet packet transform
support vector machine


knowing a web page by the company it keeps Web page classification is important to many tasks in information retrieval and web mining. However, applying traditional textual classifiers on web data often produces unsatisfying results. Fortunately, hyperlink information provides important clues to the categorization of a web page. In this paper, an improved method is proposed to enhance web page classification by utilizing the class information from neighboring pages in the link graph. The categories represented by four kinds of neighbors (parents, children, siblings and spouses) are combined to help with the page in question. In experiments to study the effect of these factors on our algorithm, we find that the method proposed is able to boost the classification accuracy of common textual classifiers from around 70\% to more than 90\% on a large dataset of pages from the Open Directory Project, and outperforms existing algorithms. Unlike prior techniques, our approach utilizes same-host links and can improve classification accuracy even when neighboring pages are unlabeled. Finally, while all neighbor types can contribute, sibling pages are found to be the most important.

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

help
web
project
links
paper
hyperlink
classification
children
method
accuracy
types
data
graph
algorithm
effect
information retrieval
class
neighboring

paging
experience
informal
linking
svm
rainbow
factor
web page
boosting
web page classification
categorical
web mining
classifiation


Synthesis of tile sets for DNA self-assembly This paper addresses the issues revolving around the synthesis of tile sets for DNA self-assembly as a promising approach for IC manufacturing in the nanoscale. As for a finite pattern, synthesis for minimizing tile or bond types is equivalent to a minimum graph coloring problem, two greedy algorithms that reduce the number of tiles (PATS-Tile) or bonds (PATS-Bond) in synthesized tile sets are proposed and evaluated. Both algorithms are 0(14) for a square pattern of dimension l. It is shown by simulation that PATS-Tile has a better average performance if both types of reduction must be accomplished.

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

dna self-assembly
nanoscale manufacturing
tile set
tile synthesis


A hybrid genetic-neural architecture for stock indexes forecasting In this paper, a new approach for time series forecasting is presented. The forecasting activity results from the interaction of a population of experts, each integrating genetic and neural technologies. An expert of this kind embodies a genetic classifier designed to control the activation of a feedforward artificial neural network for performing a locally scoped forecasting activity. Genetic and neural components are supplied with different information: The former deal with inputs encoding information retrieved from technical analysis, whereas the latter process other relevant inputs, in particular past stock prices. To investigate the performance of the proposed approach in response to real data, a stock market forecasting system has been implemented and tested on two stock market indexes, allowing for account realistic trading commissions. The results pointed to the good forecasting capability of the approach, which repeatedly outperformed the Buy and Hold strategy.

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

time series prediction
genetic algorithms
extended classifier systems
artificial neural networks


On the design and analysis of competent selecto-recombinative GAs In this paper, we study two recent theoretical models-a population-sizing model and a convergence model-and examine their assumptions to gain insights into the conditions under which selecto-recombinative GAs work well. We use these insights to formulate several design rules to develop competent GAs for practical problems. To test the usefulness of the design rules, we consider as a case study the map-labeling problem, an NP-hard problem from cartography. We compare the predictions of the theoretical models with the actual performance of the GA for the map-labeling problem. Experiments show that the predictions match the observed scale-up behavior of the GA, thereby strengthening our claim that the design rules can guide the design of competent selecto-recombinative GAs for realistic problems.

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

map labeling
scalability
competent selecto-recombinative gas
population sizing
convergence analysis


Outlier robust point correspondence based on GNCCP Point correspondence is formulated as the minimization of a quadratic objective. It directly targets at finding a specified number of best vertex assignments. GNCCP, a combinatorial optimization framework, is used to optimize the objective. The method can be applied to both undirected and directed graphs.

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


web question answering through automatically learned patterns While being successful in providing keyword based access to web pages, commercial search portals, such as Google, Yahoo, AltaVista, and AOL, still lack the ability to answer questions expressed in a natural language. We explore the feasibility of a completely trainable approach to the automated question answering on the Web or large scale digital libraries. By using the inherent redundancy of large scale collections, each candidate answer found by the system is triangulated (confirmed or disconfirmed) against other possible answers. Since our approach is entirely self-learning and does not involve any linguistic resources it can be easily implemented within digital libraries or Web search portals.

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


teaching computer communication skills using case study method Modern management activities involve extensive usage of computer communication services. The poster summarizes experience in teaching these skills on the basis of case study method. Two scenarios of computer game involving extensive usage of communication software and implementation of group decision making model are presented.

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

information technology
group decision support systems


Influence of oxygen precipitates on the warpage of annealed silicon wafers The warpage of conventional Czochralski (CZ) and nitrogen-doped Czochralski silicon (NCZ) wafers with similar oxygen concentration were investigated. In the experiments, a two-step annealing process was taken to generate oxygen precipitates. After the elevated temperature annealing, no obvious warpage in both the CZ and NCZ silicon wafers was found, even if nitrogen was found to enhance oxygen precipitation and the stronger internal stresses were detected at the edge and center of an annealed wafer. It is considered that oxygen precipitates with relatively smaller sizes were successful in preventing the warpage of the silicon wafers, which is mainly dependent on thermal stress, because the oxygen precipitates can pin dislocations.

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

warpage
nitrogen
oxygen precipitates
silicon


an image mosaicing module for wide-area surveillance This paper presents a fully automatic image mosaicing method for needs of wide-area video surveillance. A pure feature-based approach was adopted for finding the registration between the images. This approach provides us with several advantages. Our method is robust against illumination variations, moving objects, image rotation, image scaling, imaging noise, and is relatively fast to calculate. We have tested the performance of the proposed method against several video sequences captured from real-world scenes. The results clearly justify our approach.

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


New results on large sets of Kirkman triple systems The existence problem on the large sets of Kirkman triple systems (LKTS) was posed by Sylvester in 1850's as an extension of Kirkman's 15 schoolgirls problem. An LKTS(15) was constructed by Denniston in 1974. However, up to now the smallest unknown order for the existence of LKTS is still 21. In this paper we construct the two smallest unknown LKTS(v)s with v = 21 and v = 39 by using multiplier automorphism groups. Applying known recursive constructions, we show the existence of more infinite classes of large sets of Kirkman triple systems.

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

large set
steiner triple system
kirkman triple system


A hybrid solution to the multi-robot integrated exploration problem In this paper we present a hybrid reactive/deliberative approach to the multi-robot integrated exploration problem. In contrast to other works, the design of the reactive and deliberative processes is exclusively oriented to the exploration having both the same importance level. The approach is based on the concepts of expected safe zone and gateway cell. The reactive exploration of the expected safe zone of the robot by means of basic behaviours avoids the presence of local minima. Simultaneously, a planner builds up a decision tree in order to decide between exploring the current expected safe zone or changing to other zone by means of travelling to a gateway cell. Furthermore, the model takes into account the degree of localization of the robots to return to previously explored areas when it is necessary to recover the certainty in the position of the robots. Several simulations demonstrate the validity of the approach.

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

integrated exploration
expected safe zone
gateway cell

hybrid architecture
cooperative robots
exploration tree


BioTile, A Perl based tool for the identification of differentially enriched regions in tiling microarray data Genome-wide tiling array experiments are increasingly used for the analysis of DNA methylation. Because DNA methylation patterns are tissue and cell type specific, the detection of differentially methylated regions (DMRs) with small effect size is a necessary feature of tiling microarray peak finding algorithms, as cellular heterogeneity within a studied tissue may lead to a dilution of the phenotypically relevant effects. Additionally, the ability to detect short length DMRs is necessary as biologically relevant signal may occur in focused regions throughout the genome.

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

differentially methylated region
algorithm
epigenetic


Mechanical verification of Lamport's Bakery algorithm Proof assistants like PVS can be used fruitfully for the design and verification of concurrent algorithms. The technique is presented here by applying it to Lamport's Bakery algorithm. The proofs for safety properties such as mutual exclusion, first-come first-served, and absence of deadlock are based on invariants. The argument for liveness (progress) is given in a set-theoretic version of temporal logic. Liveness requires the assumption of weak fairness and holds only for executions with not more than finitely many fault steps per process. The condition of finitely many faults can be removed by postulating strong fairness. The algorithm and its verification are extended to allow unboundedly many processes, by means of expandable arrays and weak atomic snapshots. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

shared variables
safe variables
fcfs
mechanical theorem proving


Random vibration testing with kurtosis control by IFFT phase manipulation Non-Gaussian random shaker testing with kurtosis control is introduced in the paper as a way of increasing or decreasing the excitation crest factor (CF). The CF increase is required for more accurate simulation of ground vehicle vibrations and the CF decrease is useful in other applications such as modal testing. Using kurtosis as a measure of CF behavior leads to closed-form solution for making the IFFT generation non-Gaussian by special phase manipulation. A universal phase selection procedure capable of modeling random excitations with a high or low kurtosis has been developed. Because of the analytical solution advantage, the proposed phase method meets time restrictions critical for shaker controller operation. Low CF values achieved by the suggested analytical kurtosis-based solution are close enough to those obtained by the known method of sequential moment minimization, which considers moments of higher order but by numerical optimization only. In the case of CF increase, the developed phase manipulation algorithm randomizes high peaks in terms of their amplitude, position, and the number of severe peaks per data block. This ensures realistic variability of high peak behavior distinct from having just one high peak of narrow height variation in all data blocks as in another known approach of on-band phase limiting that is also a numerical technique, not an analytical solution as the proposed method.

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


leveling the cs1 playing field This paper includes several reasons for the underrepresentation of women in computing, and then describes two low-cost project instances that address the reasons for the decline in women's enrollment in computing classes. One project spans seven semesters from fall 2000 to spring 2006 at a small liberal arts school; the other, the spring 2006 semester at a large research institution. Concluding sections provide anecdotal and statistical evidence that the project is successful over two time periods within two diverse schools.

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


Two-prover protocols - Low error at affordable rates We introduce the miss-match form for two-prover one-round proof systems. Any two-prover one-round proof system can be easily modified so as to be in miss-match form. Proof systems in miss-match form have the projection property that is important for deriving hardness of approximation results for NP-hard combinatorial optimization problems. Our main result is an upper bound on the number of parallel repetitions that su ce in order to reduce the error of miss-match proof systems from p to epsilon. This upper bound depends only on p and on epsilon (polynomial in 1/(1 - p) and in 1/epsilon). Based on previous work, it follows that for any epsilon > 0, NP has two-prover one-round proof systems with logarithmic-sized questions, constant-sized answers, and error at most. As part of our proof we prove upper bounds on the influence of random variables on multivariate functions, which may be of independent interest.

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

interactive proof systems
complexity theory


Linearity and PCF: a Semantic Insight! Linearity is a multi-faceted and ubiquitous notion in the analysis and the development of programming language concepts. We study linearity in a denotational perspective by picking out programs that correspond to linear functions between coherence spaces. We introduce a language, named SlPCF(star), that increases the higher-order expressivity of a linear core of PCF by means of new operators related to exception handling and parallel evaluation. SlPCF(star) allows us to program all the finite elements of the model and, consequently, it entails a full abstraction result that makes the reasoning on the equivalence between programs simpler. Denotational linearity provides also crucial information for the operational evaluation of programs. We formalize two evaluation machineries for the language. The first one is an abstract and concise operational semantics designed with the aim of explaining the new operators, and is based on an infinite-branching search of the evaluation space. The second one is more concrete and it prunes such a space, by exploiting the linear assumptions. This can also be regarded as a base for an implementation.

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

languages
theory
design
linear logic
denotational semantics


Identification techniques of functions approximating magnetization characteristics of synchronous machines Purpose - The aim of the paper is to present the approximation methods of the magnetizing characteristics of the salient pole synchronous machines with the fundamental MMF harmonics. Design/methodology/approach - The energy based approach is used to formulate a set of the functions approximating the magnetic flux linkages versus an equivalent magnetizing current in the circuit model of the synchronous machine. The estimation of the approximation functions parameters is based on the results of the field calculations. Findings - The identification of the approximation functions is effective and significantly simpler on the basis of the magnetic field co-energy function, than on the basis of the magnetic flux linkages. Research limitations/implications - The magnetic field co-energy function determined by FEM is sufficient for simplified calculations of the magnetic parameters occurring in the circuit models of the electrical machines with nonlinear core. Practical implications - The paper provides guidance for the circuit modelling of the multi-pole generators and motors under conditions of magnetic saturation. Originality/value - A paper has succeeded in determining the internal magnetic characteristics of the synchronous machine with a salient pole rotor.

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

magnetic co-energy
mathematical modelling
parameter estimation
magnetism


A phasor model with resting states A new phasor model of neural networks is proposed in which the state of each neuron possibly takes the value at the origin as well as on the unit circle. A stability property of equilibria is studied in association with the energy landscape. It is shown that a simple condition guarantees an equilibrium to be asymptotically stable.

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

associative memory
complex-valued neuron
stability analysis
lyapunov theory


Representing Popov v Hayashi with dimensions and factors Modelling reasoning with legal cases has been a central concern of AI and Law since the 1980s. The approach which represents cases as factors and dimensions has been a central part of that work. In this paper I consider how several varieties of the approach can be applied to the interesting case of Popov v Hayashi. After briefly reviewing some of the key landmarks of the approach, the case is represented in terms of factors and dimensions, and further explored using theory construction and argumentation schemes approaches.

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


Sustainable simultaneous communications in ad-hoc networks using smart antenna systems This article proposes an analytical model for evaluating the number of simultaneous communications that can be sustained by an ad-hoc network in which the nodes are equipped with fully adaptive smart antennas. The presented mathematical framework adopts realistic models for the antenna radiation pattern and the channel behavior, and is able to take into account the network topology and the characteristics of the medium access control (MAC) protocol in the spatial domain. The model is employed to investigate the impact of the spatial channel model and of the angular spread on network performance. Additionally, this article examines the influence of the transmission policy of the control and data packets of the MAC layer on the number of simultaneous communications.

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

medium access control
smart antenna
angular spread
spatial channel model


Representation of Continuous Functions and Its Applications In this work, we introduce a Representation of continuous real-valued functions defined over a real Hilbert space. As a consequence, we can introduce a Sandwich Theorem for semi-continuous functions, a Separation Theorem for closed sets and a representation Theorem of lower semi-continuous functions.

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

sandwich theorem
separation theorem
representation theorem


Application of the RIMARC algorithm to a large data set of action potentials and clinical parameters for risk prediction of atrial fibrillation Ex vivo recorded action potentials (APs) in human right atrial tissue from patients in sinus rhythm (SR) or atrial fibrillation (AF) display a characteristic spike-and-dome or triangular shape, respectively, but variability is huge within each rhythm group. The aim of our study was to apply the machine-learning algorithm ranking instances by maximizing the area under the ROC curve (RIMARC) to a large data set of 480 APs combined with retrospectively collected general clinical parameters and to test whether the rules learned by the RIMARC algorithm can be used for accurately classifying the preoperative rhythm status. APs were included from 221 SR and 158 AF patients. During a learning phase, the RIMARC algorithm established a ranking order of 62 features by predictive value for SR or AF. The model was then challenged with an additional test set of features from 28 patients in whom rhythm status was blinded. The accuracy of the risk prediction for AF by the model was very good (0.93) when all features were used. Without the seven AP features, accuracy still reached 0.71. In conclusion, we have shown that training the machine-learning algorithm RIMARC with an experimental and clinical data set allows predicting a classification in a test data set with high accuracy. In a clinical setting, this approach may prove useful for finding hypothesis-generating associations between different parameters.

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

atrial fibrillation
risk prediction
rimarc algorithm
clinical parameters


Automatic articulation error detection tool for Punjabi language with aid for hearing impaired people Articulation errors are common in children but may also persist in adulthood. These errors decrease the speech intelligibility and hamper the ability of a person to communicate properly. A speech language pathologist carefully examines the speech to identify the articulation error patterns. It is exhaustive and time consuming process. This information about the patterns of articulation disorders is then used in treatment. In this paper, a noble approach has been presented to automatically detect the articulation error patterns in Punjabi speech. To provide support for hearing impaired people, a picture naming task has been developed. The proposed tool processes recorded spoken words and outputs the articulation error patterns i.e. substitution and omission of particular phonemes and their position in the spoken word. The basic principles of speech word recognition are used to establish the articulation errors in speech samples. The rigorous experimentation has shown that the proposed tool is accurate in identifying the articulation error patterns in controlled environment.

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

classification using support vector machines and voting


Computers, justification, and mathematical knowledge The original proof of the four-color theorem by Appel and Haken sparked a controversy when Tymoczko used it to argue that the justification provided by unsurveyable proofs carried out by computers cannot be a priori. It also created a lingering impression to the effect that such proofs depend heavily for their soundness on large amounts of computation-intensive custom-built software. Contra Tymoczko, we argue that the justification provided by certain computerized mathematical proofs is not fundamentally different from that provided by surveyable proofs, and can be sensibly regarded as a priori. We also show that the aforementioned impression is mistaken because it fails to distinguish between proof search (the context of discovery) and proof checking (the context of justification). By using mechanized proof assistants capable of producing certificates that can be independently checked, it is possible to carry out complex proofs without the need to trust arbitrary custom-written code. Vie only need to trust one fixed, small, and simple piece of software: the proof checker. This is not only possible in principle, but is in fact becoming a viable methodology for performing complicated mathematical reasoning. This is evinced by a new proof of the four-color theorem that appeared in 2005, and which was developed and checked in its entirety by a mechanical proof system.

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

a priori
justification
proofs
certificates
mathematical knowledge


Practical use of a latent semantic analysis (LSA) model for automatic evaluation of written answers This paper presents research of an application of a latent semantic analysis (LSA) model for the automatic evaluation of short answers (25 to 70 words) to open-ended questions. In order to reach a viable application of this LSA model, the research goals were as follows: (1) to develop robustness, (2) to increase accuracy, and (3) to widen portability. The methods consisted of the following tasks: firstly, the implementation of word bigrams; secondly, the implementation of combined models of unigrams and bigrams using multiple linear regression; and, finally, the addition of an adjustment step after the score attribution taking into consideration the average of the words of the answers. The corpus was composed by 359 answers produced according to two questions from a Brazilian public universitys entrance examination, which were previously scored by human evaluators. The results demonstrate that the experiments produced accuracy about 84.94 %, while the accuracy of the two human evaluators was about 84.93 %. In conclusion, it can be seen that the automatic evaluation technology shows that it is reaching a high level of efficiency.

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

lsa
automatic evaluation
accuracy
unigrams
bigrams


A Windows program to aid in MMPI-2 interpretation The MMPI-2 Assistant is designed and distributed to respond to certain criticisms of commercially available interpretation programs. The Assistant is intended for adult psychiatric patient profiles only. The Assistant does not send output directly to a printer, but rather writes output to a rich text format disk file, to encourage editing and inclusion of additional information. The rules for each interpretive hypothesis precede that hypothesis both on the screen and in the output file. The program is available only upon certification that the requestor meets the authors rules for its use, including professional licensure, appropriate training and target population. Finally, research is encouraged by making the program available to qualified psychologists at no charge.

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