Network Coded Transmission in a Wireless Grid Network with an Energy Constraint In wireless networks, routing based on packet forwarding does hardly yield optimum transmission performance in terms of network utilization and throughput. As an alternative to routing, network coding has been introduced in the recent years, where nodes are mixing the data instead of forwarding. In applications, random linear network coding is the most used method, due to its decentralized mode, and due to preserving the achievability of multicast capacity bounds. In this paper, we study the performance of network coding used for multicast transmission of messages in a wireless grid network with an energy constraint. Several energy saving schemes have been proposed in the literature, but in this study we will focus on duty cycling scheme, in which nodes are not always in on state. The performance is measured as the end-to-end delay, i.e. the duration until each node can decode the message sent by the source, and the CDF of observations is used to make analysis.

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


evaluating design alternatives for reliable communication on high-speed networks We systematically evaluate the performance of five implementations of a single, user-level communication interface. Each implementation makes different architectural assumptions about the reliability of the network hardware and the capabilities of the network interface. The implementations differ accordingly in their division of protocol tasks between host software, network-interface firmware, and network hardware. Using microbenchmarks, parallel-programming systems, and parallel applications, we assess the performance impact of different protocol decompositions. We show how moving protocol tasks to a relatively slow network interface yields both performance advantages and disadvantages, depending on the characteristics of the application and the underlying parallel-programming system. In particular, we show that a communication system that assumes highly reliable network hardware and that uses network-interface support to process multicast traffic performs best for all applications.

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

communication network software applications systems capabilities reliability parallel design performance implementation multicast process support hardware traffic

architecture
parallel programming
interfaces
communication systems
evaluation
user


Neural net based hybrid modeling of the methanol synthesis process A Hybrid modeling approach, combining an analytical model with a radial basis function neural network is introduced in this paper. The modeling procedure is combined with genetic algorithm based feature selection designed to select informative variables from the set of available measurements. By only using informative inputs, the model's generalization ability can be enhanced. The approach proposed is applied to modeling of the liquid-phase methanol synthesis. It is shown that a hybrid modeling approach exploiting available a priori knowledge and experimental data can considerably outperform a purely analytical approach.

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

hybrid modeling
feature selection
methanol synthesis


Optimal admissible composition of abstraction heuristics Additive ensembles of admissible heuristics constitute the most general form of exploiting the individual strengths of numerous admissible heuristics in optimal planning. However, the same set of heuristics can be additively composed in infinitely many ways and the quality of the resulting heuristic estimate depends directly on the choice of the composition. Focusing on abstraction heuristics, we describe a procedure that takes a deterministic planning problem, a forward-search state, and a set of abstraction-based admissible heuristics, and derives an optimal additive composition of these heuristics with respect to the given state. Most importantly, we show that this procedure is polynomial-time for arbitrary sets of all abstraction heuristics with which we are acquainted, including explicit abstractions such as pattern databases (regular or constrained) and merge-and-shrink, and implicit abstractions such as fork-decomposition and abstractions based on tractable constraint optimization over tree-shaped constraint networks. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

planning
admissible heuristics
abstractions


Design of optimal binary filters under joint multiresolutionenvelope constraint This paper examines binary filter design by jointly applying multiresolution design and envelope constraint. In multiresolution design, the value of the designed filter for a configuration is defined at a resolution sufficiently low to have observed the configuration. Preference is given to higher resolutions, but the number of training observations is taken into account. In envelope design, the designed filter is constrained to lie in the envelope between two humanly designed filters. For small samples, the envelope-designed filter has the benefit of being in accord with expert knowledge, whereas for large samples statistical training provides more accurate filter design. To obtain the advantages of both approaches, they can be applied in combination. This can be done in more than a single way. This paper explores joint multiresolutionenvelope design, extends the basic propositions for envelope design to the multiresolution setting, considers design consistency, and provides experimental support for the joint approach.

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

non linear filtering
multiresolution analysis


Extending object-oriented languages with backward error recovery integrated support One of the requirements of software robustness is controlling and managing runtime errors that might arise at certain points of application execution. In most object-oriented programming languages, this requirement is commonly implemented by means of exception handling. Although exception handling is a powerful tool to avoid system failure arising, there are still many situations where it is not sufficient to restore the system to a consistent state. Exception handling allows the developer to detect and locate errors, but it gives no information or tools to cover the error recovering task. Therefore, we propose an extension of the semantics of common object-oriented languages to restore the previous consistent state of the system in the presence of runtime errors, avoiding some of the tasks that exception-handling mechanisms delegate to developers. Our proposed solution is centered in the concept of reconstructor, a declarative component oriented to automatically return the system to its last stable state. Based on this concept, we develop a non-intrusive code enrichment tool for Java, and we apply it to a real application in order to check the feasibility of the proposal. We evaluated the performance of the resulting code, obtaining reasonable and viable rates and overload.

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

error recovery
reconstructor
software robustness


Matching of anatomical tree structures for registration of medical images Many medical applications require a registration of different images of the same organ. In many cases, such a registration is accomplished by manual placement of landmarks in the images. In this paper, we propose a method which is able to find reasonable landmarks automatically. To achieve this, bifurcations of the vessel systems, which have been extracted from the images by a segmentation algorithm, are assigned by the so-called association graph method and the coordinates of these matched bifurcations can be used as landmarks for a non-rigid registration algorithm. Several constraints to be used in combination with the association graph method are proposed and evaluated on a ground truth consisting of anatomical trees from liver and lung. Furthermore, a method for preprocessing (tree pruning) as well as for postprocessing (clique augmentation) are proposed and evaluated on this ground truth. The proposed method achieves promising results for anatomical trees of liver and lung and for medical images obtained with different modalities and at different points in time.

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

tree matching
image registration
maximum clique


A Visual Signal Reliability for Robust Audio-Visual Speaker Identification In this paper, a novel visual signal reliability (VSR) measure is proposed to consider video degradation at the signal level in audiovisual speaker identification (AVSI). The VSR estimation is formulated using a Gaussian fuzzy membership function (GFMF) to measure lighting variations. The variance parameters of GFMF are optimized in order to maximize the performance of the overall AVSI. The experimental results show that the proposed method outperforms the score-based reliability measuring technique.

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

visual signal reliability measure
audio-visual speaker identification


Capacity Analysis of MIMO Rayleigh Channel with Spatial Fading Correlation MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) communications systems equipped with array antennas at both the transmitter and receiver sides are a promising scheme to realize higher rate and/or reliable data transmission. In this paper, capacity analysis of MIMO Rayleigh channel with spatial correlation at the receiver of multipath taken into account is presented, In general. a model configuration of local scattering around a mobile station in MIMO environment is carried out by simulation to examine spatial correlation coefficients. Based on statistical properties of the eigenvalues of correlated complex random Wishart matrices, the exact closed-form expressions of distribution of the eigenvalues are investigated. Then, the general closed-form evaluation of integral form is proposed based on Meijer's G-function. The results demonstrate that the ergodic capacities are improved by increasing the number of the antennas and the SNR's. Compared with i.i.d. (independent identically distributed) Rayleigh channel, the incremental improvement of correlated Rayleigh channel is reduced by spatial fading correlation. The analytical results validated by Monte-Carlo simulations show a good agreement.

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

multiple-input multiple-output (mimo) systems


How Reliable Can Two-Path Protection Be? This paper investigates the subject of reliability via two link-disjoint paths in mesh networks. We address the issues of how reliable two-path protection can be and how to achieve the maximum reliability. This work differs from traditional studies, such as MIN-SUM, MIN-MAX, and MIN-MIN, in that the objective in this paper is to maximize the reliability of the two-path connection given the link reliability, or equivalently, to minimize the end-to-end failure probability. We refer to this problem as MAX-REL. Solving MAX-REL provides 100% protection against a single failure while maximizing the reliability regardless of how many link failures occur in the network. We prove that this problem is NP-complete and derive a corresponding upper bound, which is the theoretical maximum reliability for a source-destination pair, and a lower bound, which is the worst case of the proposed algorithm. The time efficiency of the algorithms is analyzed, and the performance of the algorithms is evaluated through simulation. We demonstrate that our heuristic algorithms not only achieve a low computing complexity, but also achieve nearly equivalent performance to the upper bound.

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

availability
diverse routing
survivability


Integrating Trust Management and Access Control in Data-Intensive Web Applications The widespread diffusion of Web-based services provided by public and private organizations emphasizes the need for a flexible solution for protecting the information accessible through Web applications. A promising approach is represented by credential-based access control and trust management. However, although much research has been done and several proposals exist, a clear obstacle to the realization of their benefits in data-intensive Web applications is represented by the lack of adequate support in the DBMSs. As a matter of fact, DBMSs are often responsible for the management of most of the information that is accessed using a Web browser or a Web service invocation. In this article, we aim at eliminating this gap, and present an approach integrating trust management with the access control of the DBMS. We propose a trust model with a SQL syntax and illustrate an algorithm for the efficient verification of a delegation path for certificates. Our solution nicely complements current trust management proposals allowing the efficient realization of the services of an advanced trust management model within current relational DBMSs. An important benefit of our approach lies in its potential for a robust end-to-end design of security for personal data in Web scenario, where vulnerabilities of Web applications cannot be used to violate the protection of the data residing on the database server. We also illustrate the implementation of our approach within an open-source DBMS discussing design choices and performance impact.

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


Analysis of accuracy of a finite volume scheme for diffusion equations on distorted meshes ? We investigate the convergence of a finite volume scheme for the approximation of diffusion operators on distorted meshes. The method was originally introduced by Hermeline [F. Hermeline, A finite volume method for the approximation of diffusion operators on distorted meshes, J. Comput. Phys. 160 (2000) 481499], which has the advantage that highly distorted meshes can be used without the numerical results being altered. In this work, we prove that this method is of first-order accuracy on highly distorted meshes. The results are further extended to the diffusion problems with discontinuous coefficient and non-stationary diffusion problems. Numerical experiments are carried out to confirm the theoretical predications.

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


Distributed Denial of Service is a Scalability Problem Distributed denial of service attacks are often considered just a security problem. While this may be the way to view the problem with the Internet of today, perhaps new network architectures attempting to address the issue should view it as a scalability problem. In addition, they may need to approach the problem based on a rigorous foundation.

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

distributed denial of service
scalability
security


Cellular neural networks and active contours: a tool for image segmentation In this paper Cellular Neural Networks (CNN) are applied to image segmentation based on active contour techniques. The approach is based on deformable contours which evolve pixel by pixel from their initial shapes and locations until delimiting the objects of interest. The contour shift is guided by external information from the image under consideration which attracts them towards the target characteristics (intensity extremes, edges, etc.) and by internal forces which try to maintain the smoothness of the contour curve. This CNN-based proposal combines the characteristics from implicit and parametric models. As a consequence a high flexibility and control for the evolution dynamics of the snakes are provided, allowing the solution of complex tasks as is the case of the topologic transformations. In addition the proposal is suitable for its implementation as an integrated circuit allowing to take advantages of the massively parallel processing in CNN to reduce processing time.

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

cellular neural networks
active contours
image segmentation


Misfire and compression fault detection through the energy model This article proposes a simple algorithm for misfire detection in reciprocating engines. The algorithm, based on an energy model of the engine, requires the measurement of the instantaneous angular speed. By processing the engine dynamics in the angular domain, variations in the working parameters of the engine, such as external load and mean angular speed, are compensated. A dimensionless feature has been abstracted for evaluation of the combustion as well as compression process of each cylinder. The proposed technique is expected to be easy to implement and to provide useful information for on-line monitoring of the in-cylinder processes in an internal combustion engine.

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

internal combustion engine
fault detection
misfire
energy model


Adaptive vector median filtering A new adaptive vector median filtering scheme taking the advantage of the optimal filtering situation and the robust order-statistic theory, is provided. An adaptive control is based on the set of vector-valued order-statistics with the smallest distances to other samples in the input set.

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

multichannel image processing
impulse noise
impulse detection
vector median filter
order-statistic theory


A semi-supervised approach to fault diagnosis for chemical processes A new methodology for improving the performance of fault diagnosis systems (FDS) has been proposed by combining both supervised and unsupervised learning methods. Within this framework, different techniques have been applied, such as Independent Component Analysis (ICA) as feature extraction method, Gaussian Mixture Models (GMM) with Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC) for unsupervised clustering and Support Vector Machines (SVM) for the classification steps. Since supervised learning may fail to fully discriminate some individual faults, the algorithm presented allows the unsupervised grouping of some critical faults (classes) having a diagnosis performance below a threshold defined by the user. Next, an additional classification step provides practical information for decision-making in terms of the quantitative confidence on the occurrence of one fault (or some) among a known reduced subset. The methodology presented was assessed on the Tennessee Eastman Process (TEP) benchmark. The whole set of the TEP faults was considered and an improved diagnosis performance was obtained for all of them, including those faults (3, 9 and 15) whose diagnosis had hardly been addressed previously. These results demonstrate the enhanced capability of this method and the promising potential for the diagnosis of industrial applications. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

fault diagnosis
tennessee eastman
svm
ica
gmm
bic


A synthesis of evaluation criteria for software specifications and specification techniques Several evaluation criteria exist in the literature for both specification and specification techniques. These. evaluation criteria identify a list of desired properties in specifications and specification techniques for judging their goodness. This paper presents a detailed analysis of several specification and specification technique evaluation criteria. Detailed analysis of these criteria identified that there is a lack of consistency in the property definition among criteria. The implication of this lack of differentiation between the two concepts is that the criteria for both specification and specification techniques are intermingled. Since the concept of specification is different from specification technique, the criteria used for one might not be applicable for the other. For example, "completeness" and "consistency" are specification criteria. A specification can be complete and consistent regardless of the medium used to represent the specification, the process used in its construction, the degree/extent of tools and automation used, or whether it is formal or informal. However, there is meaning to denote that a technique can be used to produce "consistent" or "complete" specifications. Hence, for proper applicability of these criteria, this paper separates specification criteria from that of the specification technique criteria. This paper also presents a unified criteria terminology and uses a table to list each criterion property. from various researchers mapped to the unified terminology. The paper,also identifies and presents a mapping from technique criteria to the specification criteria that shows which technique criteria satisfies specification criteria. The applicability of the mapping is then demonstrated by applying the mapping to a specification language and its support environment.

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

software specification
descartes specification language


Evacuation planning using multiobjective evolutionary optimization approach In an emergency situation, evacuation is conducted in order to displace people from a dangerous place to a safer place, and it usually needs to be done in a hurry. It is necessary to prepare evacuation plans in order to have a good response in an emergency situation. A central challenge in developing an evacuation plan is in determining the distribution of evacuees into the safe areas, that is, deciding where and from which road each evacuee should go. To achieve this aim, several objective functions should be brought into consideration and need to be satisfied simultaneously, though these objective functions may often conflict with each other. This paper aims to address the use of multiobjective evolutionary algorithms (MOEA) and the geographical information system (GIS) for evacuation planning. The paper proposes a three-step approach for evacuation planning. It explains that the last step, which corresponds to distribution of evacuees into the safe areas, is a spatial multiobjective optimization problem (MOP), because the objective functions and data required for solving the problem has a spatial component. To solve the MOP, two objective functions are defined, different algorithms for solving the problem are investigated, and the proper algorithm is selected. Finally, in the context of a case study project and based on the proposed approach and algorithm, evacuation planning is conducted in a GIS environment, and the results are tested. This paper is based on an ongoing research project in Iran.

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


a mobile starfield visualization with space compression capabilities In this paper, we present MoStarD, a mobile application that couples starfield displays with dynamic queries to support user exploration of large datasets. A novel space compression technique enables users to compress areas of the starfield display to optimize screen space usage and easily focus on specific subsets of a dataset.

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

small-screen devices
information visualization


Constrained location of competitive facilities in the plane This paper examines a competitive facility location problem occurring in the plane. A new gravity-based utility model is developed, in which the capacity of a facility serves as its measure of attractiveness. A new problem formulation is given, having elastic gravity-based demand, along with capacity, forbidden region, and budget constraints. Two solution algorithms are presented, one based on the big square small square method, and the second based on a penalty function formulation using fixed-point iteration. Computational testing is presented, comparing these two algorithms along with a general-purpose nonlinear solver. In a competitive business environment where products are not distinguishable, facility location plays an important role in an organization's success. This paper examines a firm's problem of selecting the locations in the plane for a set of new facilities such that market capture is maximized across all of the firm's facilities (both new and pre-existing). Customers are assumed to divide their demand among all competing facilities according to a utility function that considers facility attractiveness (measured by facility capacity for satisfying demand) and customer-facility distance. The level of customer demand is assumed to be a function of the facility configuration. Three types of constraints are introduced, involving facility capacity, forbidden regions for new facility location, and a budget function. Two solution algorithms are devised, one based on branch-and-bound methods and the other based on penalty functions. Computational testing is presented, comparing these two algorithms along with a general-purpose nonlinear solver.

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

competitive facility location
penalty functions
forbidden regions


Variational Problems with Symmetries: A Pfaffian System Approach Reduction methods for completely integrable Pfaffian Systems with symmetry are applied to variational problems, providing analogues of the ArnoldLiouville Theorem and MarsdenWeinstein reduction in the Lagrangian setting. Ageneralization of the MishchenkoFomenko Theorem for non Abelian integrability is given in terms of solvable structures.

B I 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


Efficient Multipath Communication for Time-Critical Applications in Underwater Acoustic Sensor Networks Due to the long propagation delay and high error rate of acoustic channels, it is very challenging to provide reliable data transfer for time-critical applications in an energy-efficient way. On the one hand, traditional retransmission upon failure usually introduces very large end-to-end delay and is thus not proper for time-critical services. On the other hand, common approaches without retransmission consume lots of energy. In this paper, we propose a new multipath power-control transmission (MPT) scheme, which can guarantee certain end-to-end packet error rate while achieving a good balance between the overall energy efficiency and the end-to-end packet delay. MPT smartly combines power control with multipath routing and packet combining at the destination. With carefully designed power-control strategies, MPT consumes much less energy than the conventional one-path transmission scheme without retransmission. Besides, since no hop-by-hop retransmission is allowed, MPT introduces much shorter delays than the traditional one-path scheme with retransmission. We conduct extensive simulations to evaluate the performance of MPT. Our results show that MPT is highly energy-efficient with low end-to-end packet delays.

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

network communications
underwater sensor networks


Characterization of hafnium oxide grown on silicon by atomic layer deposition: Interface structure Ultra-thin films of hafnium oxide deposited on Si(100) substrates by means of atomic layer deposition using tetrakis(diethylamino)hafnium as the hafnium precursor are characterized. These films and interface structures are probed using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy along with Z-contrast imaging and electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) of a scanning transmission electron microscope. The interface structure of HfO2/Si(100) is further investigated using angle resolved X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy to probe the core level orbitals (Hf 4f, Si 2p, O 1s) at high resolution. The interfacial differences are also examined by probing the Hf 4f bonding with normal incidence XPS in thin and thick films. The XPS studies show that the binding energies remain unchanged with film depth and that there is no apparent signature of silicate structure in the as-deposited films. EELS spectra taken at the interface and XPS measurements suggest the interface is mainly silicon oxide. Two different cleaning methods used show difference only in the thickness of the silicon oxide interlayer.

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

atomic layer deposition
hafnium oxide
interface structure


multiobjective genetic algorithms for multiscaling excited state direct dynamics in photochemistry This paper studies the effectiveness of multiobjective genetic and evolutionary algorithms in multiscaling excited state direct dynamics in photochemistry via rapid reparameterization of semiempirical methods. Using a very limited set of ab initio and experimental data, semiempirical parameters are reoptimized to provide globally accurate potential energy surfaces, thereby eliminating the need for full-fledged ab initio dynamics simulations, which are very expensive. Through reoptimization of the semiempirical methods, excited-state energetics are predicted accurately, while retaining accurate ground-state predictions. The results show that the multiobjective evolutionary algorithm consistently yields solutions that are significantly better---up to 230\% lower error in the energy and 86.5\% lower error in the energy-gradient---than those reported in the literature. Multiple high-quality parameter sets are obtained that are verified with quantum dynamical calculations, which show near-ideal behavior on critical and untested excited state geometries. The results demonstrate that the reparameterization strategy via evolutionary algorithms is a promising way to extend direct dynamics simulations of photochemistry to multi-picosecond time scales.

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

photochemistry
multiobjective genetic algorithms
semiempirical methods

population sizing
non-domination
multiscale modeling
nsga-ii
niching
convergence time


Structure-based characterization of the binding of peptide to the human endophilin-1 Src homology 3 domain using position-dependent noncovalent potential analysis Many protein-protein interactions are mediated by a peptide-recognizing domain, such as WW, PDZ, or SH3. In the present study, we describe a new method called position-dependent noncovalent potential analysis (PDNPA), which can accurately characterize the nonbonding profile between the human endophilin-1 Src homology 3 (hEndo1 SH3) domain and its peptide ligands and quantitatively predict the binding affinity of peptide to hEndo1 SH3. In this procedure, structure models of diverse peptides in complex with the hEndo1 SH3 domain are constructed by molecular dynamics simulation and a virtual mutagenesis protocol. Subsequently, three noncovalent interactions associated with each position of the peptide ligand in the complexed state are analyzed using empirical potential functions, and the resulting potential descriptors are then correlated with the experimentally measured affinity on the basis of 1997 hEndo1 SH3-binding peptides with known activities, using linear partial least squares regression (PLS) and the nonlinear support vector machine (SVM). The results suggest that: (i) the electrostatics appears to be more important than steric properties and hydrophobicity in the formation of the hEndo1 SH3-peptide complex; (ii) P-4 of the core decapeptide ligand with the sequence pattern P-6P-5P-4P-3P-2P-1P0P1P2P3 is the most important position in terms of determining both the stability and specificity of the architecture of the complex, and; (iii) nonlinear SVM appears to be more effective than linear PLS for accurately predicting the binding affinity of a peptide ligand to hEndo1 SH3, whereas PLS models are straightforward and easy to interpret as compared to those built by SVM.

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

peptide2
noncovalent interaction
statistical modeling


Biometric writer identification: Feature analysis and classification This paper describes an efficient biometric writer identification system that call be used in a resource contained embedded environment. Writer identification (personal identification by general handwriting) is a relatively new area of handwriting research when compared to the handwriting recognition or signature verification areas. This work is aimed at exploring only small-scale handwriting samples, especially single handwritten words. A database of such samples has been collected dynamically using a digital writing tablet and a force sensitive pen. The dynamic approach adapted in this area is largely new, and only a few papers exist oil the subject. Mainly dynamic features of handwriting connected with the writing process itself are considered, although some static features are also used. It is also shown how simple parameters call be used in embedded writer identification devices, and whether they call perform adequately in this type of application. A new feature selection algorithm based oil likeness coefficients is proposed. The classifiers used are Minimum-Distance Classifier, Bayes Classifier, and finally their serial combination. The efficiency of this approach and its high performance together show the reasons for employing it in embedded biometric identification devices.

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

writer identification
feature analysis
classification


Overview of the Actions of Glucocorticoids on the Immune Response: A Good Model to Characterize New Pathways of Immunosuppression for New Treatment Strategies Glucocorticoids have been used for over 50 years in the treatment of inflammatory and autoimmune diseases and in preventing graft rejection. Today, knowledge of their molecular, cellular, and pharmacological properties allows a better understanding of glucocorticoid-mediated immunosuppression. Glucocorticoids exert both negative and positive effects with a dynamic and bi-directional spectrum of activities on various limbs and components of the immune response. They modulate genes involved in the priming of the innate immune response, while their actions on the adaptive immune response are to suppress cellular (Th1) immunity and promote humoral (Th2) immunity. Interestingly, glucocorticoids can also induce tolerance to specific antigens by influencing dendritic cell maturation and function and promoting the development of regulatory high IL-10-producing T cells. The ex vivo therapeutic use of glucocorticoids could therefore represent an adjuvant treatment to cell therapy in autoimmune diseases, avoiding the long-term deleterious adverse effects of glucocorticoids. Thus, the panoramic view of glucocorticoid actions on the immune system provides an interesting model for characterizing important biological pathways of immunosuppression.

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

glucocorticoids
immune response
tolerance


A method for establishing an online design audit platform Auditing is getting its share of attention as a means of identifying gaps between current and desired performance in many activities. Furthermore, the audit approach has been evolving from the traditional manual process of paper documentation to a paperless, electronic, and online one. Yet online auditing in relation to design activities within an enterprise remains largely unexplored. To provide a useful design audit tool, in this study, we aimed to develop an online design audit platform (ODAP) for internal application within an enterprise. In doing so, we first set the context of the ODAP by constructing a design audit matrix that encompassed six organizational levels and five operational phases. Second, based on the design audit matrix, we developed an online design audit framework for the ODAP. Third, the ODAP was tested and evaluated with the cooperation of 20 participating Taiwanese enterprises. The results show that the ODAP is a good-quality information system in terms of system quality, information quality and interface design though there are some shortcomings, such as the lack of a score-weighted function, a comment database, and a mechanism for information customization. In this paper, we discuss the implications of these findings and suggest several avenues for further research.

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


There is more to green reading than meets the eye! Exploring the gaze behaviours of expert golfers on a virtual golf putting task Gaze patterns and verbal reports of golfers at three skill levels (professional, elite amateur and club) were recorded as they read the slope of a virtual golf green from six different positions. The results showed that the professional golfers used a more economical gaze pattern consisting of fewer fixations of longer duration than the amateur and club players. Gaze pattern was accompanied by verbal reports that were not significantly more accurate in terms of aiming accuracy, although the professionals were accurate on 76.5% of putts compared to 57.1% for the elite and club groups. Two read positions lead to more accurate predictions by the professional golfers only, suggesting distinctive periods of visual perceptualcognitive attention may underly higher levels of putting skill. Theoretical implications of these results are discussed in relation to the application of visual attention theory to practise, as well as suggestions provided for further research.

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

expertise
slope perception
visuo-motor planning
visual attention
eye-tracking


Determining the performance of website-based relationship marketing We extend web mining approaches by integrating managerial aspects on website usage. Performance assessment and marketing intelligence are aligned in a framework. Our approach can be used for optimization of relationship marketing effectiveness. Applicability is demonstrated by a real world example using clickstream data.

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

website performance evaluation
online consumer behavior


The Unification and Assessment of Multi-Objective Clustering Results of Categorical Datasets with H-Confidence Metric Multi objective clustering is one focused area of multi objective optimization. Multi objective optimization attracted many researchers in several areas over a decade. Utilizing multi objective clustering mainly considers multiple objectives simultaneously and results with several natural clustering solutions. Obtained result set suggests different point of views for solving the clustering problem. This paper assumes all potential solutions belong to different experts and in overall; ensemble of solutions finally has been utilized for finding the final natural clustering. We have tested on categorical datasets and compared them against single objective clustering result in terms of purity and distance measure of k-modes clustering. Our clustering results have been assessed to find the most natural clustering. Our results get hold of existing classes decided by human experts.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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-objective clustering
nsga-ii
h-confidence


Models of travel demand with endogenous preference change and heterogeneous agents In the literatures of regional science, urban economics, and urban development planning, a working assumption is that individuals respond to incentives and regulations, given their preferences. Models for planning and policy analyses are used to consider what might occur if the incentives or regulations were different. In these models, however, preferences are usually assumed to be given and stable, and agents are usually assumed to be homogeneous. This paper focuses on the implications of making preferences in models of policy implementation endogenously determined and time varying heterogeneous agents. We consider first the recent literature on intertemporal choice and preference change, which cuts across many disciplines, and more briefly the literature on norm-regarding behavior. We then elaborate a simple model of transportation demandfrom a static to a dynamic orientation, from fixed and exogenously given preferences of strictly self-regarding agents to endogenously determined and policy-induced preferences of heterogeneous agentsand illustrate its characteristics with simple numerical examples.

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

travel demand
preference change
heterogeneous agents


minimizing the retrieval time of scatter storage techniques A technique is described for minimizing the number of probes needed to retrieve a given set of entries from a hash table using a specific hash code. The method is useful for tables where the expected number of retrievals is large. An example is given which illustrates the usefulness of the method for an assembler operation code table. Comparisons of the method are made with other hashing techniques and with binary search methods.

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


Development of QSAR-based two-stage prediction model for estimating mixture toxicity Conventionally, concentration addition (CA) and independent action (IA) models based on additive toxicity are often used to estimate the mixture toxicity of similarly- and dissimilarly-acting chemicals, respectively. A two-stage prediction (TSP) model has been developed as an integrated addition model that can perform the CA and IA calculations stage by stage. However, the use of the conventional TSP model is limited if the mode of toxic action (MoA) for every mixture component is not readily known. The aim of this study was to develop and evaluate a quantitative structure-activity relationship-based TSP (QSAR-TSP) model for estimating mixture toxicity in the absence of knowledge on the MoAs of the constituents. For this purpose, different clustering methods of mixture constituents using computerized analysis based on the structural similarity between chemicals were applied as a part of the predictions of mixture toxicity. The relative importance of molecular descriptors was additionally determined by Random Forest analysis. This study highlights the prediction power of the QSAR-TSP model and its potential to overcome the limitations of the conventional TSP model, and how clustering methods of mixture components that employ chemical structural information to categorize might be applied to predict mixture toxicity effectively.

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

mixture toxicity
integrated addition model
concentration addition
independent action


Parametric estimation of affine deformations of planar shapes We consider the estimation of affine transformations aligning a known 2D shape and its distorted observation. The classical way to solve this registration problem is to find correspondences between the shapes and then compute the transformation parameters from these landmarks. Here we propose a novel approach where the exact transformation is obtained as the solution of a polynomial system of equations. The method has been tested on synthetic as well as on real images and its robustness in the presence of segmentation errors and additive geometric noise has also been demonstrated. We have successfully applied the method for the registration of hip prosthesis X-ray images. The advantage of the proposed solution is that it is fast, easy to implement, has linear time complexity, works without established correspondences and provides an exact solution regardless of the magnitude of transformation. (C) 2009 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

image registration
shape matching
affine transformation


A GAME THEORETICAL APPROACH TO THE ALGEBRAIC COUNTERPART OF THE WAGNER HIERARCHY: PART II The algebraic counterpart of the Wagner hierarchy consists of a well-founded and decidable classification of finite pointed omega-semigroups of width 2 and height omega(omega). This paper completes the description of this algebraic hierarchy. We first give a purely algebraic decidability procedure of this partial ordering by introducing a graph representation of finite pointed omega-semigroups allowing to compute their precise Wagner degrees. The Wagner degree of any omega-rational language can therefore be computed directly on its syntactic image. We then show how to build a finite pointed omega-semigroup of any given Wagner degree. We finally describe the algebraic invariants characterizing every degree of this hierarchy.

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

omega-automata
omega-rational languages
omega-semigroups
infinite games
hierarchical games
wadge game
wadge hierarchy


a software framework for simulating eye trackers We describe an open-source software framework that simulates the measurements made using one or several cameras in a video-oculographic eye tracker. The framework can be used to compare objectively the performance of different eye tracking setups (number and placement of cameras and light sources) and gaze estimation algorithms. We demonstrate the utility of the framework by using it to compare two remote eye tracking methods, one using a single camera, the other using two cameras.

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


an efficient genetic algorithm for predicting protein tertiary structures in the 2d hp model Given the amino acid sequence of a protein, predicting its tertiary structure is known as the protein folding problem. This problem has been widely studied under the HP model in which each amino acid is classified, based on its hydrophobicity, as an H (hydrophobic or non-polar) or a P (hydrophilic or polar). Conformation of a protein in the HP model is embedded as a self-avoiding walk in either a two-dimensional or a three-dimensional lattice. The protein folding problem in the HP model is to find a lowest energy conformation. This problem is known to be NP-hard in both two-dimensional and three-dimensional square lattices. In this paper, we present an efficient genetic algorithm for the protein folding problem under the HP model in the two-dimensional square lattice. A special feature of this algorithm is its usage of secondary structures, that the algorithm evolves, as building blocks for the conformation. Experimental results on benchmark sequences show that the algorithm performs very well against existing evolutionary algorithms and Monte Carlo algorithms.

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

genetic algorithm
2d hp model
protein folding problem


On the capacity of a Pulse-Position-Hopped CDMA system Pulse-Position-Hopped (PPH) code division multiple access (CDMA) is a new promising multiple-access technique which is very well suited for short-range multipath communications and has several benefits, such as coherent reception and low transmit power density. In this correspondence, we analyze the error-correcting capability of a system employing PPH-CDMA. The results show that the system capacity is proportional to the bandwidth, in a similar fashion as for carrier-based transmission techniques.

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

impulse radio
time hopping
ultra-wide bandwidth (uwb)


Hybrid control for autonomous mobile robot navigation using neural network based behavior modules and environment classification A hybrid control architecture combining behavior based reactive navigation and model based environment classification has been developed. It is also hybrid in the sense that both competitive coordination and cooperative coordination are used for the BBC (Behavior Based Control) part. The contributions are as follows. First, a Neural Network (NN) in charge of environment classification has been developed based on 16 prototypes of topological maps roughly describing various local navigation environments. This environment classification NN not only enables the navigator to avoid local minimum points but also eliminates the requirement for prior detailed modeling of the environment since it needs to memorize only "rough" information on local environments encountered along the way that might be sufficient for navigation. Next, an NN based reactive behavior controller will be trained to learn human steering commands for each of the 16 prototype local environments. Third, the modified potential field (MPF) method obtained by adding the free space vector as the third component is used to select a particular reactive behavior in conjunction with the classification NN. Finally, a hybrid control architecture integrating all three of these concepts was developed. It avoids local minimum traps as well as solves the problems of poor obstacle clearance or oscillation. It is robust against sensor noise and adaptive to dynamic environments. This hybrid architecture is also amenable to easy addition of new behaviors due to the modularity of the BBC architecture. The effectiveness of the proposed architecture has been verified through both computer simulation and an actual robot called MORIS (MObile Robot as an Intelligent System).

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

mobile robot navigation
potential field
hybrid control
neural network


Evaluation of general practitioner's time investment during a store-and-forward teledermatology consultation Introduction of teledermatology in general practice changes responsibilities and workloads of general practitioners (GPs) and dermatologists. We investigated the time investment of GPs as well as the relative share of the separate teledermatology activities during a store-and-forward teledermatology consultation. Sixty-four teledermatology consultations (eight GPseight patients) were conducted in a laboratory setting. The starting and ending time of each consultation and of five separate teledermatology activities were recorded by independent observers. The impact of several GP, patient and consultation characteristics on the calculated durations was investigated with repeated measurements analysis. The mean duration of a teledermatology consultation was 11:32min (range 7:0226:44min). The activity filling out electronic referral form was the most time consuming teledermatology activity (3:12min; 28%). Most time was spent on non-TD related consultation activities, e.g. taking medical history (4:43min; 41%). The first of the eight consultations (p<0.001) and consultations with female patients (p=0.032) took on average more time than subsequent consultations (first consultations 13:42min (male patients) and 17:03min (female patients), and subsequent consultations 9:56min (male patients) and 11:08min (female patients)). Usage of store-and-forward teledermatology increases the average duration of a GP consultation with at least three and a half minutes. Further integration of teledermatology applications and electronic patients records may reduce the total duration of a consultation and increase acceptance of teledermatology in general practice.

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

telemedicine
dermatology
workload
time and motion studies


runtime verification of authorization hook placement for the linux security modules framework We present runtime tools to assist the Linux community in verifying the correctness of the Linux Security Modules (LSM) framework. The LSM framework consists of a set of authorization hooks inserted into the Linux kernel to enable additional authorizations to be performed (e.g., for mandatory access control). When compared to system call interposition, authorization within the kernel has both security and performance advantages, but it is more difficult to verify that placement of the LSM hooks ensures that all the kernel's security-sensitive operations are authorized. We have examined both static and runtime analysis techniques for this verification, and have found them to be complementary. Static analysis is more complex to implement and tends to generate more false positives, but coverage of all type-safe execution paths is possible. Runtime analysis lacks the code and input coverage of static analysis, but tends to be simpler to gather useful information. The major simplifying factor in our runtime verification approach is that we can leverage the fact that most of the LSM hooks are properly placed to identify misplaced hooks. Our runtime verification tools collect the current LSM authorizations and find inconsistencies in these authorizations. We describe our approach for performing runtime verification, the design of the tools that implement this approach, and the anomalous situations found in an LSM-patched Linux 2.4.16 kernel.

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

framework
input
runtime analysis
design
collect
performance
static analysis
runtime
coverage
factor
code
correctness
access control
verification
placement
tools

sensitive
communities
runtime verification
informal
situated
systems
author
module
operability
secure
complexity
false positive


A scalable parallel minimum spanning tree algorithm for catchment basin delimitation in large digital elevation models This paper describes a new fast and scalable parallel algorithm to automatically determine catchment basin of rivers in large digital elevation models (DEMs). This algorithm is based on the construction of a minimal spanning tree, via a hierarchy of graphs, modeling the water route on the DEM. It combines different techniques used in hydrogeology, image processing and graph theory to obtain the most accurate results in terms of geomorphology without any preprocessing. The method tends to exploit the most of the DEMs, avoiding misleading inconsistencies DEMs contain. It has been designed to be entirely parallel and scalable for architectures such as PC clusters. Some experiments are presented to show accuracy, efficiency and scalability on huge DEMs. Copyright (C) 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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

geographic information system
digital elevation model
image segmentation


Nesting of two-dimensional irregular parts: an integrated approach The present paper reports an intelligent computer-aided nesting ( CAN) system for optimal nesting of two-dimensional parts, especially parts with complicated shapes, with the objective of effectively improving the utilization ratio of sheet materials. This paper also systemically reviews the nesting algorithms that were developed to perform various nesting tasks, and attacks the irregular part nesting problem by efficiently integrating and improving the performance of nesting algorithms such as the rectangular enclosure method, bottom-left nesting algorithms, heuristic algorithms and genetic algorithms. The CAN system has also been developed as a nesting algorithm test platform for researching and developing new nesting algorithms. Through this test platform, the limitations of existing nesting algorithms are investigated and problems such as nesting parts in spaces within a single part or between parts are also studied. Efforts have been devoted to improving the nesting efficiency of the existing algorithms and developing new nesting algorithms. Case studies are carried out in a sheet metal cutting company. The results show that the intelligent CAN system can effectively nest both regular and irregular parts, and greatly improve the utilization ratio of raw sheet material.

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

nesting algorithms
irregular parts
heuristic algorithms


A cortical network for control of voluntary movements in a robot finger Neurobiological control systems have long been studied as possible inspiration for the construction of robotic controllers. In this paper, a control of voluntary joint movements using a cortical network within constraints from neurophysiology and motor psychophysics is presented. The neural controller is proposed to control desired joint trajectories of an anthropomorphic robot finger. Each joint is driven by an agonistantagonist actuator pair with muscle-like properties. Dynamical neural network proposes functional roles for pre-central cortical cell types in the computation of a descending command to spinal alpha and gamma motor neurons. Neurons in anterior area 5 are proposed to compute the position of the link in question using corollary discharges from area 4 and feedback from muscles spindles. Neurons in posterior area 5 use the position perception signal and desired position signal to compute a desired joint movement direction. The network reinterprets the neural population activity to afford unified control of posture, movement and force production. In addition, it suggests how the brain may set automatic and volitional gating mechanisms to vary the balance of static and dynamic feedback information to guide the movement command and to compensate for external forces. The reliability of the cortical neural controller is demonstrated by experimental results, where control system exhibits key kinematic properties of human movement, dynamic compensation and includes asymmetric bell-shaped velocity profiles.

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

cortical networks
cortical dynamics
neurobiological control system
tendon-driven system


Normal-controlled coordinates based feature-preserving mesh editing As a local shape descriptor, normal-controlled coordinates (NCC) are well defined on the boundary vertices of open meshes, and proven being always parallel with the corresponding vertex normals, which means no tangential drift appears in various editing operations. These two properties make NCC outperform the previous differential coordinates in many mesh processing jobs. We develop an implicit editing algorithm based on NCC, which is efficient by subtly using vertex normals. In addition, by exploring the relationship between NCC and the normals of triangular faces, we present a linear method based on NCC to reconstruct a mesh from predefined face normals. It provides another convenient way that users can operate face normals to edit models. Experiments show that NCC perform better than the previous differential coordinates in both effectiveness and efficiency.

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


analysis of uml activities with dynamic meta modeling techniques Based on a semantics of UML Activities specified with the Dynamic Meta Modeling approach, we analyze the dynamic semantics of Activities at modeling time.

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


Certain special differential superordinations using multiplier transformation and Ruscheweyh derivative In the present paper we establish several differential superordinations regardind the new operator RI(m,lambda,l)(alpha) defined by using the multiplier transformation I (m, lambda, l) f (z) and R.uscheweyh derivative R(m) f (z), RI(m,lambda,l)(alpha) : A(n) -> A(n), RI(m,lambda,l)(alpha)f(z) = (1 - alpha)R(m) f (z) + alpha I (m, lambda, l) f (z), z is an element of U, where m, n is an element of N, lambda, alpha, l >= 0 and f is an element of A(n) = {f is an element of H(U) : f(z) = z + Sigma(infinity)(j=n+1) a(j)z(j), z is an element of U}. A number of interesting consequences of sonic of these superordination results are discussed. Relevant. connections of some of the new results obtained in this paper with those in earlier works are also provided.

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

differential superordination
convex function
best subordinant
differential operator


an arbiter based on-chip droop detector system This paper presents a new design of supply droop detector system with a 10-20mV resolution at a very fast sampling rate (3GHz) in IBM 45nm SOI process. The detector system samples noisy supply voltage and stable reference voltages, and these sampled voltages are converted into different propagation delay values by using current starved inverters. Simple arbiters are used to convert these propagation delay differences into digitally reconstructed supply droop voltage. In addition, the detector has only 1 clock latency; a digital value of supply droop voltage is available after one clock cycle. This new droop detector system can greatly assist an adaptive frequency scaling system with a digital control and short latency.

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


Completely generalized strongly quasivariational inequalities for fuzzy mappings In this paper, we prove an existence theorem of solutions and develop the algorithms of approximating solutions for a completely generalized strongly variational inequality problem for fuzzy mappings and a completely generalized strongly complementarity problem for fuzzy mappings by using the projection method. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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

fuzzy mapping
quasivariational inequality


identifying graphs from noisy and incomplete data There is a growing wealth of data describing networks of various types, including social networks, physical networks such as transportation or communication networks, and biological networks. At the same time, there is a growing interest in analyzing these networks, in order to uncover general laws that govern their structure and evolution, and patterns and predictive models to develop better policies and practices. However, a fundamental challenge in dealing with this newly available observational data describing networks is that the data is often of dubious quality -- it is noisy and incomplete -- and before any analysis method can be applied, the data must be cleaned, and missing information inferred. In this paper, we introduce the notion of graph identification , which explicitly models the inference of a "cleaned" output network from a noisy input graph. It is this output network that is appropriate for further analysis. We present an illustrative example and use the example to explore the types of inferences involved in graph identification, as well as the challenges and issues involved in combining those inferences. We then present a simple, general approach to combining the inferences in graph identification and experimentally show the utility of our combined approach and how the performance of graph identification is sensitive to the inter-dependencies among these inferences.

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

data mining
statistical relational learning
entity resolution
link prediction
classification


Low power LDPC code decoder architecture based on intermediate message compression technique Reducing the power dissipation for LDPC code decoder is a major challenging task to apply it to the practical digital communication systems. In this paper, we propose a low power LDPC code decoder architecture based on an intermediate message-compression technique which features as follows: (i) An intermediate message compression technique enables the decoder to reduce the required memory capacity and write power dissipation. (H) A clock gated shift register based intermediate message memory architecture enables the decoder to decompress the compressed messages in a single clock cycle while reducing the read power dissipation. The combination of the above two techniques enables the decoder to reduce the power dissipation while keeping the decoding throughput. The simulation results show that the proposed architecture improves the power efficiency up to 52% and 18% compared to that of the decoder based on the overlapped schedule and the rapid convergence schedule without the proposed techniques respectively.

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

clock gated shift register for intermediate message


Convex Programming Upper Bounds on the Capacity of 2-D Constraints The capacity of 1-D constraints is given by the entropy of a corresponding stationary maxentropic Markov chain. Namely, the entropy is maximized over a set of probability distributions, which is defined by some linear equalities and inequalities. In this paper, certain aspects of this characterization are extended to 2-D constraints. The result is a method for calculating an upper bound on the capacity of 2-D constraints. The key steps are as follows: The maxentropic stationary probability distribution on square configurations is considered; set of linear equalities and inequalities is derived from this stationarity; the result is then a convex program, which can be easily solved numerically. Our method improves upon previous upper bounds for the capacity of the 2-D "no isolated bits" constraint, as well as certain 2-D RLL constraints.

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

concave function maximization
"no isolated bits" constraint
runlength-limited constraints
two-dimensional constraints


Establish standards of standard costing with the application of convergent gray zone test According to surveys, manufacturing industries adopt standard costing for cost control. Traditionally, many accountants believed the most effective standards were those set by industrial engineers with the participation of operating managers to be evaluated. However, some accountants argue that such standards set by the Engineering Approach cannot verify if the standards are too loose or too rigid and fail to provide sufficient incentives for employees to improve beyond the standards. Limitations of the Engineering Approach arise from an ever-changing industrial environment. Under fluctuating circumstances, human deduction and thinking processes utilize non-binary logic and therefore contain fuzzy factors. With fuzzy factors excluded from the Engineering Approach, its ability to reflect problems is doubtful. This paper combines the fuzzy Delphi method with industrial standard costing so as to develop a convergent gray zone test (CGZT). The CGZT not only includes fuzziness but also effectively tests appropriateness of setting standards in an unstable climate.

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

standard costing
convergent gray zone test
fuzzy delphi method


plapackJava: Towards an efficient Java interface for high performance parallel linear algebra Java is gaining acceptance as a language for high performance computing, as it is platform independent and safe. A parallel linear algebra package is fundamental for developing parallel numerical applications. In this paper, we present plapackJava, a Java interface to PLAPACK, a parallel linear algebra library. This interface is simple to use and object-oriented, with good support for initialization of distributed objects. The experiments we have performed indicate that plapackJava does not introduce a significant overhead with respect to PLAPACK. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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


A ROI image retrieval method based on CVAAO A novel image feature called color variances among adjacent objects (CVAAO) is proposed in this study. Characterizing the color variances between contiguous objects in an image, CVAAO can effectively describe the principal colors and texture distribution of the image and is insensitive to distortion and scale variations of images. Based on CVAAO, a CVAAO-based image retrieval method is constructed. When given a full image, the CVAAO-based image retrieval method delivers the database images most similar to the full image to the user. This paper also presents a CVAAO-based ROI image retrieval method. When given a clip, the CVAAO-based ROI image retrieval method submits to the user a database image containing a target region most similar to the clip. The experimental results show that the CVAAO-based ROI image retrieval method can offer impressive results in finding out the database images that meet user requirements.

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

color-based image retrieval
color histogram
fuzzy color histogram
hierarchical overlapping segmentation


Magan: A new approach to the analysis and interpretation of marine magnetic anomalies The identification of marine magnetic anomalies is an important phase of plate tectonic modeling, but is limited by the lack of professional software, either free or commercial, which may help in the accomplishment of this task, and by the practice of performing approximations that may prevent in some instances a correct interpretation of the magnetic data. Although basic forward-modeling and inversion algorithms that may be incorporated in the core of gravity or magnetic application software have been published since the late 1950s, most research groups have implemented their own tools independently from each other, and apart from a few cases such computer programs are not publicly accessible. Here a new methodology of analysis of marine magnetic data is described, which allows a quantitative correlation of magnetic anomalies from different profiles and a statistical determination of relative plate velocities. The method is implemented through a new free software package, Magan, available for the MS Windows environment. The program is especially designed to work with NGDC GEODAS ship-track and aeromagnetic data, but allows the import of any ASCII text file containing magnetic anomaly data. The basic forward-modeling algorithms included in the Magan core are based on well-known techniques of potential field geophysics, modified to take into account specific requirements of marine magnetic data analysis and plate tectonic modeling. Such a kernel is flanked by a friendly graphical user interface (GUI), which helps and speeds up the interpretation of the ship-track data. In particular, the program allows one to (1) draw and edit flow lines where magnetic data can be projected, (2) calculate more accurately modeled anomalies through the use of apparent polar wander paths and single block parameters, (3) generate agedistance and timevelocity graphs, and (4) generate crossing point files that can be subsequently used to build magnetic isochrons.

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

plate kinematics
forward modeling
sea-floor spreading


SAT local search algorithms: Worst-case study Recent experiments demonstrated that local search algorithms (e.g. GSAT) are able to find satisfying assignments for many "hard" Boolean formulas. A wide experimental study of these algorithms demonstrated their good performance on some inportant classes of formulas as well as poor performance on some other ones. In contrast, theoretical knowledge of their worst-case behavior is very limited. However, many worst-case upper and lower bounds of the form 2(alpha n) (alpha < 1 is a constant) are known for other SAT algorithms, for example, resolution-like algorithms. In the present paper we prove both upper and lower bounds of this form for local search algorithms. The class of linear-size formulas we consider for the upper bound covers most of the DIMACS benchmarks; the satisfiability problem for this class of formulas is N P-complete.

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

greedy local search
worst-case time bounds


An insight into license tools for open source software systems We provide a licensing comparative overview of existing assistive approaches/tools. License identification tools present a more mature current state. License compliance requires the collaboration of various techniques. License graphs are useful in detecting license conflicts.

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

free/libre/open source software
license compatibility


Semantics and Planning Based Workflow Composition for Video Processing This work proposes a novel workflow composition approach that hinges upon ontologies and planning as its core technologies within an integrated framework. Video processing problems provide a fitting domain for investigating the effectiveness of this integrated method as tackling such problems have not been fully explored by the workflow, planning and ontological communities despite their combined beneficial traits to confront this known hard problem. In addition, the pervasiveness of video data has proliferated the need for more automated assistance for image processing-naive users, but no adequate support has been provided as of yet. The integrated approach was evaluated on a video set originating from open sea environment of varying quality. Experiments to evaluate the efficiency, adaptability to user's changing needs and user learnability of this approach were conducted on users who did not possess image processing expertise. The findings indicate that using this integrated workflow composition and execution method: (1) provides a speed up of over 90 % in execution time for video classification tasks using full automatic processing compared to manual methods without loss of accuracy; (2) is more flexible and adaptable in response to changes in user requests than modifying existing image processing programs when the domain descriptions are altered; and (3) assists the user in selecting optimal solutions by providing recommended descriptions.

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

automatic workflow composition
intelligent video analysis
ontology-based workflows
htn planning


Turbine stage design aided by artificial intelligence methods We propose a general, efficient system for designing turbine cascades and stages in real 3D-flow conditions. The presented algorithms involve application of evolutionary algorithms, as well as Artificial Neural Networks. Results of the design process are shown to be highly optimised in terms of efficiency, whereas computation time is reduced by several orders of magnitude in comparison to methods relying on Computational Fluid Dynamics calculations. (c) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

turbomachinery design
evolutionary algorithm
artificial neural network


Asymptotically large (?,D) ( ? , D ) -graphs Graphs with maximum degree ? ? , diameter D and orders greater than (?/?)D ( ? / ? ) D , for a constant ?<2 ? < 2 , are proved to exist for infinitely many values of ? ? and for D larger than a fixed value.

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

degreediameter problem
de bruijn digraph
kautz digraph
exchange graph
graphdigraph product


Gesture modeling and animation based on a probabilistic re-creation of speaker style Animated characters that move and gesticulate appropriately with spoken text are useful in a wide range of applications. Unfortunately, this class of movement is very difficult to generate, even more so when a unique, individual movement style is required. We present a system that, with a focus on arm gestures, is capable of producing full-body gesture animation for given input text in the style of a particular performer. Our process starts with video of a person whose gesturing style we wish to animate. A tool-assisted annotation process is performed on the video, from which a statistical model of the person's particular gesturing style is built. Using this model and input text tagged with theme, rheme and focus, our generation algorithm creates a gesture script. As opposed to isolated singleton gestures, our gesture script specifies a stream of continuous gestures coordinated with speech. This script is passed to an animation system, which enhances the gesture description with additional detail. It then generates either kinematic or physically simulated motion based on this description. The system is capable of generating gesture animations for novel text that are consistent with a given performer's style, as was successfully validated in an empirical user study.

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

algorithms
human modeling
character animation


Using Data Accessibility for Resource Selection in Large-Scale Distributed Systems Large-scale distributed systems provide an attractive scalable infrastructure for network applications. However, the loosely coupled nature of this environment can make data access unpredictable, and in the limit, unavailable. We introduce the notion of accessibility to capture both availability and performance. An increasing number of data-intensive applications require not only considerations of node computation power but also accessibility for adequate job allocations. For instance, selecting a node with intolerably slow connections can offset any benefit to running on a fast node. In this paper, we present accessibility-aware resource selection techniques by which it is possible to choose nodes that will have efficient data access to remote data sources. We show that the local data access observations collected from a node's neighbors are sufficient to characterize accessibility for that node. By conducting trace-based, synthetic experiments on PlanetLab, we show that the resource selection heuristics guided by this principle significantly outperform conventional techniques such as latency-based or random allocations. The suggested techniques are also shown to be stable even under churn despite the loss of prior observations.

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

passive network performance estimation
data-intensive computing
large-scale distributed systems


Ordering from Satan's menu: a survey of requirements specification for formal analysis of cryptographic protocols The application of formal methods to cryptographic protocol analysis has been a growth area recently. Most of the attention has been paid to the design of languages for the specification of cryptographic protocols and algorithms for evaluating their security. However, the ability to specify their desired behavior correctly is also important; indeed many perceived protocol flaws arise out of a misunderstanding of the protocol's requirements. In this paper, we give a survey of research in requirements specification for formal analysis of cryptographic protocols. We start with a brief history of the use of requirements specification for cryptographic protocols. We then outline some of the main current trends and areas of research. We conclude with a discussion of some open problems. (C) 2003 Published by Elsevier B.V.

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


local reasoning about a copying garbage collector We present a programming language, model, and logic appropriate for implementing and reasoning about a memory management system. We then state what is meant by correctness of a copying garbage collector, and employ a variant of the novel separation logics [18, 23] to formally specify partial correctness of Cheney's copying garbage collector [8]. Finally, we prove that our implementation of Cheney's algorithm meets its specification, using the logic we have given, and auxiliary variables [19].

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

local reasoning
copying garbage collector


Improving the predictability of distributed stream processors Model combining stream processing technology and real-time. Extensions to the Storm processor. Performance evaluation of the extension on a cluster.

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

real-time
distributed stream processing
predictable infrastructure


Detecting moving people in video streams The detection of moving people is an important task for video surveillance systems. This paper presents a motion segmentation algorithm for detecting people moving in indoor environments. The proposed algorithm works with mobile cameras and it is composed of two main parts. In the first part, a frame-by-frame procedure is applied to compute the difference image, and a neural network is used to classify whether the resulting image represents a static scene or a scene containing mobile objects. The second part tries to reduce the detection errors in terms of both false or missed alarms. A finite state automaton has been designed to give a robust classification and to reduce the number of false or missed blobs. Finally, a bounding ellipse is computed for each detected blob in order to isolate moving people.

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

people detection
mobile camera
change detection


RESEARCH ON TRUST PREDICTION MODEL FOR SELECTING WEB SERVICES BASED ON MULTIPLE DECISION FACTORS With the widespread application of web services, trust-based service selection has become a significant requirement from a requester's point of view, and trust prediction mechanism has become a determining factor for any given service's success. But the dynamic nature of trust creates the biggest challenge in measuring a trust value and make trust predictions. In this paper, a new trust prediction model is proposed based on multiple decision factors. Firstly, the proposed model integrates multiple complementary decision factors to reflect complexity and uncertainty of trust relationship. In addition to including traditional experience-based trust factor and feedback-based trust factor, this model innovatively integrates QoS-based trust factor into global trust evaluation, which makes the model have a better rationality and a higher practicability than the existing approaches. Meanwhile, the proposed model applies the theory of OWA (Ordered Weighted Averaging) operator to assign the classification weights to these decision factors, which makes the model exhibit a strong adaptability in handling various dynamic behaviors of service providers. Simulation results show that, compared to the existing approaches, the proposed model has remarkable enhancements in the accuracy of trust prediction.

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

distributed computing systems
qos-based trust factor
dynamic trust model