exploiting hardware performance counters with flow and context sensitive profiling A program profile attributes run-time costs to portions of a program's execution. Most profiling systems suffer from two major deficiencies: first, they only apportion simple metrics, such as execution frequency or elapsed time to static, syntactic units, such as procedures or statements; second, they aggressively reduce the volume of information collected and reported, although aggregation can hide striking differences in program behavior.This paper addresses both concerns by exploiting the hardware counters available in most modern processors and by incorporating two concepts from data flow analysis--flow and context sensitivity--to report more context for measurements. This paper extends our previous work on efficient path profiling to flow sensitive profiling, which associates hardware performance metrics with a path through a procedure. In addition, it describes a data structure, the calling context tree, that efficiently captures calling contexts for procedure-level measurements.Our measurements show that the SPEC95 benchmarks execute a small number (3--28) of hot paths that account for 9--98\% of their L1 data cache misses. Moreover, these hot paths are concentrated in a few routines, which have complex dynamic behavior.

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

sensitive
tree
performance
context
account
attributes
paper
systems
data cache
procedure
dynamic
behavior
flow
hardware

measurement
efficiency
benchmark
context-sensitivity
association
metrication
data structures
concept
timing
informal
performance metric
processor
data flow analysis
aggregate
complexity
profiles


Exact performance analytical model for spectrum allocation in flexible grid optical networks We propose an exact model depicting the performance of spectrum allocation in FGON. We consider multi-class calls with both first-fit and random-fit policy. The interplay between classes of calls does affect the blocking performance. The fragmentation rate reaches its maximum value when the load is moderate. Performance is affected by the ratios of both loads and average residency times.

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

flexible grid optical network
communication system performance
continuous-time markov model
gaussseidel iteration


MEP: A 3D PIC code for the simulation of the dynamics of a non-neutral plasma The three-dimensional evolution of a pure electron plasma is studied by means of a newly developed particle-in-cell code which solves the drift-Poisson system where kinetic effects in the motion parallel to the magnetic field are taken into account. Different results relevant to the non-linear dynamics of trapped plasmas and low-energy electron beams are presented.

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


A branch-and-bound algorithm for the solution of chemical production scheduling MIP models using parallel computing Exploiting multiple cores in a computer or grid of computers can reduce the time required to solve a mixed-integer programming (MIP) model. Here, we develop a parallel branch-and-bound algorithm for a chemical production scheduling problem using a discrete-time model. The algorithm consists of initialization, submission, branching, collection, bounding, and pruning steps. We branch by adding a constraint to bound the total number of times each task runs. Each subproblem is solved as an MIP on a single core of a computer, so that many sub problems can be solved simultaneously. Also, we propose an algorithm, executed at each node of our branch-and-bound tree, to improve the bounds on the number of times a task is run based on the current objective value. We present computational results for several instances to show the parallel algorithm with the proposed branching strategy can solve more challenging problems than simply using the default parallel option. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

chemical production scheduling
parallel computing


Joint multi-user interference and clipping noise cancellation in uplink MC-CDMA system In this paper, an iterative method is proposed to jointly cancel multi-user interference and clipping noise in uplink Multi-Carrier Code Division Multiple Access (MC-CDMA) systems. Clipping is the simplest method to overcome high peak-to-average power ratio of multi-carrier signals but it makes the signals distorted. Reconstruction methods use non-distorted samples to reconstruct distorted samples in the receiver but multi-user interference causes the methods do not work properly because all the received samples are distorted due to clipping and interference and so there is no undistorted samples to be used in recovering clipped samples. On the other hand, multi-user interference cancellation methods do not work properly because clipping in the transmitter is a non-linear process and therefore this process increases the amount of multiple access interference (MAI). In this paper, we propose a joint MAI and clipping noise cancellation method. In the proposed iterative method in each iteration a MC-CDMA detection method accompany with a clipping and filtering process and then by using the received signal as reference signal, an approximation of error due to clipping and residual interference is computed. Simulation results show that the proposed method improves the performance of clipped MC-CDMA systems in uplink for synchronous/asynchronous links.

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

signal reconstruction
signal detection
interference suppression
iterative methods
multi-user detection


How bad is selfish routing? We consider the problem of routing traffic to optimize the performance of a congested network. We are given a network, a rate of traffic between each pair of nodes, and a latency function for each edge specifying the time needed to traverse the edge given its congestion; the objective is to route traffic such that the sum of all travel times-the total latency-is minimized. In many settings, it may be expensive or impossible to regulate network traffic so as to implement an optimal assignment of routes. In the absence of regulation by some central authority, we assume that each network user routes its traffic on the minimum-latency path available to it, given the network congestion caused by the other users. In general such a "selfishly motivated" assignment of traffic to paths will not minimize the total latency; hence, this lack of regulation carries the cost of decreased network performance. In this article, we quantify the degradation in network performance due to unregulated traffic. We prove that if the latency of each edge is a linear function of its congestion, then the total latency of the routes chosen by selfish network users is at most 4/3 times the minimum possible total latency (subject to the condition that all traffic must be routed). We also consider the more general setting in which edge latency functions are assumed only to be continuous and nondecreasing in the edge congestion. Here, the total latency of the routes chosen by unregulated selfish network users may be arbitrarily larger than the minimum possible total latency; however, we prove that it is no more than the total latency incurred by optimally routing twice as much traffic.

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

algorithms
economics
theory
braess's paradox
nash equilibria
network flow


Open Loop DPC Beamforming Effective for Multiuser MIMO Transmissions in FDD Systems This paper proposes an open loop beamforming scheme for downlink multiuser multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) transmissions in frequency division duplex (FDD). The proposed scheme uses the uplink direction of arrival (DOA) estimation, and then generates the beamforming weight such that the interference caused by the overlapping beams is removed by applying the dirty-paper coding (DPC) principle. The simulation results show that the proposed scheme provides the gain of 32.3% at minimum in terms of the spectral efficiency at the CDF of 50% compared to the conventional DOA based beamforming scheme. In addition, it is shown that the proposed scheme has superior performance to closed loop scheme with the limited feedback information.

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


analysis of cray-1s architecture An analysis of the Cray-1S architecture based on dataflow graphs is presented. The approach consists of representing the components of a Cray-1S system as the nodes of a dataflow graph and the interconnections between the components as the arcs of the dataflow graph. The elapsed time and the resources used in a component are represented by the attributes of the node corresponding to the component. The resulting dataflow graph model is simulated to obtain timing statistics using as input a control stream that represents the instruction and data stream of the real computer system. The Cray-1S architecture is analyzed by conducting several experiments with the model. It is observed that the architecture is a well balanced one and performance improvements are hard to achieve without major changes. Significant improvement in performance is shown when parallel instruction issue is allowed with multiple CIP/LIPs in the architecture.

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

statistics input parallel analysis architecture performance instruction graph timing attributes model dataflow control component

streams
data streaming
systems
simulation
graph models
computation
interconnect
experience
resource
change


Robust color histogram descriptors for video segment retrieval and identification Effective and efficient representation of color features of multiple video frames or pictures is an important yet challenging task for visual information management systems. Key frame-based methods to represent the color features of a group of frames (GoF) are highly dependent on the selection criterion of the representative frame(s), and may lead to unreliable results. In this paper, we present various histogram-based color descriptors to reliably capture and represent the color properties of multiple images or a GoF. One family of such descriptors, called alpha-trimmed average histograms, combine individual frame or image histograms using a specific filtering operation to generate robust color histograms that can eliminate the adverse effects of brightness/color variations, occlusion, and edit effects on the color representation. We show the efficacy of the alpha-trimmed average histograms for video segment retrieval applications, and illustrate how they consistently outperform key frame-based methods. Another color histogram descriptor that we introduce, called the intersection histogram, reflects the number of pixels of a given color that is common to all the frames in the GoF. We employ the intersection histogram to develop a fast and efficient algorithm for identification of the video segment to which a query frame belongs. The proposed color histogram descriptors have been included in the recently completed ISO standard MPEG-7 after extensive evaluation experiments.

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

color descriptors
video segment retrieval


Human walking motion synthesis with desired pace and stride length based on HSMM This paper presents a new technique for automatically synthesizing human walking motion. In the technique, a set of fundamental motion units called motion primitives is defined and each primitive is modeled statistically from motion capture data using a hidden semi-Markov model (HSMM), which is a hidden Markov model (HMM) with explicit state duration probability distributions. The mean parameter for the probability distribution function of HSMM is assumed to be given by a function of factors that control the walking pace and stride length, and a training algorithm, called factor adaptive training, is derived based on the EM algorithm. A parameter generation algorithm from motion primitive HSMMs with given control factors is also described. Experimental results for generating walking motion are presented when the walking pace and stride length are changed. The results show that the proposing technique can generate smooth and realistic motion, which are not included in the motion capture data, without the need for smoothing or interpolation.

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

motion synthesis
walking motion
hmm
factor adaptive training
motion primitives
motion capture


Effective top-k computation with term-proximity support Modern web search engines are expected to return the top-k results efficiently. Although many dynamic index pruning strategies have been proposed for efficient top-k computation, most of them are prone to ignoring some especially important factors in ranking functions, such as term-proximity (the distance relationship between query terms in a document). In our recent work [Zhu, M., Shi, S., Li, M., & Wen, J. (2007). Effective top-k computation in retrieving structured documents with term-proximity support. In Proceedings of 16th CIKM conference (pp. 771780)], we demonstrated that, when term-proximity is incorporated into ranking functions, most existing index structures and top-k strategies become quite inefficient. To solve this problem, we built the inverted index based on web page structure and proposed the query processing strategies accordingly. The experimental results indicate that the proposed index structures and query processing strategies significantly improve the top-k efficiency. In this paper, we study the possibility of adopting additional techniques to further improve top-k computation efficiency. We propose a Proximity-Probe Heuristic to make our top-k algorithms more efficient. We also test the efficiency of our approaches on various settings (linear or non-linear ranking functions, exact or approximate top-k processing, etc.).

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 O O O O O O O O O

top-k
term-proximity
document structure
proximity-probe
non-linear ranking function
approximate top-k


Multiphase segmentation using an implicit dual shape prior: Application to detection of left ventricle in cardiac MRI Novel segmentation algorithm is presented incorporating shape prior. Segmentation algorithm is developed in a variational framework using level sets. The prior uses the anatomical shape similarity between endo- and epicardium. Their dissimilarity is modeled following a Gaussian distribution.

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

shape analysis
implicit shape prior
level set function
magnetic resonance imaging
cardiac disease


Reflecting the choice and usage of communication tools in global software development projects with media synchronicity theory Global software development (GSD) projects use a variety of communication tools, such as teleconferences, email, and instant messaging to overcome the challenges caused by distribution. The use of different tools implies different communication needs and practices within the project. Media synchronicity theory (MST) breaks communication down into two processes conveyance of information and convergence of understanding and communication media capabilities into five: immediacy of feedback, parallelism, symbol variety, rehearsability, and reprocessability. According to MST, media capabilities differ in support for conveyance and convergence, and for good performance, there should be match between media capabilities and communication process needed in a given task. In this paper, we present our qualitative study on communication in GSD. We interviewed 79 individuals from 12 GSD projects. We discuss which communication tools were used and how. We analyze the tool use and articulated rationale for choosing the tools for various tasks in distributed software development based on the two communicative processes and five media properties suggested by MST. We found evidence supporting the applicability of MST as an aid in selecting communication tools for GSD projects. Copyright (C) 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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

global software engineering
media choice


SCLDGM coded modulation for MIMO systems with spatial multiplexing and space-time block codes We analyze Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) coded modulation systems where either Bit-Interleaved Coded Modulation (BICM) with spatial multiplexing or concatenation of channel coding and Space-Time Block Codes (STBCs) is used at transmission, assuming iterative Turbo-like decoding at reception. We optimize Serially-Concatenated Low-Density Generator Matrix (SCLDGM) codes (a subclass of LDPC codes) for each system configuration, with the goal of assessing its ability to approach the capacity limits in either ergodic or quasi-static channels. Our focus is on three relevant STBCs: the Orthogonal Space-Time Block Codes (OSTBCs) for two transmit antennas (i.e., the Alamouti code), which enables optimum detection with low complexity; the Golden code, which provides a capacity increase with respect to the input constellation; and Linear Dispersion (LD) codes, which enable practical detection in asymmetrical antenna configurations (i.e., more transmit than receive antennas) for cases in which optimum detection is infeasible. We conclude that BICM without concatenation with STBCs is in general the best option, except for Alamouti-coded 2 x 1 and Golden-coded 2 x 2 MIMO systems. Copyright (C) 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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


Monitoring event flows and modelling scenarios for crisis prediction: Application to ethnic conflicts forecasting We have developed an early warning prototype, based on a knowledge management approach, so as to carry out the online detection of crises. Experts, with the help of automatic tools, design an ontology describing domain-specific crisis eruption processes. Then a recognition engine performs model-based inference, in order to identify among the events feeding the system, typical sequences that might trigger a crisis. Crises are described in the ontology through the template technique which provides also mechanisms to assess the similarity between stored scenarios and event flows related to the monitored process. This technique takes into account imperfect knowledge and uncertainties: for instance, imprecise temporal constraints between events are represented by fuzzy sets.

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

fuzzy logic
xml
spatio-temporal modelling


Feature-preserved morphing method for panel design In order to design and manufacture the new products with less time and cost, the factories want to remodel based on the older products, it makes the feature-preserved morphing parameterization technology become a new subject and attract increasing attention. To meet this requirement, a feature-preserved morphing method for panel design under complex rigid constraints, abbreviated as FPM, is proposed in this paper. It can also be applied in the parameterization design and modeling for auto-body using digital models. The contrastive implementation results of the experiments conducted using CAD data by the methods of FPM and FFD (Free-Form Deformation) are presented separately, which demonstrate the applicability and validity of FPM in the field of feature-preserved parameterization morphing design. (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 B I O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

parameterization design
digital models
cad data


enhancing spark's contract checking facilities using symbolic execution Spark, a subset of Ada for engineering safety and security-critical systems, is one of the best commercially available frameworks for formal-methods-supported development of critical software. Spark is designed for verification and includes a software contract language for specifying functional properties of procedures. Even though Spark and its static analysis components are beneficial and easy to use, its contract language is rarely used for stating properties beyond simple constraints on scalar values due to the burdens the associated tool support imposes on developers. Symbolic execution (SymExe) techniques have made significant strides in automating reasoning about deep semantic properties of source code. However, most work on SymExe has focused on bug-finding and test case generation as opposed to tasks that are more verification-oriented such as contract checking. In previous work we have presented: (a) SymExe techniques for checking software contracts in embedded critical systems, and (b) Bakar Kiasan, a tool that implements these techniques in an integrated development environment for Spark. In this paper, we give a detailed walk-through of Bakar Kiasan as it is applied to an industrial code base for an embedded security device. We illustrate how Bakar Kiasan provides significant increases in automation, usability, and functionality over existing Spark contract checking tools, and we present results from performance evaluations of its application to industrial examples.

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


Factors affecting the stimulus artifact tail in surface-recorded somatosensory-evoked potentials Surface-recorded somatosensory-evoked potentials (SEPs) are neural signals elicited by an external stimulus. In the case of electrically induced SEPs, the artifact generated by the stimulation process can severely distort the signal. In some cases, the artifact tail often lasts well into the initiation of the SEP making the determination of absolute latency very difficult. In this work, a new approach was taken to identify factors that affect the tail of the artifact. The methodology adopted was the development of a lumped electrical circuit model of the artifact generation process. While the modeling of the instrumentation hardware is relatively simple, this is not the case with tissue and electrode/skin interface effects. Consequently, this paper describes a novel tissue modeling approach that uses an autoregressive moving average (ARMA) parametric technique and an artificial neural network (ANN) to estimate tissue parameters from experimental data. This coupled with an estimation of the stimulation electrodeskin impedance completes the lumped circuit model. Simulink (The Mathworks Inc.) was used to evaluate the model under several different conditions. These results show that both the stimulation electrodeskin interface impedance and nature of the body tissue directly under the recording electrodes have a profound effect on the appearance of the stimulus artifact tail. This was verified by experimentally recorded data obtained from the median nerve using surface electrodes. Conclusions drawn from this work include that stimulation electrodes with low series capacitance should be used whenever possible to minimize the duration of the artifact tail.

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

stimulus artifact
tissue modeling
instrumentation


OPTIMIZED SCALE-FREE NETWORKS AGAINST CASCADING FAILURES According to the dynamical characteristics of the local redistribution of the load on a removal node, by the reconnection of the neighboring edge of the most vulnerable node, we propose an effective method to improve the network robustness against cascading failures. Under two constraints, i.e. keeping the degree of each node unchanged and fixing the total protective cost of a network, we investigate the efficiency of the swap method on scale-free networks and analyze the correlation between the optimized network and the Pearson correlation coefficient. We numerically show that effective swapping of the small part of connections can dramatically improve the network robust level against cascading failures and find that the optimized networks obtained by the swap method exhibit an extremely disassortative degree degree correlation, that is, the disassortativity decreases the robustness of the optimized network against cascading failures. While the extent of the disassortative mixing is decided by the parameters in the cascading model. In addition, we also compare the average path length and the diameter of the optimized and the original networks.

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

cascading failure
scale-free network
attack strategy


regular approximation and bounded domains for size-change termination Abstract The size-change principle devised by Lee, Jones and Ben-Amram, provides an effective method of determining program termination for recursive functions. It relies on a regular approximation to the call structure of the program, operates only over variables whose "size" is well-founded, and ignores the conditionals and return values in the program. The main contribution of our paper is twofold: firstly we improve size-change termination analysis by using better regular approximations to program flow, and secondly we extend the analysis beyond the original well-founded variables to include integer variables. In addition, we pay attention to program conditionals that are expressed by linear constraints and support the analysis of functions in which the return values are relevant to termination. Our analysis is entirely mechanical, exploits the decidability and expressive power of affine constraints and extends the set of programs that are size-change terminating.

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


A compact split-step finite difference method for solving the nonlinear Schrdinger equations with constant and variable coefficients We propose a compact split-step finite difference method to solve the nonlinear Schrdinger equations with constant and variable coefficients. This method improves the accuracy of split-step finite difference method by introducing a compact scheme for discretization of space variable while this improvement does not reduce the stability range and does not increase the computational cost. This method also preserves some conservation laws. Numerical tests are presented to confirm the theoretical results for the new numerical method by using the cubic nonlinear Schrdinger equation with constant and variable coefficients and GrossPitaevskii equation.

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

compact split-step finite difference method (ssfd)


call for bags Inspired by the theme of Everyday Creativity, we asked people across the world to post their old conference bag(s) to us so that they could be recycled into one-of-a-kind reusable conference bags. Each bag sent was then hand crafted and sculpted by up-and-coming British designer Sarah Atkinson. Unlike many consumer products that we buy today, each bag has its previous history attached.

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

recycled
history
bag
everyday creativity


Exercising at home: Real-time interaction and experience sharing using avatars This paper reports on the design of a vision-based exercise monitoring system. The system aims to promote well-being by making exercise sessions enjoyable experiences, either through real-time interaction and instructions proposed to the user, or via experience sharing or group gaming with peers in a virtual community. The use of avatars is explored as means of representation of the users exercise movements or appearance, and the system employs user-centric approaches in visual processing, behavior modeling via history data accumulation, and user feedback to learn the users appreciation. A preliminary user survey study has been conducted to explore the avatar appreciations across different types of social contexts.

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

exercise monitor
pose analysis
social networks
user appreciation


Integrating learning styles and adaptive e-learning system: Current developments, problems and opportunities Review on how learning styles were integrated into adaptive e-learning systems. FelderSilvermans is found to be the most popular theory that was applied. Explore online learning styles predictors and automatic classification methods. Examine different applications of learning styles in adaptive learning system. Recommendation and future research opportunities are proposed.

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

learning styles
adaptive learning system

literature review
e-learning
it in education


IPv6 Autoconfiguration for Hierarchical MANETs with Efficient Leader Election Algorithm To connect a mobile ad hoe network (MANET) with an IP network and to carryout communication, ad hoc network node needs to be configured with unique IP adress. Dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP) server autoconfigure nodes in wired networks. However, this cannot be applied to ad hoc network without introducing some changes in auto configuration mechanism, due to intrinsic properties (i.e., multi-hop, dynamic, and distributed nature) of the network. In this paper, we propose a scalable autoconfiguration scheme for MANETs with hierarchical topology consisting of leader and member nodes, by considering the global Internet connectivity with minimum overhead. In our proposed scheme, a joining node selects one of the pre-configured nodes for its duplicate address detection (DAD) operation. We reduce overhead and make our scheme scalable by eliminating the broadcast of DAD messages in the network. We also propose the group leader election algorithm, which takes into account the resources, density, and position information of a node to select a new leader. Our simulation results show that our proposed scheme is effective to reduce the overhead and is scalable. Also, it is shown that the proposed scheme provides an efficient method to heal the network after partitioning and merging by enhancing the role of bordering nodes in the group.

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

address autoconfiguration
duplicate address detection (dad)
mobile ad hoc network (manet)


The largest nonidentifiable outlier: a comparison of multivariate simultaneous outlier identification rules The aim of detecting outliers in a multivariate sample can be pursued in different ways. We investigate here the performance of several simultaneous multivariate outlier identification rules based on robust estimators of location and scale. It has been shown that the use of estimators with high finite-sample breakdown point in such procedures yields a good behaviour with respect to the prevention of breakdown by the masking effect (Becker, Gather, 1999. J. Amer. Statist. Assoc. 94, 947955). In this article, we investigate by simulation, at which distance from the centre of an underlying model distribution outliers can be placed until certain simultaneous identification rules will detect them as outliers. We consider identification procedures based on the minimum volume ellipsoid, the minimum covariance determinant, and S-estimators.

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

high breakdown point procedures
mve
mcd
robustness
s-estimators


A multiwavelet Galerkin boundary element method for the stationary Stokes problem in 3D In this paper, a multiwavelet Galerkin boundary element method is presented for the fast solution of the stationary Stokes problem in three dimensions. Piecewise linear discontinuous multiwavelet bases are constructed on each patch of piecewise smooth surface individually, which allow easy and efficient evaluation of the matrix entries. Because of the use of the multiwavelets, the system matrix can be compressed to O(N) (N denotes the number of unknowns) nonzero entries without compromising the order of convergence as for the conventional Galerkin boundary element method. Numerical results of two test samples are given to demonstrate the availability of the present method.

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

stokes problem
multiwavelet
galerkin boundary element method

boundary integral equation
matrix compression
sparse matrix


Site of metabolism prediction on cytochrome P450 2C9: a knowledge-based docking approach A novel structure-based approach for site of metabolism prediction has been developed. This knowledge-based method consists of three steps: (1) generation of possible metabolites, (2) docking the predicted metabolites to the CYP binding site and (3) selection of the most probable metabolites based on their complementarity to the binding site. As a proof of concept we evaluated our method by using MetabolExpert for metabolite generation and Glide for docking into the binding site of the CYP2C9 crystal structure. Our method could identify the correct metabolite among the three best-ranked compounds in 69% of the cases. The predictive power of our knowledge-based method was compared to that achieved by substrate docking and two alternative literature approaches.

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


Intelligent dimensioning for mechanical parts based on feature extraction This paper presents an intelligent dimensioning approach to generate dimensions for 2D drawing of mechanical parts automatically from their 3D part models based on feature extraction. The key issues include the strategies and methods for identifying dimension redundancy, recognizing dimensioning features, determining dimensioning scheme, assigning necessary dimensions to suitable views, and locating the dimensions in reasonable positions for each view using artificial intelligent technology. Based on the approach, a corresponding software prototype was developed. Finally, it is demonstrated, from an example of dimensioning a box-type part, that its dimensions were generated successfully using this intelligent dimensioning software prototype.

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


Mixture model analysis of DNA microarray images In this paper, we propose a new methodology for analysis of microarray images. First, a new gridding algorithm is proposed for determining the individual spots and their borders. Then, a Gaussian mixture model (GMM) approach is presented for the analysis of the individual spot images. The main advantages of the proposed methodology are modeling flexibility and adaptability to the data, which are well-known strengths of GMM. The maximum likelihood and maximum a posteriori approaches are used to estimate the GMM parameters via the expectation maximization algorithm. The proposed approach has the ability to detect and compensate for artifacts that might occur in microarray images. This is accomplished by a model-based criterion that selects the number of the mixture components. We present numerical experiments with artificial and real data where we compare the proposed approach with previous ones and existing software tools for microarray image analysis and demonstrate its advantages.

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

cross-validated likelihood
dna microarray image analysis
expectation-maximization algorithm
gaussian mixture models
markov random fields
microarray gridding


Remarks on the future of AI: machines and communication Artificial Intelligence will continue to flourish in many ways. In this article, we present a view that centers on communication. Genuine human-computer communication has been an ambitious goal of artificial intelligence for decades and bears great potential for its future, yet nature still remains the sole successful crafter of systems capable of this art. Observations of natural communication processes suggest a holistic view that unites different means and levels of communication. Patterns from various senses as well as vast amounts of contextual information are integrated to yield an approximate understanding of reality. Rather than focusing on individual aspects of high-level communication techniques, we advocate tracing this holistic approach to communication, and systematically increasing algorithmic, integrative communication capabilities.

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


Bone Remodeling The skeleton is a metabolically active organ that undergoes continuous remodeling throughout life. Bone remodeling involves the removal of mineralized bone by osteoclasts followed by the formation of bone matrix through the osteoblasts that subsequently become mineralized. The remodeling cycle consists of three consecutive phase

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


An Excel spreadsheet to recast analyses of garnet into end-member components, and a synopsis of the crystal chemistry of natural silicate garnets A Microsoft Excel spreadsheet has been programmed that allows users to calculate with ease the molar proportions of garnet end-members from chemical analyses. Recent advances in the understanding of the crystal chemistry of natural garnets, especially of the Ti-bearing garnets, are used to evaluate 29 end-members (15 species and 14 hypothetical end-members) for each analysis. The amounts of Fe(2+) and Fe(3+) (and Mn(3+), if necessary) are Calculated by stoichiometric constraints if these quantities have not been measured. The input data can include: SiO(2), TiO(2), ZrO(2), SnO(2), Y(2)O(3), Al(2)O(3), SC(2)O(3), Cr(23), V(2)O(3), FeO, Fe(2)O(3), MnO, MgO, CaO, Na(2)O, H(2)O(+) and F. The spreadsheet can be used with large data sets (Lip to 100 analyses at a time), and is accompanied by results calculated for 470 garnet analyses taken from the literature. The spreadsheet employs a simple scoring algorithm to measure the quality of a garnet analysis. The propagation of error from the input chemical data to the Calculation of end-member proportions is also discussed briefly. (c) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

crystal chemistry
excel
garnet
spreadsheet


Automatically finding relevant citations for clinical guideline development Automated citation finding can augment manual literature search. We built a gold standard with citations from 653 guideline recommendations. The query expansion method vs. PubMed improved recall with non-significant loss on precision. The unsupervised citation ranking approach performed better than standard PubMed ranking and a machine learning classifier.

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

information retrieval
practice guideline
medical subject headings
natural language processing


State-Dependent Modulation of Feeding Behavior by Proopiomelanocortin-Derived ?-Endorphin Feeding behavior can be divided into appetitive and consummatory phases, differing in neural substrates and effects of deprivation. Opioids play an important role in the appetitive aspects of feeding, but they also have acute stimulatory effects on food consumption. Because the opioid peptide ?-endorphin is co-synthesized and released with melanocortins from proopiomelanocortin (POMC) neuronal terminals, we examined the physiological role of ?-endorphin in feeding and energy homeostasis using a strain of mutant mice with a selective deficiency of ?-endorphin. Male ?-endorphin-deficient mice unexpectedly became obese with ad libitum access to rodent chow. Total body weight increased by 15% with a 50100% increase in the mass of white fat. The mice were hyperphagic with a normal metabolic rate. Despite the absence of endogenous ?-endorphin, the mutant mice did not differ from wild-type mice in their acute feeding responses to ?-endorphin or neuropeptide Y administered intracerebroventricularly or naloxone administered intraperitoneally. Additional mice were studied using an operant behavioral paradigm to examine their acquisition of food reinforcers under increasing work demands. Food-deprived, ?-endorphin-deficient male mice emitted the same number of lever presses under a progressive ratio schedule compared to wild-type mice. However, the mutant mice worked significantly less than did the wild-type mice for food reinforcers under nondeprived conditions. Controls for nonspecific effects on acquisition of conditioned learning, activity, satiety, and resistance to extinction revealed no genotype differences, supporting our interpretation that ?-endorphin selectively affects a motivational component of reward behavior under nondeprived conditions. Therefore, we propose that ?-endorphin may function in at least two primary modes to modulate feeding. In the appetitive phase, ?-endorphin release increases the incentive value of food as a primary reinforcer. In contrast, it appears that endogenous ?-endorphin may inhibit food consumption in parallel with melanocortins and that the orexigenic properties previously ascribed to it may actually be due to other classes of endogenous opioid peptides.

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

opioid peptides
reinforcer
metabolic rate

?-endorphin
operant conditioning
deprivation state
motivation
hyperphagia
knockout mice
sexual dimorphism


On listing, sampling, and counting the chordal graphs with edge constraints We discuss the problems to list, sample, and count the chordal graphs with edge constraints. The objects we look at are chordal graphs sandwiched by a given pair of graphs where we assume that at least one of the input graphs is chordal. The setting is a natural generalization of chordal completions and deletions. For the listing problem, we give an efficient algorithm running in polynomial time per output with polynomial space. As for the sampling problem, we give two clues that indicate that a random sampling is not easy. The first clue is that we show #P-completeness results for counting problems. The second clue is that we give an instance for which a natural Markov chain suffers from an exponential mixing time. These results provide a unified viewpoint from algorithms' theory to problems arising from various areas such as statistics, data mining, and numerical computation. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

graph sandwich
chordal completion/deletion
enumeration
#p-completeness
markov chain monte carlo


A separation-based UI architecture with a DSL for role specialization We propose a new DSL and separation-based architecture and development methodology. The approach separates front-end UI concerns from back-end implementation concerns. A climate science application illustrates the approach and verifies its validity. Evaluation of the approach includes comparative analysis and usability studies. The approach increases developer productivity and enhances UI design flexibility.

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

domain specific language
model driven engineering
user experience


Joint time-frequency domain cyclostationarity-based approach to blind estimation of OFDM transmission parameters Blind estimation of the transmission parameters of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) signal is an important issue for various civilian and military applications. This paper presents a new cyclostationarity-based approach to blind estimation of OFDM signal parameters. Analytical expression for extracting transmission parameters from second-order cyclic cumulant (CC) of OFDM signal is derived first, with the consideration of the effects of time dispersion and consistent estimator errors on CC. The approach exploits the cyclostationarity of OFDM both in time delay domain and cyclic frequency domain; a statistic hypothesis testing framework was formulated to determine the threshold for detecting the presence of cycles of OFDM signal. The simulation results reveal that the proposed approach is robust for both previous synchronization and channel condition concurrently.

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

blind parameter estimation
second-order cyclic cumulant


Learning multiple languages in groups We consider a variant of Gold's learning paradigm where a learner receives as input n different languages (in the form of one text where all input languages are interleaved). Our goal is to explore the situation when a more "coarse" classification of input languages is possible, whereas more refined classification is not. More specifically, we answer the following question: under which conditions, a learner, being fed n different languages, can produce m grammars covering all input languages, but cannot produce k grammars covering input languages for any k > m. We also consider a variant of this task, where each of the output grammars may not cover more than r input languages. Our main results indicate that the major factor affecting classification capabilities is the difference n - m between the number n of input languages and the number m of output grammars. We also explore the relationship between classification capabilities for smaller and larger groups of input languages. For the variant of our model with the upper bound on the number of languages allowed to be represented by one output grammar, for classes consisting of disjoint languages, we found complete picture of relationship between classification capabilities for different parameters it (the number of input languages), m (number of output grammars), and r (bound on the number of languages represented by each output grammar). This picture includes a combinatorial characterization of classification capabilities for the parameters n, m, r of certain types. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

classification
learning multiple languages

computational learning theory
learning in the limit


removing the memory limitations of sensor networks with flash-based virtual memory Virtual memory has been successfully used in different domains to extend the amount of memory available to applications. We have adapted this mechanism to sensor networks, where, traditionally, RAM is a severely constrained resource. In this paper we show that the overhead of virtual memory can be significantly reduced with compile-time optimizations to make it usable in practice, even with the resource limitations present in sensor networks. Our approach, ViMem , creates an efficient memory layout based on variable access traces obtained from simulation tools. This layout is optimized to the memory access patterns of the application and to the specific properties of the sensor network hardware. Our implementation is based on TinyOS. It includes a pre-compiler for nesC code that translates virtual memory accesses into calls of ViMem's runtime component. ViMem uses flash memory as secondary storage. In order to evaluate our system we have modified nontrivial existing applications to make use of virtual memory. We show that its runtime overhead is small even for large data sizes.

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

memory layout
flash memory
virtual memory


The cable trench problem: combining the shortest path and minimum spanning tree problems Let G=(V,E) be a connected graph with specified vertex v0?V, length l(e)?0 for each e?E, and positive parameters ? and ?. The cable-trench problem (CTP) is to find a spanning tree T such that ?l?(T)+?l?(T) is minimized where l?(T) is the total length of the spanning tree T and l?(T) is the total path length in T from v0 to all other vertices of V. Since all vertices must be connected to v0 and only edges from E are allowed, the solution will not be a Steiner tree. Consider the ratio R=?/?. For R large enough the solution will be a minimum spanning tree and for R small enough the solution will be a shortest path. In this paper, the CTP will be shown to be NP-complete. A mathematical formulation for the CTP will be provided for specific values of ? and ?. Also, a heuristic will be discussed that will solve the CTP for all values of R. Both the shortest path and the minimum spanning tree problems are universally discussed in operations research and management science textbooks. Since the late 1950s, efficient algorithms have been known for both of these problems. In this paper, the cable-trench problem is defined which combines the shortest path problem and the minimum spanning tree problem to create a problem that is shown to be NP-complete. In other words, two easy problems are combined to get a more realistic problem that is difficult to solve. Examples are used to illustrate an efficient and effective heuristic solution procedure for the cable-trench problem.

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

networks
graph theory
np-completeness
heuristics


Computational efficiency and universality of timed P systems with membrane creation P systems are a class of distributed parallel computing models inspired by the structure and the functioning of a living cell, where the execution of each rule is completed in exactly one time unit (a global clock is assumed). However, in living cells, the execution time of different biological processes is difficult to know precisely and very sensitive to environmental factors that might be hard to control. Inspired from this biological motivation, in this work, timed polarization P systems with membrane creation are introduced and their computational efficiency and universality are investigated. Specifically, we give a time-free semi-uniform solution to the SAT problem by a family of P systems with membrane creation in the sense that the correctness of the solution is irrelevant to the times associated with the involved rules. We also prove that time-free P systems with membrane creation are computationally universal.

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

membrane creation
sat problem
universality


Improved Fourier analysis using parametric frequency-domain transfer-function estimators Frequency components (or sinusoids) can be detected from noise-corrupted signals by means of FFT-based Fourier analysis techniques. The main drawbacks of FFT-based techniques are their poor frequency resolution and the presence of leakage errors. This paper shows that by means of frequency-domain transfer-function estimators it is possible to eliminate the leakage errors and to improve the resolution of the frequency estimates. The advantages of this approach are illustrated by means of both simulations and measurements performed on two applications on rotating machinery.

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

parametric frequency domain technique
transfer-function estimators


Man in a garrulous silence Mitten in 1982 for a closed meeting of scholars, provides an insight into the thinking of the time and in particular to the contributions of the author to systems and cybernetics. Illustrates the challenge of technology to humankind and sees the coming of a second Tower of Babel which is as counter-productive as the first. Believed it was necessary to consider practical strategies for change. Looks at the concept of human identity, considering "Oneself: a systems viewpoint", "A Tripartite selfhood" and "The community consequence" Provides a schematic framework for the discussion of the social cybernetics of the human condition. Considers a basic stance, and the application of rules detected by cybernetic scholarship. Outlines strategies for inducing change and examines new dimensions for planning. Emphasizes the importance of regarding planning as a matter of obtaining recognition of the frameworks that have been introduced and then facilitating choice.

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


Motion compensated film restoration Motion picture films are susceptible to local degradations such as dust spots. Other deteriorations are global such as intensity and spatial jitter. It is obvious that motion needs to be compensated for before the detection/correction of such local and dynamic defects. Therefore, we propose a hierarchical motion estimation method ideally suited for high resolution film sequences. This recursive block-based motion estimator relies on an adaptive search strategy and Radon projections to improve processing speed. The localization of dust particles then becomes straightforward. Thus, it is achieved by simple inter-frame differences between the current image and motion compensated successive and preceding frames. However, the detection of spatial and intensity jitter requires a specific process taking advantage of the high temporal correlation in the image sequence. In this paper, we present our motion compensation-based algorithms for removing dust spots, spatial and intensity jitter in degraded motion pictures. Experimental results are presented showing the usefulness of our motion estimator for film restoration at reasonable computational costs.

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

block matching
motion picture restoration
dust spot removal
spatial and intensity jitter removal


learning techniques in social and location-based service recommendation As the mobile technologies advance, location-based services (LBS) become promising for improving people's daily lives. These services not only can identify users' activities at a location, but also can attain users' social activity networks. The context-aware information including location and social information of mobile users can help to analyze their common interests and current commercial intentions. This is especially helpful in determining the marketing strategy in a special region on behalf of the users. Upon the rapid development and deployment of mobile location-based services, various kinds of location-based and social data will be enormous. How to learn uses' interests and commercial intentions from the ubiquitously available data come to be essential for the innovation of location-based services. In this talk, we will explore related learning techniques to tackle the data mining problems associated with social and location-based service recommendation. Our talk includes the following topics: What kinds of learning techniques can be adopted and developed to solve the location-based and social data learning problems? What are the pros and cons for content-based learning techniques and collaborative filtering techniques? How to include location-based or social information into content-based learning techniques for effective data mining? How to incorporate location-based or social information into collaborative filtering techniques for effective data mining? How to perform recommendation based on the learning results? What are the future research issues and promising applications in this emerging area?

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


Stratified LMN-convergence tower spaces We develop a general theory of convergence for lattice-valued spaces based on the concept of s-stratified LM-filters. For different choices of the frames L and M, different kinds of filters arise, and suitable choices of the lattice N allow to view many existing fuzzy and probabilistic convergence spaces as special examples of our stratified LMN-convergence tower spaces. The stratification requires a certain relation between the frames L and M and we use a so-called stratification mapping to this end. The stratification condition is used to show that the resulting category is fiber-small and hence Cartesian closedness is equivalent to the existence of natural function spaces. We give several examples for our spaces for different choices of the lattices L, M and N with a special focus on enriched LM-fuzzy topological spaces. Finally, we study diagonal axioms and regularity.

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

l-topology
l-convergence
stratified lm-filter


Comparison of relative efficiencies of sampling plans excluding certain neighboring units: a simulation study Ecological and environmental studies frequently involve work in settings where some physical conditions influence the effectiveness of standard sampling plans. These studies may require expensive and time- consuming sampling processes. These conditions motivate researchers to find sampling plans that provide the highest precision at the lowest cost. Several sampling plans that exclude some types of 'neighboring' units are discussed in this article. Sampling of this type is called sampling excluding neighboring units and is a two- dimensional adaptation of balanced sampling excluding contiguous units [ Hedayat, A. S., Rao, C. R. and Stufken, J., 1988, Sampling designs excluding contiguous units. Journal of Statistical Planning and Inference, 19, 159 - 170]. Key features of this article are: ( i) the construction of sampling plans designed to yield representative samples by avoiding the simultaneous selection of units that are, in some sense, neighbors; ( ii) a simulation study which compares the relative efficiencies of these sampling plans on the basis of different correlations and sample sizes. In this study, we assume that correlations ( or correlated errors) between units decrease as a function of the distance between units. The construction of a sampling plan is illustrated using actual data from a 1998 field study, which examined the insect species assemblage in a beech- maple forest.

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


adaptive nearest neighbor search for relevance feedback in large image databases Relevance feedback is often used in refining similarity retrievals in image and video databases. Typically this involves modification to the similarity metrics based on the user feedback and recomputing a set of nearest neighbors using the modified similarity values. Such nearest neighbor computations are expensive given that typical image features, such as color and texture, are represented in high dimensional spaces. Search complexity is a ciritcal issue while dealing with large databases and this issue has not received much attention in relevance feedback research. Most of the current methods report results on very small data sets, of the order of few thousand items, where a sequential (and hence exhaustive search) is practical. The main contribution of this paper is a novel algorithm for adaptive nearest neigbor computations for high dimensional feature vectors and when the number of items in the databse is large. The proposed method exploits the correlations between two consecutive nearest neighbor searches when the underlying similarity metric is changing, and filters out a significant number of candidates ina two stage search and retrieval process, thus reducing the number of I/O accesses to the database. Detailed experimental results are provided using a set of about 700,000 images. Comparision to the existing method shows an order of magnitude overall imporovement.

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

order
video
nearest neighbor
color
paper
practical
search
attention
user feedback
research
method
values
retrieval
process
data
image
similarity
complexity
algorithm
feature
relevance feedback
database

nearest neighbor search
metrication
correlation
similarity retrieval
imaging
filtering
image database
vectorization
adapt
experimentation
exploit
space
refine


Persuasive Cued Click-Points: Design, Implementation, and Evaluation of a Knowledge-Based Authentication Mechanism This paper presents an integrated evaluation of the Persuasive Cued Click-Points graphical password scheme, including usability and security evaluations, and implementation considerations. An important usability goal for knowledge-based authentication systems is to support users in selecting passwords of higher security, in the sense of being from an expanded effective security space. We use persuasion to influence user choice in click-based graphical passwords, encouraging users to select more random, and hence more difficult to guess, click-points.

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


An improved shuffled complex evolution algorithm with sequence mapping mechanism for job shop scheduling problems An Improved Shuffled Complex Evolution (ISCE) algorithm is proposed. The sequence mapping mechanism was presented. The sequence with job permutation, is adopted for encoding and decoding. A new strategy is used to improve the individuals evolution to overcome stagnation. The results show that the improved algorithm is effective to the job shop scheduling.

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

job shop scheduling
shuffled complex evolution
job permutation
sequence mapping mechanism


using greenfoot and a moon scenario to teach java programming in cs1 In this paper we describe a novel concept for teaching introductory Java programming to post-secondary students in their first year of higher education. The concept includes labs and a capstone project all linked together and all utilizing the Java-based Greenfoot programming environment. The concept is designed with two goals in mind: to improve the students experience in their first computer programming course by making it more entertaining; and to increase retention in the diploma or degree programs by peaking the student's interest early in their studies. This is accomplished through a Going to the Moon scenario we have designed and implemented into the Greenfoot programming environment.

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

simple data types
programming for fun
programming environments


Adaptive parameter identification of servo control systems with noise and high-frequency uncertainties When identifying the parameters of practical servo systems, the high-frequency system modes are frequently neglected in order to simplify the model. Additionally, avoiding measurement noise in physical experiments is virtually impossible Therefore, selecting an appropriate excitation signal is essential. Specifying white noise, or other such signals, as the input signal may cause the excitation of high-frequency uncertainties, which affects the reliability of the parameter identification process. The current study proposes a novel approach in which a particular class of chaotic signal is employed as the excitation signal in an adaptive parameter identification process. Since chaotic signals typically have stationary, continuous, and band-limited power spectra, they are suitable for on-line parameter identification. The present numerical and experimental results demonstrate that the use of a chaotic excitation signal in the identification process causes the estimated system parameters to converge within identifiable ranges, even when the system includes measurement noise and high-frequency uncertainties. The current results also show that there is good agreement between the dynamics of the real system and those of the estimated model within the operation bandwidth.

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

chaos
servo system
persistent excitation
band-limitation


editing by example An editing by example system is an automatic program synthesis facility embedded in a text editor that can be used to solve repetitive text editing problems. The user provides the editor with a few examples of a text transformation. The system analyzes the examples and generalizes them into a program that can perform the transformation to the rest of the user's text. This paper presents the design, analysis, and implementation of a practical editing by example system. In particular, we study the problem of synthesizing a text processing program that generalizes the transformation implicitly described by a small number of input/output examples. We define a class of text processing programs called gap programs , characterize their computational power, study the problems associated with synthesizing them from examples, and derive an efficient heuristic that provably synthesizes a gap program from examples of its input/output behavior. We evaluate how well the gap program synthesis heuristic performs on the text encountered in practice. This evaluation inspires the development of several modifications to the gap program synthesis heuristic that act both to improve the quality of the hypotheses proposed by the system and to reduce the number of examples required to converge to a target program. The result is a gap program synthesis heuristic that can usually synthesize a target gap program from two or three input examples and a single output example. The editing by example system derived from this analysis has been embedded in a production text editor. The system is presented as a group of editor commands that use the standard interfaces of the editor to collect examples, show synthesized programs, and run them. By developing an editing by example system that solves a useful class of text processing problems, we demonstrate that program synthesis is feasible in the domain of text editing.

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

program examples input analysis behavior design implementation text synthesis paper practical user class

product efficiency systems association edit text-processing heuristics embedding


Describing the transformation of organic carbon and nitrogen in soil using the MOTOR system This article presents a framework (MOTOR 3.01, MOdular description of the Turnover of Organic matteR), which describes the transformation of organic carbon and nutrients in soil. The state of each component of the organic matter in soil is described by a vector and the transformations by a matrix of terms. Actual turnover is calculated by multiplication of these matrices, state vectors and a rate vector. The resulting system is powerful because it is modular in construction and any one part of it may be altered simply and quickly without reference to the rest of the calculation system. Once the flow of an element is described, related nutrients (nitrogen in relation to carbon, for example) and their isotopic tracers are handled directly without additional programming or without repeated simulations. A great benefit of this approach is that mixtures of substrate or substrates of very different qualities (C:N, fibre content, labelled and unlabelled) can be dealt with easily by inserting another residue pool. If necessary the kinetics of decomposition of this new pool can differ from the others; the fate of its decomposition products is also easy to define. Where nutrients such as N are in short supply, the transformations are no longer a linear function of inputs. A novel two-call algorithm is described which first identifies if shortages of N occur during decomposition as a whole and then modifies decomposition iteratively until supply and demand for N are in balance. The structure of the modules is explained and an example given of the system's application to test a model of the protection of organic carbon and nitrogen in soil during turnover. Parameters derived from a published dataset for carbon turnover are adapted to follow the turnover of 15N-labelled crop residues in soil and the resultant model tested against two independent datasets.

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

isotope labelling
mineralization
organic matter protection


On graphs with the third largest number of maximal independent sets Let G be a simple and undirected graph. By mi(G) we denote the number of maximal independent sets in G. Erdos and Moser posed the problem to determine the maximum cardinality of mi(G) among all graphs of order n and to characterize the corresponding extremal graphs attaining this maximum cardinality. The above problem has been solved by Moon and Moser in [J.W. Moon, L. Moser, On cliques in graphs, Israel J. Math. 3 (1965) 23-28]. More recently, Jin and Li [Z. Jin, X. Li, Graphs with the second largest number of maximal independent sets, Discrete Mathematics 308 (2008) 5864-5870] investigated the second largest cardinality of mi(G) among all graphs of order n and characterized the extremal graph attaining this value of mi(G). In this paper, we shall determine the third largest cardinality of mi(G) among all graphs G of order n. Additionally, graphs achieving this value are also determined. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

maximal independent set
combinatorial problems


Performance of affordable neural network for back propagation learning Cell assembly is one of explanations of information processing in the brain, in which an information is represented by a firing space pattern of a group of plural neurons. On the other hand, effectiveness of neural network has been confirmed in pattern recognition, system control, signal processing, and so on, since the back propagation learning was proposed. In this study, we propose a new network structure with affordable neurons in the hidden layer of the feedforward neural network. Computer simulated results show that the proposed network exhibits a good performance for the back propagation learning. Furthermore, we confirm the proposed network has a good generalization ability.

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

cell assembly
affordable neurons
back propagation


A delay-partitioning projection approach to stability analysis of stochastic Markovian jump neural networks with randomly occurred nonlinearities This paper considers the problem of mean square asymptotic stability of stochastic Markovian jump neural networks with randomly occurred nonlinearities. In terms of linear matrix inequality (LMI) approach and delay-partitioning projection technique, delay-dependent stability criteria are derived for the considered neural networks for cases with or without the information of the delay rates via new LyapunovKrasovskii functionals. We also establish that the conservatism of the conditions is a non-increasing function of the number of delay partitions. An example with simulation results is given to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

O 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

time-varying delay
randomly occurred nonlinearities (rons)
delay-partitioning projection
stochastic neural networks


How to simulate affinities for host-guest systems lacking binding mode information: application to the liquid chromatographic separation of hexabromocyclododecane stereoisomers A novel approach for the simulation of host-guest systems by systematically scanning the host molecule's orientations within the guest cavity is presented along with a thermodynamic strategy for determining preferential binding modes and corresponding optimal interaction energies between host and guest molecules. By way of example, the elution order of hexabromocyclododecane stereoisomers from high performance liquid chromatography separation on a permethylated beta-cyclcodextrin stationary phase has been computed using classical molecular dynamics simulations with the explicit solvents water and acetonitrile. Comparison of estimated with experimental separation data reveals remarkable squared coefficients of correlation with R (2) = 0.87 and a very high correlation using the leave-one-out cross-validation method and water as solvent. In particular, the approach presented shapes up as very robust in terms of the evaluated time range under consideration, reflecting well thermodynamic equilibria. These and further observations correlating with experimental results suggest the suitability of the underlying force fields and our multi-mode approach for the estimation of relative binding affinities for host-guest systems with unknown binding modes.

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

molecular simulation
binding affinity
beta-cyclcodextrin


alphabetically constrained keypad designs for text entry on mobile devices The creation of text will remain a necessary part of human-computer interaction with mobile devices, even as they continue to shrink in size. On mobile phones, text is often entered using keypads and predictive text entry techniques, which attempt to minimize the effort (e.g., number of key presses) needed to enter words. This research presents results from the design and testing of alphabetically-constrained keypads, optimized on various word lists, for predictive text entry on mobile devices. Complete enumeration and Genetic Algorithm-based heuristics were used to find keypad designs based on different numbers of keys. Results show that alphabetically-constrained designs can be found that are close to unconstrained designs in terms of performance. User testing supports the hypothesis that novice ease of learning, usability, and performance is greater for constrained designs when compared to unconstrained designs. The effect of different word lists on keypad design and performance is also discussed.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 device user interface design
novice learning and usability
predictive keypad text entry


A distributed traffic control scheme based on edge-centric resource management The correct admission of flows in the Differentiated Services (DiffServ) environment is critical to provide stable and predictable quality of service (QoS) to the end user. Without a scalable and precise admission control scheme, the service provider is faced with either over-provisioning the network or accepting periods of best-effort like behavior. In this paper, we propose a novel approach for admission control that exploits the unique architectural aspects of DiffServ. Through the use of periodic heartbeats emanating from edge routers to probe the network state on the available egress paths, edge routers are able to quickly conduct admission control with a tunable degree of precision. In this paper, we detail our approach, Edge-centric Resource Management (ERM), and conduct detailed simulation studies regarding the effectiveness of the approach.

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

differentiated services
qos
admission control

algorithms
measurement
traffic engineering


Approximation of dynamic systems using recurrent neuro-fuzzy techniques Fuzzy systems, neural networks and its combination in neuro-fuzzy systems are already well established in data analysis and system control. Especially, neuro-fuzzy systems are well suited for the development of interactive data analysis tools, which enable the creation of rule-based knowledge from data and the introduction of a-priori knowledge into the process of data analysis. In this article an architecture is presented that was designed to learn and optimize a hierarchical fuzzy rule base with feedback connections using a genetic algorithm for rule base structure learning and a gradient descent method to optimize the fuzzy sets of the learned rule base. Since this architecture is able to store information of prior system states, the model is especially suited for the analysis of dynamic systems.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 system
neural network
neuro-fuzzy
recurrent architecture
hierarchical architecture
function approximation
dynamic system


Computational methods for case-cohort studies Computational methods, which. can be implemented using standard Cox regression software, are given for fitting "exact" pseudo-likehood estimates and robust and asymptotic variance estimators from case-cohort data. These methods are based on the computational approach of Therneau and Li [1999. Computing the Cox model for case cohort designs. Lifetime Data Anal. 5, 99-112] but will be less subject to small sample bias. Further, it is shown how to accommodate time-dependent covariates and estimate absolute risk. Extensions to stratified case-cohort sampled data are also provided. The methods are illustrated in analyses of case-cohort samples from a study of radiation exposure from fluoroscopy and breast cancer using SAS software. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

cumulative hazard
risk estimation
risk sets
stratified cox model
time-dependent covariates


Compositional refinement in agent-based security protocols A truly secure protocol is one which never violates its security requirements, no matter how bizarre the circumstances, provided those circumstances are within its terms of reference. Such cast-iron guarantees, as far as they are possible, require formal, rigorous techniques: proof or model-checking. Informally, they are difficult or impossible to achieve. Our rigorous technique is refinement, until recently not much applied to security. We argue its benefits by using refinement-based program algebra to develop several security case studies. That is one of our contributions here. The soundness of the technique follows from its compositional semantics, one which we defined (elsewhere) to support a specialisation of standard refinement by enriching standard semantics with information that tracks correlations between hidden state and visible behaviour. A further contribution is to extend the basic theory of secure refinement (Morgan in Mathematics of program construction, Springer, Berlin, vol. 4014, pp. 359-378, 2006) with special features required by our case studies, namely agent-based systems with complementary security requirements, and looping programs.

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

refinement of security
formalised secrecy
hierarchical security reasoning


Resource-aware distributed scheduling strategies for large-scale computational Cluster/Grid systems In this paper, we propose distributed algorithms referred to as Resource-Aware Dynamic Incremental Scheduling ( RADIS) strategies. Our strategies are specifically designed to handle large volumes of computationally intensive arbitrarily divisible loads submitted for processing at cluster/grid systems involving multiple sources and sinks ( processing nodes). We consider a real-life scenario, wherein the buffer space ( memory) available at the sinks ( required for holding and processing the loads) varies over time, and the loads have deadlines and propose efficient "pull-based" scheduling strategies with an admission control policy that ensures that the admitted loads are processed, satisfying their deadline requirements. The design of our proposed strategies adopts the divisible load paradigm, referred to as the divisible load theory ( DLT), which is shown to be efficient in handling large volume loads. We demonstrate detailed workings of the proposed algorithms via a simulation study by using real-life parameters obtained from a major physics experiment.

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

grid computing
cluster computing
buffer constraints
processing time


Potential force dynamics of heart rate variability reflect cardiac autonomic modulation with respect to posture, age, and breathing pattern Various physiological and pathological conditions are correlated with cardiac autonomic function. Heart rate variability is a marker of cardiac autonomic modulation and can be measured by several methods. However, the available methods are sensitive to breathing patterns. To quantify cardiac autonomic modulation by observing the potential force dynamics of the R?R interval time series in healthy individuals. We propose two potentials of unbalanced complex kinetic (PUCK) parameters to quantify the characteristics of the potential force dynamics of R?R interval time series: potential strength (slope) and fluctuation size (slope standard deviations [SSD1, SSD2]). We applied this method to the series of R?R intervals obtained from 30 healthy subjects in an experimental condition that elicited cardiac autonomic (i.e., sympathetic and vagal) activation (in supine, sitting, and standing positions). Subjects were categorized into three groups by decade (i.e., 20s, 30s, and 40s) to verify the cardiac autonomic differences by age. Two respiration patterns were introduced to check the influence of the pattern into the analytical results. Sympathetic modulation activation significantly increased the slope and reduced SSD1 and SSD2; these trends were confirmed in all groups. The slope is concordant with the result of the low frequency/high frequency (LF/HF) ratio in frequency components as an indicator of sympathetic modulation. No trend was observed in slope among age groups. However, SSD1 and SSD2 in the 40s group were significantly decreased in the supine and sitting positions. The results with respect to respiration frequency showed lower sympathetic modulation as shown in the LF/HF ratio and slope, whereas higher vagal modulation as shown in the HF appeared with a longer breathing rate. PUCK can quantify the cardiac autonomic modulation in the experimental conditions of different postures. SSD1 and SSD2 are more sensitive to age than frequency components and are unaffected by breathing patterns. This method may be an alternative method for observing cardiac autonomic modulation in clinical practice.

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

potential force dynamics
heart rate variability
breathing pattern

non-linear analysis
autonomic nervous system