Feature Combiners With Gate-Generated Weights for Classification Using functional weights in a conventional linear combination architecture is a way of obtaining expressive power and represents an alternative to classical trainable and implicit nonlinear transformations. In this brief, we explore this way of constructing binary classifiers, taking advantage of the possibility of generating functional weights by means of a gate with fixed radial basis functions. This particular form of the gate permits training the machine directly with maximal margin algorithms. We call the resulting scheme "feature combiners with gate generated weights for classification." Experimental results show that these architectures outperform support vector machines (SVMs) and Real AdaBoost ensembles in most considered benchmark examples. An increase in the computational design effort due to cross-validation demands is the price to be paid to obtain this advantage. Nevertheless, the operational effort is usually lower than that needed by SVMs.

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


Defining a new annotation object for DICOM image: a practical approach In this article, we present a new way of creating annotation objects for DICOM images, using the redundant data channel. Various types of annotations, including types containing color information, are possible and annotation objects can overlap the original DICOM image on a screen. Annotation objects can be created easily using a digital pen. Scanned images used in an electronic patient record can be added to objects. Although there are various ways of manipulating annotation objects, such as insertion, addition and modification of annotation objects in the DICOM image, the original clinical image is not affected because a redundant data channel is used for the annotation. The proposed method is expected to be very useful to medium and small clinics that cannot afford picture archiving and communication systems, as the DICOM standard makes provision for the annotation of clinical images in various ways.

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

graphic annotation
gray scale presentation state
pacs
emr


On the generalisation of special moduli for faster interleaved montgomery modular multiplication In this study, the authors give a generalisation of special moduli for faster interleaved Montgomery modular multiplication algorithm with simplified pre-computational phase for GF(p(n)), where p 2 is a prime number and n is a positive integer. The authors propose different sets of moduli that can be used in elliptic curve crytographic applications and pairing-based cryptography. Moreover, this method also leads to efficient implementations for the elliptic curve parameters given in standards. It is shown that one can obtain efficient Montgomery modular multiplication architecture in view of the number of AND gates and XOR gates by choosing proposed sets of moduli. The authors eliminate final substraction step with proposed sets of moduli. These methods are easy to implement for hardware.

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

faster interleaved montgomery modular multiplication algorithm

logic gates
multiplying circuits
public key cryptography
moduli generalisation
pairing-based cryptography


On the correlation distribution of the Coulter-Matthews decimation The distribution of the cross correlation between the ternary m-sequence {s(t)} of period n = 3(m) - 1 and the decimated sequences {s(dt)} and {s(dt+1)} ofperiod (3(m) - 1)/2, where d = (2)/(3k+1) with k odd and gcd (k, m) = 1 is determined. The method to find this distribution is related to the result by Coulter and Matthews that f(x) = x(d) is a planar function over GF(3(m)).

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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-correlation function
m-sequences
planar functions


Coscheduled distributed-Web servers on system area network ? As cluster-based Web servers are increasingly adopted to host a variety of network-based services, improving the performance of such servers has become critical to satisfy the customers demands. Especially, the user response time is an important factor so that clients feel satisfied with the Web services. In this paper, we investigate the feasibility of minimizing the response time of a server by exploiting the advantages of both user-level communication and coscheduling. We, thus, propose a coscheduled server model based on the recently proposed distributed PRESS Web server, where the remote cache accesses can be coscheduled on different nodes to reduce the response time. We experiment this concept using two known coscheduling techniques, called dynamic coscheduling (DCS) and DCS with immediate blocking. We have developed a comprehensive simulation testbed that captures the underlying communication layer in a cluster, the characteristics of various coscheduling algorithms, and the characteristics of the distributed server model to estimate the average delay and throughput with different system configurations. The accuracy of the VIA communication layer and the DCS mechanism is verified using measurements on a 16-node Linux cluster. Extensive simulation of four server models (PRESS over VIA, coscheduled PRESS model with DCS, with DCS and blocking, and Adaptive) using 32-node cluster configurations indicates that the average response time of a distributed server can be minimized significantly by coscheduling the communicating processes. The use of the DCS scheme reduced the average latency up to four times to the PRESS over VIA model that uses only user-level communication.

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

cluster-based web server
user-level communication
webswitch
pareto distribution


A Monte Carlo study of old and new frontier methods for efficiency measurement This study presents the results of an extensive Monte Carlo experiment to compare different methods of efficiency analysis. In addition to traditional parametricstochastic and nonparametricdeterministic methods recently developed robust nonparametricstochastic methods are considered. The experimental design comprises a wide variety of situations with different returns-to-scale regimes, substitution elasticities and outlying observations. As the results show, the new robust nonparametricstochastic methods should not be used without cross-checking by other methods like stochastic frontier analysis or data envelopment analysis. These latter methods appear quite robust in the experiments.

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

monte carlo experiment
efficiency measurement


answering order-based queries over xml data Order-based queries over XML data include XPath navigation axes such as following-sibling and following. In this paper, we present holistic algorithms that evaluate such order-based queries. An experimental comparison with previous approaches shows the performance benefits of our algorithms.

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


Advances in Cheminformatics Methodologies and Infrastructure to Support the Data Mining of Large, Heterogeneous Chemical Datasets In recent years, there has been an explosion in the availability of publicly accessible chemical information, including chemical structures of small molecules, structure-derived properties and associated biological activities in a variety of assays. These data sources present us with a significant opportunity to develop and apply computational tools to extract and understand the underlying structure-activity relationships. Furthermore, by integrating chemical data sources with biological information (protein structure, gene expression and so on), we can attempt to build up a holistic view of the effects of small molecules in biological systems. Equally important is the ability for non-experts to access and utilize state of the art cheminformatics method and models. In this review we present recent developments in cheminformatics methodologies and infrastructure that provide a robust, distributed approach to mining large and complex chemical datasets. In the area of methodology development, we highlight recent work on characterizing structure-activity landscapes, Quantitative Structure Activity Relationship (QSAR) model domain applicability and the use of chemical similarity in text mining. In the area of infrastructure, we discuss a distributed web services framework that allows easy deployment and uniform access to computational (statistics, cheminformatics and computational chemistry) methods, data and models. We also discuss the development of PubChem derived databases and highlight techniques that allow us to scale the infrastructure to extremely large compound collections, by use of distributed processing on Grids. Given that the above work is applicable to arbitrary types of cheminformatics problems, we also present some case studies related to virtual screening for anti-malarials and predictions of anti-cancer activity.

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

web-service wsdl diversity cancer malaria


A

high-performance

Fortran

code

to

calculate

spin-

and

parity-dependent

nuclear

level

densities

A

high-performance

Fortran

code

is

developed

to

calculate

the

spin-

and

parity-dependent

shell

model

nuclear

level

densities.

The

algorithm

is

based

on

the

extension

of

methods

of

statistical

spectroscopy

and

implies

exact

calculation

of

the

first

and

second

Hamiltonian

moments

for

different

configurations

at

fixed

spin

and

parity.

The

protonneutron

formalism

is

used.

We

have

applied

the

method

for

calculating

the

level

densities

for

a

set

of

nuclei

in

the

sd

s

d

pf

p

f

and

p

f

g

model

spaces.

Examples

of

the

calculations

for

(in

the

sd

s

d

-model

space)

and

(in

the

p

f

g

-model

space)

are

presented.

To

illustrate

the

power

of

the

method

we

estimate

the

ground

state

energy

of

in

the

larger

model

space

p

f

g

which

is

not

accessible

to

direct

shell

model

diagonalization

due

to

the

prohibitively

large

dimension,

by

comparing

with

the

nuclear

level

densities

at

low

excitation

energy

calculated

in

the

smaller

model

spacepf

p

f

Program

title:

MM

Catalogue

identifier:

Program

summary

Program

obtainable

from:

CPC

Program

Library,

Queens

University,

Belfast,

N.

Ireland

Licensing

provisions:

Standard

CPC

licence,

No.

of

lines

in

distributed

program,

including

test

data,

etc.:

No.

of

bytes

in

distributed

program,

including

test

data,

etc.:

Distribution

format:

tar.gz

Programming

language:

Fortran

MPI.

Computer:

Any

architecture

with

a

Fortran

compiler

and

MPI.

Operating

system:

Linux.

RAM:

Proportional

to

the

system

size,

in

our

examples,

up

to

Classification:

External

routines:

Nature

of

problem:

Calculating

of

the

spin-

and

parity-dependent

nuclear

level

density.

Solution

method:

The

algorithm

implies

exact

calculation

of

the

first

and

second

Hamiltonian

moments

for

different

configurations

at

fixed

spin

and

parity.

The

code

is

parallelized

using

the

Message

Passing

Interface

and

a

master-slaves

dynamical

load-balancing

approach.

Restrictions:

The

program

uses

two-body

interaction

in

a

restricted

single-level

basis.

For

example,

in

the

pf-valence

space.

Running

time:

Depends

on

the

system

size

and

the

number

of

processors

used

(from

min

to

several

hours).

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


A new solution to power supply voltage drop problems in scan testing As semiconductor manufacturing technology advances, power dissipation and noise in scan testing have become critical problems. Our studies on practical LSI manufacturing show that power supply voltage drop causes testing problems during shift operations in scan testing. In this paper, we present a new testing method named MD-SCAN (Multi-Duty SCAN) which solves power supply voltage drop problems, as well as its experimental results applied to practical LSI chips.

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


Serfs: Dynamically-bound parameterized components Parameterization is an effective technique for decoupling design decisions in software. Several languages such as C++ and Ada (and Java and C# more recently) offer language constructs for building parameterized software. Using template or generic constructs, one can postpone committing to specific design choices until the software system is ready for deployment. However, in cases where such choices are influenced by the execution environment, deployment time may not be late enough. Moreover, in the context of software systems that have to satisfy high availability constraints, or are long-running, changes in design choices may be warranted even after deployment. In this paper, we present a design pattern-based methodology for building parameterized components that support dynamic binding of parameters. Moreover, the methodology also supports dynamic re-binding of parameters in the event that such online change is required.

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

software design
component-oriented software
design patterns
dynamic reconfiguration


An empirical evaluation of Gravitational Swarm Intelligence for graph coloring algorithm This paper gives an extensive empirical evaluation of the innovative nature inspired Gravitational Swarm Intelligence (GSI) algorithm solving the Graph Coloring Problem (GCP). GSI follows the Swarm Intelligence problem solving approach, where the spatial position of agents is interpreted as problem solution and agent motion is determined solely by local information, avoiding any central control system. To apply GSI to search for solutions of GCP, we map agents to graph's nodes. Agents move as particles in the gravitational field defined by goal objects corresponding to colors. When the agents fall in the gravitational well of the color goal, their corresponding nodes are colored by this color. Graph's connectivity is mapped into a repulsive force between agents corresponding to adjacent nodes. We discuss the convergence of the algorithm, testing it over an extensive suite of well-known benchmarking graphs. Comparison of this approach to state-of-the-art approaches in the literature shows improvements in many of the benchmark graphs.

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


DPC controlled three-phase active filter for power quality improvement This paper presents a new control method entitled direct power control (DPC) for shunt active power filtering (5th, 7th, 11th, ) (SAPF), which is applied to eliminate line current harmonics and compensate reactive power. Its main goal is to rebuild active and reactive powers to be compared to references values using hysteresis control. The outputs of hysteresis controllers associated with a switching table, control the instantaneous active and reactive power by selecting the optimum switching state of the voltage source inverter (VSI). A theoretical analysis with a complete simulation of the system and experimental results are presented to prove the excellent performance of the proposed control technique.

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 O O O O O O O O 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

shunt active filters
instantaneous power
hysteresis comparator


Prediction of tensile capacity of single adhesive anchors using neural networks The tensile capacity of single adhesive anchors depends on many design parameters. Some of these parameters, such as chemical resin type, resin system and anchor bolt type are difficult to quantify in design models. Due to the complexity of developing rational models for estimating the tensile capacity of such type of anchors, most specifications recommend that the performance of these anchors be determined by product-specific and condition-specific testing. In this study, an attempt to predict the tensile capacity of single adhesive anchors using artificial neural networks (ANNs) is presented. A multilayered feed-forward neural network trained with the back-propagation algorithm is constructed using 7 design variables as network inputs and the uniform bond strength of adhesive anchors as the only output. The ANN was trained and verified using the comprehensive worldwide adhesive anchor database of actual tests compiled by the ACI Committee 355. Different modes of failure observed in experiments but bolt breakage are covered by the trained ANN. The predictions obtained from the trained ANN showed that the tensile capacity of adhesive anchors is linearly proportional to the embedment depth as suggested by the uniform bond stress model. The effect of the concrete compressive strength on the tensile capacity of adhesive anchors is product dependent. The results indicate that ANNs are a useful technique for predicting the tensile capacity of adhesive anchors.

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

anchors
concrete
embedment
neural networks
prediction
capacity
database


A regularized pairwise multi-classification knowledge-based machine and applications This paper presents a novel knowledge-based linear classification model for multi-category discrimination of sets or objects with prior knowledge. The prior knowledge is in the form of multiple polyhedral sets belonging to one or more categories or classes and it is introduced as additional constraints into the formulation of the Tikhonov linear least squares multi-class support vector machine model. The resulting formulation leads to a least squares problem that can be solved using matrix methods or iterative methods. Investigations include the development of a linear knowledge-based classification model extended to the case of multi-categorical discrimination and expressed as a single unconstrained optimization problem. Advantages of this formulation include explicit expressions for the classification weights of the classifier(s) and its ability to incorporate and handle prior knowledge directly to the classifiers. In addition it can provide fast solutions to the optimal classification weights for multi-categorical separation without the use of specialized solver-software. To evaluate the model, data and prior knowledge from the Wisconsin breast cancer prognosis and two-phase flow regimes in pipes were used to train and test the proposed formulation.

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

knowledge-based model
tikhonov regularization


Generalized exponential distribution: Bayesian estimations ? Recently two-parameter generalized exponential distribution has been introduced by the authors. In this paper we consider the Bayes estimators of the unknown parameters under the assumptions of gamma priors on both the shape and scale parameters. The Bayes estimators cannot be obtained in explicit forms. Approximate Bayes estimators are computed using the idea of Lindley. We also propose Gibbs sampling procedure to generate samples from the posterior distributions and in turn computing the Bayes estimators. The approximate Bayes estimators obtained under the assumptions of non-informative priors, are compared with the maximum likelihood estimators using Monte Carlo simulations. One real data set has been analyzed for illustrative purposes.

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

bayes estimator
maximum likelihood estimator
gamma distribution
log-concave density function
squared error loss function
posterior density function


Complexity of DNA sequencing by hybridization In the paper, the question of the complexity of the combinatorial part of the DNA sequencing by hybridization, is analyzed. Subproblems of the general problem, depending on the type of error (positive, negative), are distinguished. Since decision versions of the subproblems assuming only one type of error are trivial, complexities of the search counterparts are studied. Both search subproblems are proved to be strongly NP-hard, as well as their uniquely promised versions. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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

computational complexity
computational biology


Optimizing metric access methods for querying and mining complex data types There are several application scenarios that can take advantage from the efficient processing of similarity operations in complex data types, such as multimedia data. Among them, it is possible to mention the execution of more complex query types (e.g., similarity queries) and several well-known data mining algorithms (e.g., data clustering) that are directly based on similarity computations. In order to speed up the similarity-based comparisons performed by these approaches, it is possible to store the dataset in specialized data structures known as metric access methods (MAM).

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

metric access methods
similarity queries
data mining


On simultaneous optimization of truss geometry and topology The paper addresses the classical problem of optimal truss design where cross-sectional areas and the positions of joints are simultaneously optimized. Se-veral approaches are discussed from a general point of view. In particular, we focus on the difference between simultaneous and alternating optimization of geometry and topology. We recall a rigorously mathematical approach based on the implicit programming technique which considers the classical single load minimum compliance problem subject to a volume constraint. This approach is refined leading to three new problem formulations which can be treated by methods of Mathematical Programming. In particular, these formulations cover the effect of melting end nodes, i.e., vanishing potential bars due to changes in the geometry. In one of these new problem formulations, the objective function is a polynomial of degree three and the constraints are bilinear or just sign constraints. Because heuristics is avoided, certain optimality properties can be proven for resulting structures. The paper closes with two numerical test examples.

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

truss optimization
geometry optimization
bilevel programming


The vertex-transitive and edge-transitive tetravalent graphs of square-free order In this paper, a classification is given for tetravalent graphs of square-free order which are vertex-transitive and edge-transitive. It is shown that such graphs are Cayley graphs, edge-regular metacirculants and covers of some graphs arisen from simple groups \(\mathrm{A}_7\), \(\mathrm{J}_1\) and \(\mathrm{PSL}(2,p)\).

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

edge-transitive graph
vertex-transitive graph
arc-transitive graph
coset graph
automorphism group


On bidding for a fixed number of items in a sequence of auctions We consider the problem of a firm (the buyer) that must acquire a fixed number (L) of items. The buyer can acquire these items either at a fixed buy-it-now price in the open market or by participating in a sequence of N>L auctions. The objective of the buyer is to minimize his expected total cost for acquiring all L items. We model this problem as a Markov Decision Process and establish monotonicity properties for the optimal value function and the optimal bidding strategies.

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

stochastic processes
dynamic programming
markov decision processes
auctions/bidding


estimating software size with uml models Function points have been used for more than 25 years for estimating software size and building productivity models. Today, three methods to do it are accepted as ISO standards. The theory behind this type of measurement is more explicit but none of these methods have yet been fully automated. All of them still require the involvement of an expert in order to be used correctly. Why is it so difficult to implement those methods? In our opinion, the main reason lies in the fact that each method has its own vocabulary and its own way of modeling software. The research work presented here has been realised mainly through two doctoral theses, one trying to automate the measure from a UML perspective and the other to add an objective measure of complexity to a standard measure in COSMIC-FFP in order to reach a higher level of confidence with those measures. So far, it can be concluded that, from UML use-cases and Actor-Object sequence diagrams of a system application, the number of messages exchanged correspond to the number of function points according to the COSMIC-FFP method. Going farther and adding the number of conditions or decisions to be applied according to UML version 2.0 would add more precision taking into account the complexity of the processes.

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

uml sequence diagram
software size estimation
function point
uml use case
productivity model


State cycles, initialization and the Trivium stream cipher Trivium is a keystream generator for a binary additive synchronous stream cipher. It was selected in the final portfolio for the Profile 2 category of the eSTREAM project. The keystream generator is constructed using bit-based shift registers. In this paper we present an alternate representation of Trivium using word-based shift registers, with a word size of three bits. This representation is useful for determining cycles of internal state values. Under this representation it is clear that the state space can be partitioned into subspaces and that over some of these subspaces the state update function is effectively linear. The role of the initialization process is critical in ensuring the states used for generating keystream are updated nonlinearly at some point, as the state update function alone does not provide this.

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

stream ciphers
binary sequences
keystream generators


Nonlinear magnetohydrodynamics in axisymmetric heterogeneous domains using a Fourier/finite element technique and an interior penalty method The Maxwell equations in the MHD limit in heterogeneous axisymmetric domains composed of conducting and non-conducting regions are solved by using a mixed Fourier/Lagrange finite element technique. Finite elements are used in the meridian plane and Fourier modes are used in the azimuthal direction. Parallelization is made with respect to the Fourier modes. Continuity conditions across interfaces are enforced using an interior penalty technique. The performance of the method is illustrated on kinematic and full dynamo configurations.

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


static and dynamic stability improvement strategies for 6t cmos low-power srams The main contribution of this work is providing a static and dynamic enhancement of bit-cell stability for low-power SRAM in nanometer technologies. We consider a wide layout topology without bends in diffusion layers for the nanometer SRAM cell design to minimize the impact of process variations. The design restrictions imposed by such a nanometer SRAM cell design prevents from applying traditional read SNM improvement techniques. We use the SNM as a measure of the cell stability during read operations, and Qcrit to quantify the robustness against SEE during hold mode. The techniques proposed have a low impact on read time and leakage current while improving significantly the SNM. Moreover, the Word-line modulation technique has no impact on strategic cell parameters like area and leakage when in hold mode. Results obtained from both a commercial 65nm CMOS technology and a 45nm BPTM technology are provided.

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

static noise margin
nanometre sram
critical charge


immune model based approach for network intrusion detection Most current anomaly based intrusion detection systems (IDS) use methods which rely on labeled training data. Such kind of data is expensive to produce and it is difficult to train such systems. Also these methods have difficulty in detecting new types of attacks and high rate of false positives. This paper offers an approach based on immune model and immunocomputing which allows training IDS without labeled attacks and shows a good performance on detecting new intrusions. Using immune model as the basic architecture for intrusion detection, we use immunocomputing techniques to increase efficiency of this model. The proposed IDS works in three modes: training mode, monitoring mode and adaptation mode. The last one is responsible for adaptation of IDS to the network traffic, which improves the performance of intrusion detection.

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

intrusion detection systems
immunocomputing


Mobile robot localisation on reconstructed 3D models This paper presents a two-layer mobile robot localisation solution based on a Laser Range Scanner applied on reconstructed 3D models. This solution encompasses a feature matching layer performing without an initial posture estimate; a second layer based on coordinate transforms to refine an initial posture estimate, and a third module to assess the likelihood of the results computed by the two layers.

B I I 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

laser scanner
3d scene reconstruction
frame localisation


OR/MS research in disaster operations management Disasters are large intractable problems that test the ability of communities and nations to effectively protect their populations and infrastructure, to reduce both human and property loss, and to rapidly recover. The seeming randomness of impacts and problems and uniqueness of incidents demand dynamic, real-time, effective and cost efficient solutions, thus making the topic very suitable for OR/MS research. While social sciences and humanities literatures enjoy an abundance of articles on disaster management, the OR/MS community is yet to produce a critical mass. In this paper, we survey the literature to identify potential research directions in disaster operations, discuss relevant issues, and provide a starting point for interested researchers.

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

or in societal problem analysis
emergency management


high resolution long-period grating temperature sensor A simple etched and packaged LPG temperature sensor for biomedical application has been developed and resolution of about 0.005C is achieved, in comparison with conventional thermometer, which only exhibits 0.01C. The temperature coefficient of the specially packaged LPG sensor is measured to be 3.776nm/C, which is 15 times higher than that of the bare LPG fiber inscribed in the same PS1250/1500 photosensitive optical fiber.

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


Stochastic control of path optimization for inter-switch handoffs in wireless ATM networks One of the major design issues in wireless ATM networks is the support of inter-switch handoffs, An inter-switch handoff occurs when a mobile terminal moves to a new base station connecting to a different switch. Apart from resource allocation at the new base station, inter-switch handoff also requires connection rerouting. With the aim of minimizing the handoff delay while using the network resources efficiently, the two-phase handoff protocol uses path extension for each inter-switch handoff, followed by path optimization if necessary. The objective of this paper is to determine when and how often path optimization should be performed, The problem is formulated as a semi-Markov decision process, Link cost and signaling cost functions are introduced to capture the tradeoff between the network resources utilized by a connection and the signaling and processing load incurred on the network, The time between inter-switch handoffs follows a general distribution, A stationary optimal policy is obtained when the call termination time is exponentially distributed. Numerical results show significant improvement over four other heuristics.

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

connection rerouting
path optimization
wireless atm


Optimization of Radial Basis Function neural network employed for prediction of surface roughness in hard turning process using Taguchi's orthogonal arrays This work presents a study on the applicability of radial base function (RBF) neural networks for prediction of Roughness Average (R-a) in the turning process of SAE 52100 hardened steel, with the use of Taguchi's orthogonal arrays as a tool to design parameters of the network. Experiments were conducted with training sets of different sizes to make possible to compare the performance of the best network obtained from each experiment. The following design factors were considered: (i) number of radial units. (ii) algorithm for selection of radial centers and (iii) algorithm for selection of the spread factor of the radial function. Artificial neural networks (ANN) models obtained proved capable to predict surface roughness in accurate, precise and affordable way. Results pointed significant factors for network design have significant influence on network performance for the task proposed. The work concludes that the design of experiments (DOE) methodology constitutes a better approach to the design of RBF networks for roughness prediction than the most common trial and error approach. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

rbf neural networks
hard turning
surface roughness


An Efficient Near-Duplicate Video Shot Detection Method Using Shot-Based Interest Points We propose a shot-based interest point selection approach for effective and efficient near-duplicate search over a large collection of video shots. The basic idea is to eliminate the local descriptors with lower frequencies among the selected video frames from a shot to ensure that the shot representation is compact and discriminative. Specifically, we propose an adaptive frame selection strategy called furthest point voronoi (FPV) to produce the shot frame set according to the shot content and frame distribution. We describe a novel strategy named reference extraction (RE) to extract the shot interest descriptors from a keyframe with the support of the selected frame set. We demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed approaches with extensive experiments.

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

near-duplicate shots
shot consistency
shot interest point


Periodic solution of single population models on time scales By using the calculus on time scales, we study and establish criterion for the existence of periodic solutions of some scalar dynamical equations on time scales. The existence of periodic solutions for some concrete well-known single population models is obtained. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

coincidence degree theory
logistic equations


A SAS macro for constrained randomization of group-randomized designs Group-randomized study designs are useful when individually-randomized designs either are not possible, or will not be able to estimate the parameters of interest. Group-randomized trials often have small number of experimental units or groups and strong geographically-induced between-unit correlation, thereby increasing the chance of obtaining a bad randomization outcome. It has been suggested to highly constrain the design through restriction to those allocations that meet specified criteria based on certain covariates available at the baseline. We describe a SAS macro that allocates treatment conditions in a two-arm stratified group-randomized design that ensures balance on relevant covariates. The application of the macro is illustrated using two examples of group-randomized designs.

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


Consolidation and separation: British archives and American historians at the turn of the twentieth century Although American historians used British archives throughout the nineteenth century, the most fruitful period of contact was in the decades covering the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. Scholarly collaboration and initiatives for advanced historical training were accompanied by American funding which provided for both intellectual and physical access to British archives. From the 1920s, the formalisation of many of these relationships and projects contributed towards the development of the separate professional structures which exist today for archivists and historians on both sides of the Atlantic. This process has obscured the role of the many individuals whose activities spanned, without arousing comment, both groups pre-1930. One such British historical worker was Hubert Hall. While Halls long career provides many examples of trans-Atlantic collaboration, it also coincided almost exactly with the establishment of firm professional boundaries, a development which inevitably led to the demise of the generalist historical worker as a recognisable type.

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


Optimal ordering of independent tests with precedence constraints We consider scenarios in which a sequence of tests is to be applied to an object; the result of a test may be that a decision (such as the classification of the object) can be made without running additional tests. Thus, one seeks an ordering of the tests that is optimal in some sense, such as minimum expected resource consumption. Sequences of tests are commonly used in computer vision (Paul A. Viola and Michael J. Jones (2001) [15]) and other applications. Finding an optimal ordering is easy when the tests are completely independent. Introducing precedence constraints, we show that the optimization problem becomes NP-hard when the constraints are given by means of a general partial order. Restrictions of the constraints to non-trivial special cases that allow for low-order polynomial-time algorithms are examined.

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

test ordering
constrained optimization
complexity of ordering problems


Wave propagation in locally perturbed periodic media (case with absorption): Numerical aspects We are interested in the numerical simulation of wave propagation in media which are a local perturbation of an infinite periodic one. The question of finding artificial boundary conditions to reduce the actual numerical computations to a neighborhood of the perturbation via a DtN operator was already developed in [1] at the continuous level. We deal in this article with the numerical aspects associated to the discretization of the problem. In particular, we describe the construction of discrete DtN operators that relies on the numerical solution of local cell problems, non stationary Ricatti equations and the discretization of non standard integral equations in Floquet variables.

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

wave propagation
periodic media
dtn operators


Topology-preserving simplification of 2D nonmanifold meshes with embedded structures Mesh simplification has received tremendous attention over the years. Most of the previous work in this area deals with a proper choice of error measures to guide the simplification. Preserving the topological characteristics of the mesh and possibly of data attached to the mesh is a more recent topic and the subject of this paper. We introduce a new topology-preserving simplification algorithm for triangular meshes, possibly nonmanifold, with embedded polylines. In this context, embedded means that the edges of the polylines are also edges of the mesh. The paper introduces a robust test to detect if the collapse of an edge in the mesh modifies either the topology of the mesh or the topology of the embedded polylines. This validity test is derived using combinatorial topology results. More precisely, we define a so-called extended complex from the input mesh and the embedded polylines. We show that if an edge collapse of the mesh preserves the topology of this extended complex, then it also preserves both the topology of the mesh and the embedded polylines. Our validity test can be used for any 2-complex mesh, including nonmanifold triangular meshes, and can be combined with any previously introduced error measure. Implementation of this validity test is described. We demonstrate the power and versatility of our method with scientific data sets from neuroscience, geology, and CAD/CAM models from mechanical engineering.

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

computational geometry and its applications


A logical approach to multicut problems Multicut problems are well-studied NP-complete problems in the field of network theory. Previously, by using graph theoretic methods, they have been shown to be fixed parameter tractable for different combinations of parameters, but not for any single parameter. In this paper different versions of the multicut problem are expressed in Monadic Second Order Logic (MSO) and an extended version of Courcelle's Theorem due to Amborg, Lagergren and Seese is used to demonstrate that these problems are fixed parameter tractable with respect to the parameter omega*, the treewidth of the input structure. Here, the input structure consists of a set V of vertices with two relations, the edge relation E of the input graph G = (V, E), and a relation H encoding all pairs of vertices to be disconnected. The contribution of this paper is two-fold: to introduce a single parameter for which the major variants of the multicut problem are fixed parameter tractable, and to use multicut problems as examples for demonstrating fruitful practical applications of logical properties and results in network theory. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

parameterized complexity
fixed-parameter tractability
graph algorithms
complexity
networks


Reactive power optimization by GA/SA/TS combined algorithms Global optimization techniques such as genetic algorithm (GA), simulated annealing (SA) and tabu search (TS) are widely used to combinatorial optimization in recent years. Combining the advantages of individual algorithms, three GA/SA/TS combined algorithms for the reactive power optimization are proposed in this paper. Trying to reasonably combine local and global search, they adopt the acceptance probability of SA to improve the convergence of the simple GA, and apply TS to find more accurate solutions. Results of a practical area power system in Shandong province of China demonstrate that the proposed method is effective to find better solutions within reasonable time.

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

reactive power optimization
genetic algorithm
tabu search


Bi-level programming model and hybrid genetic algorithm for flow interception problem with customer choice This paper investigates how to optimize the facility location strategy such as to maximize the intercepted customer flow, while accounting for "flow-by" customers' path choice behaviors and their travel cost limitation. A bi-level programming static model is constructed for this problem. An heuristic based on a greedy search is designed to solve it. Consequently, we proposed a chance constrained bi-level model with stochastic flow and fuzzy trip cost threshold level. For solving this uncertain model more efficiently, we integrate the simplex method, genetic algorithm, stochastic simulation and fuzzy simulation to design a hybrid intelligent algorithm. Some examples are generated randomly to illustrate the performance and the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms. (c) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

hybrid intelligent algorithm
location
path choice
simulation


On harmonic weight enumerators of binary codes We define some new polynomials associated to a linear binary code and a harmonic function of degree k. The case k=0 is the usual weight enumerator of the code. When divided by (xy)(k), they satisfy a MacWilliams type equality. When applied to certain harmonic functions constructed from Hahn polynomials, they can compute some information on the intersection numbers of the code. As an application, we classify the extremal even formally self-dual codes of length 12.

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

codes
harmonic functions
weight enumerator


Characterization of Glushkov automata Glushkov's algorithm computes a nondeterministic finite automaton without epsilon-transitions and with n + 1 states from a regular expression having n occurrences of letters. The aim of this paper is to give a set of necessary and sufficient conditions characterizing this automaton. Our characterization theorem is formulated in terms of directed graphs. Moreover these conditions allow us to produce an algorithm of conversion of a Glushkov automaton into a regular expression of small size. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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


Optimal placement of charging infrastructures for large-scale integration of pure electric vehicles into grid ? A mathematical model for optimal CCS placement is established. The distribution discipline of CCSs in the CCS placement is expounded. Candidate CCS locations with high efficiency and more reliability is identified. The optimum placement of CCSs is achieved partly via a modified BPSO. The correctness and applicability of the proposed strategy is very high.

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

distribution discipline
optimal placement

pure electric vehicle
centralized charging station
taboo mechanism
binary particle swarm optimization


On emulating engine and vehicle transient loads for transmission-in-the-loop experiments This paper presents the development of real-time (RT) engine and vehicle models for emulating transient loads during transmission-in-the-loop (TIL) experiments. The models emulating these vehicle-components are required to possess sufficient fidelity to simulate engine torque pulse (ETP) and wheel-slip dynamics while being computationally efficient to run in RT. The emulation of ETP is accomplished by decomposing the waveform into inertia and combustion based components, and implemented using the high switching frequency of AC-dynamometer drive. The task of emulating wheel slip is achieved by using a RT physics based hybrid tire model developed to avoid the singularly perturbed dynamics at high velocities. Parameters of the engine model are identified using experimental data, and both models are validated in pure simulation. Finally, closed loop TIL test results are presented to demonstrate successful emulation during experimentation. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

real-time simulation
vehicle emulation
wheel-slip
engine-torque-pulse
transmission-in-the-loop
ac-dynamometer
automatic transmissions
vehicle modeling


query forwarding in geographically distributed search engines Query forwarding is an important technique for preserving the result quality in distributed search engines where the index is geographically partitioned over multiple search sites. The key component in query forwarding is the thresholding algorithm by which the forwarding decisions are given. In this paper, we propose a linear-programming-based thresholding algorithm that significantly outperforms the current state-of-the-art in terms of achieved search efficiency values. Moreover, we evaluate a greedy heuristic for partial index replication and investigate the impact of result cache freshness on query forwarding performance. Finally, we present some optimizations that improve the performance further, under certain conditions. We evaluate the proposed techniques by simulations over a real-life setting, using a large query log and a document collection obtained from Yahoo!.

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

search engines
index replication
query forwarding

linear programming
result caching
optimization
distributed ir


Continuous collision detection for deformable objects using permissible clusters In this paper, we propose a new data structure to perform continuous collision detection (CCD) for deformable triangular meshes. The critical component of this data structure is permissible clusters. At the preprocessing phase, the triangular meshes are divided into permissible clusters. Then, the features of the triangular meshes are assigned to the permissible clusters. At the runtime phase, the potentially colliding feature pairs are collected and they are processed only once in the elementary processing. Our method has been integrated with a normal cone-based method and compared with other CCD methods. Experimental results show that our method improves the overall performance of CCD for deformable objects.

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

continuous collision detection
deformable objects


ASDeX: a formal specification for analog circuit enabling a full automated design validation In this paper an XML based language format to describe specifications of analog IPs and its usage in a validation flow is presented. With the help of an XML-Schema-Definition (XSD) a specification description language called Analog Specification Description in XML (ASDeX) is introduced. An ASDeX-file contains not only specification parameters but also measurement definitions and testbenches to enable specification validation based on simulation. The intention is to generate executable modules (tasks) for running simulations and extracting and checking the actual property values of analog circuits. The task generation is based on a generic template approach using a Meta-Simulator to achieve vendor independent analog IP representation including IP verification.

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

asdex
formal specification
analog ips
xml
validation


design patterns to support teaching of automata theory Deterministic finite automata (DFA) are taught in courses like "formal foundations of computer science". It is quite a challenge to get students interested and proficient in that field. This contribution presents a set of design patterns to help teachers teach and students learn the design of DFA.

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

deterministic finite automaton (dfa)
design pattern


Catalytic residues in hydrolases: analysis of methods designed for ligand-binding site prediction The comparison of eight tools applicable to ligand-binding site prediction is presented. The methods examined cover three types of approaches: the geometrical (CASTp, PASS, Pocket-Finder), the physicochemical (Q-SiteFinder, FOD) and the knowledge-based (ConSurf, SuMo, WebFEATURE). The accuracy of predictions was measured in reference to the catalytic residues documented in the Catalytic Site Atlas. The test was performed on a set comprising selected chains of hydrolases. The results were analysed with regard to size, polarity, secondary structure, accessible solvent area of predicted sites as well as parameters commonly used in machine learning (F-measure, MCC). The relative accuracies of predictions are presented in the ROC space, allowing determination of the optimal methods by means of the ROC convex hull. Additionally the minimum expected cost analysis was performed. Both advantages and disadvantages of the eight methods are presented. Characterization of protein chains in respect to the level of difficulty in the active site prediction is introduced. The main reasons for failures are discussed. Overall, the best performance offers SuMo followed by FOD, while Pocket-Finder is the best method among the geometrical approaches.

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

hydrolase
ligand-binding site prediction
receiver operating characteristic


On the similarities and differences between Classical Hierarchical, Truncated Hierarchical and LR B-splines Smooth spline functions such as B-splines and NURBS are already an established technology in the field of computer-aided design (CAD) and have in recent years been given a lot of attention from the computer-aided engineering (CAE) community. The advantages of local refinement are obvious for anyone working in either field, and as such, several approaches have been proposed. Among others, we find the three strategies Classical Hierarchical B-splines, Truncated Hierarchical B-splines and Locally Refined B-splines. We will in this paper present these three frameworks and highlight similarities and differences between them. In particular, we will look at the function space they span and the support of the basis functions. We will then analyse the corresponding stiffness and mass matrices in terms of sparsity patterns and conditioning numbers. We show that the basis functions in general do not span the same space, and that conditioning numbers are comparable. Moreover we show that the weighting needed by the Classical Hierarchical basis to maintain partition of unity has significant implications on the conditioning numbers.

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

isogeometric analysis
lr b-splines
hierarchical b-splines
conditioning number


Rapid screening for phenotype-genotype associations by linear transformations of genomic evaluations Currently, association studies are analysed using statistical mixed models, with marker effects estimated by a linear transformation of genomic breeding values. The variances of marker effects are needed when performing the tests of association. However, approaches used to estimate the parameters rely on a prior variance or on a constant estimate of the additive variance. Alternatively, we propose a standardized test of association using the variance of each marker effect, which generally differ among each other. Random breeding values from a mixed model including fixed effects and a genomic covariance matrix are linearly transformed to estimate the marker effects.

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

genome wide association
marker variance
pig genotype


Design of digital controllers for uncertain chaotic systems using fuzzy logic A new and systematic method to design digital controllers for uncertain chaotic systems with structured uncertainties is presented in this paper. TakagiSugeno (TS) fuzzy model is used to model the chaotic dynamic system, while the uncertainties are decomposed such that the uncertain chaotic system can be rewritten as a set of local linear models with an additional disturbed input. Conventional control techniques are utilized to develop the continuous-time controllers first. Then, the digital controllers are obtained as the digital redesign of the continuous-time controllers using the state-matching approach. The performance of the proposed controller design is illustrated through numerical examples.

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


Stability analysis and controller synthesis for discrete linear time-delay systems with state saturation nonlinearities The problem of global asymptotic stability analysis and controller synthesis for a class of discrete linear time-delay systems with state saturation nonlinearities is investigated. With the introduction of a free matrix whose infinity norm is less than or equal to 1, the state of discrete linear time-delay systems with state saturation is bounded by a convex hull, which makes it feasible to apply a suitable Lyapunov functional to obtain a sufficient condition for global asymptotic stability. It is also shown that this condition can be extended to controller synthesis and discrete time-delay systems with partial state saturation. The obtained results are expressed in terms of matrix inequalities that can be solved by the presented iterative linear matrix inequality approach. The effectiveness of these results is demonstrated by some numerical examples.

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

state saturation
iterative linear matrix inequality

discrete linear time-delay system
partial state saturation


The hub number of co-comparability graphs ? A set H?V H ? V is a hub set of a graph G=(V,E) G = ( V , E ) if, for every pair of vertices u,v?V?H u , v ? V ? H , either u is adjacent to v or there exists a path from u to v such that all intermediate vertices are in H. The hub number of G , denoted by h(G) h ( G ) , is the minimum size of a hub set in G. The connected hub number of G , denoted by hc(G) h c ( G ) , is the minimum size of a connected hub set in G . In this paper, we prove that h(G)=hc(G) h ( G ) = h c ( G ) for co-comparability graphs G and characterize the case for which ?c(G)=hc(G) ? c ( G ) = h c ( G ) in this class of graphs, where ?c(G) ? c ( G ) denotes the connected domination number of G . We also show that h(G) h ( G ) can be computed in O(|V|) O ( | V | ) time for trapezoid graphs and in O(|V|3) O ( | V | 3 ) time for co-comparability graphs.

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

dominating set
connected hub number
co-comparability graph


Homepage aesthetics: The search for preference factors and the challenges of subjectivity While many studies have considered the usability of website homepages, subjective issues such as preference have been under explored. This paper describes a pilot study that investigates subjects' preferences for different homepages. The study applies Berlyne's theory of experimental aesthetics to website homepages. This theory suggests that there is an inverted-U shape relationship between preference for a stimulus and its complexity. Twelve subjects evaluated 12 homepages. The study used a ranking method to measure subjects' preferences and the relationships between complexity, pleasure and interestingness. In addition, verbal reports were collected. No support was found for an inverted-U shape relationship and the findings indicate that complexity is not a predictor of pleasure. However, the results uncovered a number of subjective factors that underlie preference. These factors include individual differences in taste and lifestyle all of which are highly personal factors that change and develop over time. In addition, the findings suggest a link between interestingness and curiosity. Lastly, the findings show an agreement on the judgements of complexity, and disagreement on aesthetic preferences. In conclusion, the paper points out the challenges faced in researching preference because of its highly subjective character. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

experimental aesthetics
preference factors
subjectivity


An artificial neural network model for predicting gas pipeline induced voltage caused by power lines under fault conditions Purpose - Presents a technique based on the development of an artificial neural network (ANN) model for predicting the electromagnetic inference effects on gas pipelines shared right-of-way (ROW) with high voltage transmission lines. Design/methodology/approach - Examines the induced pipeline voltage under different soil resistivity, fault current and separation distance. Findings - The results indicate strong agreement between model prediction and observed values. Originality/value - Demonstrates that the ANN-based model developed can predict the induced voltage with high accuracy. The accuracy of the predicted induced voltage is very important for designing mitigation systems that will increase overall pipeline integrity and make the pipeline and appurtenances safe for operating personnel.

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


Second law analysis for a variable viscosity plane Poiseuille flow with asymmetric convective cooling A second-law analysis of a pressure-driven variable viscosity fluid flow through a channel with asymmetric convective cooling at the walls is investigated. Flow is assumed to be steady, laminar and fully-developed. The effect of heat generation due to viscous dissipation is included. The resulting equations and boundary conditions are solved numerically, by using an efficient numerical shooting technique with a fourth order RungeKutta algorithm. The effect of variable viscosity parameter, the Brinkman number and the Biot numbers on the velocity, temperature and entropy generation profiles are provided and discussed with appropriate physical explanations.

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

poiseuille flow
variable viscosity
asymmetric convective cooling


Application of empirical modelling in multi-layers membrane manufacturing Multistructured membranes based on ultrafine fibers of polymethylmethacrylate-co-methacrylic acid (PMMA-co-MAA) and TiO2 nanoparticles have been obtained by electrohydrodynamic (EHD) technologies, for active filter media manufacturing. Process optimization of the nanofibers based layers has been investigated by response surface methodology (RSM) in order to predict the domain of the parameters where the smallest fiber diameter can be achieved. A quantitative relationship between electrospinning parameters and the responses (mean diameter and standard deviation) was established and then the final multi-layers structure of nanofibers and nanoparticles has been achieved for a controlled and robust process. The nanostructured membranes have been characterized by SEM imaging, EDAX, TGA analysis and water vapour permeability and their photocatalytic activity has been tested on VOCs degradation. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

electrospinning
nanofibers
rsm
process optimization
nanoparticles


Outage probability of a macro and micro MIMO diversity scheme in an indoor fading and shadowing environment In this manuscript, a layered macro/micro diversity scheme is introduced at the receiver side of a MIMO STBC wireless control system under fading and shadowing environment. The combination of the outputs of micro diversity is based on soft-decision values, while the macro diversity branches are combined based on hard decision values. As a measure of the reliability of the system, the outage probability of frame-error rate is employed. The performance of the proposed system is analytically and numerically evaluated and the impact of the macro diversity in the outage probability is clarified.

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


Modeling of solutal dendritic growth with melt convection The effect of fluid flow on two-dimensional (2D) dendritic growth has been studied using a modified cellular automaton (MCA)-transport model. The model adopts a CA approach for the simulation of dendritic growth and a transport model for the numerical solution of flow dynamics and mass transport by both diffusion and convection. The physics of complete time-dependent interaction of melt convection, mass transfer and dendritic growth during solidification is directly embedded in the present model. The model is applied to simulate single and multi-dendritic growth of AlCu alloys in a forced flow. The effect of alloy composition on the convective dendritic morphology is investigated. The simulation results show that the dendritic morphology is strongly influenced by the presence of melt convection. The deflection of primary dendrite arms occurs in the upstream direction of fluid flow. Side branching is largely favored in the upstream region and suppressed in the downstream region. It is also found that the asymmetric growth features of convective dendrites are increasingly noticeable with the increase of solute composition.

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

cellular automaton
dendritic growth
convection
diffusion


memory-based chc algorithms for the dynamic traveling salesman problem The CHC algorithm uses an elitist selection method that, combined with an incest prevention mechanism and a method to diverge the population whenever it converges, allows the maintenance of the population diversity. This algorithm was successfully used in the past for static optimization problems. The use of memory in Evolutionary Algorithms has been proved to be advantageous when dealing with dynamic optimization problems. In this paper we investigate the use of three different explicit memory strategies included in the CHC algorithm. These strategies - direct, immigrant and associative - combined with the CHC algorithm are used to solve different instances of the dynamic Traveling Salesman Problem in cyclic, noisy and random environments. The experimental results, statistically validated, show that the memory schemes significantly improve the performance of the original CHC algorithm for all types of studied environments. Moreover, when compared with the equivalent memory-based standard EAs with the same memory schemes, the memory-based CHC algorithms obtain superior results when the environmental changes are slower.

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


Low-complexity parallel systolic Montgomery multipliers over GF(2(m)) using Toeplitz matrix-vector representation In this paper, a generalized Montgomery multiplication algorithm in GF(2(m)) using the Toeplitz matrix-vector representation is presented. The hardware architectures derived from this algorithm provide low-complexity bit-parallel systolic multipliers with trinomials and pentanomials. The results reveal that our proposed multipliers reduce the space complexity of approximately 15% compared with an existing systolic Montgomery multiplier for trinomials. Moreover, the proposed architectures have the features of regularity, modularity, and local interconnection. Accordingly, they are well suited to VLSI implementation.

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

elliptic curve digital signature algorithm


efficient fork-linearizable access to untrusted shared memory When data is stored on a faulty server that is accessed concurrently by multiple clients, the server may present inconsistent data to different clients. For example, the server might complete a write operation of one client, but respond with stale data to another client. Mazires and Shasha (PODC 2002) introduced the notion of fork-consistency , also called fork-linearizability , which ensures that the operations seen by every client are linearizable and guarantees that if the server causes the views of two clients to differ in a single operation, they may never again see each other's updates after that without the server being exposed as faulty. In this paper, we improve the communication complexity of their fork-linearizable storage access protocol with n clients from ?( n 2 ) to O ( n ). We also prove that in every such protocol, a reader must wait for a concurrent writer. This explains a seeming limitation of their and of our improved protocol. Furthermore, we give novel characterizations of fork-linearizability and prove that it is neither stronger nor weaker than sequential consistency.

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

arbitrary failures
storage emulations
fork-consistency


A dynamic two-segment partial backorder control of (r,Q) inventory system Inventory management involves determination of shortage policy. It specifies the conditions for losing or backordering a demand. Alternative policies include pure backorder, pure lost sales, and partial backorder (using a single backorder control limit). When the backorder-cost is time dependent it makes sense to modify the backorder-limit over time. Thus, a new form of partial backorder policy (PB2) with two-segment backorder control limits is introduced. The traditional policies mentioned above, are special cases of PB2. Hence, we provide a unified framework for studying different policies that deal with shortage. The PB2 problem is formulated and solved as a discrete time, stochastic constrained control problem. Its performance is numerically compared with the simpler alternative policies. In some cases its cost savings, versus the best of PB and PL, exceeds 15%, and 7% versus a single backorder limit policy. The economical advantage is significant over a wide range of the problem parameters. This paper develops an expanded framework for modeling shortages in inventory management. It recognizes that optimal backordering strategy may change over time during an out-of-stock period. The paper is motivated by experience in the chemical industry in which, the cost of backordering is highly time related. Inventory managers, in this industry, consider to lose sales initially (once they run out of stock) and begin to backorder demand later as they approach the replenishment time. A two-segment partial backorder (r,Q) model is introduced and solved. Pure backorder (PB), pure lost sales (PL), and partial backorder (using a single backorder limit), are all special cases of the proposed model. The problem is formulated and solved as a discrete time, stochastic constrained control problem. Its performance is numerically compared with the simpler alternative policies. In some cases its cost savings, versus the best of PB and PL, exceeds 15%, and 7% versus a single backorder limit policy. The economical advantage is significant over a wide range of the problem parameters. The partial backorder policy we propose is not only different from those in the literature, but it provides new control flexibility.

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

inventory
partial backorder
lost sales
backorder


Construction of bivariate S-distributions with copulas S-distributions are univariate statistical distributions with four parameters. They have a simple mathematical structure yet provide excellent approximations for many traditional distributions and also contain a multitude of distributional shapes without a traditional analog. S-distributions furthermore have a number of beneficial features, for instance, in terms of data classification and scaling properties. They provide an appealing compromise between generality in data representation and logistic simplicity and have been applied in a variety of fields from applied biostatistics to survival analysis and risk assessment. Given their advantages in the single- variable case, it is desirable to extend S-distributions to several variates. This article proposes such an extension. It focuses on bivariate distributions whose marginals are S-distributions, but it is clear how more than two variates are to be addressed. The construction of bivariate S- distributions utilizes copulas, which have been developed quite rapidly in recent years. It is demonstrated here how one may generate such copulas and employ them to construct and analyze bivariateand, by extension, multivariateS-distributions. Particular emphasis is placed on Archimedean copulas, because they are easy to implement, yet quite flexible in fitting a variety of distributional shapes. It is illustrated that the bivariate S-distributions thus constructed have considerable flexibility. They cover a variety of marginals and a wide range of dependences between the variates and facilitate the formulation of relationships between measures of dependence and model parameters. Several examples of marginals and copulas illustrate the flexibility of bivariate S-distributions.

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

s-distribution
copula
archimedean copula
bivariate s-distribution
marginal


Options analysis and knowledge management: Implications for theory and practice Real options can be a powerful tool for quantifying the value of strategic and operational flexibility associated with uncertain IT investments. They also constitute a new way of thinking as to how knowledge management (KM) can be implemented and managed to maximize the upside potential while minimizing any downside risk. This paper explored how practitioners can incorporate options analysis into contemporary knowledge management. Options analysis is recognizing real options and then determines how they add value. The main issue here is to manage knowledge so that the theoretical option value is realized in practice. This paper developed a new metric, knowledge management performance index (KMPI), for evaluating the performance of a firm in its KM at any given point in time as follows: knowledge creation, knowledge conversion, knowledge circulation and knowledge completion. The higher the efficiency of the KM process, the higher the KMPI, thereby is enabling firms to become increasingly knowledgeable. To prove the contribution of the KMPI, a questionnaire survey was conducted among 121 firms listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange Corporation (TSEC). This paper makes five important contributions: (1) it shows that if the KM process improves, the KMPI is enhanced. This finding is based on a survey of the questionnaires. As a result, the KMPI can effectively and efficiently represent the KM process; (2) it shows that when the KMPI increases, a companys performance will be enhanced in five different areas This indicates a significant relationship between the KMPI and the companys performance; (3) it also shows that the higher the KMPI, the higher the performance of the organization. This is especially valuable to any organization where knowledge is not being used optimally; (4) it provides an option analysis that may be helpful to managers for making the right decision in an uncertain environment; and (5) it presents the first application of the BlackScholes model to use an actual business situation involving KM as its test bed. The results proved that the option pricing model can act as a measurement guideline for the entire knowledge of the whole company.

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

knowledge management
real options
blackscholes model


AGGREGATE CERTAINTY ESTIMATORS Selecting an effective method for combining the votes of base inducers in a multiclassifier system can have a significant impact on the systems overall classification accuracy. Some methods cannot even achieve as high a classification accuracy as the most accurate base classifier. To address this issue, we present the strategy of aggregate certainty estimators, which uses multiple measures to estimate a classifiers certainty in its predictions on an instance-by-instance basis. Use of these certainty estimators for vote-weighting allows the system to achieve a higher overall average in classification accuracy than the most accurate base classifier. Weighting with these aggregate measures also results in higher average classification accuracy than weighting with single certainty estimates. Aggregate certainty estimators outperform three baseline strategies, as well as the methods of modified stacking and arbitration, in terms of average accuracy over 36 data sets.

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

combining classifiers
multiclassifier systems
ensembles
supervised learning


Computing with very weak random sources We give an efficient algorithm to extract randomness from a very weak random source using a small additional number t of truly random bits. Our work extends that of Nisan and Zuckerman [J. Comput. System Sci., 52 (1996), pp. 43-52] in that t remains small even if the entropy rate is well below constant. A key application of this is in running randomized algorithms using such a very weak source of randomness. For any fixed gamma > 0, we show how to simulate RP algorithms in time n(O(log n)) using the output of a delta-source with min-entropy R-gamma. Such a weak random source is asked once for R bits; it outputs an R-bit string according to any probability distribution that places probability at most 2(?R gamma) on each string. If gamma > 1/2, our simulation also works for BPP; for gamma > 1 ? 1/(k + 1), our simulation takes time n(O(log (k) n)) (log((k)) is the logarithm iterated k times). We also give a polynomial-time BPP simulation using Chor-Goldreich sources of min-entropy R-Omega(1), which is optimal. We present applications to time-space tradeoffs, expander constructions, and to the hardness of approximation. Of independent interest is our randomness-efficient Leftover Hash Lemma, a key tool for extracting randomness from weak random sources.

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

derandomization
expander graphs
hashing lemmas
imperfect sources of randomness
measures of information
pseudorandomness
pseudorandom generators
randomized computation
time-space tradeoffs


The Estimation of Environmental Kuznets Curve in China: Nonparametric Panel Approach In this paper, the panel data of industrial CO\(_2\) emissions among 31 provincial regions in China from 1985 to 2010 are utilized to analyze the nonlinear relationship between industrial pollution and economic development level based on nonparametric method for testing and verifying the environmental Kuznets hypothesis of carbon dioxide (CKC) in China. The industrial carbon dioxide emissions and GDP per capita are as measures of the industrial pollution and the level of economic development. The nonlinear methods have much more flexibility than linear model because there is no linear hypothesis, which may lead to the problem of model misspecification. Thus, nonlinear methods can obtain more accurate and effective results. Our results show that the nonlinear relationship between the industrial carbon dioxide emissions and the level of economic development has an inverted-U shape, which is the pattern of CKC curves. Moreover, Shanghai, Beijing and Tianjin have crossed the CKC inflection point and are now in developmental stage of environmental pollution reduced since 2005, 2006 and 2008 respectively. However, other areas are still in the earlier stage of environmental pollution, economic growth is accompanied by the tendency towards worsening environmental pollution.

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

industrial pollution
economic growth
environmental kuznets curve


Genome data classification based on fuzzy matching Genomic data mining and knowledge extraction is an important problem in bioinformatics. Some research work has been done on unknown genome identification and is based on exact pattern matching of n-grams. In most of the real world biological problems exact matching may not give desired results and the problem in using n-grams is exponential explosion. In this paper we propose a method for genome data classification based on approximate matching. The algorithm works by selecting random samples from the genome database. Tolerance is allowed by generating candidates of varied length to query from these sample sequences. The Levenshtein distance is then checked for each candidate and whether they are k-fuzzily equal. The total number of fuzzy matches for each sequence is then calculated. This is then classified using the data mining techniques namely, naive Bayes, support vector machine, back propagation and also by nearest neighbor. Experiment results are provided for different tolerance levels and they show that accuracy increases as tolerance does. We also show the effect of sampling size on the classification accuracy and it was observed that classification accuracy increases with sampling size. Genome data of two species namely Yeast and E. coli are used to verify proposed method.

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

bioinformatics
genome data
data mining
exact matching

soft computing
approximate pattern matching


Unifying the proper cores and dominance cores of cooperative fuzzy games The purpose of this paper is to investigate the equalities of different types of proper cores and dominance cores for the general worth function \(v\) without assuming it to be nonnegative. The different sufficient conditions are provided in this paper to guarantee the equalities of different proper cores and dominance cores for this general situation.

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 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 B I O B I O O O O