probabilistic models of computer systems We develop a method based on diffusion approximations in order to compute, under some general conditions, the queue length distribution for a queue in a network. Applications to computer networks and to time-sharing systems are presented.

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

network order applications method systems general

sharing
diffuse
computer network
computation
timing
model
distributed


Integrating synchronization with priority into a Kronecker representation ? The compositional representation of a Markov chain using Kronecker algebra, according to a compositional model representation as a superposed generalized stochastic Petri net or a stochastic automata network, has been studied for a while. In this paper we describe a Kronecker expression and associated data structures, that allows to handle nets with synchronization over activities of different levels of priority. New algorithms for these structures are provided to perform an iterative solution method of Jacobi or GaussSeidel type. These algorithms are implemented in the APNN Toolbox. We use this implementation in combination with GreatSPN and exercise an example that illustrates characteristics of the presented algorithms.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 petri nets
performance evaluation tools
numerical algorithms


Non-monotone trust region methods for nonlinear equality constrained optimization without a penalty function We propose and analyze a class of penalty-function-free nonmonotone trust-region methods for nonlinear equality constrained optimization problems. The algorithmic framework yields global convergence without using a merit function and allows nonmonotonicity independently for both, the constraint violation and the value of the Lagrangian function. Similar to the Byrd-Omojokun class of algorithms, each step is composed of a quasi-normal and a tangential step. Both steps are required to satisfy a decrease condition for their respective trust-region subproblems. The proposed mechanism for accepting steps combines nonmonotone decrease conditions on the constraint violation and/or the Lagrangian function, which leads to a flexibility and acceptance behavior comparable to filter-based methods. We establish the global convergence of the method. Furthermore, transition to quadratic local convergence is proved. Numerical tests are presented that confirm the robustness and efficiency of the approach.

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

penalty function
global convergence
local convergence

nonmonotone trust-region methods
sequential quadratic programming
equality constraints
large-scale optimization


Numerical computation of the helical Chandrasekhar-Kendall modes A new formulation is presented for numerically computing the helical Chandrasekhar-Kendall modes in an axisymmetric torus. It explicitly imposes del . B = 0 and yields a standard matrix eigenvalue problem, which can then be solved by standard matrix eigenvalue techniques. Numerical implementation and computational results are shown for an axisymmetric torus typical of reversed field pinch and spherical tokamak. (C) 2010 Elsevier Inc. 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 B O O O O O O O O O B O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I I O B I O O O O O O O

eigenvalue
spherical tokamak
reversed field pinch

magnetic relaxation
taylor state
chandrasekhar-kendall modes
helicity injection


Fuzzy adaptive neural network approach to path loss prediction in urban areas at GSM-900 band This paper presents the results of the Adaptive-Network Based Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) for the prediction of path loss in a specific urban environment. A new algorithm based ANFIS for tuning the path loss model is introduced in this work. The performance of the path loss model which is obtained from proposed algorithm is compared to the Bertoni-Walfisch model, which is one of the best studied for propagation analysis involving buildings. This comparison is based on the mean square error between predicted and measured values. According to the indicated error criterion, the errors related to the predictions that are obtained from the algorithm are less than the errors that are obtained from the Bertoni-Walfisch Model. In this study, propagation measurements were carried out in the 900 MHz band in the city of Istanbul, Turkey.

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

anfis
propagation measurements
path loss
urban environment


Optimization of microwave devices combining topology gradient and genetic algorithm Topology optimization can be seen as optimizing a distribution of small topological elements within a domain with respect to given specifications. A numerical topology gradient (TG) algorithm is applied in the context of electromagnetism for optimizing microwave devices, computing the sensitivity on adding or removing small metallic elements. This method leads to an optimum topology with very little initial information in acceptable time consumption. The method is applied to the design of a microstrip component in which the topology gradient is directly used as a direction of descent. However, in some ill-behavior problems, topology gradient is not sufficient to converge to the global optimum. In the latter case, the basic TG is coupled with a genetic algorithm (G.A) to make a more suitable algorithm for solving local optima problems. (c) 2008 Wiley Periodicals. Inc.

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


A layout algorithm for undirected compound graphs We present an algorithm for the layout of undirected compound graphs, relaxing restrictions of previously known algorithms in regards to topology and geometry. The algorithm is based on the traditional force-directed layout scheme with extensions to handle multi-level nesting, edges between nodes of arbitrary nesting levels, varying node sizes, and other possible application-specific constraints. Experimental results show that the execution time and quality of the produced drawings with respect to commonly accepted layout criteria are quite satisfactory. The algorithm has also been successfully implemented as part of a pathway integration and analysis toolkit named PATIKA, for drawing complicated biological pathways with compartmental constraints and arbitrary nesting relations to represent molecular complexes and various types of pathway abstractions. (C) 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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

information visualization
graph drawing
force-directed graph layout
bioinformatics


A knowledge-based scheduling system for Emergency Departments A knowledge-based reactive scheduling system is proposed to answer the requirements of Emergency Departments (EDs). The algorithm includes detailed patient priority, arrival time, flow time and doctor load. The main aim is to determine the patients who have higher priorities initially, and then minimize their waiting times. To achieve this aim, physicians and the other related workers can use an interactive system. In this study, we evaluated the existing system by comparing the proposed system. Also, reactive scheduling cases were evaluated for some items such as decreasing the number of doctors, changing durations and entering of an urgent patient to the system. All experiments were performed with proposed algorithm and right shift rescheduling approach.

O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 system
emergency department
health care system
patient priorities


Specifying and proving properties of timed I/O automata using Tempo Timed I/O automata (TIOA) is a mathematical framework for modeling and verification of distributed systems that involve discrete and continuous dynamics. TIOA can be used for example, to model a real-time software component controlling a physical process. The TIOA model is sufficiently general to subsume other models in use for timed systems. The Tempo Toolset, currently under development, is aimed at supporting system development based on TIOA specifications. The Tempo Toolset is an extension of the IOA toolkit, which provides a specification simulator, a code generator, and both model checking and theorem proving support for analyzing specifications. This paper focuses on the modeling of timed systems and their properties with TIOA and on the use of TAME4TIOA, the TAME (Timed Automata Modeling Environment) based theorem proving support provided in Tempo, for proving system properties, including timing properties. Several examples are provided by way of illustration.

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

timed automata
specification
verification
theorem proving

system development frameworks
modeling environments
tool suites
automata models
hybrid systems
formal methods


Distributed virtual backbone construction in sensor networks with asymmetric links In this paper, we study the problem of distributed virtual backbone construction in sensor networks, where the coverage area of nodes are disks with different radii. This problem is modeled by the construction of a minimum connected dominating set (MCDS) in geometric k-disk graphs. We derive the size relationship of any maximal independent set (MIS) and MCDS in geometric k-disk graphs, and apply it to analyze the performances of two distributed connected dominating set (CDS) algorithms we propose in this paper. These algorithms have bounded performance ratio and low communication overhead. To the best of our knowledge, the results reported in this paper represent the state-of-the-art. Copyright (C) 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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

connected dominating set
maximal independent set

sensor networks with asymmetric transmission links


A Real-Time Java Chip-Multiprocessor Chip-multiprocessors are an emerging trend for embedded systems. In this article, we introduce a real-time Java multiprocessor called JopCMP. It is a symmetric shared-memory multiprocessor, and consists of up to eight Java Optimized Processor (JOP) cores, an arbitration control device, and a shared memory. All components are interconnected via a system on chip bus. The arbiter synchronizes the access of multiple CPUs to the shared main memory. In this article, three different arbitration policies are presented, evaluated, and compared with respect to their real-time and average-case performance: a fixed priority, a fair-based, and a time-sliced arbiter. Tasks running on different CPUs of a chip-multiprocessor (CMP) influence each others' execution times when accessing a shared memory. Therefore, the system needs an arbiter that is able to limit the worst-case execution time of a task running on a CPU, even though tasks executing simultaneously on other CPUs access the main memory. Our research shows that timing analysis is in fact possible for homogeneous multiprocessor systems with a shared memory. The timing analysis of tasks, executing on the CMP using time-sliced memory arbitration, leads to viable worst-case execution time bounds. The time-sliced arbiter divides the memory access time into equal time slots, one time slot for each CPU. This memory arbitration scheme allows for a calculation of upper bounds of Java application worst-case execution times, depending on the number of CPUs, the time slot size, and the memory access time. Examples of worst-case execution time calculation are presented, and the analyzed results of a real-world application task are compared to measured execution time results. Finally, we evaluate the tradeoffs when using a time-predictable solution compared to using average-case optimized chip-multiprocessors, applying three different benchmarks. These experiments are carried out by executing the programs on the CMP prototype.

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

performance
multiprocessor
shared memory

design
experimentation
measurement
real-time system
java processor
worst-case execution time


A new finite element to represent prismatic joint constraints in mechanisms Among existing kinematic analysis methods of mechanisms, the techniques based on finite elements represent a generally applicable alternative which enable a wide variety of problems to be solved, including linear (velocities, accelerations, jerk, ) and non-linear ones (position). To modelize a mechanism via these techniques, the link element may be used to introduce a distance constraint between two points. The stiffness matrix assembly of these link elements enables stiffness matrix construction from the model, from which the kinematic behaviour of the mechanism may be extracted. Normally kinematic link conditions introduced directly into the system stiffness matrix are used to introduce point to line constraints like those originated by prismatic joints. A new finite element is presented in this paper, defined by its stiffness or geometric matrix, capable of alternatively modelizing the constraints imposed by the prismatic joint. This new element offers numerous advantages against the procedure based on anterior link conditions, particularly in the case of non-linear problems.

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

mechanism kinematics
linear problems
velocity
acceleration


Image thresholding based on the EM algorithm and the generalized Gaussian distribution In this paper, a novel parametric and global image histogram thresholding method is presented. It is based on the estimation of the statistical parameters of object and background classes by the expectationmaximization (EM) algorithm, under the assumption that these two classes follow a generalized Gaussian (GG) distribution. The adoption of such a statistical model as an alternative to the more common Gaussian model is motivated by its attractive capability to approximate a broad variety of statistical behaviors with a small number of parameters. Since the quality of the solution provided by the iterative EM algorithm is strongly affected by initial conditions (which, if inappropriately set, may lead to unreliable estimation), a robust initialization strategy based on genetic algorithms (GAs) is proposed. Experimental results obtained on simulated and real images confirm the effectiveness of the proposed method.

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

image thresholding
generalized gaussian distribution
genetic algorithms


Fast fractal image coding based on LMSE analysis and subblock feature In this paper, we propose a fast fractal image coding based on LMSE (least mean square error) analysis and subblock feature. The proposed method focuses on efficient search of contrast scaling, position of its matched domain block, and isometric transform for a range block. The contrast scaling and the domain block position are searched using a cost function that comes from the LMSE analysis of the range block and its fractal-approximated block. The isometric transform is searched using 2 x 2 blocks formed with the averages of subblocks of range block and domain block. Experimental results show that the encoding time of a conventional fractal image coding with our search method is 25.6-39.7 times faster than that with full search method at the same bit rate while giving PSNR decrement of 0.2-0.7 dB with negligible deterioration in subjective quality. It is also shown that the encoding time of a conventional fractal image coding with our search method is 3.4-4.2 times faster than Jacquin's fractal image coding and is superior by maximum 0.8 dB in PSNR. It also yields reconstructed images of better quality.

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

fractal image coding
contractive mapping


Finite element solution to passive scalar transport behind line sources under neutral and unstable stratification This study employed a direct numerical simulation (DNS) technique to contrast the plume behaviours and mixing of passive scalar emitted from line sources (aligned with the spanwise direction) in neutrally and unstably stratified open-channel flows. The DNS model was developed using the Galerkin finite element method (FEM) employing trilinear brick elements with equal-order interpolating polynomials that solved the momentum and continuity equations, together with conservation of energy and mass equations in incompressible flow. The second-order accurate fractional-step method was used to handle the implicit velocity-pressure Coupling in incompressible flow. It also segregated the solution to the advection and diffusion terms, which were then integrated in time, respectively, by the explicit third-order accurate Runge-Kutta method and the implicit second-order accurate Crank-Nicolson method. The buoyancy term under unstable stratification was integrated in time explicitly by the first-order accurate Euler method. The DNS FEM model calculated the scalar-plume development and the mean plume path. In particular, it calculated the plume meandering in the wall-normal direction under unstable stratification that agreed well with the laboratory and field measurements. as well as previous modelling results available in literature. Copyright (c) 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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

fluid turbulence
direct numerical simulation (dns)
finite element method (fem)
open-channel flow
passive scalar plume


The effect of radius/height ratio on truss optimization The optimal topology of a Michell's truss is being considered as a benchmark problem. It has been observed that this optimal topology is only applicable up to a particular ratio of distance between the loading point to the line joining the supports and the span of the supports. Once the ratio exceeds this critical ratio, the optimum topology of the Michell's truss changes. It has been observed from the studies that it is possible to demarcate the region of two different types of optimum topologies by a linear relation. Extending this problem to a 3-D, similar type of observation of different optimum topologies has been observed above and below the critical ratio of height to radius ratio. This critical ratio, similar to a 2-D case, follows almost a linear relation.

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

genetic algorithms
2-d truss
3-d truss
structure


exploratory evaluations of a computer game supporting cognitive behavioural therapy for adolescents The need to provide effective mental health treatments for adolescents has been described as a global public health challenge [27]. In this paper we discuss the exploratory evaluations of the first adolescent intervention to fully integrate a computer game implementing Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. Three distinct studies are presented: a detailed evaluation in which therapists independent of the design team used the game with 6 adolescents experiencing clinical anxiety disorders; a study in which a member of the design team used the game with 15 adolescents; and finally a study assessing the acceptability of the game and intervention with 216 practicing therapists. Findings are presented within the context of a framework for the design and evaluation of complex health interventions. The paper provides an in-depth insight into the use of therapeutic games to support adolescent interventions and provides stronger evidence than previously available for both their effectiveness and acceptability to stakeholders.

O B 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 B 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 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

evaluations
cognitive behavioural therapy
complex health interventions


Efficient high order waveguide mode solvers based on boundary integral equations ? For optical waveguides with high index contrast and sharp corners, high order full-vectorial mode solvers are difficult to develop, due to the field singularities at the corners. A recently developed method (the so-called BIE-NtD method) based on boundary integral equations (BIEs) and Neumann-to-Dirichlet (NtD) maps achieves high order of accuracy for dielectric waveguides. In this paper, we develop two new BIE mode solvers, including an improved version of the BIE-NtD method and a new BIE-DtN method based on Dirichlet-to-Neumann (DtN) maps. For homogeneous domains with sharp corners, we propose better BIEs to compute the DtN and NtD maps, and new kernel-splitting techniques to discretize hypersingular operators. Numerical results indicate that the new methods are more efficient and more accurate, and work very well for metallic waveguides and waveguides with extended mode profiles.

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

optical waveguides
boundary integral equations
mode solvers

dirichlet-to-neumann map
neumann-to-dirichlet map
hypersingular integral operators


Caches for Multimedia Workloads: Power and Energy Tradeoffs One of the significant workloads in current generation desktop processors and mobile devices is multimedia processing. Large on-chip caches are common in modern processors, but large caches will result in increased power consumption and increased access delays. Regular data access patterns in streaming multimedia applications and video processing applications can provide high hit-rates, but due to issues associated with access time, power and energy, caches cannot be made very large. Characterizing and optimizing the memory system is conducive for designing power and performance efficient multimedia application processors. Performance tradeoffs for multimedia applications have been studied in the past, however, power and energy tradeoffs for caches for multimedia processing have not been adequately studied in the past. In this paper, we characterize multimedia applications for I-cache and D-cache power and energy using a multilevel cache hierarchy. Both dynamic and static power increase with increasing cache sizes, however, the increase in dynamic power is small. The increase in static power is significant, and becomes increasingly relevant for smaller feature sizes. There is significant static power dissipation, similar to 45%, in L1 & L2 caches at 70 ram technology sizes, emphasizing the fact that future multimedia systems must be designed by taking leakage power reduction techniques into account. The energy consumption of on-chip L2 caches is seen to be very sensitive to cache size variations. Sizes larger than 16 k for I-caches and 32 k for D-caches will not be efficient choices to maintain power and performance balance. Since multimedia applications spend significant amounts of time in integer operations, to improve the performance, we propose implementing low power full adders and hybrid multipliers in the data path, which results in 9% to 21% savings in the overall power consumption.

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


Methodology for modeling and analysis of supply networks The analysis and modeling of business processes are the basis on which management methodologies, simulation models and information systems are developed. The goal of this paper is to point out the possibility of establishing relationships between processes in supply networks and functioning of the whole system. In this integrated system, all relevant factors for supply network management, both at the global level and at the single process level, could be observed. The idea is to form a process library of the supply network, which would contain process description, inputs, outputs, and the way the process is realized. Every record in the library presents the single instance of that process. The relationships of one process with another depend on process structure and the way of its realization. Every instance of a process represents its realization. The assembly of mutual compatible instances of all processes represents one realization of the supply network. The key problem, triggering the process realization, is solved by specific production expert system. Process realization is very similar to a real system, because the environment influence, uncertainty, and available resources are taken into consideration. As the output, the aggregate of relevant parameters for the evaluation of model functioning are derived. This concept presents the basis of virtual framework for supply network simulation.

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


quantifying information leaks in software Leakage of confidential information represents a serious security risk. Despite a number of novel, theoretical advances, it has been unclear if and how quantitative approaches to measuring leakage of confidential information could be applied to substantial, real-world programs. This is mostly due to the high complexity of computing precise leakage quantities. In this paper, we introduce a technique which makes it possible to decide if a program conforms to a quantitative policy which scales to large state-spaces with the help of bounded model checking. Our technique is applied to a number of officially reported information leak vulnerabilities in the Linux Kernel. Additionally, we also analysed authentication routines in the Secure Remote Password suite and of a Internet Message Support Protocol implementation. Our technique shows when there is unacceptable leakage; the same technique is also used to verify, for the first time, that the applied software patches indeed plug the information leaks. This is the first demonstration of quantitative information flow addressing security concerns of real-world industrial programs.

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

quantitative information flow
linux kernel


Four-dimensional radiotherapeutic dose calculation using biomechanical respiratory motion description Organ motion due to patient breathing introduces a technical challenge for dosimetry and lung tumor treatment by hadron therapy. Accurate dose distribution estimation requires patient-specific information on tumor position, size, and shape as well as information regarding the material density and stopping power of the media along the beam path. A new 4D dosimetry method was developed, which can be coupled to any motion estimation method. As an illustration, the new method was implemented and tested with a biomechanical model and clinical data.

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 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


Fast dynamic organization without short-term synaptic plasticity: A new view on Hebb's dynamical assemblies Hebb postulated cell assemblies as the basic computational elements for understanding cortical processing. He defined them as temporary associations of neurons that organize fast and flexibly into functional units, using correlation-based short-term synaptic plasticity. Based on the properties of spiking neurons, we implement dynamical assemblies that organize completely without synaptic plasticity. Instead, we find varying effective connection strengths that reflect the organizational process. We propose that this dynamic reorganization capabilities ocurring on a fast temporal scale may be a central element of cortical processing.

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

hebb
spiking neurons
dynamical assemblies

pools
grouping
correlations
coherence
oscillatory activity


State space analysis of Petri nets with relation-algebraic methods A large variety of systems can be modelled by Petri nets. Their formal semantics are based on linear algebra which in particular allows the Calculation of a Petri net's state space. Since state space explosion is still a serious problem, efficiently calculating, representing, and analysing the state space is mandatory. We propose a formal semantics of Petri nets based on executable relation-algebraic specifications. Thereupon, we suggest how to calculate the markings reachable from a given one simultaneously. We provide an efficient representation of reachability graphs and show in a correct-by-construction approach how to efficiently analyse their properties. Therewith we cover two aspects: modelling and model checking systems by means of one and the same logic-based approach. On a practical side, we explore the power and limits of relation-algebraic concepts for concurrent system analysis. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

relation algebra
reachability graph
systems analysis


Longitudinal Image Registration With Temporally-Dependent Image Similarity Measure Longitudinal imaging studies are frequently used to investigate temporal changes in brain morphology and often require spatial correspondence between images achieved through image registration. Beside morphological changes, image intensity may also change over time, for example when studying brain maturation. However, such intensity changes are not accounted for in image similarity measures for standard image registration methods. Hence, 1) local similarity measures, 2) methods estimating intensity transformations between images, and 3) metamorphosis approaches have been developed to either achieve robustness with respect to intensity changes or to simultaneously capture spatial and intensity changes. For these methods, longitudinal intensity changes are not explicitly modeled and images are treated as independent static samples. Here, we propose a model-based image similarity measure for longitudinal image registration that estimates a temporal model of intensity change using all available images simultaneously.

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

deformable registration
longitudinal registration
magnetic resonance imaging (mri)
nonuniform appearance change


Simultaneous optimization of phase balancing and reconfiguration in distribution networks using BFNM algorithm Rephasing strategy is one of the main methods used for phase balancing and neutral current reduction in electrical distribution networks and the reconfiguration technique is an effective method for network loss reduction. In this paper, a new method for the simultaneous implementation of reconfiguration and phase balancing strategies is presented as a combinational strategy. In order to solve the proposed optimization problem, Nelder Mead algorithm combined with a bacterial foraging algorithm (BFNM) is used based on a fuzzy multi-objective function. The proposed method allows for the simultaneous execution of reconfiguration and phase balancing while minimizing the interruption cost of rephasing in addition to eliminating network unbalancing and reducing neutral current and network losses. To demonstrate the efficiency of the BFNM algorithm, its performance is compared with bacterial foraging (BF), particle swarm optimization (PSO), genetic and immune algorithms (GA and IA). The proposed method is applied to the IEEE 123-bus test network for evaluation. The simulation results confirm the efficiency of the method in reducing the system costs and network phase balancing.

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

phase balancing
rephasing strategy
reconfiguration technique
bfnm algorithm
distribution networks


Vowel onset point detection for noisy speech using spectral energy at formant frequencies In this paper, we propose a method for robust detection of the vowel onset points (VOPs) from noisy speech. The proposed VOP detection method exploits the spectral energy at formant frequencies of the speech segments present in glottal closure region. In this work, formants are extracted by using group delay function, and glottal closure instants are extracted by using zero frequency filter based method. Performance of the proposed VOP detection method is compared with the existing method, which uses the combination of evidence from excitation source, spectral peaks energy and modulation spectrum. Speech data from TIMIT database and noise samples from NOISEX database are used for analyzing the performance of the VOP detection methods. Significant improvement in the performance of VOP detection is observed by using proposed method compared to existing method.

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

formant frequencies
glottal closure region
excitation source
spectral peaks
modulation spectrum


Permutable fuzzy consequence and interior operators and their connection with fuzzy relations Fuzzy operators are an essential tool in many fields and the operation of composition is often needed. In general, composition is not a commutative operation. However, it is very useful to have operators for which the order of composition does not affect the result. In this paper, we analyze when permutability appears. That is, when the order of application of the operators does not change the outcome. We characterize permutability in the case of the composition of fuzzy consequence operators and the dual case of fuzzy interior operators. We prove that for these cases, permutability is completely connected to the preservation of the operator type. We also study the particular case of fuzzy operators induced by fuzzy relations through Zadehs compositional rule and the inf-? ? composition. For this cases, we connect permutability of the fuzzy relations (using the sup-? composition) with permutability of the induced operators. Special attention is paid to the cases of operators induced by fuzzy preorders and similarities. Finally, we use these results to relate the operator induced by the transitive closure of the composition of two reflexive fuzzy relations with the closure of the operator this composition induces.

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

fuzzy consequence operator
fuzzy closure operator
fuzzy interior operator
fuzzy preorder
indistinguishability relation


Text mining, names and security A Process Query System, a new approach to representing and querying multiple hypotheses, is proposed for cross-document co-reference and linking based on existing entity extraction, co-reference and database name-matching technologies. A crucial component of linking entities across documents is the ability to recognize when different name strings are potential references to the same entity. Given the extraordinary range of variation international names can take when rendered in the Roman alphabet, this is a daunting task. The extension of name variant matching to free text will add important text mining functionality for intelligence and security informatics' toolkits.

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

co-reference
multiple hypothesis tracking
name matching
natural language processors


Carbenic vs. ionic mechanistic pathway in reaction of cyclohexanone with bromoform The extensive computation study was done to elucidate the mechanism of formation dibromoepoxide from cyclohexanone and bromoform. In this reaction, the formation of dihaloepoxide 2 is postulated as a key step that determines the distribution and stereochemistry of products. Two mechanistic paths of reaction were investigated: the addition of dibromocarbene to carbonyl group of ketone, and the addition of tribromomethyl carbanion to the same (C=O) group. The mechanisms for the addition reactions of dibromocarbenes and tribromomethyl carbanions with cyclohexanone have been investigated using ab initio HF/6-311++G** and MP2/6-311+G* level of theory. Solvent effects on these reactions have been explored by calculations which included a continuum polarizable conductor model (CPCM) for the solvent (H2O). The calculations showed that both mechanisms are possible and are exothermic, but have markedly different activation energies.

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

ab initio calculations
dihaloepoxides
reaction mechanisms


query operations for moving objects database systems Geographical Information Systems were originally intended to deal with snapshots representing a single state of some reality but there are more and more applications requiring the representation and querying of time-varying information. This work addresses the representation of moving objects on GIS. The continuous nature of movement raises problems for representation in information systems due to the limited capacity of storage systems and the inherently discrete nature of measurement instruments. The stored information has therefore to be partial and does not allow an exact inference of the real-world object's behavior. To cope with this, query operations must take uncertainty into consideration in their semantics in order to give accurate answers to the users. The paper proposes a set of operations to be included in a GIS or a spatial database to make it able to answer queries on the spatio-temporal behavior of moving objects. The operations have been selected according to the requirements of real applications and their semantics with respect to uncertainty is specified. A collection of examples from a case study is included to illustrate the expressiveness of the proposed operations.

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

movement operations
spatio-temporal databases
spatio-temporal uncertainty


ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE TRACEABILITY PROPERTIES OF REED-SOLOMON CODES Fingerprinting codes are used to prevent dishonest users (traitors) from redistributing digital contents. In this context, codes with the traceability (TA) property and codes with the identifiable parent property (IPP) allow the unambiguous identification of traitors. The existence conditions for IPP codes are less strict than those for TA codes. In contrast, IPP codes do not have an efficient decoding algorithm in the general case. Other codes that have been widely studied but possess weaker identification capabilities are separating codes. It is a well-known result that a TA code is an IPP code, and an IPP code is a separating code. The converse is in general false. However, it has been conjectured that for Reed-Solomon codes all three properties are equivalent. In this paper we investigate this equivalence, providing a positive answer when the number of traitors divides the size of the ground field.

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

identifiable parent property
separating codes

fingerprinting and traitor tracing
mds codes
reed-solomon codes


occlusion handling based on sub-blobbing in automated video surveillance system Object tracking with occlusion handling is a challenging problem in automated video surveillance. In particular, occlusion handling and tracking have been often considered as separate modules. This paper proposes a tracking method in the context of video surveillance, where occlusions are automatically detected and handled to solve ambiguities. Hence, the tracking process can continue to track the different moving objects correctly. The proposed approach is based on sub-blobbing, that is, blobs representing moving objects are segmented into sections whenever occlusions occur. These sub-blobs are then treated as blobs with the occluded ones ignored. By doing so, the tracking of objects has become more accurate and less sensitive to occlusions. We have also used a feature-based framework for identifying the tracked objects, where several flexible attributes were involved. Experiments on several videos have clearly demonstrated the success of the proposed method.

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

occlusion handling
video surveillance
object tracking


towards the formalization of interaction semantics With the advent of Web 2.0 and the emergence of improved technologies to enhance UI, the importance of user experience and intuitiveness of Web interfaces led to the growth and success of Interaction Design. Web designers often turn to pre-defined and well-founded design patterns and user interaction paradigms to build novel and more effective Web interfaces. The rational behind Interaction Design patterns is based on user behavior and Web navigation studies. The "semantics" of user interaction is therefore a rich and interesting area that is worth exploring in association with traditional Semantic Web approaches. In this paper, we present our first attempts of an ontological formalization of interaction patterns and its implications. To prove our concept, we illustrate the mapping approach we employed to put in relation that interaction formalization with data-specific ontologies, to create Web interfaces to browse and navigate that specialized kind of information; the aforementioned ontologies and mapping rules are the basis of the internal operation of a Semantic Web application framework called STAR:chart, leveraged to build the Service-Finder portal; finally, we present our evaluation results.

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


College students academic motivation, media engagement and fear of missing out Possible links between FoMO, social media engagement, and three motivational constructs were examined. A new scale was designed to measure the extent to which students used social media tools in the classroom. The links between social media engagement and motivational factors were mediated by FoMO.

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

fear of missing out
social media engagement
academic motivation

self-determination theory
higher education


A hybrid collaborative filtering method for multiple-interests and multiple-content recommendation in E-Commerce Recommender systems apply knowledge discovery techniques to the problem of making personalized recommendations for products or services during a live interaction. These systems, especially collaborative filtering based on user, are achieving widespread success on the Web. The tremendous growth in the amount of available information and the kinds of commodity to Web sites in recent years poses some key challenges for recommender systems. One of these challenges is ability of recommender systems to be adaptive to environment where users have many completely different interests or items have completely different content (We called it as Multiple interests and Multiple-content problem). Unfortunately, the traditional collaborative filtering systems can not make accurate recommendation for the two cases because the predicted item for active user is not consist with the common interests of his neighbor users. To address this issue we have explored a hybrid collaborative filtering method, collaborative filtering based on item and user techniques, by combining collaborative filtering based on item and collaborative filtering based on user together. Collaborative filtering based on item and user analyze the user-item matrix to identify similarity of target item to other items, generate similar items of target item, and determine neighbor users of active user for target item according to similarity of other users to active user based on similar items of target item. In this paper we firstly analyze limitation of collaborative filtering based on user and collaborative filtering based on item algorithms respectively and emphatically make explain why collaborative filtering based on user is not adaptive to Multiple-interests and Multiplecontent recommendation. Based on analysis, we present collaborative filtering based on item and user for Multiple-interests and Multiple-content recommendation. Finally, we experimentally evaluate the results and compare them with collaborative filtering based on user and collaborative filtering based on item, respectively. The experiments suggest that collaborative filtering based on item and user provide better recommendation quality than collaborative filtering based on user and collaborative filtering based on item dramatically. (C) 2004 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

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

collaborative filtering
recommender systems


new approaches to covering and packing problems Covering and packing integer programs model a large family of combinatorial optimization problems. The current-best approximation algorithms for these are an instance of the basic probabilistic method: showing that a certain randomized approach produces a good approximation with positive probability. This approach seems inherently sequential; by employing the method of alteration we present the first RNC and NC approximation algorithms that match the best sequential guarantees. Extending our approach, we get the first RNC and NC approximation algorithms for certain multi-criteria versions of these problems. We also present the first NC algorithms for two packing and covering problems that are not subsumed by the above result: finding large independent sets in graphs, and rounding fractional Group Steiner solutions on trees.

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

approximation algorithms
method
approximation
trees
probability
group
combinatorial optimization
model

families matching graph version algorithm randomization posit


Novel phenotype issues raised in cross-national epidemiological research on drug dependence Stage-transition models based on the American Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) generally are applied in epidemiology and genetics research on drug dependence syndromes associated with cannabis, cocaine, and other internationally regulated drugs (IRDs). Difficulties with DSM stage-transition models have surfaced during cross-national research intended to provide a truly global perspective, such as the work of the World Mental Health Surveys Consortium. Alternative simpler dependence-related phenotypes are possible, including population-level count process models for steps early and before coalescence of clinical features into a coherent syndrome (e.g., zero-inflated Poisson [ZIP] regression). Selected findings are reviewed, based on ZIP modeling of alcohol, tobacco, and IRD count processes, with an illustration that may stimulate new research on genetic susceptibility traits. The annual National Surveys on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) can be readily modified for this purpose, along the lines of a truly anonymous research approach that can help make NSDUH-type cross-national epidemiological surveys more useful in the context of subsequent genomewide association (GWAS) research and post-GWAS investigations with a truly global health perspective.

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

alcohol tobacco dependence epidemiology phenotype


TCAD study on gate-all-around cylindrical (GAAC) transistor for CMOS scaling to the end of the roadmap In this paper, we report TCAD study on gate-all-around cylindrical (GAAC) transistor for sub-10-nm scaling. The GAAC transistor device physics, TCAD simulation, and proposed fabrication procedure have been discussed. Among all other novel fin field effect transistor (FinFET) devices, the gate-all-around cylindrical device can be particularly used for reducing the problems of conventional multi-gate FinFET, improving device performance, and scaling-down capabilities. With gate-all-around cylindrical architecture, the transistor is controlled essentially by infinite number of gates surrounding the entire cylinder-shaped channel. Electrical integrity within the channel is improved by reducing the leakage current due to the non-symmetrical field accumulation such as the corner effect. Our proposed fabrication procedure for making devices having the gate-all-around cylindrical (GAAC) device architecture is also discussed.

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

device physics
tcad simulation
fabrication procedure

gate-all-around cylindrical (gaac) transistor


a rule engine to process acceleration data on small sensor nodes In this paper, we propose a compact rule processing engine to process acceleration data on a small sensor device. Our proposed engine enables us to develop applications using acceleration data on the small device with a quite simple and short description. We describe the outline of both our proposed rule engine and an implementation on our developed sensor device called the Mo-Co-Mi chip.

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


mug1 - an incremental compiler-compiler MUG1 is a compiler generating system developed and implemented at the Technical University of Munich. The structure of the system and the concepts used in the compiler description are presented. Special emphasis is laid on the use of MUG1 as a tool for the incremental design of programming languages and the construction of their compilers in parallel.

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

tool use structure parallel design incremental

concept
compilation
systems
programming language


Parallel and distributed local search in COMET The availability of commodity multiprocessors and high-speed networks of workstations offer significant opportunities for addressing the increasing computational requirements of optimization applications. To leverage these potential benefits, it is important, however, to make parallel and distributed processing easily accessible to a wide audience of optimization programmers. This paper addresses this challenge by proposing parallel and distributed programming abstractions that keep the distance from sequential local search algorithms as small as possible. The abstractions, including parallel loops, interruptions, thread pools, and shared objects, are compositional and cleanly separate the optimization program and the parallel instructions. They have been evaluated experimentally on a variety of applications, including warehouse location and coloring, for which they provide significant speedups.

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

combinatorial optimization
constraint programming
language


Causal Relationship from Exposure to Chemicals in Oil Refining and Chemical Industries and Malignant Melanoma Malignant melanoma has been thought to be related mainly to exposure to the sun or radiation. A review of the scientific literature reveals many significant correlations between benzene and benzene-containing solvents in the workplace and the occurrence of malignant melanoma, particularly in sites that have never been exposed to sunlight. A comparison of positive correlations between such exposure and malignant melanoma by independent investigators and negative findings by investigators with industry affiliations reveals that this difference, at least in part, may account for the discrepant findings. Based on independent studies, it is reasonable to conclude that malignant melanoma is causally related to employment-related chemical exposures in the petroleum refining industry

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

benzene
malignant melanoma
independent investigators

industry studies
petroleum industry
chemical carcinogenesis
cutaneous malignancies


Control of a wind turbine cluster based on squirrel cage induction generators connected to a single VSC power converter A control procedure for wind farms connected to a unique converter is presented. The control method is based on vector control, providing high performance. The system operates in the maximum efficiency area due to the use of a MPPT. A power reduction method used in case of an electrical contingency is described. The proposed wind farm layout claims to improve the efficiency and the reliability.

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

wind power generation
high voltage direct current (hvdc)
variable frequency wind farm
offshore wind power


Semantic inference of user's reputation and expertise to improve collaborative recommendations Collaborative recommender systems select potentially interesting items for each user based on the preferences of like-minded individuals. Particularly, e-commerce has become a major domain in these research field due to its business interest, since identifying the products the users may like or find useful can boost consumption. During the last years, a great number of works in the literature have focused in the improvement of these tools. Expertise, trust and reputation models are incorporated in collaborative recommender systems to increase their accuracy and reliability. However, current approaches require extra data from the users that is not often available. In this paper, we present two contributions that apply a semantic approach to improve recommendation results transparently to the users. On the one hand, we automatically build implicit trust networks in order to incorporate trust and reputation in the selection of the set of like-minded users that will drive the recommendation. On the other hand, we propose a measure of practical expertise by exploiting the data available in any e-commerce recommender system - the consumption histories of the users. (c) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. 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 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B B O 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 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 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

personalized e-commerce
semantic reasoning
collaborative filtering


Two-tier image annotation model based on a multi-label classifier and fuzzy-knowledge representation scheme Multi-label classification and knowledge-based approach to image annotation. The definition of the fuzzy knowledge representation scheme based on FPN. Novel data-driven algorithms for automatic acquisition of fuzzy knowledge. Novel inference based algorithms for annotation refinement and scene recognition. A comparison of inference-based scene classification with an ordinary approach.

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 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

image annotation
knowledge representation

inference algorithms
fuzzy petri net
multi-label image classification


Betting system for formative code review in educational competitions Grading systems based on competition ranking usually limit the grade distribution. We propose a methodology based on a betting system to relax the ranking restrictions. Betting assesses the skill to critically analyze source code. A case study in a video game development course validates our proposal.

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

assessment
gamification
software development


COMBINATORIAL CONSTRUCTION OF LOCALLY TESTABLE CODES An error correcting code is said to be locally testable if there is a test that checks whether a given string is a codeword, or rather far from the code, by reading only a constant number of symbols of the string. While the best known construction of locally testable codes (LTCs) by Ben-Sasson and Sudan [SIAM J. Comput., 38 (2008), pp. 551-607] and Dinur [J. ACM, 54 (2007), article 12] achieves very efficient parameters, it relies heavily on algebraic tools and on probabilistically checkable proof (PCP) machinery. In this work we present a new and arguably simpler construction of LTCs that is purely combinatorial, does not rely on PCP machinery, and matches the parameters of the best known construction. However, unlike the latter construction, our construction is not entirely explicit.

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

probabilistically checkable proofs (pcps)


Deterministic and probabilistic multi-modal analysis of slope stability Traditional slope stability analysis involves predicting the location of the critical slip surface for a given slope and computing a safety factor at that location. However, for some slopes with complicated stratigraphy several distinct critical slip surfaces can exist. Furthermore, the global minimum safety factor in some cases can be less important than potential failure zones when rehabilitating or reinforcing a slope. Existing search techniques used in slope stability analysis cannot find all areas of concern, but instead converge exclusively on the critical slip surface. This paper therefore proposes the use of a holistic multi modal optimisation technique which is able to locate and converge to multiple failure modes simultaneously. The search technique has been demonstrated on a number of benchmark examples using both deterministic and probabilistic analysis to find all possible failure mechanisms, and their respective factors of safety and reliability indices. The results from both the deterministic and probabilistic models show that the search technique is effective in locating the known critical slip surface while also establishing the locations of any other distinct critical slip surfaces within the slope. The approach is of particular relevance for investigating the stability of large slopes with complicated stratigraphy, as these slopes are likely to contain multiple failure mechanisms.

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

multi-modal failure
deterministic analysis
multi-modal optimisation


Epithelial Tight Junctions in Intestinal Inflammation The epithelium in inflamed intestinal segments of patients with Crohn's disease is characterized by a reduction of tight junction strands, strand breaks, and alterations of tight junction protein content and composition. In ulcerative colitis, epithelial leaks appear early due to micro-erosions resulting from upregulated epithelial apoptosis and in addition to a prominent increase of claudin-2. Th1-cytokine effects by interferon-? in combination with TNF? are important for epithelial damage in Crohn's disease, while interleukin-13 (IL-13) is the key effector cytokine in ulcerative colitis stimulating apoptosis and upregulation of claudin-2 expression. Focal lesions caused by apoptotic epithelial cells contribute to barrier disturbance in IBD by their own conductivity and by confluence toward apoptotic foci or erosions. Another type of intestinal barrier defect can arise from ?-hemolysin harboring E. coli strains among the physiological flora, which can gain pathologic relevance in combination with proinflammatory cytokines under inflammatory conditions. On the other hand, intestinal barrier impairment can also result from transcellular antigen translocation via an initial endocytotic uptake into early endosomes, and this is intensified by proinflammatory cytokines as interferon-? and may thus play a relevant role in the onset of IBD. Taken together, barrier defects contribute to diarrhea by a leak flux mechanism (e.g., in IBD) and can cause mucosal inflammation by luminal antigen uptake. Immune regulation of epithelial functions by cytokines may cause barrier dysfunction not only by tight junction impairments but also by apoptotic leaks, transcytotic mechanisms, and mucosal gross lesions.

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

apoptosis
tight junction
ulcerative colitis

barrier function
claudins
crohn's disease
inflammatory bowel disease
interleukin-13
tumor necrosis factor-?


Fusion of perceptual cues for robust tracking of head pose and position The paradigm of perceptual fusion provides robust solutions to computer vision problems. By combining the outputs of multiple vision modules, the assumptions and constraints of each module are factored out to result in a more robust system overall. The integration of different modules can be regarded as a form of data fusion. To this end, we propose a framework for fusing different information sources through estimation of covariance from observations. The framework is demonstrated in a face and 3D pose tracking system that fuses similarity-to-prototypes measures and skin colour to track head pose and face position. The use of data fusion through covariance introduces constraints that allow the tracker to robustly estimate head pose and track face position simultaneously. (C) 2001 Pattern Recognition Society. Published by Elsevier Science 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 B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

pose estimation
similarity representation
face recognition


Encoding multiple orientations in a recurrent network Models containing recurrent connections amongst the cells within a population can account for a range of empirical data on orientation selectivity in striate cortex. However, existing recurrent models are unable to veridically encode more than one orientation at a time. Underlying this inability is an inherent limitation in the variety of activity profiles that can be stably maintained. We propose a new recurrent model that can form a broader range of stable population activity patterns. We demonstrate that these patterns preserve information about multiple orientations present in the population inputs. This preservation has significant computational consequences when information encoded in several populations must be integrated to perform behavioral tasks, such as visual discrimination.

O O O 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

population codes
recurrent network models


An automated design and assembly of interference-free modular fixture setup This paper describes an automated modular fixture design system developed using a CAD-based methodology and implemented on a 3-D CAD/CAM software package. The developed automated fixture design (AFD) system automates the fixturing points determination and is integrated on top of the previously developed interactive and semi-automated fixture design systems. The determination of fixturing points is implemented in compliance with the fixturing principles that are formulated as heuristics rules to generate candidate list of points and then select the exact points from the list. Apart from determining the fixturing points automatically, the system is capable of producing cutting tool collision-free fixture design using its machining interference detection sub-module. The machining interference detection is accomplished through the use of cutter swept solid based on cutter swept volume approach. Therefore, using the developed AFD, an interference-free fixture design and assembly can be achieved in the possible shortest design lead-time.

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

modular fixture
automated fixture design
machining interference
cutter swept volume approach


Pseudorandomness and average-case complexity via uniform reductions Impagliazzo and Wigderson (1998) gave the first construction of pseudorandom generators from a uniform complexity assumption on EXP (namely EXP not equal BPP). Unlike results in the nonuniform setting, their result does not provide a continuous trade-off between worst-case hardness and pseudorandomness, nor does it explicitly establish an average-case hardness result. In this paper: We obtain an optimal worst-case to average-case connection for EXP: if EXP not subset of BPTIME(t(n)), then EXP has problems that cannot be solved on a fraction 1/2 + 1/t'(n) of the inputs by BPTIME(t'(n)) algorithms, for t' = t(Omega(1)). We exhibit a PSPACE-complete self-correctible and downward self-reducible problem. This slightly simplifies and strengthens the proof of Impagliazzo and Wigderson, which used a #P-complete problem with these properties. We argue that the results of lmpagliazzo and Wigderson, and the ones in this paper, cannot be proved via "black-box" uniform reductions.

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

average-case complexity
derandomization
instance checkers


Galectins in acute and chronic inflammation Galectins are animal lectins that bind to ?-galactosides, such as lactose and N-acetyllactosamine, in free form or contained in glycoproteins or glycolipids. They are located intracellularly or extracellularly. In the latter they exhibit bivalent or multivalent interactions with glycans on cell surfaces and induce various cellular responses, including production of cytokines and other inflammatory mediators, cell adhesion, migration, and apoptosis. Furthermore, they can form lattices with membrane glycoprotein receptors and modulate receptor properties. Intracellular galectins can participate in signaling pathways and alter biological responses, including apoptosis, cell differentiation, and cell motility. Current evidence indicates that galectins play important roles in acute and chronic inflammatory responses, as well as other diverse pathological processes. Galectin involvement in some processes in vivo has been discovered, or confirmed, through studies of genetically engineered mouse strains, each deficient in a given galectin. Current evidence also suggests that galectins may be therapeutic targets or employed as therapeutic agents for these inflammatory responses.

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

allergic inflammation
autoimmune disease
atherosclerosis


Hierarchical analysis of power distribution networks Careful design and verification of the power distribution network of a chip are of critical importance to ensure its reliable performance. With the increasing number of transistors on a chip, the size of the power network has grown so large as to make the verification task very challenging. The available computational power and memory resources impose limitations on the size of networks that can be analyzed using currently known techniques. Many of today's designs have power networks that are too large to be analyzed in the traditional way as flat networks. In this paper, we propose a hierarchical analysis technique to overcome the aforesaid capacity limitation. We present a new technique for analyzing a power grid using macromodels that are created for a set of partitions of the grid. Efficient numerical techniques for the computation and sparsification of the port admittance matrices of the macromodels are presented. A novel sparsification technique using a 0-1 integer linear programming formulation is proposed to achieve superior sparsification for a specified error. The run-time and memory efficiency of the proposed method are illustrated on industrial designs. It is shown that even for a 60 million-node power grid, our approach allows for an efficient analysis, whereas previous approaches have been unable to handle power grids of such size.

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

circuit simulation
ir drop
matrix sparsification
partitioning
signal integrity


On the interference of ultra wide band systems on point to point links and fixed wireless access systems Ultra Wide Bandwidth (UWB) spread-spectrum techniques will play a key role in short range wireless connectivity supporting high bit rates availability and low power consumption. UWB can be used in the design of wireless local and personal area networks providing advanced integrated multimedia services to nomadic users within hot-spot areas. Thus the assessment of the possible interference caused by UWB devices on already existing narrowband and wideband systems is fundamental to ensure nonconflicting coexistence and, therefore, to guarantee acceptance of UWB technology worldwide. In this paper, we study the coexistence issues between an indoor UWB-based system (hot-spot) and outdoor point to point (PP) links and Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) systems operating in the 3.5 - 5.0 GHz frequency range. We consider a realistic UWB master/slave system architecture and we show through computer simulation, that in all practical cases UWB system can coexist with PP and FWA without causing any dangerous interference.

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

4g communication systems
spread spectrum


Scheduling Multimedia Services in a Low-Power MAC for Wireless and Mobile ATM Networks This paper describes the design and analysis of the scheduling algorithm for energy conserving medium access control (EC-MAC), which is a low-power medium access control (MAC) protocol for wireless and mobile ATM networks. We evaluate the scheduling algorithms that have been proposed for traditional ATM networks. Based on the structure of EC-MAC and the characteristics of wireless channel, we propose a new algorithm that can deal with the burst errors and the location-dependent errors. Most scheduling algorithms proposed for either wired or wireless networks were analyzed with homogeneous traffic or multimedia services with simplified traffic models. We analyze our scheduling algorithm with more realistic multimedia traffic models based on H. 263 video traces and self-similar data traffic. One of the key goals of the scheduling algorithms is simplicity and fast implementation. Unlike the time-stamped based algorithms, our algorithm does not need to sort the virtual time, and thus, the complexity of the algorithm is reduced significantly.

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

low-power operation
multiple access methods
queuing and scheduling algorithms
wireless multimedia communications


Solving capacitated arc routing problems using a transformation to the CVRP A well-known transformation by Pearn, Assad and Golden reduces a capacitated arc routing problem (CARP) into an equivalent capacitated vehicle routing problem (CVRP). However, that transformation is regarded as unpractical, since an original instance with r required edges is turned into a CVRP over a complete graph with 3r+1 3 r + 1 vertices. We propose a similar transformation that reduces this graph to 2r+1 2 r + 1 vertices, with the additional restriction that a previously known set of r pairwise disconnected edges must belong to every solution. Using a recent branch-and-cut-and-price algorithm for the CVRP, we observed that it yields an effective way of attacking the CARP, being significantly better than the exact methods created specifically for that problem. Computational experiments obtained improved lower bounds for almost all open instances from the literature. Several such instances could be solved to optimality. Scope and purpose The scope of this paper is transforming arc routing problems into node routing problems. The paper shows that this approach can be effective and, in particular, that the original instances may generate node routing instances that behave as if the size is not increased. This result is obtained by slightly modifying the well-known transformation by Pearn, Assad and Golden from capacitated arc routing problem (CARP) to the capacitated vehicle routing problem (CVRP), that is regarded as unpractical. The paper provides a computational experience using a recent branch-and-cut-and-price algorithm for the CVRP. The results are significantly better than the exact methods created specifically for that problem, improving lower bounds for almost all open instances from the literature. Several such instances could be solved to optimality.

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


Combining two pheromone structures for solving the car sequencing problem with Ant Colony Optimization The car sequencing problem involves scheduling cars along an assembly line while satisfying capacity constraints. In this paper, we describe an Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) algorithm for solving this problem, and we introduce two different pheromone structures for this algorithm: the first pheromone structure aims at learning for good sequences of cars, whereas the second pheromone structure aims at learning for critical cars. We experimentally compare these two pheromone structures, that have complementary performances, and show that their combination allows ants to solve very quickly most instances.

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

ant colony optimization
car sequencing problem


Calibrating information users' views on relevance: A social representations approach The purpose of this study is to investigate how information users view the concept of relevance and make their judgement(s) on relevant information through the framework of social representations theory. More specifically, this study attempts to address the questions of what users view as the constituent concepts of relevance, what are core and peripheral concepts of relevance, and how these concepts are structured by applying a structural analysis approach of social representations theory. We employ a free word association method for data collection. Two hundred and forty four information users of public and academic libraries responded to questionnaires on their relevance judgement criteria. Collected data were content analysed and assessed using weighted frequency, similarity measure, and core/periphery measurements to identify key elements of relevance and to differentiate core and periphery elements of relevance. Results show that four out of 26 emerged elements (concepts) are core and 22 are periphery elements of the concept of relevance. The findings of this study provide a quantitative measure of weighing various elements of relevance and the internal structure of the concept of relevance from users' perspectives providing enhancements for search algorithms with quantitative metadata support.

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

relevance
social representations
structural analysis

relevance criteria
core-periphery analysis


Constructing fault-tolerant communication trees in hypercubes A communication tree is a binomial tree embedded in a hypercube, whose communication direction is from its leaves to its root. If a problem to be solved is first divided into independent subproblems, then each subproblem can be solved by one of the hypercube processors, and all the subresults can be merged into the final results through tree communication. This paper uses two random search techniques, the genetic algorithm (GA) and simulated annealing (SA), to construct fault-tolerant communication trees with the minimum data transmission time. Experimental evaluation shows that, with reasonably low search time, the proposed GA and SA approaches are able to find more desirable communication trees (i.e., trees with less data transmission time) than the minimal cost approach can. A distributed approach which applies parallel search to communication subtrees in disjoint subcubes is also provided to reduce the search time of the proposed approaches.

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

hypercubes
simulated annealing
data transmission time
search time

fault-tolerant communication trees
genetic algorithms
maximal fault-free subcubes


The firekeepers: aging considered as a resource Technology can improve the quality of life for elderly persons by supporting and facilitating the unique leadership roles that elderly play in groups, communities, and other organizations. Elderly people are often organizational firekeepers. They maintain community memory, pass on organizational practices, and ensure social continuity. This paper reports studies of several essential community roles played by elderly community membersincluding the role of volunteer community webmasterand describes two positive design projects that investigated how technology can support new kinds of social endeavors and contributions to society by elderly citizens. Finally, the paper speculates on the utility of intergenerational teams in strengthening societys workforce.

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

aging
elderly
positive design
intergenerational teams


Limited error based event localizing temporal decomposition and its application to variable-rate speech coding This paper proposes a novel algorithm for temporal decomposition (TD) of speech, called limited error based event localizing temporal decomposition (LEBEL-TD), and its application to variable-rate speech coding. In previous work with TD, TD analysis was usually performed on each speech segment of about 200300ms or more, making it impractical for online applications. In this present work, the event localization is determined based on a limited error criterion and a local optimization strategy, which results in an average algorithmic delay of 65ms. Simulation results show that an average log spectral distortion of about 1.5dB can be achievable at an event rate of 20events/s. Also, LEBEL-TD uses neither the computationally costly singular value decomposition routine nor the event refinement process, thus reducing significantly the computational cost of TD. Further, a method for variable-rate speech coding an average rate of around 1.8kbps based on STRAIGHT (Speech Transformation and Representation using Adaptive Interpolation of weiGHTed spectrum), which is a high-quality speech analysissynthesis framework, using LEBEL-TD is also realized. Subjective test results indicate that the performance of the proposed speech coding method is comparable to that of the 4.8kbps FS-1016 CELP coder.

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

temporal decomposition
straight
speech coding

event vector
event function
line spectral frequency


ONLINE AND OFFLINE SOCIAL TIES OF SOCIAL NETWORK WEBSITE USERS: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY IN ELEVEN SOCIETIES This study presents results of a survey about social network website (SNW) usage that was administered to university students in China, Egypt, France, Israel, India, Korea, Macao, Sweden, Thailand, Turkey, and the United States. The offline and online social ties of SNW users were examined by nationality, levels of individualism-collectivism (I-C), gender, SNW usage, age, and access location. Contrary to existing literature, we found no differences in the number of offline friends between individualist and collectivist nations. Similarly, there was not a difference in the number of online social ties between individualist and collectivist nations. However, members of collectivist nations had significantly more online social ties never met in person. Heavy SNW users in individualist nations maintained significantly higher numbers of offline social ties; however, heavy SNW users in collectivist nations did not have higher numbers of offline social ties. Related implications and recommendations are provided.

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

online social ties
individualism
collectivism
social networking websites


Pair-wise path key establishment in wireless sensor networks When sensor networks deployed in unattended and hostile environments, for securing communication between sensors, secret keys must be established between them. Many key establishment schemes have been proposed for large scale sensor networks. In these schemes, each sensor shares a secret key with its neighbors via preinstalled keys. But it may occur that two end nodes which do not share a key with each other could use a secure path to share a secret key between them. However during the transmission of the secret key, the secret key will be revealed to each node along the secure path. Several researchers proposed a multi-path key establishment to prevent a few compromised sensors from knowing the secret key, but it is vulnerable to stop forwarding or Byzantine attacks. To counter these attacks, we propose a hop by hop authentication scheme for path key establishment to prevent Byzantine attacks. Compared to conventional protocols, our proposed scheme can mitigate the impact of malicious nodes from doing a Byzantine attack and sensor nodes can identify the malicious nodes. In addition, our scheme can save energy since it can detect and filter false data not beyond two hops. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

byzantine attacks
path key establishment
wireless sensor networks


Affect-aware behaviour modelling and control inside an intelligent environment The evidence suggests that human actions are supported by emotional elements that complement logic inference in our decision-making processes. In this paper an exploratory study is presented providing initial evidence of the positive effects of emotional information on the ability of intelligent agents to create better models of user actions inside smart-homes. Preliminary results suggest that an agent incorporating valence-based emotional data into its input array can model user behaviour in a more accurate way than agents using no emotion-based data or raw data based on physiological changes.

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

emotion detection
ambient intelligence
artificial neural networks
fuzzy controllers


A new DSmT combination rule in open frame of discernment and its application A new combination rule based on Dezert-Smarandache theory (DSmT) is proposed to deal with the conflict evidence resulting from the non-exhaustivity of the discernment frame. A two-dimensional measure factor in Dempster-Shafer theory (DST) is extended to DSmT to judge the conflict degree between evidence. The original DSmT combination rule or new DSmT combination rule can be selected for fusion according to this degree. Finally, some examples in simultaneous fault diagnosis of motor rotor are given to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed combination rule.

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

generalized basic probability assignment