NoC synthesis flow for customized domain specific multiprocessor systems-on-chip The growing complexity of customizable single-chip multiprocessors is requiring communication resources that can only be provided by a highly-scalable communication infrastructure. This trend is exemplified by the growing number of Network-on-Chip (NoC) architectures that have been proposed recently for System-on-Chip (SoC) integration. Developing NoC-based systems tailored to a particular application domain is crucial for achieving high-performance, energy-efficient customized solutions. The effectiveness of this approach largely depends on the availability of an ad hoc design methodology that, starting from a high-level application specification, derives an optimized NoC configuration with respect to different design objectives and instantiates the selected application specific on-chip micronetwork. Automatic execution of these design steps is highly desirable to increase SoC design productivity. This paper illustrates a complete synthesis flow, called NetChip, for customized NoC architectures, that partitions the development work into major steps (topology mapping, selection, and generation) and provides proper tools for their automatic execution (SUNMAP, xpipesCompiler). The entire flow leverages the flexibility of a fully reusable and scalable network components library called xpipes, consisting of highly-parameterizable network building blocks (network interface, switches, switch-to-switch links) that are design-time tunable and composable to achieve arbitrary topologies and customized domain-specific NoC architectures. Several experimental case studies are presented in the paper, showing the powerful design space exploration capabilities of the proposed methodology and tools.

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

systems-on-chip
networks on chip
architecture


FuRIA: a new feature extraction algorithm for brain-computer interfaces using fuzzy and inverse models When using Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI) based on ElectroEncephaloGraphy (EEG), the identification of mental tasks relies on two main points: feature extraction and classification [MAM(+)06, BFWB07, LCL(+)07]. Feature extraction aims at describing EEG signals by a few relevant values called "features", whereas classification aims at automatically assigning a class to these features. In this paper we focus on feature extraction, as the BCI community has stressed the need to explore new feature extraction algorithms [MAM+06]. Recently, inverse models have been revealed as promising feature extraction algorithms for BCI [QDHO4, GGP(+)05, WGWB05, CLL06]. Such models aims at computing the activity in the whole brain volume, by using only scalp EEG signals and a head model representing the brain as a set of voxels (volume elements). The activity computed in a few brain regions has been used as features for BCI systems. Despite good results, some limitations remain. Indeed, it seems that current methods cannot conciliate genericity, i.e., the capability to deal with any kind of mental task, and the fact of generating few features. On one hand, methods that are generic and automatic tend to generate a large number of features, as they extract several features for each voxel [GGP(+)05], The activity in neighboring voxels can be correlated and, as such, it would be more appropriate to gather these voxels in brain regions. On the other hand, methods that generate few features have been proposed, but they are not generic anymore as they need a priori knowledge on the mental tasks used, and are currently limited to motor imagery-based BCI [QDH04, WGWB05]. Recently, we have proposed a method which is generic and which generates few features, as voxels whose activity is correlated are gathered into Regions Of Interest (ROI) [CLL06]. However, this method is not completely automatic and is limited to the use of two ROI whose spatial extension is hard to define [CLL06]. In this paper, we propose a generic feature extraction algorithm which can automatically identify any number of relevant ROI and can properly define their spatial extension thanks to the new concept of fuzzy ROI. This algorithm is known as FuRIA, which stands for "Fuzzy Region of Interest Activity". The FuRIA algorithm FuRIA is a trainable feature extraction algorithm. Indeed, it can automatically identify what are the relevant ROI to discriminate mental tasks, and what are the frequency bands in which these ROI react. The FuRIA training is performed in 5 steps: Statistical analysis: This step consists in comparing, using a statistical test, the activity in each voxel, possibly averaged over a given time window, between the different classes. This analysis is performed for each of the N(f) frequencies considered, Once the analysis is achieved, we obtain N(f) statistical maps, each one revealing which voxels are significant for discrimination. Clustering: For each statistical map computed at the previous step, a clustering algorithm is used in order to gather significant voxels into ROI. To perform this clustering, a 4-dimensional vector [x, y, z, s] is associated to each significant voxel. The x, y, z coordinates are the 3D coordinates of the voxel in the head model used and s is the voxel statistic obtained at the previous step. Once the clustering is achieved, all voxels whose associated vector belongs to the same cluster are gathered into the same ROI. Fusion: Once the relevant ROI are identified for each frequency, we have to identify which ROI are relevant in which frequency band. To do so, ROI obtained at similar positions (i.e., with an overlap of more than 50%), for consecutive frequencies, are merged, simply using the union set operator, and identified as reactive in the frequency band resulting from the concatenation of these frequencies. Adaptation: Because of the use of the union as the fusion operator, a ROI Q identified as reactive in the frequency band [f(a); f(b)] can contain voxels which were significant for a single frequency belonging to [f(a); f(b)] but which are not significant anymore for the whole [f(a); f(b)] frequency band. Consequently, we perform another statistical analysis for each ROI, in order to remove voxels that are not significant anymore. Fuzzification: In the ROI defined so far, it can be noticed that all voxels do not have, statistically, the same discriminative power. However, all these voxels contain a given amount of information. Moreover, the brain regions of a given subject are not well defined but are rather naturally fuzzy. Hence, identifying which voxels should be kept in a ROI, and which ones should be removed is a difficult problem. We believe that all voxels that contain information should be in the ROI, but that those which contain less information should be less in the ROI. Thus, we propose the concept of fuzzy ROI, which relies on the fuzzy set theory of Zadeh [Zad96]. A standard (crisp) ROI Omega(c) is defined by the set of voxels it contains. The activity gamma(Omega c) in this ROI Omega(c) is classically computed from the activity gamma(v) of the voxels v of this ROI (see Equation 1). A fuzzy ROI Omega(f) is not defined by a set of voxels anymore, but by a fuzzy membership function mu(Omega f). This function provides the membership degree (in [0; 1]) of any voxel into the ROI Omega(f). The activity in a fuzzy ROI is computed as described in Equation 2, where N(v) is the number of voxels in the head model used. This formalism enables use to weigh each voxel according to the importance of its contribution within the ROI, and, as such, to use efficiently the available information. To complete the training of FuRIA, all ROI Omega are turned into fuzzy ROI by associating to each of them a fuzzy membership function mu(Omega) which uses the statistics obtained at the previous step. Once the training of FuRIA is completed, a set of discriminant fuzzy ROI should have been identified together with the corresponding reactive frequency bands. The activity in these ROI and in these frequency bands, possibly averaged over time, can be used as features for any classifier. Evaluation In order to evaluate FuRIA, we used sLORETA (standardized low resolution electromagnetic tomography) as the inverse model [PM02], a multiple comparison randomization t-test as the statistical analysis [HBWF96] and the "Mean Shift" algorithm as the clustering algorithm [CM02]. Concerning the fuzzy membership functions, it appears that, due to the low resolution of sLORETA, significant voxels with a relatively high probability of type I error are much more numerous that significant voxels with a relatively low probability of type I error. Consequently, for each ROI Omega, we used a membership function mu(Omega) which assigns a membership degree which decreases exponentially with the voxel statistics, as described in Equation 10. In this equation, N(Omega s) is the number of voxels in the ROI Omega; p(min) and p(max) are respectively the minimum and maximum probability, among the ROI voxels, of correctly rejecting the null hypothesis H(0); and p(v) is the probability of correctly rejecting H(0) for voxel v. In order to evaluate FuRIA, we have used the data set IV of the "BCI competition 2003" [WZL(+)04]. These data contain EEG signals recorded 500 ms before a subject hits a keyboard key with a finger from his left or right hand, The goal of the competition participants was to identify, for each trial, the hand that was used. We trained the FuRIA algorithm on the training set provided, by considering the frequencies between 3 Hz and 45 Hz, with a step of 1 Hz, and by considering the time window comprising the last 250 ms of each trial. FuRIA has found 5 discriminant fuzzy ROI (see Figure 1), hence generating 5-dimensional feature vectors. These features has been classified using a linear support vector machine. The recognition rates obtained after 100 training/testing repetitions are displayed in Table 2 and compared with two other methods: the method of the competition winner [WZL+04] and a method using inverse models that we proposed previously [CLL06]. The results obtained withouth the fuzzification step (step 5 of the training, see previous section) are also displayed as a comparison. We can noticed that the method that use FuRIA with fuzzification reached the best results with a recognition score ranging from 85% to 86%, These results suggest that the features extracted with FuRIA are very discriminant, as they are not numerous (there are only 5 features) and still enable us to reach good classification results. It is also interesting to notice that when using FuRIA without fuzzification, the results are significantly lower. This stress the advantage of using efficiently the information contained in any significant voxel, thanks to the concept of fuzzy ROI. In addition to this evaluation, we also proposed a first step towards the design of an interpretable BCI system. To this end, we proposed to classify FuRIA features, which are interpretable features, with a Fuzzy Inference System (FIS), which is an interpretable classifier. Indeed, FIS are a set of fuzzy "if-then" rules that can be learnt from data. By combining FuRIA features with FIS, we can obtain a set of rules describing which activity in which brain regions and frequency bands is related to which mental task. An evaluation of this method on the EEG data mentioned above suggested that the obtained rules were consistent with the literature (see Figure 3).

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

feature extraction
inverse model
classification
fuzzy set

brain-computer interface (bci)
source localization
interpretability
electroencephalography (eeg)


A lower bound on the complexity of polynomial multiplication over finite fields It is shown that computing the coefficients of the product of two degree-n polynomials over a q-element field by means of a quadratic algorithm requires at least (3 + (q-1)(2)/ q(5)+( q- 1)(3)) n - o( n) multiplications.

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

quadratic algorithms
linear recurring sequences
hankel matrices
error-correcting codes


Guidelines for developing effective Estimation of Distribution Algorithms in solving single machine scheduling problems The goal of this research is to deduce important guidelines for designing effective Estimation of Distribution Algorithms (EDAs). These guidelines will enhance the designed algorithms in balancing the intensification and diversification effects of EDAs. Most EDAs have the advantage of incorporating probabilistic models which can generate chromosomes with the non-disruption of salient genes. This advantage, however, may cause the problem of the premature convergence of EDAs resulted in the probabilistic models no longer generating diversified solutions. In addition, due to overfitting of the search space, probabilistic models cannot really represent the general information of the population. Therefore, this research will deduce important guidelines through the convergency speed analysis of EDAs under different computational times for designing effective EDA algorithms. The major idea is to increase the population diversity gradually by hybridizing EDAs with other meta-heuristics and replacing the procedures of sampling new solutions. According to that, this research further proposes an Adaptive EA/G to improve the performance of EA/G. The proposed algorithm solves the single machine scheduling problems with earliness/tardiness cost in a just-in-time scheduling environment. The experimental results indicated that the Adaptive EA/G outperforms ACGA and EA/G statistically significant in different stopping criteria. This paper, hence, is of importance in the field of EDAs as well as for the researchers in studying the scheduling problems.

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

estimation of distribution algorithms
intensification
diversification
single machine scheduling problems


Transient finite element analysis of deep penetration laser welding process in a singlepass butt-welded thick steel plate The laser welding residual stresses and strains in a rectangular thick steel plate are investigated by means of a fully three dimensional finite element analysis. Temperature field and stressstrain field decoupling is assumed to be essential in order to perform an efficient finite element analysis. Moreover, ad hoc constitutive elastoviscoplastic equations have been adapted in order to overcome the unreliable behaviour of rate independent (plastic) constitutive models. Evolution of temperature and stress during the welding process has been numerically simulated as a function of the motion of the travelling laser beam. The results obtained showed also the three dimensional character of stress field due to the typical keyhole form of the molten material under the laser beam, and the relative sound contribution of the stress component along the thickness to the triaxial state of stress, often neglected in previous calculations.

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

thermal analysis
mechanical analysis
material constitutive law
elastoplasticity
elastoviscoplasticity
von mises yield criterion
non-linear programming
incremental static analysis
stressstrain analysis
abaqus code


Revisiting the Fisher vector for fine-grained classification ? Wining method of Fine-grain image classification challenge 2013. Late combination of two indexing and classification strategies. Good practices for fine grain image classification. Key features: descriptors filtering, spatial coordinates coding, active learning.

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

computer vision
fine-grain classification


A novel low mutual coupling microstrip antenna array design using defected ground structure Defected ground structures (DGS) have been developed to improve characteristics of many microwave devices. In this paper, using FDTD method, effect of DGS to mutual coupling reduction of a two-element microstrip antenna array is investigated. The proposed DGS antenna is compared to other techniques and is shown to have an exceptionally lower mutual coupling between two E-plane coupled elements. Impact of the designed DGS on higher-order modes and radiation pattern of the antenna array is also examined.

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

defected ground structure
mutual coupling


augmented hyperbooks through conceptual integration We describe the automatic transformation of a traditional electronic document into a augmented, virtual document. After converting the content into a "small-scale" hyperbook structure with an ontology and textual fragments, we calculate semantic similarity relations between the concepts of this hyperbook and a reference hyperbook. We finally rebuild the document by involving the retrieved hyperlinks. The aim is to show that the integration process also works without a highly detailed ontological structure of the source document.

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

digital library
link inference
ontology matching


Electronic identity in Finland: ID cards vs. bank IDs This chapter describes the introduction and diffusion of the Finnish Electronic Identity Card (FINEID card). FINEID establishes an electronic identity (eID), based on the civil registry and placed on an identity chip card issued by Finnish government to Finnish citizens and permanent residents from age 18 and older. It is a non-mandatory electronic identity card introduced in 1999 in order to replace the older citizen ID card. It serves as a travel document and is intended to facilitate access to eGovernment services as well as offering a possibility to sign electronically. Therefore the chip contains two certificates: one for authentication purposes, and one for qualified signatures. The eID function had to compete with the already existing PIN/TAN based TUPAS standard for online authentication for eBanking, eCommerce and eGovernment applications, and has lost this battle by reaching less than one percent of all online authentications. The history, actor constellation, time line and barriers will be described and a few communalities and differences to other countries under study in this special issue will be highlighted.

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

european interoperability of electronic identity cards

legal framework for electronic identities


Anaplasma phagocytophilum Infection Reduces Expression of Phagocytosis-Related Receptors on Neutrophils Abstract: Anaplasma phagocytophilum is a tick-transmitted obligate intracellular bacterium of neutrophils that causes human granulocytic anaplasmosis. Previous data confirm that in vitro infection by A. phagocytophilum modifies neutrophil functions, including a 50% or greater reduction in phagocytosis and shedding of neutrophil cell surface adhesion molecule receptors. If these receptors are downregulated or shed from the surface of neutrophils with A. phagocytophilum infection, it may prevent neutrophils from effective phagocytosis. We hypothesized that diminished phagocytosis in neutrophils is partly associated with the loss of surface phagocytic receptors. To address this, we assayed the expression of these receptors after 24 h of A. phagocytophilum infection in human neutrophils.

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

anaplasma phagocytophilum
neutrophils
phagocytosis

fc receptors
complement receptors
opsonophagocytic receptors


Development of instructional strategy of computer application software for group instruction This study was designed to develop practical and effective teaching strategies of computer application software for group instruction at Tamkang University. The assumption was that practical strategies for learning computer application software that were highly organized, provided hands-on learning, and proceeded in small steps would be successful in increasing the skill level of students. It utilized the cognitive concept of "scaffolding" that novice should be assisted at the beginning and promoted to self-learning. At the first stage, students and instructors evaluated four Microsoft PowerPoint instructional CD-ROMs and an instructional CD-ROM was developed according to the designing principles of the evaluation. Secondly, interviews were employed to gather data from the instructors and students of introductory computer courses. Based on the criteria defined by literature review and interview, instructional strategies for computer application software learning for group instruction were developed. These strategies and designing guidelines were further implemented and revised by selected instructors. Formative evaluation of instructional strategies and designing guidelines for instructional CD-ROM were conducted with participant observation and interview. Instructional strategies, which included motivation, organization, demonstration, practice, and transfer stages, were developed for evaluation. After the evaluation, instructors reported that these strategies provided them a systematic and efficient approach in designing their instruction and the instructional CD-ROM were helpful to the group instruction process. The students concluded that the new instructional processes were more motivating, organized and interacting. However, students suggested they need more time for practice during group instruction. They recommended that the instructional CD-ROM could take the major role of individualized instruction after 4-6 h of group instruction. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

instructional strategy
group instruction


Neural networks for probabilistic environmental prediction: Conditional Density Estimation Network Creation and Evaluation (CaDENCE) in R A conditional density estimation network (CDEN) is a probabilistic extension of the standard multilayer perceptron neural network (MLP). A CDEN model allows users to estimate parameters of a specified probability density function conditioned upon values of a set of predictors using the MLP architecture. The result is a flexible model for the mean, the variance, exceedance probabilities, prediction intervals, etc. from the specified conditional distribution. Because the CDEN is based on the MLP, nonlinear relationships, including those involving complicated interactions between predictors, can be described by the modeling framework. CDEN models have been applied to a wide range of environmental prediction tasks, such as precipitation downscaling, extreme value analysis in hydrology, wind retrievals from satellites, and air quality forecasting. This paper describes the CaDENCE (Conditional Density Estimation Network Creation and Evaluation) package, which provides routines for creating and evaluating CDEN models in the R programming language. CaDENCE routines are demonstrated on a dataset consisting of suspended sediment concentrations and discharge measurements from the Fraser River at Hope, British Columbia, Canada.

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

probabilistic
nonlinear
interactions
r programming language

artificial neural network
prediction interval


Online fault detection of a mobile robot with a parallelized particle filter Fault diagnosis is one of the most challenging problems, which have to be solved if one considers real-life applications of mobile robots. In this paper, we present a particle filtering-based approach combined with the negative log-likelihood test to address the fault detection task. The major disadvantage of the method is its high computational burden closely related to the number of particles used, which can be computationally too expensive to be processed online by the onboard computer of the robot. In order to address this problem, a solution, in which a part of computations are delegated to an external parallel computing environment such as a computer cluster, is presented. The proposed methods of parallelizing particle filters are aimed at improving their performance in terms of efficiency, estimation error and execution time, which are vital factors in an online setup. To depict the performance benefits of the presented methods, they are confronted with some other existing approaches in a series of experiments.

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

particle filter
mobile robots
fault detection
parallel computing


Exploiting compression and approximation paradigms for effective and efficient online analytical processing over sensor network readings in data grid environments Aggregate queries are useful tools in the context of sensor network-based systems as they retrieve knowledge from huge amounts of summarized readings to be exploited for knowledge discovery purposes. Actually, data representation and query models are problematic issues for managing sensor network data, because streams produced by sensors are theoretically unbounded. In this paper, we present a Grid framework, called SensorGrid, on the basis of data compression and approximation paradigms, which allows us to provide approximate answers to aggregate queries on summarized sensor network data. These queries are the basis for achieving Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) over sensor network readings in Data Grid environments, with both effectiveness and efficiency. We also present our experience in the context of a real-life system focused on the management of environmental sensor network data. Another contribution of our research is represented by the extensive experimental evaluation and analysis of SensorGrid, which, in more details, focuses on two main classes of aggregate range queries over sensor readings, namely, (i) the window queries, which apply an SQL aggregation operator over a fixed window over the reading stream produced by the sensor network, and (ii) the continuous queries, which instead consider a 'moving' window and produce as output a stream of answers. Both classes of queries are extremely useful to extract summarized knowledge to be exploited by OLAP-like analysis tools over sensor network data. The experimental results, conducted on both synthetic and real-life data sets, clearly confirm the benefits deriving from embedding data compression and approximation paradigms into Grid-based sensor network data-intensive management systems.Copyright (c) 2013 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 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

grid olap
olap over sensor network data
data and knowledge grids
approximate query answering


An efficient and robust artificial bee colony algorithm for numerical optimization Artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm has already shown more effective than other population-based algorithms. However, ABC is good at exploration but poor at exploitation, which results in an issue on convergence performance in some cases. To improve the convergence performance of ABC, an efficient and robust artificial bee colony (ERABC) algorithm is proposed. In ERABC, a combinatorial solution search equation is introduced to accelerate the search process. And in order to avoid being trapped in local minima, chaotic search technique is employed on scout bee phase. Meanwhile, to reach a kind of sustainable evolutionary ability, reverse selection based on roulette wheel is applied to keep the population diversity. In addition, to enhance the global convergence, chaotic initialization is used to produce initial population. Finally, experimental results tested on 23 benchmark functions show that ERABC has a very good performance when compared with two ABC-based algorithms.

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


Efficient electric resistivity inversion using adjoint state of mixed finite-element method for Poisson's equation We propose an electric resistivity inversion method that is similar to the reverse time migration technique applied to seismic data. For calculating model responses and inversion, we use the mixed finite-element method with the standard P-1 - P-0 pair for triangular decompositions, which makes it possible to compute both the electric potential and the electric field vector economically. In order to apply the adjoint state of the Poisson equation in the resistivity inverse problem, we introduce an apparent electric field defined as the dot product between the computed electric field vector and a weighting factor and then defining a virtual source to compute the partial derivative of the electric field vector. We exploit the adjoint state (the symmetry of Green's function) of matrix equations derived from solving the Poisson equation by the mixed finite-element method, for the calculation of the steepest descent direction of our objective function. By computing the steepest descent direction by a dot product of backpropagated residual and virtual source, we can avoid the cumbersome and expensive process of computing the Jacobian matrix directly. We calibrate our algorithm on a synthetic of a buried conductive block and obtain an image that is compatible with the limits of the resistivity method. (c) 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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

mixed finite-element method
steepest descent method


Design speed for new high-speed lines The research project produced the HSLdim model for planning of high-speed lines. Demand, supply and costs are included to optimise design speed by means of CBA. The optimal design speed for the Swedish case was found to be 325350km/h. The share of ballastless track has influence on optimal speed. Future needs must be taken into consideration when choosing design speed.

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

high-speed rail (hsr)
green train
economic assessment
infrastructure planning


An object-oriented evaluation framework for dynamic vehicle routing problems under real-time information The dynamic vehicle routing problems (DVRP) is an extension of vehicle routing problems (VRP) in order to consider possible variations of travel times in the network. In this research, a two-stage framework for solving dynamic vehicle routing problem is proposed. In the first stage, the sweep method is adopted in vehicle assignment. In the second stage, a tabu search algorithm is implemented to improve routes under real-time information. The framework is implemented in an object-oriented approach and possible benefit from real-time information is illustrated through numerical simulation. The simulation-assignment model, DynaTAIWAN is applied in numerical simulation to evaluate real-time routing strategies in a traffic network. Numerical experiments are conducted in a 50 Nodes Network and a Taichung City. The results show that positive benefits could be achieved through utilization of real-time information with careful design.

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

vehicle routing problem
vehicle assignment
sweep method
tabu search

logistics management
real-time information


On error-tolerant DNA screening ? Given n clones with some positive ones, the problem of DNA screening is to identify all positive clones with a set of tests each on a subset of clones, called a pool and the outcome is either the pool contains a positive clone or not. In this paper, we show that for a class of designs, if we apply those for samples with d positive clones to samples with at most d-1 d - 1 positive clones, the error-tolerant property will have an interesting improvement. We also make a remark on decoding method for k-error-correcting d-disjunct matrix.

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

error tolerant
pooling design
group testing


Using education indexes to map research trends This paper primarily examines the potential of the Australian Education Index (AEI) as a tool to map and monitor educational research. The authors provide a range of analyses that identify the thrust of research publications in Australia between 1984 and 1997. Key findings pertain to differences in the thrust of theses compared to other publications and to the overall stability in the pattern of research at the global or macro level. The authors also identify the strengths and weaknesses of the AEI with respect to its immediate use in monitoring research trends.

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

australian education index
educational research


Social media analytics: a survey of techniques, tools and platforms This paper is written for (social science) researchers seeking to analyze the wealth of social media now available. It presents a comprehensive review of software tools for social networking media, wikis, really simple syndication feeds, blogs, newsgroups, chat and news feeds. For completeness, it also includes introductions to social media scraping, storage, data cleaning and sentiment analysis. Although principally a review, the paper also provides a methodology and a critique of social media tools. Analyzing social media, in particular Twitter feeds for sentiment analysis, has become a major research and business activity due to the availability of web-based application programming interfaces (APIs) provided by Twitter, Facebook and News services. This has led to an explosion of data services, software tools for scraping and analysis and social media analytics platforms. It is also a research area undergoing rapid change and evolution due to commercial pressures and the potential for using social media data for computational (social science) research. Using a simple taxonomy, this paper provides a review of leading software tools and how to use them to scrape, cleanse and analyze the spectrum of social media. In addition, it discussed the requirement of an experimental computational environment for social media research and presents as an illustration the system architecture of a social media (analytics) platform built by University College London. The principal contribution of this paper is to provide an overview (including code fragments) for scientists seeking to utilize social media scraping and analytics either in their research or business. The data retrieval techniques that are presented in this paper are valid at the time of writing this paper (June 2014), but they are subject to change since social media data scraping APIs are rapidly changing.

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

social media
scraping
sentiment analysis

behavior economics
opinion mining
nlp
toolkits
software platforms


hypertext structure as the event of connection This paper proposes that within the practice of writing small scale, local hypertext, critical questions of relevance to all hypertext researchers are foregrounded, in particular problems of excess, context, and teleological interpretation.

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

hypertext structure scale event interpretation relevance paper connection writing context excess

links
research
rhetoric
hypertext structure
cinema
pragmatics
critic
practical
locality


creating an informative workspace Informative Workspace is one of the new practices launched in the second edition of "Extreme Programming Explained" [1]. To follow this practice, an agile team builds feedback mechanisms around them that support them in their daily work. These feedback mechanisms can take the form of visual displays, Information Radiators [2], which are manually updated by the team, or electronic eXtreme Feedback Devices [3] (XFD), such as lava lamps or audio signals linked to automated processes. It is vital to ensure that feedback mechanisms are easy to interpret, low maintenance and adapted to local working practices. This workshop will gather and share experiences on how to develop and maintain an Informative Workspace.

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


A supertree method for rooted trees ? The amalgamation of leaf-labelled (phylogenetic) trees on overlapping leaf sets into one (super)tree is a central problem in several areas of classification, particularly evolutionary biology. In this paper, we describe a new technique for amalgamating rooted phylogenetic trees. This appears to be the first such method to provably exhibit particular desirable properties which we list and establish.

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


An improved boundary distributed source method for two-dimensional Laplace equations In this work, the boundary distributed source (BDS) method [EABE 34(11): 914-919] based on the method of fundamental solutions (MFS) is considered for the solution of two-dimensional Laplace equations. The BDS is a truly mesh-free method and quite easy to implement since the source points and field points are collocated on the domain boundary while the conventional MFS requires a fictitious boundary where the source points locate. The main idea of the BDS is that to avoid the singularities of the fundamental solutions the concentrated point sources in the conventional MFS are replaced by distributed sources over circles centered at the source points. In the original BDS, all elements of the system matrix can be derived analytically in a very simple form for the Dirichlet boundary conditions and off-diagonal elements for the Neumann boundary conditions, while the diagonal elements for the Neumann boundary conditions can be obtained indirectly from the constant potential field. This work suggests a simple way to determine the diagonal elements for the Neumann boundary conditions by invoking that the boundary integration of the normal gradient of the potential should vanish. Several numerical examples are addressed to show the feasibility and the accuracy of the proposed method.

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

boundary distributed source method
method of fundamental solutions


An approximation algorithm for dominating nodes selection in multi-channel multi-radio wireless sensor networks In this paper, we study the dominating selection optimisation problem with multiple channels and multiple radios in wireless sensor networks. The objective is to maximise the number of targets covered while selecting at most k nodes and at most k(i) channels with each selected node v(i). Our problem is a general case of the maximum coverage problem. We propose two algorithms: the first one is based on linear programming and PIPAGE rounding, in which its approximation ratio is 1/K(1-(1-1/m)(m)), where m is the number of the dominating nodes and K = max k(i). The second algorithm is based on greedy strategy with low time complexity. The simulation shows that the both two algorithms have good performance.

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

wireless sensor networks
approximation algorithm

dominate node selection
multi-channel
multi-radio


On principal component analysis, cosine and Euclidean measures in information retrieval Clustering groups document objects represented as vectors. An extensive vector space may cause obstacles to applying these methods. Therefore, the vector space was reduced with principal component analysis (PCA). The conventional cosine measure is not the only choice with PCA, which involves the mean-correction of data. Since mean-correction changes the location of the origin, the angles between the document vectors also change. To avoid this, we used a connection between the cosine measure and the Euclidean distance in association with PCA, and grounded searching on the latter. We applied the single and complete linkage and Ward clustering to Finnish documents utilizing their relevance assessment as a new feature. After the normalization of the data PCA was run and relevant documents were clustered.

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

information retrieval
cosine measure
principal component analysis
clustering
documents


List decodability at small radii A'(n, d, e), the smallest a"" for which every binary error-correcting code of length n and minimum distance d is decodable with a list of size a"" up to radius e, is determined for all d a parts per thousand yen 2e - 3. As a result, A'(n, d, e) is determined for all e a parts per thousand currency sign 4, except for 42 values of n.

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

bounded-weight codes
constant-weight codes
error-correcting codes
list decoding


are search and decision programs computationally equivalent? From the point of view of sequential polynomial time computation, the answer to the question in the title is 'yes'. The process of self-reducibility is a linear time Turing (oracle) reduction from a given combinatorial search problem to an appropriately defined decision problem. However, from the point of view of fast parallel computation, the answer is not so clear. Many of the sequential algorithms that were 'marked off' as being inherently sequential embed within them the self-reducibility process. Can this inherently sequential process be parallelized? To study this problem, we define an abstract setting (namely that of an independence system) in which one, universal search problem captures all combinatorial search problems. We consider several natural decision and function oracles to which this search problem may be reduced. On the positive side, we give efficient probabilistic parallel reductions to these oracles. These reductions constitute a scheme for parallelizing search problems in case the oracles for these problems are themselves efficiently computable in parallel. We give examples of problems that did not yield to parallelism before, but can be parallelized using this scheme. On the negative side, we prove lower bounds on any determininistic parallel reductions to the same oracles. If p processors are used, the sequential (linear) running time cannot be enhanced by more than a factor of &Ogr;(log p ) and hence for any polynomial number of processors the problem remains inherently sequential. This proves that randomization can be exponentially more powerful than determinism in our model, and suggests that NC ? Random NC. Finally, we state some intriguing conjectures and suggest new directions of research in complexity theory that arise from this work.

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

point examples polynomial oracle computation reduction theory case model randomization search yield research determinism factor parallel process complexity scheme

efficiency
log
direct
timing
posit
processor
program
lower bound
systems
abstraction
functional
parallel computation
algorithm
embedding


Perceptual attributes of crosstalk in 3D images Nowadays, crosstalk is probably one of the most annoying distortions in 3D displays. So far, display designers still have a relative lack of knowledge about the relevant subjective attributes of crosstalk and how they are combined in an overall 3D viewing experience model. The aim of the current experiment is to investigate three perceptually important attributes influencing the overall viewing experience: perceived image distortion, perceived depth, and visual strain. The stimulus material used in this experiment consisted of two natural scenes varying in depth (0, 4, and 12cm camera base distance) and crosstalk level (0, 5, 10, and 15%). Subjects rated the attributes according to the ITU BT.50010 in a controlled experiment. Results show that image distortion ratings show a clear increase with increasing crosstalk and increasing camera base distance. Especially higher crosstalk levels are more visible at larger camera base distances. Ratings of visual strain and perceived depth only increase with increasing camera base distance and remain constant with increasing crosstalk (at least until 15% crosstalk).

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

3d
crosstalk
camera base distance
image distortion
depth
visual strain


Mixing characteristics of motionless mixers Motionless mixers have found a large range of applications, including blending, reaction, dispersion, heat transfer and mass transfer. Understanding the mixing processes that occur in these diverse systems is essential for predicting many aspects of practical importance. The objective of this study is to perform the experimental investigations of mixing characteristics for three different motionless mixers. The red color dye tracer was mixed in the main stream of green hair styling gel, and then the mixing efficiency was quantified by calculating the percentage area concentration of red color at the outlet cross section using a digital image processing technique. In the Sulzer SMX and YHC mixer, a single element mixes the fluid nearly in two dimensions, and three-dimensional mixing is accomplished by the next elements aligned at 900 to their former one. In the Sulzer SMX mixer, the flow appears to be globally well mixed after 5 elements, while in the YHC and YNU mixers, it is necessary to globally well mix more than 1 and 2 elements.

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

mixing characteristics
digital image processing technique

motionless mixer
mixing element
visualization


A spectral element formulation of the immersed boundary method for Newtonian fluids ? A spectral element formulation of the immersed boundary method (IBM) is presented. The spectral element formulation (SE-IBM) is a generalisation of the finite element immersed boundary method (FE-IBM) based on high-order approximations of the fluid variables. Several schemes for tracking the movement of the immersed boundary are considered and a semi-implicit Euler scheme is shown to offer advantages in terms of accuracy and efficiency. High-order spectral element approximations provide improved area conservation properties of the IBM due to the incompressibility constraint being more accurately satisfied. Superior orders of convergence are obtained for SE-IBM compared with FE-IBM in both L2 L 2 and H1 H 1 norms. The area conservation and convergence properties of the scheme are demonstrated on a series of benchmark problems.

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


Parsimonious unsupervised and semi-supervised domain adaptation with good similarity functions In this paper, we address the problem of domain adaptation for binary classification. This problem arises when the distributions generating the source learning data and target test data are somewhat different. From a theoretical standpoint, a classifier has better generalization guarantees when the two domain marginal distributions of the input space are close. Classical approaches try mainly to build new projection spaces or to reweight the source data with the objective of moving closer the two distributions. We study an original direction based on a recent framework introduced by Balcan et al. enabling one to learn linear classifiers in an explicit projection space based on a similarity function, not necessarily symmetric nor positive semi-definite. We propose a well-founded general method for learning a low-error classifier on target data, which is effective with the help of an iterative procedure compatible with Balcan et al.'s framework. A reweighting scheme of the similarity function is then introduced in order to move closer the distributions in a new projection space. The hyperparameters and the reweighting quality are controlled by a reverse validation procedure. Our approach is based on a linear programming formulation and shows good adaptation performances with very sparse models. We first consider the challenging unsupervised case where no target label is accessible, which can be helpful when no manual annotation is possible. We also propose a generalization to the semi-supervised case allowing us to consider some few target labels when available. Finally, we evaluate our method on a synthetic problem and on a real image annotation task.

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

domain adaptation
good similarity functions


Locating target at high speed using image decimation decomposition processing We develop a decimation-decomposition processing technique that consists of judiciously selecting certain decimation-decomposed components of an image and then performing inter-component processing. For a ( )-decimation decomposition, there may be up to kxky decimation-decomposed components. The minimal surviving and maximal non-surviving lengths associated with inter-component processing algorithm allows for clutter suppression. By removing detection redundancies, one can locate the target at high speed. A where-then-what model is proposed for target tracking and recognition. It locates the target by-image decimation-decomposition processing first and then recognizes the target in question using a suitable image recognition technique.

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

image decimation
clutter suppression
target tracking


Formulation and analysis of in-place MSD radix sort algorithms We present a unified treatment of a number of related in-place MSD radix sort algorithms with varying radices, collectively referred to here as 'Matesort' algorithms. These algorithms use the idea of in-place partitioning which is a considerable improvement over the traditional linked list implementation of radix sort that uses 0(n) space. The binary Matesort algorithm is a recast of the classical radix-exchange sort, emphasizing the role of in-place partitioning and efficient implementation of bit processing operations. This algorithm is O(k) space and has O(kn) worst-case order of running time, where k is the number of bits needed to encode an element value and n is the number of elements to be sorted. The binary Matesort algorithm is evolved into a number of other algorithms including 'continuous Matesort' for handling floating point numbers, and a number of 'general radix Matesort' algorithms. We present formulation and analysis for three different approaches (sequential, divide-and-conquer and permutation-loop) for partitioning by the general radix Matesort algorithm. The divide-and-conquer approach leads to an elegantly coded algorithm with better performance than the permutation-loop-based American Flag Sort algorithm.

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

sorting algorithms
msd radix sort
general radix matesort
quicksort


De-Interlacing Using Nonlocal Costs and Markov-Chain-Based Estimation of Interpolation Methods A new method of de-interlacing is proposed. De-interlacing is revisited as the problem of assigning a sequence of interpolation methods (interpolators) to a sequence of missing pixels of an interlaced frame (field). With this assumption, our de-interlacing algorithm (de-interlacer), undergoes transitions from one interpolation method to another, as it moves from one missing pixel position to the horizontally adjacent missing pixel position in a missing row of a field. We assume a discrete countable-state Markov-chain model on the sequence of interpolators (Markov-chain states) which are selected from a user-defined set of candidate interpolators. An estimation of the optimum sequence of interpolators with the aforementioned Markov-chain model requires the definition of an efficient cost function as well as a global optimization technique. Our algorithm introduces for the first time using a nonlocal cost (NLC) scheme. The proposed algorithm uses the NLC to not only measure the fitness of an interpolator at a missing pixel position, but also to derive an approximation for transition matrix (TM) of the Markov-chain of interpolators. The TM in our algorithm is a frame-variate matrix, i.e., the algorithm updates the TM for each frame automatically. The algorithm finally uses a Viterbi algorithm to find the global optimum sequence of interpolators given the cost function defined and neighboring original pixels in hand. Next, we introduce a new MAP-based formulation for the estimation of the sequence of interpolators this time not by estimating the best sequence of interpolators but by successive estimations of the best interpolator at each missing pixel using Forward-Backward algorithm. Simulation results prove that, while competitive with each other on different test sequences, the proposed methods (one using Viterbi and the other Forward-Backward algorithm) are superior to state-of-the-art de-interlacing algorithms proposed recently. Finally, we propose motion compensated versions of our algorithm based on optical flow computation methods and discuss how it can improve the proposed algorithm.

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

de-interlacing
forward-backward algorithm
markov-chain


An EM algorithm for the estimation of parameters of bivariate generalized exponential distribution under random left censoring In this paper, we consider the four-parameter bivariate generalized exponential distribution proposed by Kundu and Gupta [Bivariate generalized exponential distribution, J. Multivariate Anal. 100 (2009), pp. 581-593] and propose an expectation-maximization algorithm to find the maximum-likelihood estimators of the four parameters under random left censoring. A numerical experiment is carried out to discuss the properties of the estimators obtained iteratively.

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


Multivariate alternating decision trees Novel concept of multivariate alternating decision tree (ADTree) with boosting. Offering high prediction accuracy similar to decision tree ensembles. Retaining good comprehension similar to individual univariate decision trees. Bridging powerful regularization techniques to decision tree research. Introduction and validation of multivariate ADTree algorithms on public datasets.

O O O O O O O O B I 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


High performance haptic device for force rendering in textile exploration The HAPTEX system aims to develop a new multi-sensory environment for the immersive exploration of textiles. HAPTEX is based on a multi-layer/multi-thread architecture that optimizes the computational speed and integrates three different types of sensory feedback: vision, tactile and haptic. Such kind of environment is suitable for demanding VR applications such as the online marketing of novel textiles or garments, however it requires the design of a high performance multi-point haptic interface. The present work focuses on the haptic device design and describes how demanding requirements can be met by integrating on a high performance device a force sensor to achieve closed loop control. The methodology for the dimensioning of a motion based explicit force control on the basis of the dynamic parameters will be discussed and the specific implementation for the HAPTEX system presented.

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

haptic interfaces
textile modeling
visual/tactile integration


Urban DEM generation, analysis and enhancements using TanDEM-X This paper analyzes the potential of the TanDEM-X mission for the generation of urban Digital Elevation Models (DEMs). The high resolution of the sensors and the absence of temporal decorrelation are exploited. The interferometric chain and the problems encountered for correct mapping of urban areas are analyzed first. The operational Integrated TanDEM-X Processor (ITP) algorithms are taken as reference. The ITP main product is called the raw DEM. Whereas the ITP coregistration stage is demonstrated to be robust enough, large improvements in the raw DEM such as fewer percentages of phase unwrapping errors, can be obtained by using adaptive fringe filters instead of the conventional ones in the interferogram generation stage. The shape of the raw DEM in the layover area is also shown and determined to be regular for buildings with vertical walls. Generally, in the presence of layover, the raw DEM exhibits a height ramp, resulting in a height underestimation for the affected structure. Examples provided confirm the theoretical background. The focus is centered on high resolution DEMs produced using spotlight acquisitions. In particular, a raw DEM over Berlin (Germany) with a 2.5m raster is generated and validated. For this purpose, ITP is modified in its interferogram generation stage by adopting the Intensity Driven Adaptive Neighbourhood (IDAN) algorithm. The height Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) between the raw DEM and a reference is about 8m for the two classes defining the urban DEM: structures and non-structures. The result can be further improved for the structure class using a DEM generated with Persistent Scatterer Interferometry. A DEM fusion is thus proposed and a drop of about 20% in the RMSE is reported.

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


an ant colony optimization approach to the multiple-choice multidimensional knapsack problem In this paper, we present an ant colony optimization (ACO) approach to solve the multiple-choice multidimensional knapsack problem (MMKP). This problem concerns many real life problems, and is hard to solve due to its strong constraints and NP-hard property. The ACO approach given in this paper follows the algorithmic scheme of max-min ant system, but has some new features with respect to the characteristics of the MMKP. First, a single-group-oriented solution construction method is proposed, which allows ants to generate solutions efficiently. Second, some Lagrangian dual information obtained from a Lagrangian relaxation of MMKP is integrated into ACO. In addition, we develop a novel repair operator, with which the possible infeasible solutions generated by ants can be fixed. The proposed approach has been tested on a number of MMKP instances. Computational results show that it is able to produce competitive solutions in comparison with existing algorithms.

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

ant colony optimization
lagrangian relaxation


A Methodology for Determining the Return on Investment Associated With Prognostics and Health Management Prognostics and Health Management (PHM) provides opportunities for lowering sustainment costs, improving maintenance decision-making, and providing product usage feedback into the product design and validation process. However, support for PHM is predicated on the articulation of clear business cases that quantify the expected cost and benefits of its implementation. The realization of PHM requires implementation at different levels of scale, and complexity. The maturity, robustness, and applicability of the underlying predictive algorithms impact the overall efficacy of PHM within an enterprise. The utility of PHM to inform decision-makers within tight scheduling constraints, and under different operational profiles likewise affects the cost avoidance that can be realized. This paper discusses the calculation of Return on Investment (ROI) for PHM activities, and presents a study conducted using a stochastic discrete event simulation model to determine the potential ROI offered by electronics PHM. The case study of a multifunctional display in a Boeing 737 compares the life cycle costs of a system employing unscheduled maintenance to the same system using a precursor to failure PHM approach.

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

prognostics and health management
return on investment

electronics prognostics and health management


Tactile VR for handeye coordination in simulated PTCA Percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA) is a minimally invasive image-guided technique for treatment of coronary diseases. PTCA procedure requires physicians to have good skills of handeye coordination in performing the operation. Training of PTCA thus very much emphasizes skill building for handeye coordination. We have been developing virtual reality (VR) technology for medical simulation. In this paper, we will address the issue of VR-based simulation for the enhancement of handeye coordination for PTCA operation. Starting from the characterization of PTCA procedure, we examine what roles VR can play in training of PTCA physicians. We then describe a computerized PTCA training system we have developed which is composed of a tactile interface and a visual interface. The system is designed in such a way that real PTCA devices (including catheters and guide-wires) can be used to mimic the requirements of the CathLab. The backend computational engine supporting the real-time and realistic PTCA simulation is also presented.

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

virtual reality
medical simulation
handeye coordination

image-guided surgery
tactile and visual interfaces


Approximating the semantics of logic programs by recurrent neural networks In [1] we have shown how to construct a 3-layered recurrent neural network that computes the fixed point of the meaning function T-P of a given propositional logic program P, which corresponds to the computation of the semantics of P. In this article we consider the first order case. We define a notion of approximation for interpretations and prove that there exists a 3-layered feed forward neural network that approximates the calculation of T-P for a given first order acyclic logic program P with an injective level mapping arbitrarily well. Extending the feed forward network by recurrent connections we obtain a recurrent neural network whose iteration approximates the fixed point of T-P. This result is proven by taking advantage of the fact that for acyclic logic programs the function T-P is a contraction mapping on a complete metric space defined by the interpretations of the program. Mapping this space to the metric space R with Euclidean distance, a real valued function f(P) can be defined which corresponds to T-P and is continuous as well as a contraction. Consequently it can be approximated by an appropriately chosen class of feed forward neural networks.

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

recurrent neural networks
logic programs


Automating HAZOP studies using D-higraphs In this paper, we present the use of D-higraphs to perform HAZOP studies. D-higraphs is a formalism that includes in a single model the functional as well as the structural (ontological) components of any given system. A tool to perform a semi-automatic guided HAZOP study on a process plant is presented. The diagnostic system uses an expert system to predict the behavior modeled using D-higraphs. This work is applied to the study of an industrial case and its results are compared with other similar approaches proposed in previous studies. The analysis shows that the proposed methodology fits its purpose enabling causal reasoning that explains causes and consequences derived from deviations, it also fills some of the gaps and drawbacks existing in previous reported HAZOP assistant tools. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

hazop analysis
functional modeling
risk assessment


Computational analysis of the myocardial structure: Adaptation of cardiac myofiber orientations through deformation Deformation and structure of the cardiac wall can be assessed non-invasively by imaging techniques such as magnetic resonance imaging. Understanding the (patho-)physiology that underlies the observed deformation and structure is critical for clinical diagnosis. However, much about the genesis of deformation and structure is unknown. In the present computational model study, we hypothesize that myofibers locally adapt their orientation to achieve minimal fiber-cross fiber shear strain during the cardiac cycle. This hypothesis was tested in a 3D finite element model of left ventricular (LV) mechanics by computation of tissue deformations and subsequent adaptation of initial myofiber orientations towards those in the deformed tissue. As a consequence of adaptation, local tissue peak stress, strain during ejection and stroke work density were all found to increase by at least 10%, as well as to become 50% more homogeneous throughout the wall. Global LV work (peak systolic pressure, stroke volume and stroke work) increased significantly as well (>9%). The model-predicted myofiber orientations were found to be similar to those in experiments. To the best of our knowledge the presented model is the first that is able to simultaneously predict a realistic myocardial structure as well as to account for the experimentally observed homogeneity in local mechanics.

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

cardiac mechanics
fiber remodeling
transverse angle


Implementation of a virtual environment for traffic accident simulation Part II: Developing the virtual environment This Part II of a two-part paper presents the development of a prototype of the INtelligent TRaffic Evaluator for Prompt Incident Diagnosis using a Reality Engine (INTREPID-RE), a system that simulates a traffic accident site using virtual reality. While Part I emphasizes the construction of the user interface control panel and the 3D objects, this paper describes the development of the virtual reality algorithm, environment and models. During the simulation process, novice highway patrol officers wear a head-mounted display and a cyberglove to enter and view an accident scene that they create, and assess the magnitude and severity of the traffic accident. Based on their assessments, patrol officers establish an on-site traffic control strategy and coordinate parking of emergency vehicles that minimizes unnecessary traffic congestion. Officers use INTREPID-RE to secure a safe area for on-site patrol officers, create a channel to permit other drivers to pass the site, and dispatch highway patrol and emergency vehicles to the accident site. The interactive positioning function allows a virtual hand to simulate the positioning of emergency vehicles and clearing of accident vehicles on the road. Six domain experts who evaluated INTREPID-RE rated the system as good and agree that it has the potential to become a promising tool for training novice police officers.

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

cyberspace
incident management
traffic safety
traffic simulation
virtual world


A Numerical Implementation of Kolmogorov's Superpositions II This paper presents a numerical algorithm for the parallel computations ?q in the Kolmogorov superpositions thereby providing the final step in their numerical implementation. The first step consisting of the f-independent computation of the functions ?(xq) = ?pn=1 ?p?(xp + qa) with a fixed ? and constants a and ?p in a hidden layer in the Hecht-Nielsen feedforward neural network has been accomplished previously. The step taken in this paper is the implementation of the output layer of the network that computes an arbitrary known continuous real-valued function f defined on the unit cube n. Employed for the purpose is an iterative method which is intended as a basis for the possible development of adaptive methods that build on this approach. Each function ?q is obtained iteratively through a series ?r?qr which is determined on an f and q dependent subsequence of rational coordinates such that ?qr is determined at the coordinate points The paper also includes alternative constructions of the functions ?qr and a brief discussion of the differentiability of ?q ? ?(xq); together with a previous result it gives a constructive proof of Kolmogorov's theorem. 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

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

representation of multivariate functions


A current mode CMOS noise generator using multiple Bernoulli maps This paper presents the analysis and design of a chaotic noise generator using statistical mechanic tools. The noise generator is a CMOS analog circuit operating in current mode, which generates chaotic signals using four Bernoulli chaotic maps with topological dependency on each other. They are randomly or deterministically selected to be applied by iterating an initial condition. These variants of the Bernoulli map are different in their slope and attenuation process. The initial condition can be considered as the secret key in the generation of chaotic noise. The advantage of this chaotic noise generator is that its control parameter can be selected within an interval greater than the one obtained when basic Bernoulli map is used.

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


Effect of Islands in Diffusive Properties of the Standard Map for Large Parameter Values In this paper we review, based on massive, long-term, numerical simulations, the effect of islands on the statistical properties of the standard map for large parameter values. Different sources of discrepancy with respect to typical diffusion are identified, and their individual roles are compared and explained in terms of available limit models.

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

accelerator modes
stickiness
primary: 37a50
secondary: 37d45
37j99
37m99


Entropic bounds on FSM switching Several state assignment algorithms have attempted to minimize the average Hamming distance per transition in the hopes of generating low power assignments. There has not been a reasonable theoretical lower bound on the average Hamming distance per transition that is applicable to every state assignment for a given finite state machine (FSM). Such a lower bound serves many roles-a target for algorithm designers, provides clues about what types of FSM structures are likely to have low average switching per transition, could be incorporated into a high-level power model, We provide two such lower bounds which were also found to be achievable empirically within 17% for MCNC benchmarks. An interesting byproduct of one of these 'theoretical' lower bounds was a greedy state assignment algorithm which is amenable to a very distributed (parallel) implementation. This algorithm also outperforms JEDI by 2.5% for area and by 21% for power over MCNC benchmarks.

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


Small bisimulations for reasoning about higher-order imperative programs We introduce a new notion of bisimulation for showing contextual equivalence of expressions in an untyped lambda-calculus with an explicit store, and in which all expressed values, including higher-order values, are storable. Our notion of bisimulation leads to smaller and more tractable relations than does the method of Sumii and Pierce [31]. In particular, our method allows one to write down a bisimulation relation directly in cases where [31] requires an inductive specification, and where the principle of local invariants [22] is inapplicable. Our method can also express examples with higher-order functions, in contrast with the most widely known previous methods [4, 22, 32] which are limited in their ability to deal with such examples. The bisimulation conditions are derived by manually extracting proof obligations from a hypothetical direct proof of contextual equivalence.

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

theory
languages
lambda-calculus
higher-order procedures
imperative languages


Reinforcement-learning agents with different temperature parameters explain the variety of human actionselection behavior in a Markov decision process task We investigated the characteristics of the human actionselection in performing a Markov decision process (MDP) task, and compared them to those of reinforcement-learning (RL) agents. The behavior of human participants was roughly classified into two qualitatively different types. On the other hand, surprisingly, the variety of human behavior could be explained simply by a single parameter of the degree of randomness (i.e., the temperature parameter) in the actionselection rules of the RL agents. This result implies that the various behaviors of human actionselection may be determined by a simple mechanism in the brain.

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 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

action selection
reinforcement learning
inverse temperature parameter


A differential multi-band CMOS low noise amplifier with noise cancellation and interference rejection In this paper, a differential multi-band CMOS low noise amplifier (LNA), operated in a wide range from 1350 to 2900 MHz , with input matching device, noise cancellation and interference rejection technology, is proposed. Traditional wideband LNAs have poor performances on interference rejection or image rejection. In this design, a multi-band CMOS LNA with matching device noise cancelling, matching device current reuse and source inductance device reuse technologies is proposed, it can improve noise figure, wideband match and interference rejection. There exists a switch-mode notch filter to enhance the interference rejection performance and it does not need additional inductors. A prototype of proposed multi-band CMOS LNA was designed to work at 1450 1490 MHz , 1680 1685 MHz and 2635 HMz 2660 MHz . The simulation results show that the gain is between 18 and 19dB at L-band application (14501685MHz) and between 25.8 and 26.1dB at CMMB Satellite application ( 2635 HMz 2660 MHz ) , the noise figure is 3.13.3dB, and the third-order intercept point (IIP3) is ? 7 dBm . It consumes 27.35mW under 1.8V supply voltage in TSMC 0.18-?m ? m RF CMOS process.

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

current reuse
interference rejection
noise cancellation
noise figure


Simulated time for host-based testing with TTCN-3 Prior to testing embedded software in a target environment, it is usually tested in a host environment used for developing the software. When a system is tested in a host environment, its real-time behaviour is affected by the use of simulators, emulation and monitoring. In this paper, the authors provide a semantics for host-based testing with simulated time and propose a simulated-time solution for distributed testing with TTCN-3, which is a standardized language for specifying and executing test suites. The paper also presents the application of testing with simulated time to two real-life systems. Copyright (c) 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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

distributed systems
real time
discrete time
telecom
railway control systems
ttcn-3


A Coordinated Communication Scheme for Distributed Fault Tolerant Control In this paper, we present a distributed fault tolerant control methodology for interconnected nonlinear uncertain systems. Linearly parameterized neural networks are used to adaptively approximate the unknown interconnections and fault functions, based on local state information, as well as communicated information from other subsystems. The exchange of state information between subsystems is based on a coordinated communication scheme. The stability of the distributed fault tolerant control scheme is established through a rigorous Lyapunov analysis.

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

distributed control
fault tolerance
interconnected systems


Combinatorial bounds and characterizations of splitting authentication codes We present several generalizations of results for splitting authentication codes by studying the aspect of multi-fold security. As the two primary results, we prove a combinatorial lower bound on the number of encoding rules and a combinatorial characterization of optimal splitting authentication codes that are multi-fold secure against spoofing attacks. The characterization is based on a new type of combinatorial designs, which we introduce and for which basic necessary conditions are given regarding their existence.

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 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

information authenticity
unconditional security
authentication code
non-deterministic encoding
splitting design
94a60
94c30


Quadratic Kernelization for Convex Recoloring of Trees The Convex Recoloring (CR) problem measures how far a tree of characters differs from exhibiting a so-called "perfect phylogeny". For an input consisting of a vertex-colored tree T, the problem is to determine whether recoloring at most k vertices can achieve a convex coloring, meaning by this a coloring where each color class induces a subtree. The problem was introduced by Moran and Snir (J. Comput. Syst. Sci. 73:1078-1089, 2007; J. Comput. Syst. Sci. 74:850-869, 2008) who showed that CR is NP-hard, and described a search-tree based FPT algorithm with a running time of O(k(k/log k) (k) n (4)). The Moran and Snir result did not provide any nontrivial kernelization. In this paper, we show that CR has a kernel of size O(k (2)).

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

kernelization
convex recoloring
trees
phylogeny

algorithms
combinatorial algorithms
fixed parameter tractability


Routing for Power Minimization in the Speed Scaling Model We study network optimization that considers power minimization as an objective. Studies have shown that mechanisms such as speed scaling can significantly reduce the power consumption of telecommunication networks by matching the consumption of each network element to the amount of processing required for its carried traffic. Most existing research on speed scaling focuses on a single network element in isolation. We aim for a network-wide optimization. Specifically, we study a routing problem with the objective of provisioning guaranteed speed/bandwidth for a given demand matrix while minimizing power consumption. Optimizing the routes critically relies on the characteristic of the speed-power curve, which is how power is consumed as a function of the processing speed. If is superadditive, we show that there is no bounded approximation in general for integral routing, i.e., each traffic demand follows a single path. This contrasts with the well-known logarithmic approximation for subadditive functions. However, for common speed-power curves such as polynomials, we are able to show a constant approximation via a simple scheme of randomized rounding. We also generalize this rounding approach to handle the case in which a nonzero startup cost sigma appears in the speed-power curve, i.e., if(s) = {0,sigma +mu s(alpha), if s=0 if s>0. We present an O((sigma/mu)(1/alpha))-approximation, and we discuss why coming up with an approximation ratio independent of the startup cost may be hard. Finally, we provide simulation results to validate our algorithmic approaches.

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


A configurable system-on-chip architecture for embedded and real-time applications: concepts, design and realization This paper presents a Configurable System-on-Chip (CSoC) architecture that includes programmable and reconfigurable hardware to cope with the flexibility and real-time signal processing demands in future telecommunication and multimedia systems. A programmable micro Task Controller (mTC) with a small instruction set and a novel pipelined configuration technique with descriptors as configuration templates allows a dynamic use of physical processing resources. The CSoC architecture provides a micro-task based programming model, approves a library-based design approach to reduce developing time and costs and allows forward compatibility to other architecture families. It is shown to be easy scalable to future VLSI technologies where over a hundred processing cells on a single chip will be feasible to deal with the inherent dynamics of future applications and system requirements. Several mappings of commonly used signal processing algorithms and implementation results are given for a standard cell ASIC design realization in 0.18?m 6-layer UMC CMOS technology.

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


Blow-up phenomena for a parabolic problem with a gradient nonlinearity under nonlinear boundary conditions ? This paper is concerned with the blow-up of the solution to a parabolic problem with a gradient nonlinearity under nonlinear boundary conditions. Lower bound for blow-up time is derived when the blow-up does occur.

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

nonlinear boundary conditions
lower bound