Visual comparison of software cost estimation models by regression error characteristic analysis The well-balanced management of a software project is a critical task accomplished at the early stages of the development process. Due to this requirement, a wide variety of prediction methods has been introduced in order to identify the best strategy for software cost estimation. The selection of the best technique is usually based on measures of error whereas in more recent studies researchers use formal statistical procedures. The former approach can lead to unstable and erroneous results due to the existence of outlying points whereas the latter cannot be easily presented to non-experts and has to be carried out by an expert with statistical background. In this paper, we introduce the regression error characteristic (REC) analysis, a powerful visualization tool with interesting geometrical properties, in order to validate and compare different prediction models easily, by a simple inspection of a graph. Moreover, we propose a formal framework covering different aspects of the estimation process such as the calibration of the prediction methodology, the identification of factors that affect the error, the investigation of errors on certain ranges of the actual cost and the examination of the distribution of the cost for certain errors. Application of REC analysis to the ISBSG10 dataset for comparing estimation by analogy and linear regression illustrates the benefits and the significant information obtained.

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

estimation by analogy
software cost estimation

regression analysis
regression error characteristic curves


Updating generalized association rules with evolving taxonomies Mining generalized association rules among items in the presence of taxonomies has been recognized as an important model for data mining. Earlier work on mining generalized association rules, however, required the taxonomies to be static, ignoring the fact that the taxonomies of items cannot necessarily be kept unchanged. For instance, some items may be reclassified from one hierarchy tree to another for more suitable classification, abandoned from the taxonomies if they will no longer be produced, or added into the taxonomies as new items. Additionally, the analysts might have to dynamically adjust the taxonomies from different viewpoints so as to discover more informative rules. Under these circumstances, effectively updating the discovered generalized association rules is a crucial task. In this paper, we examine this problem and propose two novel algorithms, called Diff_ET and Diff_ET2, to update the discovered frequent itemsets. Empirical evaluation shows that the proposed algorithms are very effective and have good linear scale-up characteristics.

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

data mining
generalized association rules
frequent itemsets
evolving taxonomies


Discovering the core semantics of event from social media Proposing a Markov random field based method for discovering the core semantics of event. Learning the association relation distribution of event by small scale association relations. Maximizing the coverage of association relation distribution by the minimum number of short texts.

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

semantic link network
information gradient


Immunological Aspects of Haploidentical Stem Cell Transplantation in Children Thirty-eight children with high-risk hematological malignancies underwent transplantation with megadoses of peripheral mobilized CD34+ cells from haploidentical parents (n= 24) or from matched unrelated donors (n= 14). The CD34+ cells were isolated to a purity of >98% using magnetic-activated cell sorting. This high purity was associated with an almost complete depletion of T lymphocytes. No pharmacological prophylaxis for graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) was used, and significant primary GvHD was not seen. A final engraftment was seen in all patients. Sixteen patients are alive and disease-free with a median follow-up of 24 months. The immunological reconstitution was faster in the patients transplanted with CD34+ stem cells from the haploidentical donors compared to the matched unrelated donors, and the transplantation of large numbers of haploidentical CD34+ stem cells seems to be superior to that of the matched unrelated donors. The phenotypical and functional analysis of the immune reconstitution provided some insights into the biology of transplantation of highly purified CD34+cells. In this article, we summarize our current results with the transplantation of highly purified stem cells and discuss possible implications for further antileukemic post-transplant therapeutic strategies.

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

haploidentical transplantation
leukemia
cd34+ selection
natural killer cells
immunotherapy


Robust 1-bit Compressed Sensing and Sparse Logistic Regression: A Convex Programming Approach This paper develops theoretical results regarding noisy 1-bit compressed sensing and sparse binomial regression. We demonstrate that a single convex program gives an accurate estimate of the signal, or coefficient vector, for both of these models. We show that an s-sparse signal in R-n can be accurately estimated from m = O(s log (n/s)) single-bit measurements using a simple convex program. This remains true even if each measurement bit is flipped with probability nearly 1/2. Worst-case (adversarial) noise can also be accounted for, and uniform results that hold for all sparse inputs are derived as well. In the terminology of sparse logistic regression, we show that O(s log (n/s)) Bernoulli trials are sufficient to estimate a coefficient vector in R-n which is approximately s-sparse. Moreover, the same convex program works for virtually all generalized linear models, in which the link function may be unknown. To our knowledge, these are the first results that tie together the theory of sparse logistic regression to 1-bit compressed sensing. Our results apply to general signal structures aside from sparsity; one only needs to know the size of the set where signals reside. The size is given by the mean width of, a computable quantity whose square serves as a robust extension of the dimension.

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

data compression
parameter estimation
quantization
regression analysis
signal reconstruction


an efficient method of fault simulation for digital circuits modeled from boolean gates and memories The ability to predict the behavior of digital circuits containing faults is required for the verification and automatic generation of fault detection tests, and for the creation of fault dictionaries. The most common method of prediction is with a fault simulation program. Fault simulators simulate the fault-free (good) circuit and each of the possible faulty circuits. In most cases, the faulty circuit is assumed to contain only a single fault modeled as either a component input or output stuck-at-0 (SA0) or stuck-at-1 (SA1). Even so, a typical circuit may imply hundreds to thousands of possible faulty circuits. Reducing the cost of simulating large numbers of faulty circuits is the first major consideration in fault simulation.

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

generation method simulation input behavior verification fault cost predict component circuits

digitize efficiency fault-detection memorialized


Complete involutive rewriting systems Given a monoid string rewriting system M, one way of obtaining a complete rewriting system for M is to use the classical Knuth-Bendix critical pairs completion algorithm. It is well-known that this algorithm is equivalent to computing a noncommutative Grobner basis for M. This article develops an alternative approach, using noncommutative involutive basis methods to obtain a complete involutive rewriting system for M. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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 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

grobner basis
string rewriting
involutive basis


parallel, hardware-supported interrupt handling in an event-triggered real-time operating system A common problem in event-triggered real-time systems is caused by low-priority tasks that are implemented as interrupt handlers interrupting and disturbing high-priority tasks that are implemented as threads. This problem is termed rate-monotonic priority inversion, and current software-based solutions are restricted in terms of more sophisticated scheduler features as demanded for instance by the AUTOSAR embedded-operating-system specification. We propose a hardware-based approach that makes use of a coprocessor to eliminate the potential priority inversion. By evaluating a prototypical implementation, we show that our approach both overcomes the restrictions of software approaches and introduces only a slight processing overhead in exchange for increased predictability.

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

real-time systems
priority-driven
ciao
tricore
rate-monotonic priority inversion


Modeling of peak-to-peak core switching noise, output impedance, and decoupling capacitance along a vertical chain of power distribution TSV pairs In this article we propose an efficient and accurate model to estimate peak-to-peak core switching noise, caused by simultaneous switching of logic loads along a vertical chain of power distribution TSV pairs in a 3D stack of dies interconnected through TSVs. The proposed model is accurate with only a 2-3% difference in peak-to-peak core switching noise as compared to the Ansoft Nexxim4.1 equivalent model. The proposed model is 3-4 times faster than Ansoft Nexxim4.1 and uses two times less memory as compared to the Ansoft Nexxim4.1 equivalent model. In this article we also thoroughly establish design guidelines for almost flat output impedance magnitude at each stage of a vertical chain of power distribution TSV pairs to realize a resonance free scenario over a wide operating frequency range. We also establish decoupling capacitance design guidelines based on the optimum output impedance and critically damped supply voltage for the core logic for each stage of a vertical chain of power distribution TSV pairs.

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

core switching noise
3d stack of dies
vertical chain
power distribution tsv pairs


Large deviations for mean field models of probabilistic cellular automata Probabilistic cellular automata form a very larger and general class of stochastic processes. These automata exhibit a wide range of complex behavior and are of interest in a number of fields of study, including mathematical physics, percolation theory, computer science, and neurobiology. Very little has been proved about these models, even in simple cases, so it is common to compare the models to mean field models. It is normally assumed that mean field models are essentially trivial. However, we show here that even the, mean field models can exhibit surprising behavior. We prove some rigorous results on mean field models, including the existence of a surrogate for the "energy" in certain non-reversible models. We also briefly discuss some differences that occur between the mean field and lattice models. (c) 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

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

probabilistic cellular automata
mean field
percolation


storage technologies, management and troubleshooting in virtualized datacenters Storage management in virtualized environments is considered as one of the biggest cost factors. According to some estimates, majority of the cost and performance problems are related to storage devices. In this tutorial, we will discuss some of the key storage technologies deployed in virtual datacenters. We will discuss a set of unique challenges faced by administrators and users due to increasing number of layers of abstraction. Next we will discuss some tools and techniques to do workload characterization and monitor devices in order to understand and trouble-shoot IO problems. We will also present some of the recent solutions proposed by industry and academia to handle these problems followed by upcoming technological trends and directions for future research.

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

peformance
storage virtualization
resource management


Recognition of two-dimensional representation of urban environment for autonomous flying agents In this paper the problem of a vision system implementation for autonomous flying agents is considered in the context of industrial inspection tasks performed by unmanned aerial vehicles. A syntactic algorithm of a two-dimensional object vectorization and recognition is proposed. An algorithm of two-dimensional map recognition has been introduced as well. The algorithms have been tested by using both artificial data and real data - the satellite image. They have turned out to be effective. (c) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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


Health and clinical management - Comparing the clinical outcome of computerized strategies - Findings from the section on health and clinical management Objectives: To summarize current excellent research in the field of health and clinical management. Methods: Synopsis of the articles selected for the IMIA Yearbook 2006. Results: Current research in the field of health and clinical management analyses impact and patient outcome of both established and recently presented approaches. Usability and effects of extracting data from computerized medical records for preventive core and surveillance issues are a topic as well as strategies or detecting adverse event. Conclusions: The best paper selection in the field of health and clinical management shows examples of excellent research on assessment, strategies and concepts far computerized health information management approaches. The articles emphasize the necessity of carefully considering health information systems regarding their outcome and compatibility with clinical routine. A concerted management of knowledge about evaluated health information management approaches will advance this trend and should lead to a more evidence-based design of the underlying systems.

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

international medical informatics association


Integrating cognition, perception and action through metal simulation in robots We argue that many problems in robotics arise from the difficulty of integrating multiple knowledge representation and inference techniques. We describe an architecture that integrates disparate reasoning, planning, sensation and mobility algorithms by composing them from strategies for managing mental simulations. Since simulations are conducted by modules that include high-level knowledge representation and inference techniques in addition to algorithms for sensation and reactive mobility, cognition, perception and action are continually integrated. An implemented robot using this framework in object-tacking and human-robot interaction tasks demonstrates that knowledge representation and inference techniques enable more complex and flexible robot behavior. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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


Span-restorable mesh networks with multiple quality of protection (QoP) service classes In the modern business environment there is considerable interest in being able to support a range of different transport service classes in an optical network, and charge accordingly. In this work we consider the capacity design problem for a meshrestorable optical network supporting any mixture of four basic "quality of protection" (QoP) classes. The service definitions are (gold): assured restorability, (silver): best efforts, (bronze): non-protected and (economy): preemptible service. We give design models for optimal capacity design of span-restorable (or corresponding link-protected) mesh networks having any particular mixture of these service classes. We also apply and test the design models under several multi-QoP test case scenarios to gain insights about various strategies and options possible in a multi-QoP design environment. An interesting finding is that in some test cases, 15 to 30% of all demand can be in the gold class enjoying 100% restorability solely through preemption of economy class service capacity. This suggests the potential to design and operate mesh-based networks that have no spare capacity at all in the conventional sense: all capacity is bearing service of some paying type. The resulting frequency of preemption in the economy class services is also studied. Results also show typically high levels of best-efforts restorability in the silver class occurring in networks that are strictly designed only for the restorability of the gold class services. High restorability of best effort services, however, requires the preemption of economy services. These methods and findings can be used by network and business planners to evaluate a number of different service structuring, pricing, and capacity-design strategies that may offer advantages to them and new options for their customers.

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

optical networks
transport network design
restoration and protection
quality of service
classes of protection


The effect of functional roles on perceived group efficiency during computer-supported collaborative learning: a matter of triangulation In this article, the effect of functional roles on group performance and collaboration during computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) is investigated. Especially the need for triangulating multiple methods is emphasised: Likert-scale evaluation questions, quantitative content analysis of e-mail communication and qualitative analysis of open-ended questions were used. A comparison of 41 questionnaire observations, distributed over 13 groups in two research conditions groups with prescribed functional roles (n=7, N=18) and nonrole groups (n=6, N=23) revealed no main effect for performance (grade). Principal axis factoring of the Likert-scales revealed a latent variable that was interpreted as perceived group efficiency (PGE). Multilevel modelling (MLM) yielded a positive marginal effect of PGE. Most groups in the role condition report a higher degree of PGE than nonrole groups. Content analysis of e-mail communication of all groups in both conditions (role n=7, N=25; nonrole n=6, N=26) revealed that students in role groups contribute more coordination focussed statements. Finally, results from cross case matrices of student responses to open-ended questions support the observed marginal effect that most role groups report a higher degree of PGE than nonrole groups.

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


Segmenting online game customers - The perspective of experiential marketing In this paper. we developed measurement scales for five experiential modules of the SEMs for online game players and the three attributes that are repurchase desire, public praise and recommendation desire and cross-purchase desire to set Lip the decision trees from the collected questionnaires of existence players. Accounting to the online games consumers attributes' literatures, we located and modified the important influential factors for each experiential module. Then, by applying the technique of decision tree data mining, we explored the potential relationship between the important influential factors and customer loyalty. The major contribution of this paper is to integrate data mining and experiential marketing to segment online game customers. These results can help firms to predict and understand the new consumers' purchase behavior. According to this understanding, online games' manufactures could draw Lip the different market strategies to increase the more purchase for the new different attributes' consumers. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

data mining
decision tree
experiential marketing
online game


Graphical information portals - The application of smart maps in GEoNET 4D This paper presents a new brand of portals that elevates the concepts of information portals to a new level of interaction and navigation means. The graphical information portal is built upon the concept of smart maps for information visualization and exploration. Smart maps serve as navigational hub by indicating the existence of information carrying relevance for a specific location, by relating distributed multimedia information to a location on a map. of interest, and by categorizing information for easier orientation in subjects. Main advantage of a map-based information portal lies in the intuitive information presentation, navigation, search and retrieval. Representative usage scenarios include facility management, information kiosks, and environmental information systems. Groupware functions for collaborative visualization and interactive editing on maps are added on top in order to migrate the concept of graphical information portals to further, domains, such as concurrent engineering, risk management, and the like. An implementation of a geographical information portal has been designed and implemented in project GEoNET 4D, focussing on facility management for portuary zones.

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

graphical information portals
information visualization
smart maps


Linear rank-width and linear clique-width of trees ? We show that for every forest T the linear rank-width of T is equal to the path-width of T, and the linear clique-width of T equals the path-width of T plus two, provided that T contains a path of length three. It follows that both linear rank-width and linear clique-width of forests can be computed in linear time. Using our characterization of linear rank-width of forests, we determine the set of minimal excluded acyclic vertex-minors for the class of graphs of linear rank-width at most k.

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

linear rank-width
linear clique-width
vertex-minors


Management and storage of in situ oceanographic data: An ECM-based approach Management of scientific data poses a number of challenging problems involving both procedures and tools, and the field of oceanography makes no exception. During oceanographic cruises, significant amounts of heterogeneous data are collected by means of a wide variety of measuring devices, and the sequences of registered values mostly come as plain text files. Each instrument has its own data format. Raw data parsed from the acquisition files undergo some preliminary processing phases and, at the end, in the form of refined data, they can be considered ready to be kept as actual descriptions of the observed phenomena. This paper, based on experiences carried out in an oceanographic research center, describes problems and possible architectural solutions in managing heterogeneous oceanographic data from collection up to proper repositories. It is shown how a careful employment of ECM (Enterprise Content Management) systems may be beneficial in this setting, with no need to adopt complex ad hoc solutions that are difficult to maintain by personnel not specifically skilled in data-handling techniques. A data model to support the storage of refined data in structured repositories is developed as well. It is well-known that database technology is not pervasive yet in the scientific community, as it already is in other areas. The proper concerted use of ECM, DBMS, and possibly scientific workflow frameworks may represent the means to enable an effective adoption and a fruitful exploitation of the existing database technology also in the field of oceanography.

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

oceanographic data repositories
scientific data management
data models for oceanographic data


improved csg rendering using overlap graph subtraction sequences The Sequenced Convex Subtraction (SCS) algorithm for Constructive Solid Geometry (CSG) sequentially subtracts convex volumes from the z-buffer. The performance of the algorithm is determined by the length of the subtraction sequence used. View-independent subtraction sequences are O ( n 2 ) in length. These can be reduced to O ( kn ) if the maximum depth complexity k, which ranges between 1 and n, is known or can be determined.We present an improvement to subtraction sequence generation which uses object space overlap information to give O ( n ) length sequences in the best case and (unchanged) O ( n 2 ) sequences in the worst case. The approach is based on what we term an overlap graph. We also discuss a unifying approach combining overlap graph based processing with the Sequenced Convex Subtraction (SCS) CSG rendering algorithm. Finally, we present experimental results which show performance improvements, depending on the spatial arrangements of objects.

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


Statistical atlas based exudate segmentation Diabetic macular edema (DME) is characterized by hard exudates. In this article, we propose a novel statistical atlas based method for segmentation of such exudates. Any test fundus image is first warped on the atlas co-ordinate and then a distance map is obtained with the mean atlas image. This leaves behind the candidate lesions. Post-processing schemes are introduced for final segmentation of the exudate. Experiments with the publicly available HEI-MED data-set shows good performance of the method. A lesion localization fraction of 82.5% at 35% of non-lesion localization fraction on the FROC curve is obtained. The method is also compared to few most recent reference methods.

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

retinal images registration
statistical retinal atlas


Wyner-Ziv Video Coding With Classified Correlation Noise Estimation and Key Frame Coding Mode Selection We improve the overall rate-distortion performance of distributed video coding by efficient techniques of correlation noise estimation and key frame encoding. In existing transform-domain Wyner-Ziv video coding methods, blocks within a frame are treated uniformly to estimate the correlation noise even though the success of generating side information is different for each block. We propose a method to estimate the correlation noise by differentiating blocks within a frame based on the accuracy of the side information. Simulation results show up to 2 dB improvement over conventional methods without increasing encoder complexity. Also, in traditional Wyner-Ziv video coding, the intercorrelation of key frames is not exploited since they are simply intracoded. In this paper, we propose a frequency band coding mode selection for key frames to exploit similarities between adjacent key frames at the decoder. Simulation results show significant improvement especially for low-motion and high frame rate sequences. Furthermore, the advantage of applying both schemes in a hierarchical order is investigated. This method achieves additional improvement.

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

correlation channel
distributed source coding
wyner-ziv coding


first-person science inquiry in virtual ambient environments Virtual ambients are a class of restricted simulations designed to support science inquiry learning among elementary school students. Virtual ambients employ large multi-user displays to support "first-person" collaborative exploration, data collection, and the construction of support for hypotheses in simulated environments. In order to reduce the cognitive load on learners, navigation--in space, time, and scale--is used instead of traditional learning simulations' direct control of independent model variables. Early experience with elementary school students at three grade levels is reported, employing a configurable virtual ambient named the Field.

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

educational technology
children
simulation


Simulation of surface generated in abrasive flow machining process For the control of abrasive flow machining (AFM) process, it is important to understand the mechanics of generation of its surface profile. This paper describes the analysis and simulation of profile of finished surface and material removal by the interaction of abrasive grains with workpiece. The abrasive grains are randomly distributed in media depending upon their percentage concentration and mesh size. The results predicted from simulation and obtained from response surface analysis (or experiments) are compared to explain the relative importance of AFM parameters. The generated surface profile and material removal are the function of number of cycles, percentage concentration and mesh size of abrasives, reduction ratio and extrusion pressure applied.

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


objective evaluation of quality of colour reproduction in current lcd monitors In this paper the colour reproduction of actual mid-level LCD monitors is examined. There are several colour similarity metrics described and an objective methodology for testing is proposed. Results show that different brands and models of LCD monitors have different behaviour towards colour quality factors and that factory default setting rarely work. The paper also justifies the necessity to calibrate every LCD monitor before working with any application that is colour sensitive or human eyes dependent. With this best colour reproduction for every LCD monitor can be achieved.

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

liquid crystal display
colour differences
monitor calibration
tft
brightness distribution


From dummy regression to prior probabilities in PLS-DA Different published versions of partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) are shown as special cases of an approach exploiting prior probabilities in the estimated between groups covariance matrix used for calculation of loading weights. With prior probabilities included in the calculation of both PLS components and canonical variates, a complete strategy for extracting appropriate decision spaces with multicollinear data is obtained. This idea easily extends to weighted linear dummy regression so that the corresponding fitted values also span the canonical space. Two different choices of prior probabilities are applied with a real dataset to illustrate the effect for the obtained decision spaces. Copyright (C) 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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

discriminant analysis
canonical variates
partial least squares
prior probabilities

data compression
weighted linear regression
dummy coded group membership matrix


Inexact graph matching using a genetic algorithm for image recognition Exact graph matching using a genetic algorithm for image recognition has been introduced in previously published work. The algorithm was based on angle matching between two given graphs. It has proven to be quite effective in exact graph matching. However, the algorithm needs some modifications in order to handle cases where the number of nodes, shapes and rotations of the two graphs are different. This paper presents modifications such as the introduction of node exemption, inexact matching between straight lines and curves in the graphs and consideration of rotational degrees of the graphs. Each angle in a graph is also given a weight to indicate the significant degree of identifying the graph. A multi-objective function is used to reflect the similarity between two graphs. The experiments designed to evaluate the algorithm have shown very promising results. It is highly accurate in matching graphs with dissimilarities in shape, number of nodes and degrees of rotation.

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

genetic algorithm
inexact graph matching


A comparison of computational color constancy algorithms - Part I: Methodology and experiments with synthesized data We introduce a context for testing computational color constancy, specify our approach to the implementation of a number of the leading algorithms, and report the results of three experiments using synthesized data. Experiments using synthesized data are important because the ground truth is known, possible confounds due to camera characterization and pre-processing are absent, and various factors affecting color constancy can be efficiently investigated because they can be manipulated individually and precisely. The algorithms chosen for close study include two gray world methods, a limiting case of a version of the Retinex method, a number of variants of Forsyth's gamut-mapping method, Cardei et al's neural net method, and Finlayson et aL's Color by Correlation method. We investigate the ability of these algorithms to make estimates of three different color constancy quantities: the chromaticity of the scene illuminant, the overall magnitude of that illuminant, and a corrected, illumination invariant, image. We consider algorithm performance as a function of the number of surfaces in scenes generated from reflectance spectra, the relative effect on the algorithms of added specularities, and the effect of subsequent clipping of the data. All data is available on-line at http://www.cs.sfu.ca/similar tocolor/data, and implementations for most of the algorithms are also available (http://www.cs.sfu.ca/similar tocolor/code).

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

algorithm
color by correlation
color constancy
comparison
computational


fibratus tactile sensor using reflection on an optical lever Among several tactile sensors in use currently, none can evaluate the sense of gentle touch. We have developed a fibratus tactile sensor that utilizes the property of reflection. This sensor enables to evaluate the sense of gentle touch. We propose a new interface device that employs this fibratus tactile sensor.

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 B I O O O 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


Energy Efficiency of Optical Transceivers in Fiber Access Networks [Invited] The dramatic growth of Internet traffic is leading to a concern about the future power consumption of the Internet. Energy sustainability of communication networks is becoming a very important goal for the reduction of the global carbon footprint. As optical access networks gain more popularity, their share in the energy consumption of the data network will increase. Developing energy-efficient technologies for optical access networks is therefore crucial for the continuous scaling of the Internet. In this paper, we model the power consumption of different transceivers and demonstrate how various electronic and photonic technologies can help improve energy efficiency. We discuss the impact of different light sources and driver circuits on the transceiver power efficiency. We also show how energy efficiency is related to network topology.

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

access networks
energy efficiency
optical transceivers


empirical study of 3d video source coding for autostereoscopic displays The recent commercial availability of autostereoscopic displays has led to a rise in interest in 3D video. The need to store and transmit 3D video has created some interesting challenges. 3D video contains both color and depth information, and should be treated differently from 2D video for optimal results. This paper explores ideas for efficient 3D video source coding, tests these ideas in a human subject test with 27 subjects, and analyzes and discusses the results. It is concluded that for the specific display and codec used, 3D video file sizes can be reduced to about one-quarter of their original sizes without significant degradation in quality.

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 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 B I O O O O O O O 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

acm proceedings
applied psychology
video quality
autostereoscopic display
souce coding


Martingale families and dimension in P We introduce a new measure notion on small complexity classes (called F-measure), based on martingale families, that gets rid of some drawbacks of previous measure notions: it can be used to define dimension because martingale families can make money on all strings, and it yields random sequences with an equal frequency of 0's and 1's. On larger complexity classes (E and above), F-measure is equivalent to Lutz resource-bounded measure. As applications to F-measure, we answer a question raised in [E. Allender, M. Strauss, Measure on small complexity classes, with application for BPP, in: Proc. of the 35th Ann. EEEE Symp. on Found. of Comp. Sci., 1994, pp. 807-8181 by improving their result to: for almost every language A decidable in subexponential time, p(A) = Bpp(A). We show that almost all languages in PSPACE do not have small non-uniform complexity. We compare F-measure to previous notions and prove that martingale families are strictly stronger than Gamma-measure [E. Allender, M. Strauss, Measure on small complexity classes, with application for BPP, in: Proc. of the 35th Ann. IEEE Symp. on Found. of Comp. Sci., 1994, pp. 807-818], we also discuss the limitations of martingale families concerning finite unions. We observe that all classes closed under polynomial many-one reductions have measure zero in EXP iff they have measure zero in SUBEXP. We use martingale families to introduce a natural generalization of Lutz resource-bounded dimension [J.H. Lutz, Dimension in complexity classes, in: Proceedings of the 15th Annual IEEE Conference on Computational Complexity, 2000, pp. 158-169] on P, which meets the intuition behind Lutz's notion. We show that P-dimension lies between finite-state dimension and dimension on E. We prove an analogue of a Theorem of Eggleston in P, i.e. the class of languages whose characteristic sequence contains l's with frequency a, has dimension the Shannon entropy of a in P. (c) 2008 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.

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

resource-bounded measure
effective dimension


Existence of super-simple OA\(_{\lambda }(3, 5, v)^{\prime }\)s It was proved recently that a super-simple orthogonal array (SSOA) of strength \(t\) and index \(\lambda \ge 2\) is equivalent to a minimum detecting array (DTA). In computer software tests in component-based systems, such a DTA can be used to generate test suites that are capable of locating \(d=\lambda -1\) \(t\)-way interaction faults and detect whether there are more than \(d\) interaction faults. It is proved in this paper that an SSOA of strength \(t=3\), index \(\lambda \ge 2\) and degree \(k=5\), or an SSOA\(_{\lambda }(3,5,v)\), exists if and only if \(\lambda \le v\) excepting possibly a handful of cases.

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


fast algorithm for large-scale umts coverage planning with soft handover consideration Coverage planning by means of controlling cell Common Pilot Channel (CPICH) power is an important task in deploying UMTS networks. In addition to determining coverage, CPICH power heavily influences the amount of Soft Handover (SHO). Non-uniform cell CPICH power allows for significant power saving and thereby higher capacity for traffic channels. However, optimizing non-uniform CPICH is challenging in terms of computational effort, if the resulting coverage pattern is required to satisfy a desired level of SHO. We present a very fast algorithm for this planning problem. The algorithm has utilized the fact that SHO is strongly correlated with cell overlap. Using overlap as a very good approximation of SHO, the algorithm can compute a near optimal coverage pattern within a few seconds even for large networks. Next, the solution is further polished to deal with SHO accurately. Simulation results show that our solution strategy is able to perform non-uniform CPICH optimization very time-efficiently, making it possible to tackle large scale UMTS coverage planning under SHO consideration.

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


efficient keyword extraction for meaningful document perception Keyword extraction is a common technique in the domain of information retrieval. Keywords serve as a minimalistic summary for single documents or document collections, enabling the reader to quickly perceive the main contents of a text. However, they are often not readily available for the documents of interest. Common keyword extraction techniques demand either a large data collection, a learning process, or access to extensive amounts of reference data. By relying on additional linguistic features (e.g. stop word removal), most approaches are language-restricted. Moreover, the extracted keywords usually pertain to the entire document, rather than only to the portion that is of interest to the reader. In this paper, we present an efficient and flexible approach to summarize selections of text within a document. Our solution is based on a keyword extraction algorithm that is applicable to a variety of documents, regardless of language or context. This algorithm relies on the Helmholtz principle and extends a recently presented approach. Our extension covers the features of a weighting algorithm while providing a self-regulation capability to allow for more meaningful results. Furthermore, our approach takes into account the document structure in order to enhance pure statistic summarizations. We evaluate the efficiency of our approach and present results with meaningful examples. In addition, we outline further applications of our approach that allow for enhanced document perception as well as for meaningful document indexing and retrieval.

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

information retrieval
keyword extraction

text data mining
heuristic algorithm
single document


Networks with heterogeneously weighted connections and partial synchronization of nodes A network of stochastic nodes in which connections are heterogeneously weighted and dynamics may by varied from single-node updating to full synchronization as in familiar cellular automata is studied concerning computational strategies and states of attention in the brain.

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


Self-identifying patterns for plane-based camera calibration Determining camera calibration parameters is a time-consuming task despite the availability of calibration algorithms and software. A set of correspondences between points on the calibration target and the camera image(s) must be found, usually a manual or manually guided process. Most calibration tools assume that the correspondences are already found. We present a system which allows a camera to be calibrated merely by passing it in front of a panel of self-identifying patterns. This calibration scheme uses an array of fiducial markers which are detected with a high degree of confidence, each detected marker provides one or four correspondence points. Experiments were performed calibrating several cameras in a short period of time with no manual intervention. This marker-based calibration system was compared to one using the OpenCV chessboard grid finder which also finds correspondences automatically. We show how our new marker-based system more robustly finds the calibration pattern and how it provides more accurate intrinsic camera parameters.

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


A competitive learning algorithm using symmetry In this paper, we propose a new competitive learning algorithm for training single-layer neural networks to cluster data. The proposed algorithm adopts a new measure based on the idea of "symmetry" so that neurons compete with each other based on the symmetrical distance instead of the Euclidean distance. The detected clusters may be a set of clusters of different geometrical structures. Four data sets are tested to illustrate the effectiveness of our proposed algorithm.

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


online estimation of architectural vulnerability factor for soft errors As CMOS technology scales and more transistors are packed on to the same chip, soft error reliability has become an increasingly important design issue for processors. Prior research has shown that there is significant architecture-level masking, and many soft error solutions take advantage of this effect. Prior work has also shown thatthe degree of such masking can vary significantly across workloads and between individual workload phases, motivating dynamic adaptation of reliability solutions for optimal cost and benefit. For such adaptation, it is important to be able to accurately estimate the amount ofmasking or the architecture vulnerability factor (AVF) online, while the program is running. Unfortunately, existing solutions for estimating AVF are often based on offline simulators and hard to implement in real processors. This paper proposes a novel way of estimating AVF online, using simple modifications to the processor. The estimation method applies to both logic and storage structures on the processor. Compared to previous methodsfor estimating AVF, our method does not require any offline simulation or calibration for different workloads. We tested our method with a widely used simulator from industry, for four processor structures and for 100 to 200 intervals of each of eleven SPEC benchmarks. The results show that our method provides acceptably accurate AVF estimates at runtime. The absoluteerror rarely exceeds 0.08 across all application intervals for all structures, and the mean absolute error for a given application and structure combination is always within 0.05.

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


Fast pattern-matching on indeterminate strings ? In a string x on an alphabet ?, a position i is said to be indeterminate iff x[i] x [ i ] may be any one of a specified subset {?1,?2,,?j} { ? 1 , ? 2 , , ? j } of ? , 2?j?|?| 2 ? j ? | ? | . A string x containing indeterminate positions is therefore also said to be indeterminate . Indeterminate strings can arise in DNA and amino acid sequences as well as in cryptological applications and the analysis of musical texts. In this paper we describe fast algorithms for finding all occurrences of a pattern p=p[1..m] p = p [ 1 . . m ] in a given text x=x[1..n] x = x [ 1 . . n ] , where either or both of p and x can be indeterminate. Our algorithms are based on the Sunday variant of the BoyerMoore pattern-matching algorithm, one of the fastest exact pattern-matching algorithms known. The methodology we describe applies more generally to all variants of BoyerMoore (such as Horspool's, for example) that depend only on calculation of the ? (rightmost shift) array: our method therefore assumes that ? is indexed (essentially, an integer alphabet), a requirement normally satisfied in practice.

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

string algorithm indeterminate boyermoore sunday


Subjective logic and arguing with evidence This paper introduces a subjective logic based argumentation framework primarily targeted at evidential reasoning. The frame work explicitly caters for argument schemes, accrual of arguments, and burden of proof; these concepts appear in many types of argument, and are particularly useful in dialogues revolving around evidential reasoning. The concept of a sensor is also useful in this domain, representing a source of evidence, and is incorporated in our framework. We show how the framework copes with a number of problems that existing frameworks have difficulty dealing with, and how it can be situated within a simple dialogue game. Finally, we examine reasoning machinery that enables an agent to decide what argument to advance with the goal of maximising its utility at the end of a dialogue. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

argumentation
dialogue game
evidence
subjective logic


Typestate verification: Abstraction techniques and complexity results We consider the problem of typestate verification for shallow programs; i.e., programs where pointers from program variables to heap-allocated objects are allowed, but where heap-allocated objects may not themselves contain pointers. We prove a number of results relating the complexity of verification to the nature of the finite state machine used to specify the property. Some properties are shown to be intractable, but others which appear to be quite similar admit polynomial-time verification algorithms. Our results serve to provide insight into the inherent complexity of important classes of verification problems. In addition, the program abstractions used for the polynomial-time verification algorithms may be of independent interest. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

computational complexity
pointer analysis
alias analysis


Reliability bounds for multi-state k-out-of-n systems Algorithms have been available for exact performance evaluation of multi-state k-out-of-n systems. However, especially for complex systems with a large number of components, and a large number of possible states, obtaining "reliability bounds" would be an interesting, significant issue. Reliability bounds will give us a range of the system reliability in a much shorter computation time, which allow us to make decisions more efficiently. The systems under consideration are multi-state k-out-of-n systems with i.i.d. components. We will focus on the probability of the system in states below a certain state d, denoted by Q(sd). Based on the recursive algorithm proposed by Zuo & Tian [14] for performance evaluation of multi-state k-out-of-n Systems with i.i.d. components, a reliability bounding approach is developed in this paper. The upper, and lower bounds of Q(sd) are,calculated by reducing the length of the k vector when using the recursive algorithm. Using the bounding approach, we can obtain a good estimate of the exact Q(sd) value while significantly reducing the computation time. This approach is attractive, especially to complex systems with a large number of components, and a large number of possible states. A numerical example is used to illustrate the significance of the proposed bounding approach.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 performance evaluation of an automotive magnetorheological brake design with a sliding mode controller The aim of this work is to develop a magnetorheological brake (MRB) system that has performance advantages over the conventional hydraulic brake system. The proposed brake system consists of rotating disks immersed in a MR fluid and enclosed in an electromagnet, which the yield stress of the fluid varies as a function of the magnetic field applied by the electromagnet. The controllable yield stress causes friction on the rotating disk surfaces, thus generating a retarding brake torque. The braking torque can be precisely controlled by changing the current applied to the electromagnet. In this paper, an optimum MRB design with two rotating disks is proposed based on a design optimization procedure using simulated annealing combined with finite element simulations involving magnetostatic, fluid flow and heat transfer analysis. The performance of the MRB in a vehicle was studied using a quarter vehicle model. A sliding mode controller was designed for an optimal wheel slip control, and the control simulation results show fast anti-lock braking. (C) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

magnetorheological brake (mrb)
anti-lock brake system (abs)
finite element analysis
multidisciplinary design optimization
sliding mode control


the overhead model of word-level and page-level incremental checkpointing Generally, word-level granularity for incremental checkpointing may reduce the checkpoint file size, and hence get better the performance. However, word-level granularity may not always be more efficient than page-level granularity, because word-level granularity may sometimes increase the checkpointing overhead for finding the differences between two checkpoints and for writing the address of the modified word to stable storage. In this paper, we make the overhead model and find factors which produce an effect on the over-head. We also show that the model and the factors are fairly reasonable via experimental results from Linux Kernel-level incremental checkpointing facility.

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

fault tolerance
page-level incremental checkpointing
checkpoint and recovery
word-level


Computer vision for human modelling and analysis This report summarises the author's views and experience on the application of computer vision technology for the modelling and analysis of people. The author conducted research which led to the first commercial booth system for capturing animated models of people for applications in games, multimedia and virtual reality. This research is ongoing with the aim of developing studio capture technology to enable photo-realistic capture of a person's shape, appearance and movement for broadcast production.

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


Theoretical study of the hydroboration reaction of cyclopropane with borane The hydroboration of cyclopropane has been investigated using the B3LYP density functional method employing several split-valence basis sets. It is shown that the reaction proceeds via an intermediate weakly bound complex and a three-centered transition state. Calculations at higher levels of theory were also performed at the geometries optimized at the B3LYP level, but only slight changes in the barriers were observed. Structural parameters for the transition state are also reported.

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

cyclopropane
hydroboration
transition state


The prediction of the electric field level in the reverberation chamber depending on position of stirrer This study presents nine modeling techniques within data mining process for the prediction of electric field level which depends on the positions of stirrer in the mode stirred reverberation chamber. These are Linear Regression (LR), Multi Layer Perceptron (MLP), Pace Regression (PR), KStar, Regression by discretization (RD), Random SubSpace (RS), M5P, RepTree and Decision Table models. Relations depending on frequency and position of stirrer have been carried out for the determination of electric field in the reverberation chamber. Obtained model results for each stirrer steps have been compared and the best model has been investigated. Results indicate that the use of derived formulation from these techniques will facilitate design and optimize of location of maxima (mode) and minima (null) of electric field in the reverberation chamber which a component of especially mode stirrer reverberation chamber test method.

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

electric field
reverberation chamber
data mining


on using scalea for performance analysis of distributed and parallel programs In this paper we give an overview of SCALEA, which is a new performance analysis tool for OpenMP, MPI, HPF, and mixed parallel/distributed programs. SCALEA instruments, executes and measures programs and computes a variety of performance overheads based on a novel overhead classification. Source code and HW-profiling is combined in a single system which significantly extends the scope of possible overheads that can be measured and examined, ranging from HW-counters, such as the number of cache misses or floating point operations, to more complex performance metrics, such as control or loss of parallelism. Moreover, SCALEA uses a new representation of code regions, called the dynamic code region call graph, which enables detailed overhead analysis for arbitrary code regions. An instrumentation description file is used to relate performance information to code regions of the input program and to reduce instrumentation overhead. Several experiments with realistic codes that cover MPI, OpenMP, HPF, and mixed OpenMP/MPI codes demonstrate the usefulness of SCALEA.

O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 and parallel systems
performance overhead classification


Image filtering in single-photon emission computed tomography: principles and applications Among the factors contributing to optimal image quality in single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), image filtering is an important, though mostly subjectively applied, image-processing parameter. We have aimed at giving an overview of current available SPECT filtering options. Current SPECT applications are discussed and practical guidelines to choose optimal filter parameters for a given situation are provided. It is shown that Hann and Butterworth filters allow accurate approximations to most filter types. The authors support the use of limited filter types in an attempt to standardise image-processing approaches, which may lead to better diagnostic compatibility and interpretation of interdepartmental results.

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


Toward a tight upper bound for the error probability of the binary Gaussian classification problem It is well known that the error probability, of the binary Gaussian classification problem with different class covariance matrices, cannot be generally evaluated exactly because of the lack of closed-form expression. This fact pointed out the need to find a tight upper bound for the error probability. This issue has been for more than 50 years ago and is still of interest. All derived upper-bounds are not free of flaws. They might be loose, computationally inefficient particularly in highly dimensional situations, or excessively time consuming if high degree of accuracy is desired. In this paper, a new technique is developed to estimate a tight upper bound for the error probability of the well-known binary Gaussian classification problem with different covariance matrices. The basic idea of the proposed technique is to replace the optimal Bayes decision boundary with suboptimal boundaries which provide an easy-to-calculate upper bound for the error probability. In particular, three types of decision boundaries are investigated: planes, elliptic cylinders, and cones. The new decision boundaries are selected in such a way as to provide the tightest possible upper bound. The proposed technique is found to provide an upper bound, tighter than many of the often used bounds such as the Chernoff bound and the Bayesian-distance bound. In addition, the computation time of the proposed bound is much less than that required by the Monte-Carlo simulation technique. When applied to real world classification problems, obtained from the UCI repository [H. Chernoff, A measure for asymptotic efficiency of a hypothesis based on a sum of observations, Ann. Math. Statist. 23 (1952) 493507.], the proposed bound was found to provide a tight bound for the analytical error probability of the quadratic discriminant analysis (QDA) classifier and a good approximation to its empirical error probability.

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

binary classification
bayesian decision rule
monte-carlo simulations
multivariate normal distribution
quadratic surfaces


On extractors and exposure-resilient functions for sublogarithmic entropy We study resilient functions and exposure-resilient functions in the low-entropy regime. A resilient function (a.k.a. deterministic extractor for oblivious bit-fixing sources) maps any distribution on n -bit strings in which k bits are uniformly random and the rest are fixed into an output distribution that is close to uniform. With exposure-resilient functions, all the input bits are random, but we ask that the output be close to uniform conditioned on any subset of n - k input bits. In this paper, we focus on the case that k is sublogarithmic in n. We simplify and improve an explicit construction of resilient functions for k sublogarithmic in n due to Kamp and Zuckerman (SICOMP 2006), achieving error exponentially small in k rather than polynomially small in k. Our main result is that when k is sublogarithmic in n, the short output length of this construction (O(log k) output bits) is optimal for extractors computable by a large class of space-bounded streaming algorithms. Next, we show that a random function is a resilient function with high probability if and only if k is superlogarithmic in n, suggesting that our main result may apply more generally. In contrast, we show that a random function is a static (resp. adaptive) exposure-resilient function with high probability even if k is as small as a constant (resp. loglog n). No explicit exposure-resilient functions achieving these parameters are known. (c) 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Random Struct. Alg., 2013

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

pseudorandomness
exposure-resilient function
randomness extractor
bit-fixing source


adaptability in xml-to-relational mapping strategies One of the ways how to manage XML documents is to exploit tools and functions offered by (object-)relational database systems. The key aim of such techniques is to find the optimal mapping strategy, i.e. the way the XML data are stored into relations. Currently the most efficient approaches, so-called adaptive methods, search a space of possible mappings and choose the one which suits the given sample data and query workload the most. In the paper we exploit a general heuristic method called Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) to solve the XML-to-relational mapping problem. We also adapt the algorithm so it can be used on a dynamic variant of the problem. The algorithms are evaluated in a set of experiments with a conclusion that the ACO-based algorithms are suitable for the problem and can be even used as a basis of a dynamic mapping mechanism.

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 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

dynamic adaptation
storing xml in databases


Identification of a high affinity selective inhibitor of Polo-like kinase 1 for cancer chemotherapy by computational approach Identification of a potential Plk-1 inhibitor by virtual screening approach. Calculated Kd of identified compound CAP-53194 is higher than known inhibitors. CAP-53194 is selective towards Plk1 over Plk2-4 and other kinases. Modelling of its binding mode with Plk1-4 explains its selectivity. Drug-like properties and selectivity for Plk1 makes it a promising lead molecule.

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

anti-cancer drugs
polo-like kinase
structure-based drug design
homology modelling
molecular docking
molecular dynamics simulation


SIBAS: A blood bank information system and its 5-year implementation at Macau Automation systems and information technology can greatly help medical facilities to improve their working efficiency and optimize the whole workflow. This article surveys electronic information management in blood donation and transfusion service, and explores the rationale and archetype of blood bank information systems, then exemplifies a successful in-running systemSistema Integrado de Bancos de Sangue (SIBAS), which is developed by the Institute of Systems and Computer Engineering of Macau (INESC-Macau) in cooperation with the Macau Blood Transfusion Center (CTS-Macau). Its implementation and the related lessons are briefly introduced too. In essence, this article is oriented to serve as a reference of contemporary blood bank information systems.

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

information management
automation systems

blood banks
workflow control
electronic records


Some two-character sets Some new examples of two-character sets with respect to planes of PG(3, q (2)), q odd, are constructed. They arise from three-dimensional hyperbolic quadrics, from the geometry of an orthogonal polarity commuting with a unitary polarity. The last examples arise from the geometry of the unitary group PSU(3, 3) acting on the split Cayley hexagon H(2).

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

commuting polarities
two-character sets
hermitian surface
generalized hexagon


Gradient histogram: Thresholding in a region of interest for edge detection Selecting a threshold from the gradient histogram, a histogram of gradient magnitudes, of an image plays a crucial role in a gradient based edge detection system. This paper presents a methodology to determine the threshold from a gradient histogram generated using any kind of linear gradient operator on an image. We consider the image as a random process with dependent samples, model the gradient histogram using theories of random process and random input to a system, and determine a region of interest in the gradient histogram using certain properties of a probability density function. Standard histogram thresholding techniques are then used within the region of interest to get the threshold value. To obtain the edges, this threshold value is then used as the upper threshold of the hysteresis thresholding technique that follows the non-maximum suppression operation applied on the gradient magnitude image. The proposed methodology of determining a threshold in a gradient histogram is deduced through rigorous analysis and hence it helps in achieving consistently appreciable edge detection performance. Experimental results using different real-life and benchmark images are shown to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed technique.

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

edge detection
random process
gradient histogram
hysteresis thresholding

gradient operators
skewness and kurtosis
threshold determination
non-maximum suppression


Optimal maintenance policy and length of extended warranty within the life cycle of products This paper investigates maintenance policy and length of extended warranty for repairable products from the sellers viewpoint. When the product failed within the base and extended warranty periods, product failures are rectified using minimal repair. To reduce the number of product failures, the seller performs imperfect preventive maintenance (PM) actions when the age of the product reaches a controlled-limit within the base and extended warranty periods. After the base warranty period expires, the seller gives a discount of purchasing extended warranty expense if the consumer purchases the extended warranty for products. Under this maintenance scheme, the mathematical model of profit is constructed and then the optimal controlled-limit, the number and degree of PM and the length of extended warranty are obtained such that the expected total profit is maximized for the seller. Finally, numerical examples are given to illustrate the influences of the optimal length of the extended warranty and the maintenance policy for profit model.

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

preventive maintenance
life cycle
extended warranty
minimal repair
discount


Dynamic-objective particle swarm optimization for constrained optimization problems This paper firstly presents a novel constraint-handling technique, called dynamic-objective method (DOM), based on the search mechanism of the particles of particle swarm optimization (PSO). DOM converts the constrained optimization problem into a bi-objective optimization problem, and then enables each particle to dynamically adjust its objectives according to its current position in the search space. Neither Pareto ranking nor user-defined parameters are involved in DOM. Secondly, a new PSO-based algorithm-restricted velocity PSO (RVPSO)-is proposed to specialize in solving constrained optimization problems. The performances of DOM and RVPSO are evaluated on 13 well-known benchmark functions, and comparisons with some other PSO algorithms are carried out. Experimental results show that DOM is remarkably efficient and effective, and RVPSO enhanced with DOM exhibits greater performance. In addition, besides the commonly used measures, we use histogram of the test results to evaluate the performance of the algorithms.

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

constrained optimization
particle swarm optimization


Fast, simultaneous and robust VLF-EM data denoising and reconstruction via multivariate empirical mode decomposition This research applies N-A MEMD for denoising and reconstructing VLF-EM data. The method is able to decompose into IMFs and residue bivariate VLF-EM data simultaneously. NA-MEMD method gives more robust than the EEMD and MEMD and faster than EEMD in recovery bivariate VLF-EM data. The algorithm greatly enhanced the both VLF-EM data making the more interpretable and easier to invert data VLF-EM data.

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


The impact of employee participation on the use of an electronic process guide: A longitudinal case study Many software companies disseminate process knowledge through electronic process guides. A common problem with such guides is that they are not used. Through a case study, we investigated how participation in creating an electronic process guide, through process workshops, influenced the use of the guide. We studied developer and project manager usage with respect to three factors: frequency of use, used functionality, and reported advantages and disadvantages. We collected data from three rounds of interviews and 19 months of usage logs in a longitudinal study in a medium-size software company. Employees who participated in process workshops showed a higher degree of usage, used a larger number of functions, and expressed more advantages and disadvantages than those not involved. Our study suggests that employee participation has a long-term positive effect on electronic process guide usage.

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

organizational management and coordination


Quaternion-based polarimetric array manifold interpolation Polarimetric beam pattern in terms of quaternions introduced. -parallel operation as fundamental physical antenna operation introduced. Relation between complex system model and quaternionic system model shown. Polarimetric Quaternion Effective Aperture Distribution Function (QEADF) proposed. QEADFs based on different kinds of the quaternion discrete Fourier transform.

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

antenna
beam pattern
interpolation
quaternion


EXCEPTION HANDLING IN PERVASIVE SERVICE COMPOSITION USING NORMATIVE AGENTS The full integration of pervasive computing services into daily life leads to smart spaces with a wide range of intelligent devices that must be dynamically composed to provide a transparent service to users. To achieve this, pervasive services have to coordinate among themselves in both an automated and autonomous manner, with the aim of satisfying complex user requirements that no single service can fulfill. However, existing pervasive environments are normally ad-hoc and isolated systems incapable of: 1) reacting to dynamic and unforeseen situations that may raise exceptions, and 2) collaborating with pervasive services beyond their physical limits. The contributions of this work are: 1) Proposing a normative agent-based service composition method capable of handling exceptions in open pervasive systems. 2) Using the Web as the underlying infrastructure where pervasive services provided by either smart devices or web services can coexist and interact with each other. 3) Providing a modular and hierarchical agent coordination method based on virtual organizations to sustain coordination among agents belonging to multiple organizations (smart spaces). 4) Integrating exception handling mechanisms based on social norms and formalized by event calculus predicates into virtual organizations to support and guide exception handling in both a dynamic and autonomous manner.

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

exception handling
pervasive computing
service composition


A perceptual macroblock layer power control for energy scalable video encoder based on just noticeable distortion principle In most mobile video encoding systems, long battery life and high performance video encoding are competing design goals. This paper proposed a Macroblock (MB) level perceptual energy scalable video encoding method noted as PMP-ESVE, in which just noticeable distortion (JND) model is introduced as the perceptual cue. PMP-ESVE includes three parts, first, PMP-ESVE can dynamic adapt the variable energy resource budget in MB level, second, PMP-ESVE jointly consider the available energy resource and the perceptual feature in order to provide a MB level scalable video encoding method under variable energy consumption budget. Third, JND model, which refers to the maximum distortion that human visual system cannot perceive, is extended from spatial domain to temporal domain so as to determine perceptual cue in unit of MB. This provides the guideline of resource allocation in MB's. Finally, both objective and subjective quality evaluations are given to evaluate the proposed method. These experimental results demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed approach. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

power control
just noticeable distortion


A learning model for the dual evolution of human social behaviors In this work we modelize, with an abstract mathematical model by computer simulation, the processes that have made to appear in the world a strong duality between orient and occident, by combining changes in conditions of initialization, natural system and the opposition gregarious/individualism of the social behaviors. Finally we present a statistical study of the influence of the repression adaptability, resignation and recycling on the ecological destruction and social evolution. This model can help us to analyze if the current capitalist globalization can be stopped, changed or regulated, and if it is possible to overcome it towards a Free Scientific Society.

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

cybernetics
modelling
individual behaviour


A practical generative design method ? A generative CAD based design exploration method is proposed. It is suitable for complex multi-criteria design problems where important performance criteria are uncomputable. The method is based on building a genotype of the design within a history based parametric CAD system and then, varying its parameters randomly within pre-defined limits to generate a set of distinctive designs. The generated designs are then filtered through various constraint envelopes representing geometric viability, manufacturability, cost and other performance related constraints, thus reducing the vast design space into a smaller viable design space represented by a set of distinctive designs. These designs may then be further developed by the designer. The proposed generative design method makes minimal imposition on the designers work process and maintains both flexibility and fluidity that is required for creative design exploration. Its ability to work seamlessly with current CAD based design practices from early conceptual to detailed design is demonstrated. The design philosophy behind this generative method and the key steps involved in its implementation are presented with examples.

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

parametric design
evolutionary design
computer aided conceptual design


The role of perceptual contrast non-linearities in image transform quantization ? The conventional quantizer design based on average error minimization over a training set does not guarantee a good subjective behavior on individual images even if perceptual metrics are used. In this work a novel criterion for transform coder design is analyzed in depth. Its aim is to bound the perceptual distortion in each individual quantization according to a non-linear model of early human vision. A common comparison framework is presented to describe the qualitative behavior of the optimal quantizers under the proposed criterion and the conventional rate-distortion based criterion. Several underlying metrics, with and without perceptual non-linearities, are used with both criteria. Analytical results show that the proposed design criterion gives rise to a JPEG-like quantization if a simple linear metric is used. Experimental results show that significant improvements over the perceptually weighted rate-distortion approach are obtained if a more meaningful non-linear metric is used.

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

image coding
perceptual quantization
non-linear perception model


A two-period game of a closed-loop supply chain ? Manufacturer and consumer prefer that manufacturer collects used products. This leads to a higher environmental quality. Retailer and external service provider prefer to close themselves the loop. Results in our dynamic setting differ from their static counterparts.

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

closed-loop supply chain
two-period game
incentive
supply-chain configuration


LTL is closed under topological closure We show that the smallest safety property containing any LTL formula is in LTL. We prove the safety-liveness decomposition theorem for LTL. We construct aperiodic Buchi automata from safety LTL formulas.

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

specification languages
liveness
bchi automata


Convexity in queues with general inputs In this correspondence, we develop fundamental convexity properties of unfinished work and packet waiting time in a queue serving general stochastic traffic. The queue input consists of an uncontrollable background process and a rate-controllable input stream. We show that any moment of unfinished work is a convex function of the controllable input rate. The convexity properties are then extended to address the problem of optimally routing arbitrary input streams over a collection of K queues in parallel with different (possibly time-varying) server rates (mu(1) (t), ..., mu(K) (t)). Our convexity results hold for stream-based routing (where individual packet streams must be routed to the same queue) as well as for packet-based routing where each packet is routed to a queue by probabilistic splitting. Our analysis uses a novel technique that combines sample path observations with, stochastic equivalence relationships.

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


Social network mining of requester communities in crowdsourcing markets Crowdsourcing is a new computing approach where human tasks are outsourced to a large number of human workers. Crowdsourcing has not only attracted attention from industry but also from various academic communities. Amazon Mechanical Turk (AMT) has been the first commercial platform offering crowdsourcing services to its customers. AMT is often referred to as a platform supplying artificial artificial-intelligence. Recent research efforts have not been addressing the analysis of the community structure of large-scale crowdsourcing platforms. In this work, we discuss detailed statistics of the popular AMT marketplace to provide insights in task properties and requester behavior. Here we present a model to automatically infer requester communities based on task keywords. Hierarchical clustering is used to identify relations between keywords associated with tasks. We present novel techniques to rank communities and requesters by using a graph-based algorithm. Furthermore, we introduce models and methods for the discovery of relevant crowdsourcing brokers who are able to act as intermediaries between requesters and platforms such as AMT.

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

crowdsourcing
mechanical turk
hierarchical clustering

community detection
community ranking
broker discovery


INDUCTION IN ALGEBRA: A FIRST CASE STUDY Many a concrete theorem of abstract algebra admits a short and elegant proof by contradiction but with Zorn's Lemma (ZL). A few of these theorems have recently turned out to follow in a direct and elementary way from the Principle of Open Induction distinguished by Raoult. The ideal objects characteristic of any invocation of ZL are eliminated, and it is made possible to pass from classical to intuitionistic logic. If the theorem has finite input data, then a finite partial order carries the required instance of induction, which thus is constructively provable. A typical example is the well-known theorem "every nonconstant coefficient of an invertible polynomial is nilpotent".

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

constructive algebra
hilbert's programme
zorn's lemma