Shape matching of partially occluded curves invariant under projective transformation This paper describes a method to identify partially occluded shapes which are randomly oriented in 3D space. The goal is to match the object contour present in an image with an object in a database. The approach followed is the alignment method which has been described in detail in the literature. Using this approach the recognition process is divided into two stages: first, the transformation between the viewed object and the model object is determined, and second, the model that best matches the viewed object is found. In the first stage, invariant points under projective transformation (based on bitangency) are used, which drastically reduced the selection space for alignment. Next, the curves are compared after the transformation matrix is estimated between the image and the model in order to determine the pose of the curve that undergoes the perspective projection. The evaluation process is performed using a novel estimation of the Hausdorff distance (HD), called the continuity HD. It evaluates partially occluded curves in the image in relation to the complete contour in the database. The experimental results showed that the present algorithm can cope with noisy figures, projective transformations, and complex occlusions.

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

shape matching
hausdorff distance
bitangency

computer vision
object recognition
alignment approach
affine transformation


Orthogonalized distinctive phonetic feature extraction for noise-robust automatic speech recognition In this paper, we propose a noise-robust automatic speech recognition system that uses orthogonalized distinctive phonetic features (DPFs) as input of HMM with diagonal covariance. In an orthogonalized DPF extraction stage, first, a speech signal is converted to acoustic features composed of local features (LFs) and DeltaP, then a multilayer neural network (MLN) with 15 x 3 output units composed of context-dependent DPFs of a preceding context DPF vector, a current DPF vector, and a following context DPF vector maps the LFs to DPFs. Karhunen-Loeve transform (KLT) is then applied to orthogonalize each DPF vector in the context-dependent DPFs, using orthogonal bases calculated from a DPF vector that represents 38 Japanese phonemes. Each orthogonalized DPF vector is finally decor-related one another by using Gram-Schmidt orthogonalization procedure. related one another by using Gram In experiments, after evaluating the parameters of the MLN input and output units in the DPF extractor. the orthogonalized DPFs are compared with original DPFs. The orthogonalized DPFs are then evaluated in comparison with a standard parameter set of MFCCs and dynamic features. Next, noise robustness is tested using four types of additive noise. The experimental results show that the use of the proposed orthogonalized DPFs can significantly reduce the error rate in an isolated spoken-word recognition task both with clean speech and with speech contaminated by additive noise. Furthermore, we achieved significant improvements when combining the orthogonalized DPFs with conventional static MFCCs and DeltaP.

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 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

automatic speech recognition (asr)
distinctive phonetic feature (dpf)
local feature (lf)


Open-source MATLAB implementation of consistent discretisations on complex grids Accurate geological modelling of features such as faults, fractures or erosion requires grids that are flexible with respect to geometry. Such grids generally contain polyhedral cells and complex grid-cell connectivities. The grid representation for polyhedral grids in turn affects the efficient implementation of numerical methods for subsurface flow simulations. It is well known that conventional two-point flux-approximation methods are only consistent for K-orthogonal grids and will, therefore, not converge in the general case. In recent years, there has been significant research into consistent and convergent methods, including mixed, multipoint and mimetic discretisation methods. Likewise, the so-called multiscale methods based upon hierarchically coarsened grids have received a lot of attention. The paper does not propose novel mathematical methods but instead presents an open-source Matlab(R) toolkit that can be used as an efficient test platform for (new) discretisation and solution methods in reservoir simulation. The aim of the toolkit is to support reproducible research and simplify the development, verification and validation and testing and comparison of new discretisation and solution methods on general unstructured grids, including in particular corner point and 2.5D PEBI grids. The toolkit consists of a set of data structures and routines for creating, manipulating and visualising petrophysical data, fluid models and (unstructured) grids, including support for industry standard input formats, as well as routines for computing single and multiphase (incompressible) flow. We review key features of the toolkit and discuss a generic mimetic formulation that includes many known discretisation methods, including both the standard two-point method as well as consistent and convergent multipoint and mimetic methods. Apart from the core routines and data structures, the toolkit contains add-on modules that implement more advanced solvers and functionality. Herein, we show examples of multiscale methods and adjoint methods for use in optimisation of rates and placement of wells.

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

consistent discretisations
unstructured grids
multiscale methods

mimetic schemes
mpfa methods
open-source implementation
rate optimisation


A robust and fast combination algorithm for deblurring and denoising In this paper, we propose an efficient combined algorithm of split Bregman method, algebraic multigrid (AMG) method and Krylov acceleration method for deblurring and denoising. The split Bregman method is used to convert nonlinear TV model into three linear systems. But the linear system with blur operator is difficult to solve. We add an auxiliary linear stabilizing term to the linear system, then apply an AMG method and Krylov acceleration method to solve the new linear system. Various numerical experiments and comparisons demonstrate that the combined algorithm is efficient, fast, comparable to several existing algorithms, and robust over a wide range of parameters.

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 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

image restoration
total variation
algebraic multigrid method
krylov method


Hands-free vision-based interface for computer accessibility Physically disabled and mentally challenged people are an important part of our society that has not yet received the same opportunities as others in their inclusion in the Information Society. Therefore, it is necessary to develop easily accessible systems for computers to achieve their inclusion within the new technologies. This paper presents a project whose objective is to draw disabled people nearer to new technologies. It presents a vision-based user interface designed to achieve computer accessibility for disabled users with motor impairments. The interface automatically finds the user's face and tracks it through time to recognize gestures within the face region in real time. Subsequently, a new information fusion procedure is proposed to acquire data from computer vision algorithms and its results are used to carry out a robust recognition process. Finally, we show how the system is used to replace a conventional mouse device for computer interaction and as a communication system for non-verbal children.

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 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

humancomputer interaction
multimodal interfaces


Organizational knowledge management: A contingency perspective Prior research examines several knowledge management processes, considering each as universally appropriate. Instead, we propose that the context influences the suitability of a knowledge management process. We develop a contingency framework, including two attributes of the organizational subunit's tasks: process or content orientation, and focused or broad domain, and links knowledge management processes to them: internalization for focused, process-oriented tasks; externalization for focused, content-oriented tasks; combination for broad, content-oriented tasks; and socialization for broad, process-oriented tasks. The empirical research was done at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC), based on several interviews and survey data from 159 individuals across 8 subunits. The results supported the contingency framework. All the knowledge management processes except externalization had a positive impact in the expected cell. At the overall level, combination and externalization, but not internalization and socialization, affect knowledge satisfaction. Some implications for practice and research are identified.

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

contingency theory
structural equation modeling
task characteristics


Exact approaches to the single-source network loading problem This article considers the network design problem that searches for a minimum-cost way of installing capacities on the edges of a network to simultaneously route a flow from a given access point to a subset of nodes representing customers with positive demands. We first consider compact and exponential-sized Mixed Integer Programming (MIP) formulations of the problem and provide their theoretical and computational comparison. We also consider a stronger disaggregated flow formulation. To solve the problem in practice, we project out the flow variables and generate Benders cuts within a branch-and-cut framework. To the best of our knowledge, the combination of Benders approach and this specific disaggregation has not been considered so far. In an extensive computational study, we compare the performance of compact MIP models against a textbook implementation and several normalization variants of Benders decomposition. We introduce a set of 32 real-world instances and use these, together with 64 other instances from the literature, to test our approaches. The results show that our branch-and-cut approach outperforms the best performing compact formulation leading to the best exact algorithm today for solving the considered dataset. (C) 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. NETWORKS, Vol. 59(1), 89-106 2012

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

local access network design
capacitated network design


A class of nth-order BVPs with nonlocal conditions The aim of this paper is to present some existence results for a nonlinear nth-order boundary value problem with nonlocal conditions. Various fixed point theorems are used in the proofs. Examples are included to illustrate the results. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

bvps
existence
nonlocal conditions
fixed point theorems


asymmetry in media spaces In any collaborative system, there are both symmetries and asymmetries present in the design of the technology and in the ways that technology is appropriated. Yet media space research tends to focus more on supporting and fostering the symmetries than the asymmetries. Throughout more than 20 years of media space research, the pursuit of increased symmetry, whether achieved through technical or social means, has been a recurrent theme. The research literature on the use of contemporary awareness systems, in contrast, displays little if any of this emphasis on symmetrical use; indeed, this body of research occasionally highlights the perceived value of asymmetry. In this paper, we unpack the different forms of asymmetry present in both media spaces and contemporary awareness systems. We argue that just as asymmetry has been demonstrated to have value in contemporary awareness systems, so might asymmetry have value in media spaces and in other CSCW systems, more generally. To illustrate, we present a media space that emphasizes and embodies multiple forms of asymmetry and does so in response to the needs of a particular work context.

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


Transmission costs, selfish nodes, and protocol design We study the influence of transmission costs on the behavior of selfish nodes in wireless local area networks. Intuitively, it seems that transmission costs should have a stabilizing effect as (rational) nodes will defer packet transmissions when congestion develops and the cost for (successfully) transmitting a packet becomes high. In this paper we investigate whether this intuition is true. We use the slotted Aloha to model the communication channel where we capture the interaction among nodes as a non-cooperative game. For this game, we study the existence and properties of a (symmetric) Nash equilibrium. We show that the existence of a transmission cost is not always sufficient to guarantee stability. In particular, a stable equilibrium strategy will not exist if the transmission cost is too small. We then propose and analyze a price-based mechanism to guarantee stability and to optimize system performance in terms of throughput and delay.

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

wireless networks
mac protocols
random access protocols
game theory
pricing


Energy-aware error correction for QoS-provisioning real-time communications in wireless networks A key issue in QoS-provisioning real-time wireless communications is to provide the QoS requirement with low energy consumption. In this paper, we propose an energy-efficient error correction scheme for real-time communications with QoS requirements in wireless networks. The QoS requirement of a message stream is modeled with (m, k) constraint, implying that at least m messages should be sent to a receiver during any window of k periods. The proposed scheme adaptively selects an error correcting code in an energy-efficient manner so that it maximizes the number of QoS provisionings per unit energy consumption.

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

energy efficiency
qos provision
real-time communications


Two-dimensional domain decomposition based on skeleton computation for parameterization and isogeometric analysis Two-dimensional domains are decomposed into subdomains based on skeleton computation. Domain partition provides better parameterization than a one-patch representation. The new parameterization is superior to other techniques in isogeometric analysis.

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

parameterization
isogeometric analysis
skeleton
domain decomposition


A game theoretical approach to sharing penalties and rewards in projects ? This paper analyzes situations in which a project consisting of several activities is not realized according to plan. If the project is expedited, a reward arises. Analogously, a penalty arises if the project is delayed. This paper considers the case of arbitrary nondecreasing reward and penalty functions on the total expedition and delay, respectively. Attention is focused on how to divide the total reward (penalty) among the activities: the core of a corresponding cooperative project game determines a set of stable allocations of the total reward (penalty). In the definition of project games, surplus (cost) sharing mechanisms are used to take into account the specific characteristics of the reward (penalty) function at hand. It turns out that project games are related to bankruptcy and taxation games. This relation allows us to establish nonemptiness of the core of project games.

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

game theory
project management
delay and expedition
cost and surplus sharing mechanism
bankruptcy and taxation problems


Constrained decision-making for low-count radiation detection by mobile sensors This paper approaches from an optimal control perspective the problem of fixed-time detection of mobile radioactive sources in transit by means of a collection of mobile sensors. Under simplifying assumptions on the motion and geometry of the source, the sensors, and the surrounding environment, the optimal control problem admits an intuitive, analytic closed-form solution. This solution is obtained thanks to analytic expressions for bounds on the probabilities of detection and false alarm for a NeymanPearson detection test. The intuition derived from this analytic solution supports the development of a motion control law that steers (suboptimally) the sensors to a given neighborhood of the suspected source, while navigating among stationary obstacles in their environment. This motion controller closes the loop at the acceleration level of a heterogeneous collection of sensor platforms. Experimental studies with these platforms corroborate the theoretical convergence results.

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

constrained optimization
decision making
sensor networks
navigation function


Numerical approximation of vector-valued highly oscillatory integrals We present a method for the efficient approximation of integrals with highly oscillatory vector-valued kernels, such as integrals involving Airy functions or Bessel functions. We construct a vector-valued version of the asymptotic expansion, which allows us to determine the asymptotic order of a Levin-type method. Levin-type methods are constructed using collocation, and choosing a basis based on the asymptotic expansion results in an approximation with significantly higher asymptotic order.

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


tandem queues production systems with base stocks We consider a production system that can be modeled by a two-station tandem queues. Products requested by demands have to go through station 1 then station 2 for processing; however, in order to reduce the response time, we may stock some semi-finished products called base stock at station 1 or finished products at station 2. For the underlying queueing system, we may have a queue after each station in additional to the queue in front of it, hence there are four different configurations. In this study, we approximate the distribution of response time for each configuration and, under some operating cost structure we can determine the configuration having the minimal total cost.

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

response time
production system
base stock


Employing heat maps to mine associations in structured routine care data Mining the electronic medical record (EMR) has the potential to deliver new medical knowledge about causal effects, which are hidden in statistical associations between different patient attributes. It is our goal to detect such causal mechanisms within current research projects which include e.g. the detection of determinants of imminent ICU readmission. An iterative statistical approach to examine each set of considered attribute pairs delivers potential answers but is difficult to interpret. Therefore, we aimed to improve the interpretation of the resulting matrices by the use of heat maps. We propose strategies to adapt heat maps for the search for associations and causal effects within routine EMR data. Heat maps visualize tabulated metric datasets as grid-like choropleth maps, and thus present measures of association between numerous attribute pairs clearly arranged. Basic assumptions about plausible exposures and outcomes are used to allocate distinct attribute sets to both matrix dimensions. The image then avoids certain redundant graphical elements and provides a clearer picture of the supposed associations. Specific color schemes have been chosen to incorporate preexisting information about similarities between attributes. The use of measures of association as a clustering input has been taken as a trigger to apply transformations which ensure that distance metrics always assume finite values and treat positive and negative associations in the same way. To evaluate the general capability of the approach, we conducted analyses of simulated datasets and assessed diagnostic and procedural codes in a large routine care dataset. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed clustering procedure rearranges attributes similar to simulated statistical associations. Thus, heat maps are an excellent tool to indicate whether associations concern the same attributes or different ones, and whether affected attribute sets conform to any preexisting relationship between attributes. The dendrograms help in deciding if contiguous sequences of attributes effectively correspond to homogeneous attribute associations. The exemplary analysis of a routine care dataset revealed patterns of associations that follow plausible medical constellations for several diseases and the associated medical procedures and activities. Cases with breast cancer (ICD C50), for example, appeared to be associated with radiation therapy (852). In cross check, approximately 60 percent of the attribute pairs in this dataset showed a strong negative association, which can be explained by diseases treated in a medical specialty which routinely does not perform the respective procedures in these cases. The corresponding diagram clearly reflects these relationships in the shape of coherent subareas. We could demonstrate that heat maps of measures of association are effective for the visualization of patterns in routine care EMRs. The adjustable method for the assignment of attributes to image dimensions permits a balance between the display of ample information and a favorable level of graphical complexity. The scope of the search can be adapted by the use of pre-existing assumptions about plausible effects to select exposure and outcome attributes. Thus, the proposed method promises to simplify the detection of undiscovered causal effects within routine EMR data.

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

hierarchical clustering
visualization techniques
associations in clinical data


A branch and cut algorithm for the location-routing problem with simultaneous pickup and delivery This paper addresses a location-routing problem with simultaneous pickup and delivery (LRPSPD) which is a general case of the location-routing problem. The LRPSPD is defined as finding locations of the depots and designing vehicle routes in such a way that pickup and delivery demands of each customer must be performed with same vehicle and the overall cost is minimized. We propose an effective branch-and-cut algorithm for solving the LRPSPD. The proposed algorithm implements several valid inequalities adapted from the literature for the problem and a local search based on simulated annealing algorithm to obtain upper bounds. Computational results, for a large number of instances derived from the literature, show that some instances with up to 88 customers and 8 potential depots can be solved in a reasonable computation time.

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

simultaneous pickup and delivery
simulated annealing

logistics
location-routing problem
branch-and-cut


Adaptive radio resource with borrowing for multi-operators 3G+ wireless networks with heterogeneous traffic Recently, sharing the radio access network (RAN) has become an important issue for 3G and beyond mobile wireless operators. In addition to user and service considerations, there are economic and technical advantages to 3G and beyond shared networks. This is driving optimizations in the deployment and development of national 3G and 4G rollouts. However, shared 3G and 4G networks exhibit many of the resource management opportunities and challenges as more complex heterogeneous traffic and sharing techniques are considered. In this paper, we propose a roaming-based sharing adaptive partitioning with borrowing (APB) scheme where an operator is allowed to borrow from the unutilized resources originally belonging to other operators sharing the same RAN. This algorithm controls the resource sharing between the operators in addition to controlling the admission control (CAC) within each operator's domain. The borrowing margin is specified either as a fixed portion or an adaptive percentage of the unutilized resource. Furthermore, the APB CAC function makes a distinction between newly originating calls and handoff calls by assuming a higher priority level for handoff calls in the form of possibility of queuing. Therefore, the prescribed call admission control scheme provides a higher quality of service for the handoff requests of real-time services expected in 3rd and 4th G wide band code division multiple access (WCDMA) systems. Simulation results indicate that APB provides higher resource utilization under all load conditions leading in turn to increased revenue. In addition, a higher quality of service for traffic is provided especially when an operator is allowed to borrow from the unutilized resources. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

admission control
mobile wireless
queuing
wcdma
3g

adaptive resource allocation
multi-operator


Lattice effect algebras with (o)-continuous faithful valuations We prove that if there exists an order-continuous, faithful valuation omega on a lattice effect algebra E then E is modular, separable and order-continuous. It is also shown that such an effect algebra E can be supremum and infimum densely embedded into a complete effect algebra (E) over cap which is also modular separable and order-continuous, since the valuation omega can be extended to a unique order-continuous faithful valuation )over cap> on (E) over cap. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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

state
order continuity
macneille completion


DCE-MRI Data Analysis for Cancer Area Classification Objectives: The paper aims at improving the support of medical researchers in the context of in-vivo cancer imaging. Morphological and functional parameters obtained by dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI (DCE-MRI) techniques are analyzed, which aim at investigating the development of tumor microvessels. The main contribution consists in proposing a machine learning methodology to segment automatically these MRI data, by isolating tumor areas with different meaning, in a histological sense. Methods: The proposed approach is based on a three-step procedure: i) robust feature extraction from raw time-intensity curves, ii) voxel segmentation, and iii) voxel classification based on a learning-by-example approach. In the first step, few robust features that compactly represent the response of the tissue to the DCE-MRI analysis are computed. The second step provides a segmentation based on the mean shift (MS) paradigm, which has recently shown to be robust and useful for different and heterogeneous clustering tasks. Finally, in the third step, a support vector machine (SVM) is trained to classify voxels according to the labels obtained by the clustering phase (i.e., each class corresponds to a cluster). indeed, the SVM is able to classify new unseen subjects with the same kind of tumor. Results: Experiments on different subjects affected by the same kind of tumor evidence that the extracted regions by both the MS clustering and the SVM classifier exhibit a precise medical meaning, as carefully validated by the medical researchers. Moreover, our approach is more stable and robust than methods based on quantification of DCE-MRI data by means of pharmacokinetic models. Conclusions: The proposed method allows to analyze the DCE-MRI data more precisely and faster than previous automated or manual approaches.

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


A new algorithm for linearly constrained c-convex vector optimization with a supply chain network risk application Vector optimization is studied. A proximal point algorithm is proposed for vector optimization. The global and local convergence results for the new algorithm are presented. The efficiency of the new algorithm is shown by an application to a supply chain network risk management problem.

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 B I I I I O

proximal point algorithm
supply chain network risk management

multiple objective programming
pareto optimum
c-convex


Improving activity-based costing heuristics by higher-level cost drivers Activity-based costing (ABC) tries to allocate overhead costs to cost objects more accurately than traditional cost systems. However, since ABC proportionalizes overhead costs it is a heuristic. The paper uses simulations and mixed-integer programming to analyze the extent of the sub-optimality incurred by ABC-heuristics. While previous research has focused on ABC systems with a simple set of cost drivers, thereby restricting the potential of ABC as a heuristic, the paper analyzes the effects of establishing a cost driver corresponding to a higher cost level. Specifically, a portfolio-based cost driver captures the demand heterogeneity triggered by the portfolio. This heterogeneity driver is then used to proportionalize all costs due to inflexible overhead resources. One of the main findings is that such a heterogeneity driver improves the quality of ABC-heuristics significantly.

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

activity-based costing
simulation
mixed-integer programming


A DEA-based approach for fair reduction and reallocation of emission permits How to allocate initial emission permits is vital for the cap-and-trade system in controlling the total emission level and improving the operation efficiency of the trade mechanism. And data envelopment analysis (DEA) has been proved to be more suitable to fairly resolve the problem as a performance-based allocation is involved here. In this paper, we present a novel DEA approach for fair reduction and reallocation of emission permits for areas under administration. The presented DEA models are based on the ideas, where, according to their eco-efficiency and current emission levels, all decision making units (DMUs) compete with each other for the least reduction amount by introducing a bargaining game, on the other hand, the central authority can improve the overall efficiency by reallocating the remaining emission permits. The approach is applied on the dataset of agricultural greenhouse gas emissions from 15 European Union members (EU15). The results of the application show that the reduction and reallocation mechanism is fair, which benefits the countries that work at the optimal scale operation while punishes those that fail to operate on the optimal scale. Furthermore, it is effective in improving the overall efficiency of the system. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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 B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 envelopment analysis (dea)
eco-efficiency


Regularity and controllability robustness of TS fuzzy descriptor systems with structured parametric uncertainties The problem of robust global regularity and controllability is considered in TakagiSugeno (TS) fuzzy descriptor control systems with structured parametric uncertainties. Sufficient conditions are proposed to ensure both global regularity and controllability in these uncertain systems. The conditions also provide the explicit relationships of bounds on parametric uncertainties to achieve regularity and controllability. One numerical and two engineering examples are given to illustrate the applications of the proposed sufficient conditions.

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 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

takagisugeno (ts) fuzzy descriptor system


On perfect p-ary codes of length p+1 Let p be a prime number and assume p >= 5. We will use a result of L. Redei to prove, that every perfect 1-error correcting code C of length p + 1 over an alphabet of cardinality p, such that C has a rank equal to p and a kernel of dimension p - 2, will be equivalent to some Hamming code H. Further, C can be obtained from H, by the permutation of the symbols, in just one coordinate position.

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


Viscoelastic behaviour of non-homogeneous variable-section beams with post-poned restraints The aim of this paper is to develop a procedure able to calculate the long-term stress and strain patterns in modem prestressed composite structures which are largely influenced by creep and shrinkage and whose final static configuration is the result of many phases of loading and restraints conditions. The introduction of equivalent moduli, depending on the viscous and elastic features of materials, can guarantee a significant simplification of the problem presented above. The proposed calculation model has been used to design the "Quattroquercie Viaduct" located on the highway "A3" Salerno-Reggio Calabria, Italy.

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

prestressed composite structures
creep
shrinkage
equivalent moduli

variation of static schemes
long term effects


Multipath QoS routing with interference provision in ad hoc wireless network Mobile nodes are interconnected via multihop routing paths that consist of unstable radio links in ad hoc wireless network. Providing QoS routing for such networks is complex owing to imprecise network information, insufficient bandwidth and dynamic topology. Many multipath routing protocols have been proposed to improve network stability and throughput. The sender node discovers multiple disjoined routing paths and spreads traffic among them according to their delay or available bandwidth. For real-time multimedia application, insufficient bandwidth or unstable throughput invite unexpected delays or jitters. Some multipath routing protocols pre-evaluate available path bandwidth and select sufficient bandwidth from them. To minimize the path cost, paths with smaller hopcounts are selected in advance. These selected paths are generally too closed and the total network throughput cannot simple be summed due to "path interference". Discovering and selecting multiple high-interference paths is ineffectual and the total available bandwidth is not precise. In this paper, we proposed an interference-aware QoS multipath routing protocol for QoS-constraint multimedia or real-time applications in ad hoc wireless network. Specifically, this paper applied a scheme for evaluating available bandwidth according to the network capacities with different Media Access Control (MAC) protocols. In this paper, we show the "Interference ratio" of multipath and we also evaluate the stability and throughput improvement is assessed through simulations.

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

multipath routing
interference
qos
multimedia


out-of-core compression for gigantic polygon meshes Polygonal models acquired with emerging 3D scanning technology or from large scale CAD applications easily reach sizes of several gigabytes and do not fit in the address space of common 32-bit desktop PCs. In this paper we propose an out-of-core mesh compression technique that converts such gigantic meshes into a streamable, highly compressed representation. During decompression only a small portion of the mesh needs to be kept in memory at any time. As full connectivity information is available along the decompression boundaries, this provides seamless mesh access for incremental in-core processing on gigantic meshes. Decompression speeds are CPU-limited and exceed one million vertices and two million triangles per second on a 1.8 GHz Athlon processor.A novel external memory data structure provides our compression engine with transparent access to arbitrary large meshes. This out-of-core mesh was designed to accommodate the access pattern of our region-growing based compressor, which - in return - performs mesh queries as seldom and as local as possible by remembering previous queries as long as needed and by adapting its traversal slightly. The achieved compression rates are state-of-the-art.

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

fit mesh applications engine polygon access paper representation pattern incremental space queries 3d compression

large-scale
data structures
addressing
art
timing
model
external memory data structures
scan
processing sequences
informal
out-of-core algorithms
locality
streaming meshes
mesh compression
processor
adapt
technologies
transparency
region
process
memorialized
core
connection


Deterministic fuzzy time series model for forecasting enrollments The fuzzy time series has recently received increasing attention because of its capability of dealing with vague and incomplete data. There have been a variety of models developed to either improve forecasting accuracy or reduce computation overhead. However, the issues of controlling uncertainty in forecasting, effectively partitioning intervals, and consistently achieving forecasting accuracy with different interval lengths have been rarely investigated. This paper proposes a novel deterministic forecasting model to manage these crucial issues. In addition, an important parameter, the maximum length of subsequence in a fuzzy time series resulting in a certain state, is deterministically quantified. Experimental results using the University of Alabamas enrollment data demonstrate that the proposed forecasting model outperforms the existing models in terms of accuracy, robustness, and reliability. Moreover, the forecasting model adheres to the consistency principle that a shorter interval length leads to more accurate results.

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

fuzzy logical relationship
state transition
interval partitioning


Epidemiology tools program and selected medical applications In epidemiological research the calculation of appropriate measures of disease frequency is the basis for a comparison of populations and, therefore, the identification of disease determinants. Two frequencies being compared can be combined into a single summary parameter that estimates the association between an exposure and a disease. This can be accomplished by calculating either the ratio of the measures of disease frequency for two populations which indicates how much more likely one population is to develop a disease than another, or the difference between the frequencies which indicates how much greater the frequency of a disease is in one population compared with the other. In epidemiology we often need to compute measures of disease frequency mentioned above. We can do that by means of complex statistical software, but sometimes it is not easy or possible to use this software for an analysis of epidemiological data. At the EuroMISE Center of Charles University and Academy of Sciences in the framework of the research supported from grant COPERNICUS JRP-10053 the E.T. program (Epidemiology Tools) was developed. This program can be used for practical analysis of data from retrospective (case-control) studies or prospective (cohort) studies and for standardization. However, the program can be also a useful teaching tool in the epidemiology courses. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd.

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


A graphical test for the interval stability of fractional-delay systems This paper investigates the BIBO (bounded input and bounded output) interval stability testing of fractional-delay systems, a problem of justifying the BIBO stability of a polytopic family of functions involving fractional-order powers as well as exponential powers. It proves that the BIBO stability of the polytope is governed by the BIBO stability of the edges of the polytope, and the latter can be tested graphically via frequency response plots. The main results generalize some results in the literature.

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

robust stability
edge theorem
fractional-delay systems


Global optimization in R-n with box constraints and applications: A MAPLE code A variant of the cubic algorithm [l] is presented for global optimization of continuous functions with box constraints. On this basis, a MAPLE code is developed for full global optimization of functions of n variables with application to the finding of all roots of a polynomial, to the eigenvalue problems, and to the solution of nonlinear systems of equations, including underdetermined and overdetermined systems. The code does not create ill-conditioned situations. Graphics are included, and the solution set can be visualized in projections on coordinate planes. The code is ready for engineering applications. Results of numerical experiments are presented, with graphs, to illustrate the use of the code. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

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


Preimage and pseudo-collision attacks on step-reduced SM3 hash function SM3 [12] is the Chinese cryptographic hash standard which was announced in 2010 and designed by Wang et al. It is based on the Merkle-Damgard design and its compression function can be seen as a block cipher used in Davies-Meyer mode. It uses message block of length 512 bits and outputs hash value of length 256 bits. This letter studies the security of SM3 hash function against preimage attack and pseudo-collision attack by using the weakness of diffusion process and linear message expansion. We propose preimage attacks on 29-step and 30-step SM3, and pseudo-preimage attacks on 31-step and 32-step SM3 out of 64 steps. The complexities of these attacks are 2245 29-step operations, 2(251.1) 30-step operations, 2(245) 31-step operations and 2(251.1) 32-step operations, respectively. These (pseudo-)preimage attacks are all from the 1-st step of the reduced SM3. Furthermore, these (pseudo-)preimage attacks can be converted into pseudo-collision attacks on SM3 reduced to 29 steps, 30 steps, 31 steps and 32 steps with complexities of 2(122), 2(125.1), 2(122) and 2(125.1) respectively. As far as we know, the previously best known preimage attacks on SM3 cover 28 steps (from the 1-st step) and 30 steps (from the 7-th step). (c) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

cryptography
collision attack
differential meet-in-the-middle


Unified parallel encoding and decoding algorithms for Dandelion-like codes ? The Dandelion-like codes are eight bijections between labeled trees and strings of node labels. The literature contains optimal sequential algorithms for these bijections, but no parallel algorithms have been reported. In this paper the first parallel encoding and decoding algorithms for Dandelion-like codes are presented. Namely, a unique encoding algorithm and a unique decoding algorithm, which when properly parameterized, can be used for all Dandelion-like codes, are designed. These algorithms are optimal in the sequential setting. The encoding algorithm implementation on an EREW PRAM is optimal, while the efficient implementation of the decoding algorithm requires concurrent reading.

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

bijective tree encoding
prfer code
dandelion-like codes
pram algorithms


Latent class model based diagnostic system utilizing traditional Chinese medicine for patients with systemic lupus erythematosus Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) can affect nearly any organ system, and is frequently an evolving disease with varied manifestations. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) physicians have identified different SLE patterns that they have difficulty summarizing, but the latent class model helps solve this problem. This study applies the latent class model and disease pattern coding system (B-code) to design a TCM diagnostic expert system. This study gathered 2047 valid records and classified three clusters of main disease patterns. Compared with the experience of the TCM expert, the accuracy rate of the expert system reached 77.47%. The results show that this diagnostic system performed well in identifying the disease patterns of SLE and may be clinically useful for TCM physicians.

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


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

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

bioinformatics
genome data
data mining
exact matching

soft computing
approximate pattern matching


Test data compression scheme based on variable-to-fixed-plus-variable-length coding ? A test data compression scheme based on Variable-to-Fixed-Plus-Variable-Length (VTFPVL) coding is presented, by using which the test data can be compressed efficiently. In this scheme, code words are divided into fixed-length head section and variable-length tail section. In order to attain further compression, the highest bit of the tail is omitted from the code words, because all of the highest bits in the tail section of the code words are the same as 1. A special shift counter is also used, which further eases the control circuit. Experimental results of the MinTest fault sets which are part of ISCAS-89 benchmark circuits show that the proposed scheme is obviously better than traditional coding methods in the compression ratio and the implementation of decompression, such as Golomb, FDR, VIHC, v9C coding.

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

fixed-length coding
variable-length coding


pingin' in the rain Residential Internet connections are susceptible to weather-caused outages: Lightning and wind cause local power failures, direct lightning strikes destroy equipment, and water in the atmosphere degrades satellite links. Outages caused by severe events such as fires and undersea cable cuts are often reported upon by operators and studied by researchers. In contrast, outages cause by ordinary weather are typically limited in scope, and because of their small scale, there has not been comparable effort to understand how weather affects everyday last-mile Internet connectivity. We design and deploy a measurement tool called ThunderPing that measures the connectivity of residential Inter- net hosts before, during, and after forecast periods of severe weather. ThunderPing uses weather alerts from the US National Weather Service to choose a set of residential host addresses to ping from several vantage points on the Internet. We then process this ping data to determine when hosts lose connectivity, completely or partially, and categorize whether these failures occur during periods of severe weather or when the skies are clear. In our preliminary results, we find that compared to clear weather, failures are four times as likely during thunderstorms and two times as likely during rain. We also find that the duration of weather induced outages is relatively small for a satellite provider we focused on.

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


Strategy space exploration of a multi-agent model for the labor market We present a multi-agent system where typical labor market mechanisms emerge. Based on a few simple rules, our model allows for different interpretative paradigms to be represented and for different scenarios to be tried out. We thoroughly explore the space of possible strategies both for those unemployed and for companies and analyze the trade-off between these strategies regarding global social and economical indicators.

O O O O O 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


Can international environmental cooperation be bought: Comment Fuentes-Albero and Rubio (2010) analytically examine the effects of the countries heterogeneity on the international environmental cooperation. They consider two types of countries having different abatement costs in one case and different environmental damages in another case. Furthermore it is analyzed whether a self-financed transfer system can diminish these heterogeneity effects. The paper shows for both scenarios of asymmetry and no transfers that the maximum level of cooperation consists of three countries of the same type. For the case of heterogeneity in environmental damages, Fuentes-Albero and Rubio conclude that an agreement between one type 1 and one type 2 country is also self-enforcing given that the differences in the damages are not very large. In this comment, the derivation of the last mentioned result is shown to be incorrect by proving that this coalition is not self-enforcing.

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

self-enforcing international environmental agreements


A New Perturbed Iterative Algorithm with Mixed Errors for Solving System of Generalized Nonlinear Variational Inclusions A new system of generalized nonlinear variational inclusions with A-maximal m-relaxed eta-accretive (so called (A,eta)-accretive [22]) mappings in q-uniformly smooth Banach spaces is introduced and studied. By using the resolvent operator technique associated with A-maximal m-relaxed eta-accretive mappings due to Lan et al., the existence and uniqueness, of solution for this system of generalized nonlinear variational inclusions is verified and a new perturbed iterative algorithm with mixed errors for solving the aforementioned system is constructed. Also the convergence of the sequences generated by the our algorithm in q-uniformly smooth Banach spaces is proved. The results presented in this paper extend and improve some known results in the literature.

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

a system of generalized nonlinear variational inclusions


Two effective measures of intuitionistic fuzzy entropy Based on the concept of fuzzy entropy, two effective measures of intuitionistic fuzzy entropy are proposed in intuitionistic fuzzy information, and then the essential properties of these measures are introduced. These measures are a generalized version of the fuzzy entropy and a complementarity of existing entropy for intuitionistic fuzzy sets. Based on this generalization, a connection between the concepts of the fuzzy entropy and the intuitionistic fuzzy entropy is established. Finally, a numeral example is given to show that the information measures of the proposed intuitionistic fuzzy entropy are reasonable and effective by the comparison of the proposed entropy and existing entropy.

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

fuzzy set
intuitionistic fuzzy set
information measure
intuitionistic fuzzy entropy


Parallel approach to NNMF on multicore architecture We tackle the parallelization of Non-Negative Matrix Factorization (NNMF), using the Alternating Least Squares and Lee and Seung algorithms, motivated by its use in audio source separation. For the first algorithm, a very suitable technique is the use of active set algorithms for solving several non-negative inequality constraints least squares problems. We have addressed the NNMF for dense matrix on multicore architectures, by organizing these optimization problems for independent columns. Although in the sequential case, the method is not as efficient as the block pivoting variant used by other authors, they are very effective in the parallel case, producing satisfactory results for the type of applications where is to be used. For the Lee and Seung method, we propose a reorganization of the algorithm steps that increases the convergence speed and a parallelization of the solution. The article also includes a theoretical and experimental study of the performance obtained with similar matrices to that which arise in applications that have motivated this work.

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

nnmf
multicore architectures
lee and seung method

parallel computing
alternating least squares method


Top-down mining of frequent closed patterns from very high dimensional data Frequent pattern mining is an essential theme in data mining. Existing algorithms usually use a bottom-up search strategy. However, for very high dimensional data, this strategy cannot fully utilize the minimum Support constraint to prune the rowset search space. In this paper, we propose a new method called top-down mining together with a novel row enumeration tree to make full use of the pruning power of the minimum support constraint. Furthermore, to efficiently check if a rowset is closed, we develop a method called the trace-based method. Based on these methods, an algorithm called TD-Close is designed for mining a complete set of frequent closed patterns. To enhance its performance further, we improve it by using new pruning strategies and new data structures that lead to a new algorithm TTD-Close. Our performance study shows that the top-down strategy is effective in cutting down search space and saving memory space, while the trace-based method facilitates the closeness-checking. As a result, the algorithm TTD-Close outperforms the bottom-up search algorithms such as Carpenter and FPclose in most cases. It also runs faster than TD-Close. (C) 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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


Wall effects on density fluctuations in the GBL thermal lattice gas automatons We measure density fluctuations in a 19-bits thermal lattice gas automaton, in the presence of solid walls. The walls have a prominent effect on the dynamic structure factor. Fluctuating hydrodynamics predicts extra peaks in the spectrum. These extra features are indeed observed in the simulated dynamic structure factor. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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


A theorical model design for ERP software selection process under the constraints of cost and quality: A fuzzy approach Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software selection is one of the most important decision making issues covering both qualitative and quantitative factors for organizations. Multiple criteria decision making (MCDM) has been found to be a useful approach to analyze these conflicting factors. Qualitative criteria are often accompanied by ambiguities and vagueness. This makes fuzzy logic a more natural approach to this kind of problems. This study presents a beneficial structure to the managers for use in ERP software vendor selection process. In order to evaluate ERP vendors methodologically, a hierarchical framework is also proposed. As a MCDM tool, we used analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and its fuzzy extension to obtain more decisive judgments by prioritizing criteria and assigning weights to the alternatives. The objective of this paper is to select the most appropriate alternative that meets the customer's requirements with respect to cost and quality constraints. In the end of this study, a real-world case study from Turkey is also presented to illustrate efficiency of the methodology and its applicability in practice.

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 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 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

ahp
multiple criteria decision making
software selection


using a technique from graphic designers to develop innovative system designs Rapid technological change requires that system designers explore potential design spaces widely before committing to a local design space in which to evolve a problem solution. We discuss an approach for doing this, which we base on an analogy with an approach used by graphic designers. We have observed that our colleagues in the graphic design community begin exploring a problem space by generating multiple, divergent design ideas. They then proceed to elaborate them -- extending, combining and discarding -- as the problem space dictates. We illustrate our adaptation of this approach with a case study of our initial design work on a system for supporting self-service sales of information technology (IT).

O O O O O 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 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


Building quantitative stereology data files with scion image, a public domain image processing and analysis software Two-dimensional data obtained from a histological cross-section of a tissue can be utilized to obtain three-dimensional information by the methods of quantitative stereology. The resulting quantitative information is useful in both experimental studies and whole-animal investigations for regulatory and safety purposes. Quantitative stereologic analysis requires considerable data collection and calculation and is thus practical only through the use of computer hardware and software. We have previously reported the development of a program, STEREO, which compiles data from carcinogenesis experiments, recording information from tissue sections for the estimation of the number of altered hepatic foci (AHF) per liver and the volume fraction of AHF in liver on a three-dimensional basis. The data file itself was built by measuring tissue and focal transections through a slide-reading process that involved the manual use of a digitizer. In order to increase the speed and efficiency of the analytical process, we have integrated the STEREO program with a public domain software, Scion Image. This software integration involves two portions: the building macros and the interface. Macros for quantitative stereology used in Scion Image were written to customize and simplify the measurement and to generate data needed for building each of the data files. An interface program, BuildFi.exe, was developed to receive data generated from Scion Image and to align sequential tissue plots from up to four serial sections stained with different markers. As a result, the user can store data on a disk in the format of the STEREO data files. By combining STEREO with Scion Image, the slide-reading process is simplified and can be performed automatically. It has proven to be more objective, time saving, and efficient than all earlier versions.

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

quantitative stereology
liver
stereo
scion image

multistage chemical carcinogenesis
rat
altered hepatic foci (ahf)


Numerical study of sloshing liquid in tanks with baffles by time-independent finite difference and fictitious cell method The numerical analysis of liquid sloshing in tanks is a big challenge when the fully nonlinear and viscous effects are all included in the analysis. The analysis will become more complicate as the tank is attached with internal structures, such as baffles. The width of the baffle is very thin compared with the breadth length and the numerical technique used to capture the detailed flow phenomenon (vortex generation and shedding) around the baffle is very rare in the literatures. In this paper, a time-independent finite difference scheme with fictitious cell technique is used to study viscous fluid sloshing in 2D tanks with baffles. The Navier-Stokes equations in a moving coordinate system are derived and they are mapped onto a time-independent and stretched domain. The developed numerical model is rigorously validated by extensive comparisons with reported results. An experiment setup was also made to validate the present numerical sloshing results in a tank with baffles. The method is applied to a number of problems including impulsive flow past a flat plate, sloshing fluid in a 2D tank with a surface-piercing baffle, sloshing fluid in 2D tanks with bottom-mounted baffles. The effects of baffles on the resonant frequency are discussed. The present developed numerical model can successfully analyze the sloshing phenomenon in 2D tanks with internal structures and can be easily extended to 3D model. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

tank sloshing
time-independent finite difference


Real-time optimization of an off-gas distribution system of an iron and titanium plant In this paper, the distribution of off-gas used as fuel by many different plant units in an iron and titanium plant, is studied. An optimization algorithm is applied to find the operating strategy leading to the best use of available off-gas by the different consumers. This is realized by adjusting the flow of the material through different kilns and the stock piles. In addition, the choice of whether or not to operate a certain kiln is treated as a decision variable. The contribution of this paper lies in formulating a linear model describing the system and solving the above mentioned problem as a mixed integer optimization problem in real time. A simulation result is shown and explained. (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 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

real-time optimization
off-gas distribution system
iron and titanium process
mixed-integer programming


textual and behavioral views of function changes In this paper, we describe an approach that automatically computes function change information between consecutive revisions along the revision history of C language projects. Function changes are computed at two abstract levels. First, we compute the textual changes between two function revisions. Computed results include function additions and deletions, and the quantity and the ratio of textual change in changed functions across two revisions. Second, we compute the behavioral changes of functions using program slicing techniques. We use an XML-formatted document to represent computed function change information. The function change information, together with the SCM change log, helps maintainers understand code changes between two revisions. The structured format of the function change information also helps create traceability links between the changes and other artifacts. We describe our prototype implementation for computing function changes, and we evaluate our approach through a case study on the Sed project.

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


A practical and efficient approach to the constrained via minimization problem This paper presents an efficient and practical approach to the Constrained Via Minimization (CVM) problem, which assigns wire segments to the layers, using the minimum number of vias, given a feasible partial routing. The feasible partial routing is first represented by a directed bipartite graph to reflect the mutual constraints. An energy function is then proposed to turn the problem into a cost optimization problem. An efficient heuristic algorithm, combining hill-climbing and simulated annealing, is developed for the cost optimization. The algorithm has the capability to escape from the local minimums and eventually reaches a near-optimal or optimal solution. The proposed method is practical as it can handle many practical constraints such as a multi-way wire split from a single via, and pre-allocation of power nets and terminals. Experimental results show that our proposed method is efficient in handling complex grid-based routing.

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 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O B I O O O B I O O O O O O O O O B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 via minimization
heuristic algorithm
cost optimization

topological via minimization
layer assignment problem


Image segmentation algorithm by piecewise smooth approximation We propose a novel image segmentation algorithm using piecewise smooth (PS) approximation to image. The proposed algorithm is inspired by four well-known active contour models, i.e., Chan and Vese piecewise constant (PC)/smooth models, the region-scalable fitting model, and the local image fitting model. The four models share the same algorithm structure to find a PC/smooth approximation to the original image; the main difference is how to define the energy functional to be minimized and the PC/smooth function. In this article, pursuing the same idea we introduce different energy functional and PS function to search for the optimal PS approximation of the original image. The initial function with our model can be chosen as a constant function, which implies that the proposed algorithm is robust to initialization or even free of manual initialization. Experiments show that the proposed algorithm is very appropriate for a wider range of images, including images with intensity inhomogeneity and infrared ship images with low contrast and complex background.

B I 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 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 segmentation
piecewise smooth approximation

active contour model
level set method
partial differential equation


Diameter distribution estimation with laser scanning based multisource single tree inventory Tree detection and tree species recognition are bottlenecks of the airborne remote sensing-based single tree inventories. The effect of these factors in forest attribute estimation can be reduced if airborne measurements are aided with tree mapping information that is collected from the ground. The main objective here was to demonstrate the use of terrestrial laser scanning-derived (TLS) tree maps in aiding airborne laser scanning-based (ALS) single tree inventory (multisource single tree inventory, MS-STI) and its capability in predicting diameter distribution in various forest conditions. Automatic measurement of TLS point clouds provided the tree maps and the required reference information from the tree attributes. The study area was located in Evo, Finland, and the reference data was acquired from 27 different sample plots with varying forest conditions. The workflow of MS-STI included: (1) creation of automatic tree map from TLS point clouds, (2) automatic diameter at breast height (DBH) measurement from TLS point clouds, (3) individual tree detection (ITD) based on ALS, (4) matching the ITD segments to the field-measured reference, (5) ALS point cloud metric extraction from the single tree segments and (6) DBH estimation based on the derived metrics. MS-STI proved to be accurate and efficient method for DBH estimation and predicting diameter distribution. The overall accuracy (root mean squared error, RMSE) of the DBH was 36.9mm. Results showed that the DBH accuracy decreased if the tree density (trees/ha) increased. The highest accuracies were found in old-growth forests (tree densities less than 500 stems/ha). MS-STI resulted in the best accuracies regarding Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) H. Karst.)-dominated forests (RMSE of 29.9mm). Diameter distributions were predicted with low error indices, thereby resulting in a good fit compared to the reference. Based on the results, diameter distribution estimation with MS-STI is highly dependent on the forest structure and the accuracy of the tree maps that are used. The most important development step in the future for the MS-STI and automatic measurements of the TLS point cloud is to develop tree species recognition methods and further develop tree detection techniques. The possibility of using MLS or harvester data as a basis for the required tree maps should also be assessed in the future.

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

multisource
tls
als
diameter distribution


Lattice structure on some fuzzy algebraic systems In this paper, we study the lattice structure of some fuzzy algebraic systems such as (G-)fuzzy groups, some fuzzy ordered algebras and fuzzy hyperstructures. We prove that under suitable conditions, these structures form a distributive or modular lattice.

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

distributive (modular) lattice
(bcc) bck-algebra
fuzzy (normal) subgroup
g-fuzzy subgroup
fuzzy hyperideal


Individual creativity in teams: The importance of communication media mix We use compensatory adaptation and dual coding theories to explore the effects of communication media use on creativity. Our field study results show that high levels of self-esteem and information-based demographic differences positively influence creativity. Social category differences negatively influence creativity. Communication media mix is an important moderator, improving the relationship of self-esteem and social category demographic differences with creativity when individuals have proportionally more mediated communication. The relationship between information-based demographic differences and creativity is attenuated when individuals use proportionally more mediated communication. The results have implications for managers encouraging creativity among a diverse workforce using multiple communication media.

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

communication media
creativity
demographic differences


The sociological turn in information science This paper explores the history of ` the social' in information science. It traces the influence of social scientific thinking on the development of the field's intellectual base. The continuing appropriation of both theoretical and methodological insights from domains such as social studies of science, science and technology studies, and socio- technical systems is discussed.

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


Proportion-based robust optimization and team orienteering problem with interval data In this paper, a proportion-based robust optimization approach is developed to deal with uncertain combinatorial optimization problems. This approach assumes that a certain proportion of uncertain coefficients in each solution are allowed to change and optimizes a deterministic model so as to achieve a trade-off between optimality and feasibility when the coefficients change. We apply this approach on team orienteering problem with interval data (TOPID), a variant of vehicle routing problem, which has not yet been studied before. A branch and price algorithm is proposed to solve the robust counterpart by using two novel dominance relations. Finally, numerical study is performed. The results show the usefulness of the proposed robust optimization approach and the effectiveness of our algorithm.

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

robust optimization
combinatorial optimization
team orienteering problem
vehicle routing problem


Investigation of the performance of trackpoint and touchpads with varied right and left buttons function locations This study investigates the relationships of the following 5 factors with commonly-used task patterns: 4 (2 existing and 2 newly-designed) built-in cursor input devices of notebook PCs, usage experiences, genders, sensitivity of cursor movements, and 5 tasks of input applications (including click, drag-drop, click-select, select-drag-drop, and type-select-click). This experiment reveals that there are significant differences among these factors in the operating times and/or error rates of particular tasks. Although somewhat influenced by the task patterns, the results show that the touchpad with the cursor-tracking pad located on the bottom-center and the right and left buttons on the bottom-left beneath the keyboard, which avoids ulnar and radial deviation and hindrance of text-entry-pointer-manipulation switching, leads to higher performance and preference, while the trackpoint leads to lower performance and preference. In addition, the touchpads with sensitivity values of 10 and 12 for cursor movement are preferred over those with the value of 8.

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


Vertical profiling: Understanding the behavior of object-oriented applications Object-oriented programming languages provide a rich set of features that provide significant software engineering benefits. The increased productivity provided by these features comes at a justifiable cost in a more sophisticated runtime system whose responsibility is to implement these features efficiently. However, the virtualization introduced by this sophistication provides a significant challenge to understanding complete system performance, not found in traditionally compiled languages, such as C or C++. Thus, understanding system performance of such a system requires profiling that spans all levels of the execution stack, such as the hardware, operating system, virtual machine, and application. In this work, we suggest an approach, called vertical profiling, that enables this level of understanding. We illustrate the efficacy of this approach by providing deep understandings of performance problems of Java applications run on a VM with vertical profiling support. By incorporating vertical profiling into a programming environment, the programmer will be able to understand how their program interacts with the underlying abstraction levels, such as application server, VM, operating system, and hardware.

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

measurement
experimentation
whole-system analysis
perturbation
hardware performance monitors
software performance monitors


Efficient Parallel Computing-Based Implementation Methods of DCT-Kernel-Based Real-Valued Discrete Gabor Transform and Expansion The existing researches of fast parallel algorithms for DCT-based real-valued discrete Gabor transform and expansion are limited to theoretical analysis. In this paper, parallel computing based implementations of parallel lattice structure algorithm are presented. The communication issues are not considered in original algorithms which enable the efficiency lower than serial fast algorithm in implementation. In view of this, improved implementation methods are proposed both for transform and expansion. The recursive part of the original algorithms is expanded into an iterative form. This makes the interprocess communication converted into serial calculation. Thus, each parallel channel (i.e., process in parallel computing) in the improved method is independent, thereby reducing the interprocess communication greatly. Finally, algorithms are tested on a parallel computer. The experimental results are compared and analyzed, which indicate that the proposed implementation methods are attractive for real-time signal processing as compared to the existing parallel lattice structure algorithm and the fastest serial algorithm.

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

parallel computing
parallel lattice structure

dct kernel
real-valued discrete gabor transform


Performance of adaptive modulation with optimal switching thresholds for distributed antenna system in composite channels In this paper, the performance of distributed antenna system (DAS) with adaptive modulation (AM) over a composite fading channel which takes path loss, Rayleigh fading, and log-normal shadowing into account is studied. Based on target bit error rate (BER), the AM scheme for DAS with average BER constraints is presented. The optimum switching thresholds (STs) for attaining maximum spectrum efficiency (SE) are derived by using Lagrange optimization method. An effective iterative algorithm based on Newton method for finding the optimal STs is proposed. With these thresholds, the closed-form expression of SE and average BER are derived for performance evaluation. Simulation results for SE and BER are in good agreement with the theoretical analysis. The results show that DAS-AM with optimal STs has higher SE than that with conventional fixed thresholds. Moreover, the proposed AM can fulfill the target BER for different signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs).

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

adaptive modulation
spectrum efficiency
composite fading channel

distributed antenna systems
thresholds optimization


The choice of the best among the shortest routes in transparent optical networks This work introduces the problem of the best choice among M combinations of the shortest paths for dynamic provisioning of lightpaths in all-optical networks. To solve this problem in an optimized way (shortest path and load balance), a new fixed routing algorithm, named Best among the Shortest Routes (BSR), is proposed. The BSRs performance is compared in terms of blocking probability and network utilization with Dijkstras shortest path algorithm and others algorithms proposed in the literature. The evaluated scenarios include several representative topologies for all-optical networking and different wavelength conversion architectures. For all studied scenarios, BSR achieved superior performance.

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

transparent optical networks
routing
shortest path
load balance


Dynamic behavior of DCT and DDT formulations for the Sanger neural network In this paper, the behavior of the Sanger hebbian artificial neural networks is analyzed. Hebbian networks are employed to implement principal component analysis (PCA), and several improvements over the original model due to Oja have been developed in the last two decades. Among them, Sanger model is designed to directly provide the eigenvectors of the correlation matrix. The behavior of these models has been traditionally considered on a deterministic continuous-time (DCT) formulation whose validity is justified under some hypotheses on the specific asymptotic behavior of the learning gain. In practical applications, these assumptions cannot be guaranteed. This paper addresses a comparative study with a deterministic discrete-time (DDT) formulation that characterizes the average evolution of the net, preserving the discrete-time form of the original network and gathering a more realistic behavior of the learning gain. The results thoroughly characterize the relationship between the learning gain and the eigenvalue structure of the correlation matrix.

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 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 behavior
dct and ddt formulations


Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide Phosphate Oxidase (NADPH Oxidase) P22 Phox C242T Gene Polymorphism in Type 1 Diabetes Type 1 diabetes is caused by the immune-mediated destruction of insulin-secreting pancreatic ? cells and is thought to be an autoimmune disease resulting from a complex interaction of genetic and environmental factors. In animal models of type 1 diabetes, macrophages and their products, superoxides, have central roles in the ? cell destruction, but in humans their roles remain unclear. Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADPH) oxidase produces superoxide in macrophages, and its essential component, p22 phox, is a critical enzyme for superoxide production. The C242T polymorphism in the p22 phox coding gene has been reported to be associated with reduced oxidase activity. We therefore investigated whether the p22 phox gene polymorphism affected the susceptibility to and clinical course of type 1 diabetes. We examined 287 Japanese type 1 diabetic patients and 425 unrelated nondiabetic subjects. In addition, we allocated the diabetic patients to the following three groups

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

nadph oxidase
type 1 diabetes
polymorphism


Why the whole is less than the sum of its parts: Examining knowledge management in acquisitions This paper seeks to explain why an acquiring organization was unable to leverage the expertise of the acquired organization even though both organizations were highly successful in their own right prior to the acquisition. It offers a knowledge-based perspective by teasing out the essential knowledge attributes pertinent to acquisitions. The research was carried out using an interpretative case study methodology at a Singapore-based multinational organization in the semi-conductor industry. The main data collection method used was face-to-face interviews with some 28 staff from October 2006 to December 2006, almost 2 years after the acquisition exercise. The findings suggest that the lackluster outcome could be traced to three knowledge attributes, namely, accessibility, applicability and cumulativeness. In conclusion, a number of practical and research implications are highlighted.

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