Detected motion classification with a double-background and a Neighborhood-based difference This paper describes a new method to detect moving objects in a dynamic scene based on background subtraction. The main goal of the method is to obtain and keep a stable background image to cope with variations on environmental changing conditions. In this way, we use a double background (long-term background and short-term background) to deal with temporal stability and fast changes. In addition, this method computes the temporal changes in the video sequence by a local convolution mask taking into account the information of the pixel neighborhood, being less sensitive to noise. Besides, the method classifies the regions of change in moving and static blobs. The first ones represent real moving objects, and the second are related to illumination changes and noise. Finally, experimental results and a performance measure establishing the confidence of the method are presented. (C) 2003 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 B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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

background subtraction
illumination changes


Computing a consistent approximation to a generalized pairwise comparisons matrix This paper presents an algorithm for computing a consistent approximation to a generalized pairwise comparisons matrix (that is, without the reciprocity property or even Is on the main diagonal). The algorithm is based on a logarithmic transformation of the generalized pairwise comparisons matrix into a linear space with the Euclidean metric. It uses both the row and (reciprocals of) column geometric means and is thus a generalization of the ordinary geometric means method. The resulting approximation is not only consistent, but also closest to the original matrix, i.e., deviates least from an expert's original judgments. The computational complexity of the algorithm is O(n(2)). (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

pairwise comparisons
linear space
logarithmic transformation


CMOS active transformers and their applications in voltage-controlled quadrature oscillators This paper introduces CMOS active transformers synthesized using MOS transistors only. The proposed active transformers are evolved from their active inductor counterparts and offer a number of attractive characteristics as compared with spiral transformers including a tunable coupling ratio, large and tunable self and mutual inductances, high and tunable quality factors, and a small silicon area consumption. The characteristics of the proposed active transformers including the tunability of the self and mutual inductances, power sensitivity, noise, and quality factor are investigated both analytically and numerically using simulation. The application of the proposed active transformers is exemplified using a 1.6 GHz quadrature VCO implemented in TSMC-0.18 mu m 1.8 V CMOS technology and analyzed using SpectreRF from Cadence Design Systems with BSIM3v3 device models. The total transistor area and power consumption of the VCO are 107 mu m(2) and 10.8 mW, respectively. The phase noise of the VCO is -114.6 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz frequency offset.

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

cmos active transformers
quadrature oscillators


adaptive markov recombination A new class of 'crossover' algorithms is proposed that isused in what we coin the Genetic Engineering strategy. These algorithms explicitly consider the fitness of all subsets of candidate solutions when creating the next iteration of candidate solutions. If the fitness of individual solutions is positively correlated to the fitness of their subsets, one could optimize faster by decreasing the probability that good subsets are destroyed while performing recombination. Finding promising partial solutions turns out to be simply a matter of counting. Our implementation, Markov recombination, creates a histogram of all symbol transitions in all candidate solutions in the population at a certain time step. Randomized Markov chains is then be used to generate offspring.

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

genetic algorithms
adaptation/self-adaptation
recombination operators
evolution strategies


Learning payoff functions in infinite games We consider a class of games with real-valued strategies and payoff information available only in the form of data from a given sample of strategy profiles. Solving such games with respect to the underlying strategy space requires generalizing from the data to a complete payoff-function representation. We address payoff-function learning as a standard regression problem, with provision for capturing known structure (e.g., symmetry) in the multiagent environment. To measure learning performance, we consider the relative utility of prescribed strategies, rather than the accuracy of payoff functions per se. We demonstrate our approach and evaluate its effectiveness on two examples: a two-player version of the first-price sealed-bid auction (with known analytical form), and a five-player market-based scheduling game (with no known solution). Additionally, we explore the efficacy of using relative utility of strategies as a target of supervised learning and as a learning model selector. Our experiments demonstrate its effectiveness in the former case, though not in the latter.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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
learning in games
nash equilibrium approximation


Content-adaptive parameters estimation for multi-dimensional rate control ? ?? Content-adaptive parameter estimation is developed for multi-dimensional rate control. Model coefficients are obtained by considering video complexity and coding info.? Video content and channel condition are used to refine the initial frame rate. Experiments show that our proposed algorithm outperforms the state-of-the-art schemes.

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

multi-dimensional rate control
q-r-tq
video content-adaptive
model coefficient
update duration
sliding window


Instruction Cache Locking for Embedded Systems using Probability Profile Cache is effective in bridging the gap between processor and memory speed. It is also a source of unpredictability because of its dynamic and adaptive behavior. A lot of modern processors provide cache locking capability which locks instructions or data of a program into cache so that a more precise estimation of execution time can be obtained. The selection of instructions or data to be locked in cache has a dramatic influence on the system performance. For real-time systems, cache locking is mostly utilized to improve the Worst-Case Execution Time (WCET). However, Average-Case Execution Time (ACET) is also an important criterion for some embedded systems, especially for soft real-time embedded systems, such as image processing systems. This paper aims to utilize instruction cache (I-Cache) locking technique to guarantee a minimized estimable ACET for embedded systems by exploring the probability profile information. A Probability Execution Flow Tree (PEFT) is introduced to model an embedded application with runtime profile information. The static I-Cache locking problem is proved to be NP-Hard and two kinds of locking, fully locking and partially locking, are proposed to find the instructions to be locked. Dynamic I-Cache locking can further improve the ACET. For dynamic I-Cache locking, an algorithm that leverages the applications branching information is proposed. All the algorithms are executed during the compilation time and the results are applied during the runtime. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithms reduce the ACET of embedded applications further compared to state-of-the-art techniques.

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


SELF-SUPERVISED MRI TISSUE SEGMENTATION BY DISCRIMINATIVE CLUSTERING The study of brain lesions can benefit from a clear identification of transitions between healthy and pathological tissues, through the analysis of brain imaging data. Current signal processing methods, able to address these issues, often rely on strong prior information. In this article, a new method for tissue segmentation is proposed. It is based on a discriminative strategy, in a self-supervised machine learning approach. This method avoids the use of prior information, which makes it very versatile, and able to cope with different tissue types. It also returns tissue probabilities for each voxel, crucial for a good characterization of the evolution of brain lesions. Simulated as well as real benchmark data were used to validate the accuracy of the method and compare it against other segmentation algorithms.

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

discriminative clustering
tissue probabilities

brain tissue segmentation
self-supervised


Efficient Consistency Measurement Based on Behavioral Profiles of Process Models Engineering of process-driven business applications can be supported by process modeling efforts in order to bridge the gap between business requirements and system specifications. However, diverging purposes of business process modeling initiatives have led to significant problems in aligning related models at different abstract levels and different perspectives. Checking the consistency of such corresponding models is a major challenge for process modeling theory and practice. In this paper, we take the inappropriateness of existing strict notions of behavioral equivalence as a starting point. Our contribution is a concept called behavioral profile that captures the essential behavioral constraints of a process model. We show that these profiles can be computed efficiently, i.e., in cubic time for sound free-choice Petri nets w.r.t. their number of places and transitions. We use behavioral profiles for the definition of a formal notion of consistency which is less sensitive to model projections than common criteria of behavioral equivalence and allows for quantifying deviation in a metric way. The derivation of behavioral profiles and the calculation of a degree of consistency have been implemented to demonstrate the applicability of our approach. We also report the findings from checking consistency between partially overlapping models of the SAP reference model.

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

process model analysis
process model alignment
behavioral abstraction
consistency checking
consistency measures


Automatic annotation of tennis games: An integration of audio, vision, and learning ? Fully automatic annotation of real-world tennis video State-of-the-art tennis ball tracking algorithm An integration of computer vision, machine listening, and machine learning The only system that can annotate tennis game at such a detailed level

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

tennis annotation
object tracking
audio event classification
sequence labelling
structured output learning
hidden markov model


A new constrained parameter estimator for computer vision applications A method of constrained parameter estimation is proposed for a class of computer vision problems. In a typical application, the parameters will describe a relationship between image feature locations, expressed as an equation linking the parameters and the image data, and will satisfy an ancillary constraint not involving the image data. A salient feature of the method is that it handles the ancillary constraint in an integrated fashion, not by means of a correction process operating upon results of unconstrained minimisation. The method is evaluated through experiments in fundamental matrix computation. Results are given for both synthetic and real images. It is demonstrated that the method produces results commensurate with, or superior to, previous approaches, with the advantage of being faster than comparable techniques.

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

gaussian errors
maximum likelihood
constrained minimisation
epipolar equation
singularity constraint


Recognize aircraft in ISAR images This paper provides a novel method to recognize aircraft in Inverse Synthetic Aperture Radar (ISAR) images. The method utilizes the conspicuous scatterers located in a two-dimensional ISAR image as the feature points of aircraft to generate geometric invariants and recognize the aircraft. When the ISAR imagery is influenced by noise or target rotation, the proposed method provides an effective recognition. To alleviate the computational complexity, the ordered geometric invariants and the primary key are employed. Moreover, dynamic thresholds are applied to increase the accuracy of feature comparisons. The experimental results show that the proposed method is robust and effective to identify aircraft in ISAR images.

O O O O O O O O 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

scatterer
point-scatterer model
cross-ratio
aircraft recognition


Exploring success factors for Taiwan's government electronic tendering system: behavioral perspectives from end users This study explores the key success factors of the electronic tendering system (ETS) in Taiwan through the behavioral perspectives of the end users. Based on the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), the study proposes an integrated model for the empirical examination of the users' intention and behavior for using the ETS. The results show that users' overall satisfaction, specifically explained by perceived usefulness and information accuracy of the ETS, most significantly affect their intention to adopt the ETS. In addition, increasing the relevant knowledge and skill of the users effectively enhance their intention and the actual usage as well. Comparatively, influences from the users' coworkers and supervisors exercise less significant impact on the adoption if the ETS.

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

electronic tendering system
theory of planned behavior

electronic government
electronic procurement (e-procurement)
end user satisfaction


Collaborative conceptual designstate of the art and future trends This paper presents a state of the art review of existing research, projects, and applications in the domain of collaborative conceptual design, based on the Internet and Web technologies. The purpose of the review is to understand the needs for conceptual engineering design, to clarify the current conceptual design practice, to classify the available technologies, and to study the future trend in this area. The emphasis of this paper is to briefly outline the methodologies, architectures, and tools developed for the projects reviewed in this paper. It also uncovers approaches to conflict resolution and team/project management, as they are vital to a successful engineering design in a collaborative environment. More than 80 journal and conference papers and about 20 projects are reviewed based on the primary focus mentioned above. The selected research works are further categorised into several areas based on the application domain, design theory, and the technology used for implementation. The selected research projects and applications are basically for, but not limited to, the collaborative conceptual design.

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

design collaboration
project management
distributed ai


Fast Euclidean distance transformation in two scans using a 3 x 3 neighborhood Cuisenaire and Macq [Comp. Vis. Image Understand., 76(2) (1999) 163] proposed a fast Euclidean distance transformation (EDT) by propagation using multiple neighborhoods and bucket sorting. To save the time for bucket sorting and to reduce the complexity of multiple neighborhoods, we propose a new, simple and fast EDT in two scans using a 3 x 3 neighborhood. By recording the relative x- and y-coordinates, an optimal two-scan algorithm can be developed to achieve the EDT correctly and efficiently in a constant time without iterations. (C) 2003 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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

euclidean distance
image processing
object representation


Orthogonal Sequences Based Multi-CFO Estimation and Semi-Blind ICA Based Equalization for Multiuser CoMP Systems We propose a low-complexity carrier frequency offset (CFO) estimation approach and an independent component analysis (ICA) based semi-blind equalization structure for the orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) based multiuser coordinated multi-point (CoMP) systems. A group of orthogonal sequences are employed to enable separation and simultaneous estimation of multiple CFOs at base stations, dividing a complex multi-dimensional search into series of low-complexity mono-dimensional searches. Then, a small number of pilot symbols attached to the source data, are used to resolve the ambiguity problem in the ICA equalized signals. It has a low complexity, as the permutation and quadrature ambiguity can be eliminated simultaneously, rather than sequentially by the previous precoding aided method. Simulation results show that the proposed semi-blind equalization structure has a bit error rate (BER) performance close to the ideal cases of the zero forcing (ZF) and minimum mean square error (MMSE) based equalizations with perfect channel state information (CSI) and no CFO, and also significantly outperforms the constant amplitude zero autocorrelation (CAZAC) sequences based CFO estimation method.

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

orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (ofdm)


Side effects of decision guidance in decision support systems Ideal Decision Support Systems (DSS) provide aid in the attainment of a solution to a particular problem of the user. However, during system interaction, the dialogue design of the DSS has the potential tea influence the outcome of the solution. This side effect may or may not be desirable, but system designers must be aware of the potential impact. a laboratory study described in this report examines the significance of the impact. a total of 46 subjects conducted decisions on forecasting methods under two different design structures for DSS interfaces. An increase in guidance provided by the system led to a significant change in the decision model selected. This change in model selected resulted in a number of different solutions to the study's forecasting problem. In application settings, such impacts need to be evaluated prior to implementation to avoid the situations where the software influences the decision process. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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

decision support systems
decision guidance


Mechanical verification of an ideal incremental ABR conformance algorithm The Available Bit Rate protocol (ABR) for ATM networks is well adapted to data traffic by providing minimum rate guarantees and low cell loss to the ABR source end system. An ABR conformance algorithm for controlling the source rates through an interface has been defined by ATM Forum, and a more efficient version of it has been designed by Rabadan and Klay. We present in this work the first complete mechanical verification of the equivalence between these two algorithms. The proof is involved and has been supported by the PVS theorem prover. It has required many lemmas, case analysis, and induction reasoning for the manipulation of unbounded scheduling lists. Some ABR conformance protocols have been verified in previous works. However, these protocols are approximations of the one we consider here. In particular, the algorithms assume a bound on the number of rates to be scheduled.

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

abr conformance algorithm
mechanical verification
pvs theorem prover


Scan for Motifs: a webserver for the analysis of post-transcriptional regulatory elements in the 3? untranslated regions (3? UTRs) of mRNAs Gene expression in vertebrate cells may be controlled post-transcriptionally through regulatory elements in mRNAs. These are usually located in the untranslated regions (UTRs) of mRNA sequences, particularly the 3?UTRs.

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

untranslated region
microrna
rna binding protein
translational control


A performance study of uplink scheduling algorithms in point-to-multi point WiMAX networks The IEEE 802.16 standard defines the specifications for medium access control (MAC) and physical (PHY) layers of WiMAX networks. A critical part of the MAC layer specification is packet scheduling, which resolves contention for bandwidth and determines the transmission order of users. Evaluating the performance packet scheduling algorithms is of utmost importance towards realizing large-scale WiMAX deployment. In this paper, we conduct a comprehensive performance study of scheduling algorithms in point-to-multipoint mode of OFDM-based WiMAX networks. We first make a classification of WiMAX scheduling algorithms, then simulate a representative number of algorithms in each class taking into account that vital characteristics of the IEEE 802.16 MAC layer and OFDM physical layer. We evaluate the algorithms with respect to their abilities to support multiple classes of service, providing quality of service (QoS) guarantees, fairness amongst service classes and bandwidth utilization. To the best of our knowledge, no such comprehensive performance study has been reported in the literature. Simulation results indicate that none of the current algorithms is capable of effectively supporting all WiMAX classes of service. We demonstrate that an efficient, fair and robust scheduler for WiMAX is still an open research area. We conclude our study by making recommendations that can be used by WiMax protocol designers. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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


IMPROVING THE RELEVANCY OF DOCUMENT SEARCH USING THE MULTI-TERM ADJACENCY KEYWORD-ORDER MODEL This paper presents an enhanced vector space model, Multi-Term Adjacency Keyword-Order Model, to improve the relevancy of search results, specifically document search. Our model is based on the concept of keyword grouping. The keyword-order relationship in the adjacency terms is taken into consideration in measuring a term's weight. Assigning more weights to adjacency terms in a query order results in the document vector being moved closer to the query vector, and hence increases the relevancy between the two vectors and thus eventually results in documents with better relevancy being retrieved. The performance of our model is measured based on precision metrics against the performance of a classic vector space model and the performance of a Multi-Term Vector Space Model. Results show that our model performs better in retrieving more relevant results based on a particular search query compared to both the other models.

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

information retrieval
keyword-order
adjacency terms relationship


FUSION BASED ANALYSIS OF OPHTHALMOLOGIC IMAGE DATA The paper presents an overview of image analysis activities of the Brno DAR group in the medical application area of retinal imaging. Particularly, illumination correction and SNR, enhancement by registered averaging as preprocessing steps are briefly described; further mono- and multimodal registration methods developed for specific types of ophthalmological images, and methods for segmentation of optical disc, retinal vessel tree and autofluorescence areas are presented. Finally, the designed methods for neural fibre layer detection and evaluation on retinal images, utilising different combined texture analysis approaches and several types of classifiers, are shown. The results in all the areas are shortly commented on at the respective sections. In order to emphasise methodological aspects, the methods and results are ordered according to consequential phases of processing rather then divided according to individual medical applications.

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 B I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 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 fusion
2d and 3d image registration
ophthalmology
retina imaging
subtractive angiography
computed tomography
image averaging
spatial transforms


Bounds and protocols for a rate-constrained relay channel this correspondence, a relay rate-constrained variation of the three-node relay channel is introduced and studied. In the rate-constrained relay channel, the relay cannot reliably decode or encode beyond a rate constraint (R) over bar. A cut-set upper bound, and rate-constrained variations of decode-and-forward and estimate-and-forward protocol are derived. It is observed that relative performance of the unconstrained protocols does not predict relative performance of the constrained protocols; that is, estimate-and-forward almost always offers superior performance for small rate constraints. A new metric, denoted as the relay efficiency, measures the slope at which the relay channel rate increases over the relay-less channel. While the cut-set upper bound has a relay efficiency of one for the Gaussian relay channel at (R) over bar = 0, the two new protocols do not. Finally, it is shown that an effective relay rate constraint can be computed for general relay protocols. To demonstrate this concept, a Markovian amplify-and-forward protocol, in which the relay does not perform any explicit encoding or decoding, is examined and compared to the introduced rate-constrained protocols.

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

amplify-and-forward
decode-and-forward
estimate-and-forward
rate-constrained channels


Lightning search algorithm Totally new optimization method inspired by lightning phenomena is introduced. The concept of projectiles and channel forking is adopted for movement of step leaders. Three types of projectiles are modeled as search mechanisms of LSA. The result of the LSA provides better results compared with the other tested methods.

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

benchmark functions
constrained optimization
nature-inspired algorithms


Profile minimization on compositions of graphs The profile minimization problem arose from the study of sparse matrix technique. In terms of graphs, the problem is to determine the profile of a graph G which is defined as P(G) = min(f) Sigma(v epsilon V(G)) max(x epsilon N[v]) (f(v) - f(x)), where f runs over all bijections from V(G) to {1,2,...,vertical bar V(G)vertical bar} and N[v] = {v} boolean OR {x epsilon V(G): xv epsilon E(G)}. This is equivalent to the interval graph completion problem, which is to find a super-graph of a graph G with as few number of edges as possible. The purpose of this paper is to study the profiles of compositions of two graphs.

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

composition
chordal graph
simplicial vertex
join
cycle


Characterization of heart rate variability changes following asphyxia in rats Objectives. A non-invasive method to monitor the functioning of the autonomous nervous system consists in heart rate variability (HRV) analysis. The aim of this study was to investigate the changes on HRV after an asphyxia experiment in rots, using several linear (time and frequency domain) and nonlinear parameters (approximate entropy, SD1 and SD2 indices derived from Poincare plots). Methods:The experiments involved the study of HRV changes after cardiac arrest (CA) resulting from 5 min of hypoxia and asphyxia, followed by manual resuscitation and return of spontaneous circulation. 5 min stationary periods of RR intervals were selected for further analysis from 5 rots in following distinct situations: 1) baseline, 2) 30 min after CA, 3) 60 min after CA, 4) 90 min after CA, 5) 120 min after CA, 6) 150 min after CA. The ANS contribution has been delineated based on time and frequency domain analysis. Results and Conclusions: The results indicate that the recovery process following the asphyxia cardiac arrest reflects the impaired functioning of the autonomic nervous system. Both linear and nonlinear parameters track the different phases of the experiment, with an increased sensitivity displayed by the approximate entropy (ApEn). After 150 min the ApEn RRI parameter recovers to its baseline value. The results forward the ApEn as a more sensitive parameter of the recovery process following the asphyxia.

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

heart rate variability
autonomous nervous system
approximate entropy


operating system support for improving data locality on cc-numa compute servers The dominant architecture for the next generation of shared-memory multiprocessors is CC-NUMA (cache-coherent non-uniform memory architecture). These machines are attractive as compute servers because they provide transparent access to local and remote memory. However, the access latency to remote memory is 3 to 5 times the latency to local memory. CC-NOW machines provide the benefits of cache coherence to networks of workstations, at the cost of even higher remote access latency. Given the large remote access latencies of these architectures, data locality is potentially the most important performance issue. Using realistic workloads, we study the performance improvements provided by OS supported dynamic page migration and replication. Analyzing our kernel-based implementation, we provide a detailed breakdown of the costs. We show that sampling of cache misses can be used to reduce cost without compromising performance, and that TLB misses may not be a consistent approximation for cache misses. Finally, our experiments show that dynamic page migration and replication can substantially increase application performance, as much as 30\%, and reduce contention for resources in the NUMA memory system.

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

generation
replication
data locality
memory system
approximation
performance
access
sampling
coherence
contention
cache
latency
architecture
dynamic
operating system
implementation
support
cost

network
applications
paging
computation
experience
locality
cache coherence
transparency
shared memory multiprocessors
memorialized
consistency
server
resource


Quantum Image Filtering in the Frequency Domain In this paper we address the emerging field of Quantum Image Processing. We investigate the use of quantum computing systems to represent and manipulate images. In particular, we consider the basic task of image filtering. We prove that a quantum version for this operation can be achieved, even though the quantum convolution of two sequences is physically impossible. In our approach we use the principle of the quantum oracle to implement the filter function. We provide the quantum circuit that implements the filtering task and present the results of several simulation experiments on grayscale images. There are important differences between the classical and the quantum implementations for image filtering. We analyze these differences and show that the major advantage of the quantum approach lies in the exploitation of the efficient implementation of the quantum Fourier transform.

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

quantum image processing
quantum fourier transform
quantum oracle
image filtering


An integrated approach for design and analysis of a fluid mixer In this article an integrated approach is discussed for design and analysis of a fluid mixer. In this approach, kinetic analysis is integrated with finite element analysis. The former is carried out to determine the shaking force and shaking moment, and structural instability, while the latter is performed to determine the vibration level of the supporting structure. It is shown that use of this integrated approach can help optimize design of a machine meeting multiple requirements.

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


A consensus-based strategy to improve the quality of fault localization A vast number of software fault localization techniques have been proposed recently with the growing realization that manual debugging is time-consuming, tedious, and error-prone, and fault localization is one of the most expensive debugging activities. Although some techniques perform better than others on a large number of data sets, they do not do so on all data sets and therefore, the actual quality of fault localization can vary considerably by using just one technique. This paper proposes the use of a consensus-based strategy that combines the results of multiple fault localization techniques to consistently provide high quality performance, irrespective of data set. Empirical evidence based on case studies conducted on six sets of programs (seven programs of the Siemens suite, and the gzip, grep, make, space, and Ant programs) and three different fault localization techniques (Tarantula, Ochiai, and H3) suggests that the consensus-based strategy holds merit and generally provides close to the best, if not the best, results. Empirically, we show that this is true of both single-fault and multifault programs. Additionally, the consensus-based strategy makes use of techniques that all operate on the same set of input data, minimizing the overhead. It is also simple to include or exclude techniques from consensus, making it an easily extensible or tractable strategy. Copyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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

program debugging
suspiciousness-based ranking


Coupling edge and region-based information for boundary finding in biomedical imagery We propose in this paper a boundary finding scheme for biomedical imagery which integrates a region-based method and an edge-based technique. We show that more accurate and robust results may be obtained through seeking a joint solution to the traditional approach of curve evolution. The approach incorporates an energy model based on prior distribution and likelihood into the curve evolution of the geodesic active contour (GAC) method. During curve evolution, we use a decision function to adjust relevant parameters in the model automatically so that the curve can easily avoid clutter. For termination of curve evolution, a stability index is proposed which examines curve evolution convergence to ensure that the curve arrives at the boundary robustly and accurately. The experimental results demonstrate that advantages can be achieved using our approach compared to several classical methods.

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


Trust and Security in RFID-Based Product Authentication Systems Product authentication is needed to detect counterfeit products and to prevent them from entering the distribution channels of genuine products. Security is a critical property of product authentication systems. In this paper, we study trust and security in RFID-based product authentication systems. We first present a formal definition for product authentication process and then derive the general chain of trust as well as functional and nonfunctional security requirements for product authentication. Most of the scientific literature that covers the topic focuses on cryptographic tag authentication only. This paper, however, provides a broader view including also other known approaches, most notably location-based authentication. To derive the functional security requirements, we employ the concept of misuse cases that extends the use case paradigm well known in the field of requirements engineering. We argue that the level of security of any RFID-based product authentication application is determined by how it fulfills the derived set of functional and nonfunctional requirements. The security of different RFID-based product authentication approaches is analyzed. To study how RFID supports secure product authentication in practice, we investigate how the current EPC standards conform to the functional security requirements of product authentication and show how the unaddressed requirements could be fulfilled. The benefits of implementing a service that detects the cloned tags in the level of the network's core services are identified.

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

product codes
radio frequency identification (rfid)
system analysis and design


The formula one tire changing robot (F1-TCR) Formula One racing is one of the most fascinating sports ever, it is a perfect combination of high speed, technology, pressure and danger. One problem associated with car racing is the time differential between teams during pits stops, which substantially affects the final results. In addition, a high percentage of the accidents in Formula One is due to pit stop problems. Changing the tires of a car while almost in motion, after reaching dangerous pressure and temperature values, is a very risky challenge, no matter how well a team is trained. Approximately 15-25 people are constantly exposed to serious dangers. The risks taken are extreme and any idea of reducing it without affecting the quality of the race should be considered. Our idea is to build a fully robotized system that takes over the tire changing and refueling process. There will practically be no need for human intervention. The system will demonstrate remarkable time accuracy, precision and low risk implications, uniformity of performance across teams, the competition being relayed solely upon the pilots.

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


Derivative-Free Optimization Via Proximal Point Methods Derivative-Free Optimization (DFO) examines the challenge of minimizing (or maximizing) a function without explicit use of derivative information. Many standard techniques in DFO are based on using model functions to approximate the objective function, and then applying classic optimization methods to the model function. For example, the details behind adapting steepest descent, conjugate gradient, and quasi-Newton methods to DFO have been studied in this manner. In this paper we demonstrate that the proximal point method can also be adapted to DFO. To that end, we provide a derivative-free proximal point (DFPP) method and prove convergence of the method in a general sense. In particular, we give conditions under which the gradient values of the iterates converge to 0, and conditions under which an iterate corresponds to a stationary point of the objective function.

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

derivative-free optimization
unconstrained minimization


Cochannel speaker count labelling based on the use of cepstral and pitch prediction derived features Cochannel interference of speech signals is a common practical problem particularly in tactical communications. Ideally, separation of the individual speech signals is desired. However, it is known that when two equal bandwidth signals are added, such a separation is not possible. We examine the problem of identifying temporal regions or frames as being either one-speaker or two-speaker speech. This identification is important in making automatic speaker and speech recognition systems more robust and is based on feature extraction and subsequent classification as is done in pattern recognition. The research has looked into both the closed-set problem where the identity of the tow interfering speakers are known a priori and the more difficult open-set problem where the identities are not known (speaker independent). For the feature extraction step, we propose a new pitch prediction feature (PPF) which is compared with the linear Predictive cepstral coefficients (LPCC) and the mel frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCC). The features are computed and classified on a frame-by-frame basis. We compare the performance of two classifiers, namely, the neural tree network (NTN) and vector quantizer (VQ). The results show that in both the closed-and open-set cases, (1) the VQ is the better classifier and (2) the PPF outperforms both the MFCC and LPCC features. The superiority of the PFF comes with the added benefits of using a scalar feature as opposed to the 12-dimensional vectorial LPCC and MFCC features and a lower VQ codebook size.

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

cochannel interference
speaker count
pitch prediction
pattern recognition
vector quantizer

linear prediction
cepstrum
neural network


a high-level register optimization technique for minimizing leakage and dynamic power A large fraction of the total power dissipated in a digital circuit is consumed by the clocked elements in the data-path. Hence, savings in power usage of these components can be directly reflected in a circuit's overall power consumption. Reducing power through techniques that optimize power consumption in combinational elements has been extensively discussed in the existing literature. However, these techniques cannot be applied for reducing the power in sequential elements. In this work, we focus on this problem, and introduce a novel cluster-based register optimization technique that is employed in High-Level Synthesis (HLS) with Power Islands. Our experiments conducted on several synthesis benchmarks implemented at the transistor level using a 65 nm process technology showed anaverage reduction of 18\% in total power consumption due to our technique with no or little area overhead.

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

leakage
hls
register optimization
power islands


Covering a laminar family by leaf to leaf links The Tree Augmentation Problem (TAP) is: given a tree T=(V,E) T = ( V , E ) and a set E E of edges (called links ) on V V disjoint to E E , find a minimum-size edge-subset F?E F ? E such that T+F T + F is 2 2 -edge-connected. TAP is equivalent to the problem of finding a minimum-size edge-cover F?E F ? E of a laminar set-family. We consider the restriction, denoted LLTAP, of TAP to instances when every link in E E connects two leaves of T T . The best approximation ratio for TAP is 3/2 3 / 2 , obtained by Even etal. (2001, 2009, 2008) [3], [4]and[5], and no better ratio was known for LLTAP. All the previous approximation algorithms that achieve a ratio better than 2 2 for TAP, or even for LLTAP, have been quite involved. For LLTAP we obtain the following approximation ratios: 17/12 17 / 12 for general trees, 11/8 11 / 8 for trees of height 3 3 , and 4/3 4 / 3 for trees of height 2 2 . We also give a very simple3/2 3 / 2 -approximation algorithm (for general trees) and prove that it computes a solution of size at most min { 3 2 t , 5 3 t ? } , where t t is the minimum size of an edge-cover of the leaves, and t? t ? is the optimal value of the natural LP-relaxation for the problem of covering the leaf edges only. This provides the first evidence that the integrality gap of a natural LP-relaxation for LLTAP is less than 2 2 .

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


Construction of decision rules for early detection of a developing concrete arch dam failure scenario. A discriminant approach New methodology for early detection of a potential concrete dam failure scenario. Construction of a decision rules through a linear discriminant analysis. Classification of physical quantities, measured by the automated monitoring system. Analysis for dam safety assessment in real time.

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

concrete dams
discriminant models
dam failure scenarios
safety control
real time monitoring


Statistical timing analysis with coupling As technology scales to smaller dimensions, increasing process variations and coupling induced delay variations make timing verification extremely challenging. In this paper, the authors establish a theoretical framework for statistical timing analysis with coupling. They prove the convergence of their proposed iterative approach and discuss implementation issues under the assumption of a Gaussian distribution for the parameters of variation. A statistical timer based on their proposed approach is developed and experimental results are presented for the International Symposium on Circuits and Systems benchmarks. They juxtapose their timer with a single pass, noniterative statistical timer that does not consider the mutual dependence of coupling with timing, and another statistical timer that handles coupling deterministically. Monte Carlo simulations reveal a distinct gain (up to 24%) in accuracy by their approach in comparison to the others mentioned.

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

fixpoint computation
variability
very large scale integration (vlsi)


On the conjectures of SU(3) and AB unitary space-time codes Proofs to the conjectures made by Jing and Hassibi on having fully diverse (3 X 3) SU(3) and AB unitary space-time codes are presented in this correspondence. We first prove that the SU(3) codes are fully diverse if and only if the design parameters P, Q, R, and S are all odd integers, and in addition, are relatively prime. For the type I AB codes, it is shown that full diversity can be achieved if and only if the integers P, Q, R, and S are relatively prime. Finally, we show that such condition is also sufficient for having fully diverse type Pi AB codes.

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

algebraic number theory
cyclotomic number field
lie group
multiple-antenna system
unitary space-time code


'Best' for whom? the tension between 'best practice' ERP packages and diverse epistemic cultures in a university context The idea that so-called 'best' business practices can be transferred to organizations when they purchase enterprise resource planning (ERP) software packages is a major selling point of these packages. Yet recent research has illustrated a gap between the espoused theory of a best practice solution and the theory-in-use experienced by those who install software with such a design. As researchers begin to examine the difficult process by which organizations recast the best practices model handed down to them by consultancies and software vendors in an effort to make the software 'work for them' in practice, it is equally important that we begin to understand the reasons that such a gap exists. To this end, we analyze the strategic partnership between a multinational software vendor and a university who together designed a 'best practice' ERP package for the higher education industry. Through the theoretical lens of 'epistemic cultures' we argue that in organizational contexts made up of more than one epistemic culture, the use of a best practice model will be problematic because, by definition, the model mandates one epistemological position through the software design. This is counter to a university's loosely coupled organizational form. (c) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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

erp software
epistemic cultures
university
context

'best practice'
interpretive research
longitudinal research


Sparse Support Vector Machines with L-p Penalty for Biomarker Identification The development of high-throughput technology has generated a massive amount of high-dimensional data, and many of them are of discrete type. Robust and efficient learning algorithms such as LASSO [1] are required for feature selection and overfitting control. However, most feature selection algorithms are only applicable to the continuous data type. In this paper, we propose a novel method for sparse support vector machines (SVMs) with L-p (p < 1) regularization. Efficient algorithms (LpSVM) are developed for learning the classifier that is applicable to high-dimensional data sets with both discrete and continuous data types. The regularization parameters are estimated through maximizing the area under the ROC curve (AUC) of the cross-validation data. Experimental results on protein sequence and SNP data attest to the accuracy, sparsity, and efficiency of the proposed algorithm. Biomarkers identified with our methods are compared with those from other methods in the literature. The software package in Matlab is available upon request.

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

embedded method
l-p regularization
svm
snp data analysis
protease data analysis


Changing landscape in biotechnology patenting Trade regime of the world has brought into focus the ability to generate and secure IPR. The transformation has been rapid and recent decades have seen an increase in intellectual property protection worldwide. The Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) has, since it began in 1978, seen continuous growth with a record 156,100 application filed in 2007, representing a 4.7% growth over the previous year. Most academic patents applied for are in biotechnology or related fields. The paper identifies the effect of the changing landscape in biotechnology patents. Changes in specific areas like transgenic crops, nanotechnology, pharmaceuticals etc. are also discussed along with trends like the increase in patent applications by educational institutes across the globe. Certain problems pertaining to patenting of biotechnological innovations that have arisen in recent times are also discussed.

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

biotechnology ipr patents nanotechnology pharmaceuticals

landscaping
transgenics
review
academic patents
india
europe
asia


A new modified King-Werner method for solving nonlinear equations In this paper, a new method for solving nonlinear equations f (x) = 0 is presented. Analysis of the convergence shows that the asymptotic convergence order of this method is 1+ root 3. Some numerical results are given to demonstrate its efficiency. Crown Copyright (C) 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

secant method
iterative method
root-finding
king-werner method


energy efficient reuse set formulation with end-to-end packet loss constraint in tdma based wireless sensor networks In this paper, we propose an algorithm which is capable of forming reuse sets of links in time division multiple access (TDMA) based wireless sensor networks (WSNs) to gain less frame length. For each reuse set, we use linear programming to achieve optimal energy consumption. We further show how to apply this algorithm with end-to-end packet loss rate constraint. The major contribution of this paper is twofold. First, the proposed scheme gives an energy efficient way to support quality of service (QoS) requests such as delay (by reduced frame length) and end-to-end packet loss rate. Secondly, the relationships amongst energy consumption, frame length (thus delay) and packet loss rate in WSNs revealed in this paper can be utilized in designing WSNs with delay and packet loss constraints.

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

wireless sensor networks
linear programming
delay

slot reuse
reliability
energy efficiency


BOUND STATES OF THE KLEIN-GORDON EQUATION FOR VECTOR AND SCALAR GENERAL HULTHEN-TYPE POTENTIALS IN D-DIMENSION We solve the Klein-Gordon equation in any D-dimension for the scalar and vector general Hulthen-type potentials with any l by using an approximation scheme for the centrifugal potential. Nikiforov-Uvarov method is used in the calculations. We obtain the bound-state energy eigenvalues and the corresponding eigenfunctions of spin-zero particles in terms of Jacobi polynomials. The eigenfunctions are physical and the energy eigenvalues are in good agreement with those results obtained by other methods for D = 1 and 3 dimensions. Our results are valid for q = 1 value when l not equal 0 and for any q value when l = 0 and D = 1 or 3. The s-wave (l = 0) binding energies for a particle of rest mass m(0) = 1 are calculated for the three lower-lying states (n = 0, 1, 2) using pure vector and pure scalar potentials.

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

klein-gordon equation
hulthen potential
nikiforov-uvarov method
approximation schemes


Solution of magnetohydrodynamic flow problems using the boundary element method A boundary element solution is implemented for magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) flow problem in ducts with several geometrical cross-section with insulating walls when a uniform magnetic field is imposed perpendicular to the flow direction. The coupled velocity and induced magnetic field equations are first transformed into uncoupled inhomogeneous convectiondiffusion type equations. After introducing particular solutions, only the homogeneous equations are solved by using boundary element method (BEM). The fundamental solutions of the uncoupled equations themselves (convectiondiffusion type) involve the Hartmann number (M) through exponential and modified Bessel functions. Thus, it is possible to obtain results for large values of M (M?300) using only the simplest constant boundary elements. It is found that as the Hartmann number increases, boundary layer formation starts near the walls and there is a flattening tendency for both the velocity and the induced magnetic field. Also, velocity becomes uniform at the center of the duct. These are the well-known behaviours of MHD flow. The velocity and the induced magnetic field contours are graphically visualized for several values of M and for different geometries of the duct cross-section.

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


Inversion mechanism with functional extrema model for identification incommensurate and hyper fractional chaos via differential evolution In this paper, a novel uncertain fractional-orders and parameters' inversion mechanism with functional extrema model via the differential evolution algorithms (DE) with a general mathematical model is proposed for incommensurate and hyper fractional chaotic systems. The problems of fractional-order chaos' inversion estimation are converted into a functional extrema model in form of non-negative multiple modal objective functions' minimization, which takes the unknown fractional-orders and parameters as its particular independent variables. And the objective is to find optimal combinations of fractional-orders and systematic parameters by DE in the predefined intervals for fractional order chaotic systems such that the objective function is minimized. Simulations are done to estimate a series of incommensurate and hyper fractional chaotic systems. And sensitivity analysis are also done in different cases for the proposed methods. The experiments' results show that the proposed inversion mechanism for fractional-order chaotic systems is a successful methods with the advantages of high precision and robustness. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

incommensurate and hyper fractional-order chaotic system

unknown fractional orders and systematic parameters


The effect of variations in banner ad, type of product, website context, and language of advertising on Internet users attitudes A high-involvement product was more appealing when advertised using a banner ad with a photograph. A low-involvement product was slightly more appealing when advertised using a text-only ad. Products were more appealing with native-language (Spanish) ads relative to English ads. Products were more appealing when appearing on congruent websites with similar themes as ads.

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

internet advertising
language of advertisement
high-involvement product
display ads vs. text-only ads
visual information


Faithfulness in chain graphs: The discrete case This paper deals with chain graphs under the classic Lauritzen-Wermuth-Frydenberg interpretation. We prove that the strictly positive discrete probability distributions with the prescribed sample space that factorize according to a chain graph G with dimension d have positive Lebesgue measure wrt R(d). whereas those that factorize according to G but are not faithful to it have zero Lebesgue measure wrt R(d). This means that, in the measure-theoretic sense described, almost all the strictly positive discrete probability distributions with the prescribed sample space that factorize according to G are faithful to it. (C) 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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

markov equivalence
factorization equivalence
largest chain graphs


topic-bridged plsa for cross-domain text classification In many Web applications, such as blog classification and new-sgroup classification, labeled data are in short supply. It often happens that obtaining labeled data in a new domain is expensive and time consuming, while there may be plenty of labeled data in a related but different domain. Traditional text classification ap-proaches are not able to cope well with learning across different domains. In this paper, we propose a novel cross-domain text classification algorithm which extends the traditional probabilistic latent semantic analysis (PLSA) algorithm to integrate labeled and unlabeled data, which come from different but related domains, into a unified probabilistic model. We call this new model Topic-bridged PLSA , or TPLSA. By exploiting the common topics between two domains, we transfer knowledge across different domains through a topic-bridge to help the text classification in the target domain. A unique advantage of our method is its ability to maximally mine knowledge that can be transferred between domains, resulting in superior performance when compared to other state-of-the-art text classification approaches. Experimental eval-uation on different kinds of datasets shows that our proposed algorithm can improve the performance of cross-domain text classification significantly.

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


Forensic characterization of thin film resistor degradation Experienced reliability engineers and failure analysts often rely on visual aspects of degradation and destruction to reconstruct events leading up to failure of semiconductor circuit elements. Often, the resulting theories about failure causes are tested by duplication experiments. These re-creations are typically evaluated and compared using those same visual attributes. This study is intended to establish the historical basis for visual comparison of nichrome resistor failures (a Rogues gallery of broken resistors) and then debunk correlation theories with simulations and empirical failure duplication results. The results will show that various visual failure characteristics can be reproduced by an unexpectedly wide range of applied stimulus. The final appearance of a dead resistor does not always portray how the part was killed.

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


Physiology-based affect recognition for computer-assisted intervention of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder Generally, an experienced therapist continuously monitors the affective cues of the children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) and adjusts the course of the intervention accordingly. In this work, we address the problem of how to make the computer-based ASD intervention tools affect-sensitive by designing therapist-like affective models of the children with ASD based on their physiological responses. Two computer-based cognitive tasks are designed to elicit the affective states of liking, anxiety, and engagement that are considered important in autism intervention. A large set of physiological indices are investigated that may correlate with the above affective states of children with ASD. In order to have reliable reference points to link the physiological data to the affective states, the subjective reports of the affective states from a therapist, a parent, and the child himself/herself were collected and analyzed. A support vector machines (SVM)-based affective model yields reliable prediction with approximately 82.9% success when using the therapist's reports. This is the first time, to our knowledge, that the affective states of children with ASD have been experimentally detected via physiology-based affect recognition technique.

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

autism intervention
support vector machines
affect recognition

humancomputer interaction
physiological sensing


ResultMaps: Visualization for Search Interfaces Hierarchical representations are common in digital repositories, yet are not always fully leveraged in their online search interfaces. This work describes ResultMaps, which use hierarchical treemap representations with query string-driven digital library search engines. We describe two lab experiments, which find that ResultsMap users yield significantly better results over a control condition on some subjective measures, and we find evidence that ResultMaps have ancillary benefits via increased understanding of some aspects of repository content. The ResultMap system and experiments contribute an understanding of the benefits-direct and indirect-of the ResultMap approach to repository search visualization.

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

treemap
digital library
search visualization

evaluation
user studies
digital repository
search engine
infovis


data path tradeoffs using mabal This paper describes a set of novel tradeoff experiments using MABAL, a Module And Bus ALlocation program. MABAL uses a simple heuristic algorithm to concurrently perform functional unit allocation, register allocation, interconnect allocation and module binding, while minimising overall cost. MABAL was used to produce over 3000 RTL designs from a specification which had been previously scheduled. Tradeoffs between buses and multiplexers and between data steering logic and functional logic were investigated. The results indicate data path tradeoffs are sensitive to the characteristics of the module library used, and illustrate the difficulty of integrating module generation or logic synthesis with high-level synthesis. This tradeoff study has also highlighted MABAL's capabilities and is unlike any other reported in the literature.

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

sensitive
heuristic algorithm
generation
capabilities
register allocation
functional
module
logic synthesis
data
interconnect
binding
logic
paper
cost
allocation

high level synthesis
scheduling
design
multiplexing
experience
libraries


Clustering for Metric and Nonmetric Distance Measures We study a generalization of the k-median problem with respect to an arbitrary dissimilarity measure D. Given a finite set P of size n, our goal is to find a set C of size k such that the sum of errors D(P, C) = Sigma(p is an element of P) min(c is an element of C) {D(p, c)} is minimized. The main result in this article can be stated as follows: There exists a (1 + epsilon)-approximation algorithm for the k-median problem with respect to D, if the I-median problem can be approximated within a factor of (1 + epsilon) by taking a random sample of constant size and solving the I-median problem on the sample exactly. This algorithm requires time n2(O(mklog(mk/epsilon))), where m is a constant that depends only on epsilon and D. Using this characterization, we obtain the first linear time (1 + epsilon)-approximation algorithms for the k-median problem in an arbitrary metric space with bounded doubling dimension, for the Kullback-Leibler divergence (relative entropy), for the Itakura-Saito divergence, for Mahalanobis distances, and for some special cases of Bregman divergences. Moreover, we obtain previously known results for the Euclidean k-median problem and the Euclidean k-means problem in a simplified manner. Our results are based on a new analysis of an algorithm of Kumar et al. [2004].

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

approximation algorithm
itakura-saito divergence
k-means clustering
k-median clustering
kullback-leibler divergence
mahalanobis distance
random sampling


A comprehensive cytogenetics tutorial program, encompassing changeable G-band resolutions Chromosome analysis is a basic science with medical implication. Karyotyping is a procedure to study an individual's chromosome make-up. It is time consuming to train students and clinical technologists to recognize patterns of G-banded chromosomes because of the dynamic nature of G-band resolutions in different metaphase spreads. High resolution G-bands are desirable because they provide detailed information for structural analysis. However, it is challenging to identify chromosomes at higher resolution levels even for many cytogenetics technologists. In response to the need for training students to identify human chromosomes at variable G-band resolutions, we present in this paper an advanced version of virtual reality (VR)-based interactive karyotyping program capable of manipulating G-band resolutions for human cytogenetics education. The program can generate different metaphase spreads ranging from short and well separate chromosomes at low G-band resolutions to long, curved, and overlapped chromosomes at high G-band resolutions. Other features include a scoring system, helping strategies, and the progress reports. The traditional "cut and paste" karyotyping method for chromosome separation is incorporated in the software. This method is compared with the "simple clicking" method which is based on an edge detection technique for outlining each chromosome. The comprehensive program is suitable for in-depth training of advanced students. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

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


Data Retrieving From Heterogeneous Wireless Sensor Network Nodes Using UAVs This paper describes a method and experimental results of a flight planning method that takes into account uncertainties to determine a safe UAV trajectory. It uses particle filters to predict UAV trajectories taking into account the model of the UAV and of the atmospheric conditions and also considering uncertainties. A waypoint generation module computes intermediate waypoints in order to ensure that the trajectory achieves the required levels of safety (avoids forbidden zones) and mission achievement (passes through way-zones). The method has been applied to collection of data from wireless sensor network and has been validated in the airfield of Bollullos in the Spanish province of Seville.

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


distance measures for mpeg-7-based retrieval In visual information retrieval the careful choice of suitable proximity measures is a crucial success factor. The evaluation presented in this paper aims at showing that the distance measures suggested by the MPEG-7 group for the visual descriptors can be beaten by general-purpose measures. Eight visual MPEG-7 descriptors were selected and 38 distance measures implemented. Three media collections were created and assessed, performance indicators developed and more than 22500 tests performed. Additionally, a quantisation model was developed to be able to use predicate-based distance measures on continuous data as well. The evaluation shows that the distance measures recommended in the MPEG-7-standard are among the best but that other measures perform even better.

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

content-based image retrieval
content-based video retrieval
distance measurement
similarity perception
mpeg-7
similarity measurement


Coherence for sharing proof-nets Sharing graphs are an implementation of linear logic proof-nets in which a redex is never duplicated. In their usual formulation, sharing graphs present a problem of coherence: if the proof-net N reduces by standard cut-elimination to N', then, by reducing the sharing graph of N we do not obtain the sharing graph of N'. We solve this problem by changing the way the information is coded into sharing graphs and introducing a new reduction rule (absorption), The rewriting system is confluent and terminating. The proof exploits an algebraic semantics for sharing graphs. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

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

cut-elimination
proof-nets
lambda-calculus optimal reductions


Effect of polishing pad with holes in electro-chemical mechanical planarization Electro-chemical mechanical planarization (ECMP) process dissolves copper ions electrochemically by applying an anodic potential on the copper surface in an aqueous electrolyte, and then removes a copper (Cu) complex layer by the mechanical abrasion of a polishing pad or abrasives in the electrolyte. The ECMP process is a low pressure polishing method for metals such as copper, aluminium (Al) and tungsten (W) on dielectric materials such as silicon dioxide, low-k (LK) and ultra low-k (ULK) dielectrics, comparing to the amount of defects by the traditional Cu chemical mechanical planarization (CMP). The polishing pad used in the ECMP process is a conventional closed cell type pad (IC 1400K-groove pad) with holes. It supplies the aqueous electrolyte to the copper surface and removes the copper complex layer. The material removal rate (MRR) and MRR profile were simulated and tested according to the changes of the wafer overhang distance (WOD) from the platen and the electric contact area (ECA). In order to derive the design rule of the system, the experimental results are compared with the simulation results. After the ECMP process, it was verified that the within wafer non-uniformity (WIWNU) was lower than 2% using the relatively uniform ECA pad (C-type) under the smallest WOD condition. The experimental results well matched the simulated results.

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

polishing pad with hole
wod (wafer overhang distance)
eca (electric contact area)
material removal rate (mrr) profile
within wafer non-uniformity (wiwnu)


learning in the time-dependent minority game We study learning in the time-dependent Minority Game (MG). The MG is a repeated conflicting interest game involving a large number of agents. So far, the learning mechanisms studied were rather naive and involved only exploitation of the best strategy so far at the expense of exploring new strategies. Instead, we use a reinforcement learning method called Q-learning and show how it improves the results on MG extensions of increasing difficulty.

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


Arbitrary function optimisation with metaheuristics No free lunch theorems for optimisation suggest that empirical studies on benchmarking problems are pointless, or even cast negative doubts, when algorithms are being applied to other problems not clearly related to the previous ones. Roughly speaking, reported empirical results are not just the result of algorithms performances, but the benchmark used therein as well; and consequently, recommending one algorithm over another for solving a new problem might be always disputable. In this work, we propose an empirical framework, arbitrary function optimisation framework, that allows researchers to formulate conclusions independent of the benchmark problems that were actually addressed, as long as the context of the problem class is mentioned. Experiments on sufficiently general scenarios are reported with the aim of assessing this independence. Additionally, this article presents, to the best of our knowledge, the first thorough empirical study on the no free lunch theorems, which is possible thanks to the application of the proposed methodology, and whose main result is that no free lunch theorems unlikely hold on the set of binary real-world problems. In particular, it is shown that exploiting reasonable heuristics becomes more beneficial than random search when dealing with binary real-world applications.

O O O O O B I 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 B I I 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

empirical studies
no free lunch theorems

real-world problems
general-purpose algorithms
unbiased results


High-throughput CORDIC-based geometry operations for 3D computer graphics Graphics processors require strong arithmetic support to perform computational kernels over data streams. Because of the current implementation using the basic arithmetic operations, the algorithms are given in algebraic terms. However, since the operations are really of a geometric nature, it seems to us that more flexibility in the implementation is obtained if the description is given in a high-level geometrical form. As a consequence of this line of thought, this paper is an attempt to reconsider some kernels in a graphics processor to obtain implementations that are potentially more scalable than just replicating the modules used in conventional implementations. In this work, we present the formulation of representative 3D computer graphics operations in terms of CORDIC-type primitives. Then, we briefly outline a stream processor based on CORDIC-type modules to efficiently implement these graphic operations. We perform a rough comparison with current implementations and conclude that the CORDIC-based alternative might be attractive.

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

cordic
3d rotations
vector normalization
geometry transforms


A Mixed-Norm Approach Using Simulated Annealing with Changeable Neighborhood for Mobile Location Estimation In this paper, the mobile location estimation problem in urban areas is considered. The time of arrival (TOA) technique is employed to obtain distance measurements. The position of the mobile station (MS) under consideration is estimated according to the position coordinates of the base stations (BSs) and the corresponding distance measurements. The Manhattan and euclidean norms are used to deal with the line-of-sight (LOS) and non-line-of-sight (NLOS) radio propagation. A mixed-norm approach using simulated annealing with changeable neighborhood (SA-CN) is proposed. The position of the MS is located by using the SA-CN algorithm to search for good solutions of a mixed-norm optimization problem. During the search process, the SA algorithm simulates the annealing of solids, whereas the CN method changes the search step size. Simulations show that the concept of SA-CN outperforms the original SA method with fixed neighborhood. The proposed approach can be applied to the urban area with various shapes of obstructions and can work without the knowledge of noise statistics.

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

time of arrival (toa)
line-of-sight (los)
non-line-of-sight (nlos)
simulated annealing (sa)
mixed-norm approach


The design and application of a web-based self- and peer-assessment system This study describes the web-based self- and peer-assessments system, or the Web-SPA, which has been shown to provide teachers with a flexible interface with which to arrange various self- and peer-assessment procedures. Secondly, this study examines the effects of the application of the progressively focused self-and peer-assessment (PFSPA) procedures that are made available with the Web-SPA. In an evaluative study with 76 third-graders (14 or 15 years old) of junior school, it has been found that the upon completion of the PFSPA activities, the students demonstrate greater objectivity in their self-assessment scores; it has also been shown that significant consistency is found between the students' self- and peer-assessments results and that the assessment results of teachers. Furthermore, the quality of the students' works improved after the assessment activities. (c) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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

architecture of educational technology system


understanding the whethers, hows, and whys of divisible interfaces Users are increasingly shifting from interacting with a single, personal computer to interacting across multiple, heterogeneous devices. We present results from a pair of studies investigating specifically how and why users might divide an application's interface across devices in private, semi-private, and public environments. Our results suggest that users are interested in dividing interfaces in all of these environments. While the types of divisions and reasons for dividing varied across users and environments, common themes were that users divided interfaces to improve interaction, to share information, and to balance usability and privacy. Based on our results, we present implications for the design of divisible interfaces.

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

paper prototyping
multi-device interfaces


A genetic algorithm for the two-dimensional strip packing problem with rectangular pieces Given a set of rectangular pieces and a container of fixed width and variable length, the two-dimensional strip packing problem (2D-SPP) consists of orthogonally placing all the pieces within the container, without overlapping, such that the overall length of the layout is minimised. Until now mainly heuristics, for example genetic algorithms (GA), were proposed for the 2D-SPP which use encoded solutions that are manipulated by standard operators. In this paper a GA for the 2D-SPP is suggested that works without any encoding of solutions. Rather fully defined layouts are manipulated as such by means of specific genetic operators. Two additional constraints, namely the orientation constraint and the guillotine constraint, can be taken into account. The GA is subjected to a comprehensive test using benchmark instances with up to 5000 pieces. Compared to eleven competing methods from the literature the GA performs best.

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

packing
rectangular pieces
genetic algorithm


Comparing model checkers for timed UML activity diagrams ? Experimental study on the use of model checkers to verify properties of timed UML-Activity diagrams. Creation of a benchmark for the verification of UML-Activity diagrams. Introduction and evaluation of seven translations from UML-Activity diagrams into the input languages of four model checkers in particular: UPPAAL, PES, SPIN and NuSMV. UPPAAL achieves the best performance for timed and non-timed model, and NuSMV seems to be inadequate for the verification of UML-Activity diagrams.

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


Evolutionary Genetics of the Melanocortin-1 Receptor in Vertebrates The molecular genetic basis of adaptive change in phenotype is a major outstanding issue in evolutionary biology. Evolutionary change in coat and plumage color is a promising system for making progress in this field. Most notably, recent work on the molecular genetic basis of hair and feather color has identified several genes which are candidates for involvement in evolutionary color change in mammals and birds. We have investigated the evolution of one of these candidate genes, the melanocortin-1 receptor (MC1R) gene, in relation to changes in melanin distribution among a wide variety of primate species, and in bananaquits (Coereba flaveola), which are a classic case of melanic plumage polymorphism in birds. In primates, a role of the MC1R coding region in coat color evolution can be ruled out in several cases in which closely related species have drastically different distributions of eumelanin and/or pheomelanin. However, reconstruction of MC1R sequences over primate evolution shows the presence of mutations at important functional sites in several lineages. Most notably, the lion tamarins (Leontopithecus) show a striking pattern of MC1R evolution, including deletions and several nonconservative amino acid changes. In the bananaquit, an E92K substitution in the MC1R is strongly associated with melanism, and this is likely to be the causative mutation. Reconstruction of the evolution of bananaquit MC1R alleles shows that melanism is a derived trait in this species. These results confirm the utility of a candidate gene approach to color evolution in vertebrates and open the way for extensive future research.

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


Infinite hidden Markov models for unusual-event detection in video We address the problem of unusual-event detection in a video sequence. Invariant subspace analysis (ISA) is used to extract features from the video, and the time-evolving properties of these features are modeled via an infinite hidden Markov model (iHMM), which is trained using "normal'/'typical" video. The iHMM retains a full posterior density function on all model parameters, including the number of underlying HMM states. Anomalies (unusual events) are detected subsequently if a low likelihood is observed when associated sequential features are submitted to the trained iHMM. A hierarchical Dirichlet process framework is employed in the formulation of the iHMM. The evaluation of posterior distributions for the iHMM is achieved in two ways: via Markov chain Monte Carlo and using a variational Bayes formulation. Comparisons are made to modeling based on conventional maximum-likelihood-based HMMs, as well as to Dirichlet-process-based Gaussian-mixture models.

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

hidden markov model (hmm)
variational bayes (vb)